DOUBTS ABOUT PROGRESS AND THE FUTURE OF PHILOSOPHY
In the first chapter of Utilitarianism,
John Stuart Mill reflects on “the little progress” that philosophers have made
about the criterion of right and wrong.
He writes that although the debate has been going on for more than two
thousand years, philosophers are still locked in a “vigorous warfare” about the
foundations of morality.
The first thing we should note is that this is a
question for sociologists not philosophers. It asks for empirical data. But empirical data cannot be sought until we
know what we are looking for. The search for an answer to the questions "What is progress in philosophy?" and “Why
isn’t there more progress in philosophy?” depends on how those who search for
an answer understand the meaning of the words “philosophy” and “progress.”
This is a clarifying task for philosophers that will guide relevant empirical data.
1.Definitions
The word “philosophy”
applies to many scholarly ventures, for example, phenomenology, feminist
philosophy, cross-cultural philosophy, philosophies of life, and analytic
philosophy. It is not clear what these ventures
have in common except that they all claim that what they do is philosophy.
If we are to answer the question about progress we
need to settle on a single clear definition of the word “philosophy.” Without casting aspersions on the other kinds, I will use the the following definition.
“Critical reflection on the justification of
basic human beliefs and analysis of basic concepts in terms of which such
beliefs are expressed.”
This is the definition of analytic (or
Anglocentric) philosophy. And the
question about progress in philosophy has been narrowed to “Why isn’t there more progress in
analytic philosophy?”
The word “progress” connotes “a forward or onward movement
(as to an objective or to a goal), a gradual betterment.”
(Merriam-Webster).
Where
there is progress, there is an implied standard by which a forward movement or
gradual betterment is measured. For example, if I tell a colleague that I am
“making progress” in finishing the first draft of a book or a blog post, I mean
that I am moving forward to these goals.
Standards are established
by authority, custom, or general consent as a model or point of reference for
the measure of quantity, weight, extent, value, or quality. For example, the standard for progress
in an author's task of writing a book is probably established by custom. The measure of
progress is her evaluation of the quality of what she has written, the number of
chapters that are finished and the time it has taken to finish. (“After one
year of writing I have only three chapters to go. That is good progress for me.”)
A standard
for measuring progress can be used to compare one historical stage of progress
with a later stage, e.g. “More progress has been made in 20th
century philosophy than in the 18th century.” Progress can also be used to compare one
field of inquiry with another, e.g. “There has been much more progress in the
field of physics than in the field of philosophy.”
A standard for measuring progress in philosophy
would have markers that say ‘no progress’ ‘some progress’ and ‘a lot of
progress.’
But what is the objective or goal that shows that
philosophy is advancing from one marker to another? What constitutes ‘betterment’ in philosophy?
2. Standards for Measuring Progress
2.1 The Vigorous War Standard
John Stuart Mill,
mentioned earlier, did not propose a standard for determining progress,
although he implied that a standard should have something to do with the
“vigorous war” between philosophers about the solution to the philosophical
problem of the criterion of and wrong. If progress on the answer to this problem is
to be measured, then the implication is that this is to be done by measuring not
only what criterion they are supporting, but also the forcefulness and energy
of the debaters. If there is “little progress” about the solution it is because
the war (debate) about the “right” criterion is as vigorous in Mill’s time as
it was two thousand years earlier. If
the amount of vigor is the measurement tool, Mill does not make it clear how vigor
is to be measured, nor does he explain how it is relevant.
2.2 The Philosophy Expert Standard
In Plato’s dialogue Crito,
the character Socrates says that if we need to know what is just or unjust we
should “not follow or fear the opinion of the majority,” but we should only
respect and fear the opinion of the one man – if there is one man who
understands such things.” (48a)
Socrates uses an analogy to prove his point. If we don’t know how to do physical training
(for example, training for an event in the Olympics), we should not ask random
people for advice. Instead, we should ask one or more of those who are experts
in such matters.
It is the same with
questions about what is just or unjust. If there is only one person who is an
expert at solving moral problems, then we should seek the advice of that
person. If there are several people who are experts at this, then we should
seek their advice.
Assuming that there are two
or more experts who can solve philosophical problems, progress is measured by
the percentage of experts who agree on the same solution. Progress can be declared if the number who
agree is greater than the number who disagree, and if the balance has
increased over time. For example, suppose
that seventy percent of all philosophy experts agree and thirty percent disagree
that compatibilism solves the freewill vs determinism debate. The balance (difference) in this survey is
forty percent. Let us also suppose that
the balance in a survey of experts taken years before was twenty percent (sixty
percent of all experts agreed and forty percent disagreed). This is a sign of progress because there is a
higher percentage of philosophers who agree than disagree and this percentage is
greater than the percentage polled at an earlier time.
Why should progress in
philosophy be measured by the expert standard? Who are the experts? Using Socrates’
analogy of the physical trainer, a philosophy expert is one who is trained in
philosophy and, like the physical trainer, has the ability to train others in how
to apply the philosophical method to traditional philosophical questions.
Those who are trained in
philosophy could include not only those who have Ph.D. degrees and teach
philosophy at the university level, but also those who teach philosophy in
community colleges, those who have bachelor or master’s degrees in philosophy,
and those who have no philosophy degree and have never taught philosophy. The latter group of non-academic philosophers
includes the acknowledged great philosophers John Stuart Mill, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau and David Hume.
My point is that there might
be a million people on earth who could qualify as philosophy experts. Most of
them have never been asked in controlled surveys whether they do or do not
support the many theories that have been proposed as solutions to traditional
philosophical problems.
2.3 The Collective Convergence Standard
In a 2015 journal article,
Professor David Chalmers proposed a standard for determining progress in
philosophy that measures the amount of “collective convergence to the truth
on big questions of philosophy.” The word “collective” means a number of persons considered as one group or whole. “Convergence”
refers to two or more things, ideas, etc. becoming similar or coming together. In the present context, Chalmers wants to
find out how many people in the group of professional philosophers come
together and support (agree) or do not support (disagree) on the
same answers to the big questions of philosophy.
This requires data.
Chalmers found it in a 2009 survey of the opinions of a subset of university
philosophy professors.
The
poll shows a large amount of disagreement between philosophers, dashing the
hopes of Mill and other philosophers that the two-thousand-year war will
someday come to an end.
“The survey was sent to the members of 99 leading departments of
philosophy (largely specializing in analytic/Anglocentric philosophy) in North
America, Europe and Australia.” (Chalmers, p. 8). 47% of recipients
returned the survey. Instead of asking a
broad question about progress in philosophy, they were asked to answer thirty
questions about specific philosophical problems. Chalmers refers to them as the “big questions
of philosophy.”
“Questions were
posed as a choice between two, three or four options. Respondents could indicate that they ‘accept’
or ‘lean’ toward one option, or give a variety of other answers.” (Id.)
Here are a few of
the answers and results:
§ A priori knowledge: yes 71%, no 18%, other 11%.
§ Analytic/synthetic distinction: yes 65%, no 27%, other
8%
§ External world: non-skeptical realism 82%, skepticism
5%, idealism 4%, other 9%.
§ Free will: compatibilism 59%, libertarianism 14%, no
free will 12%, other 15%.
§ God: atheism 73%, theism 15%,other 13%.
§ Normative ethics: deontology 26%, consequentialism
24%, virtue ethics 18%, other 32%.
Chalmers concludes from the results that “the degree of disagreement
here is striking ….Only one view (non-skeptical realism about the external
world) attracts over 80% support. Three
views (a priori knowledge, atheism, scientific realism) attract over 70%
support, with significant dissent, and three more views attract over 60% support.
On the other 23 questions, the leading view has less than 60% support.” (p.
9)
Chalmers uses the PhilPapers data in the
first premise of the following argument:
(1)
There has not been large collective
convergence on the big questions in philosophy.
(2)
If there has not been large collective
convergence on the big questions of philosophy, there has not been large
collective convergence to the truth on the big questions of philosophy.
(3)
There has not been large collective
convergence to the truth on the big questions of philosophy.
The empirical data from
the survey reporting that there has not been large collective convergence on
the big questions of philosophy is sufficient to show that there has not
been collective convergence to the truth on the big questions.
For example, if there is
not a large collective convergence supporting the consequentialist theories as
the foundation of normative ethics, then
there is no large convergence on the truth of consequentialism.
Returning to John Stuart
Mill’s remark about the little progress that has been made about the
foundations of morality, the PhilPapers poll would endorse Mill’s
assessment. The poll question about
normative ethics (above) shows there is still a “vigorous warfare” being waged
between deontologists, consequentialists and virtue ethics theorists about who
among them has discovered the foundation of morality. Although Mill does not provide any evidence
except his private observations, he would probably agree with Chalmer’s use of
a convergence standard for measuring progress.
There are two objections
to the Chalmers’ standard and its application.
First, a low percentage
of agreement on a theory or idea does not imply that the theory or idea is not
true. It implies only that a low percentage of surveyed philosophers believe
that the theory or idea is not true.
Second, there are no
comparable convergence numbers showing progress in the hard sciences (physics,
chemistry, biology) that have been taken recently or at regular intervals in
the past. Chalmers predicts (without evidence) that “if we had such surveys and
measures, we would find much less convergence on answers to the big
questions suggested by past surveys of philosophers than we would find for
corresponding answers in other fields.”
3. Why isn’t there More Progress in Philosophy?
This is the 64-dollar
question. Why is there less agreement
about the true answers to the big philosophical questions than the (alleged) amount
of agreement about the true answers to the big scientific questions?
Chalmers’ answer to the
question is that relative to the method of philosophy, the power of the method
of science is stronger than the power of philosophical method to compel
agreement on answers to the big questions. The greater the power, the greater
the amount of agreement.
Here is a six-step breakdown
of Chalmers’ argument.
(1) The method of
philosophy is the method of argument.
(2) The method of
argument is reasoning.
(3) The method of science
is the observational/experimental method.
[(4) The power of a
method is measured by its strength to compel agreement on an answer to a big questions.]
(5) The power of the observational/experimental
method to compel agreement is relatively stronger than the power of reasoning.
(6) Therefore, the method
of science to compel agreement on an answer to a big science questions is stronger
than the power of the method of philosophy to compel agreement on an answer to
big philosophy questions.
The conclusion (6) supposedly
explains why there is much less collective convergence on the answer to
the big questions in philosophy than the amount of collective convergence on
answers to the big questions in science.
But the argument is
circular. This can be seen when we ask
for evidence to support premise (5). Assuming
that the suppressed premise (4) is true, how does Chalmers know that the
power of the observational/experimental method of science to compel agreement
is relatively stronger than the power of reasoning? What is the evidence for this claim? We already have the answer to this question in
the PhilPapers survey. The proof that the method of science is stronger
is that there is a larger collective convergence to the big questions in
science than the amount of collective convergence to the big questions of philosophy.
This completes the
circle. The relatively weak survey
numbers for philosophy are the numbers we want explained. Chalmers “power of method”
theory does not explain why there is more collective convergence in one
method than the other. It only repeats
the facts about the relative amounts of collective convergences in philosophy
compared to the amounts of collective convergence in science.
4. Philosophy is
Uninformative About the World
There are other standards
that might be used to determine progress in philosophy. For example, progress could be measured by
the extent to which philosophical theories and ideas have a positive effect on
the way that people understand and live in the world. Surveys of educated people could be created
in which they would answer questions like, “Would it matter to you if the
philosophical theory that people do not have free will is true? Would this change how you live your
life?” If more people over time answered
affirmatively, progress in philosophy could be declared.
Progress in philosophy could
also be measured by the extent to which philosophy is popular. Popularity
would be measured by the number of participants and the frequency of thought
and discussion of philosophical problems by non-professionals at home, in study
groups, philosophy clubs or on social media.
If surveys of this are
conducted at regular intervals, then we might be able to someday say, “There is
more progress in philosophy because there are more people who enjoy discussing
philosophic problems now than in the past.”
How many educated people
believe that discoveries in science have had a greater positive effect on their
life than discoveries in philosophy? How many non-professional people attend
and enjoy group discussions of philosophical problems compared to the number
who attend and enjoy discussions about science issues? Without surveys we have no way to answer these
questions.
But let’s suppose that
compared to the scientific advances over the last five hundred years, most educated
people do not know whether philosophy has made advances comparable to those in science. If asked whether they know of any discoveries
in philosophy, most would probably would not answer.
Why is this? In his introduction to The Revolution in
Philosophy Gilbert Ryle wrote that where the empirical statements of
scientists are informative about the world, philosophical statements are
“uninformative about the world…” Scientists
report matters of fact. They make and
report observations of events happening in the world or run laboratory experiments
to test theories about future events. Philosophers
report no matters of fact. They do not
observe events occurring in the world and report to others what they have seen
or heard. They do not devise and test theories about future events. Observation
of events happening in the world and experimentation to test theories about
what will happen in the world are not part of the philosophical method.
The remaining part of the
Ryle quote says, “…and yet [philosophical statements] are able, in
some important way, to be clarificatory of those propositions that are
informative about the world, reporting no matters of fact yet correcting our
mishandlings of reported matters of fact."
Ryle gives no examples
of such mishandlings, but I suspect he would
allow that there is much more that philosophy can do than clean-up work for mistaken
interpretations of scientific findings.
The important contribution
that philosophers make has been repeated in the definition of philosophy quoted
at the beginning of this essay: “Analysis of basic concepts in terms of
which our most important beliefs are expressed.” Admittedly, this task (conceptual analysis) is
uninformative about the world but it is informative about the big questions of
philosophy and how these questions are being answered. Philosophers cannot answer questions about when
the next earthquake will occur, whether there is life on Mars or how to avoid
infectious disease, but they can attempt to answer questions about the meaning of
concepts used in “our most important beliefs,” as these beliefs are expressed
in the big questions of philosophy.
The difference between
what philosophers and scientists can and cannot do is relevant. If the standard for progress is changed from collective
convergence to public interest. It helps us answer the question “Why
isn’t there more progress in philosophy?”
Using the public interst standard, data would be collected showing the
number of educated people who are interested in getting scientific information
about the world compared to the number of educated people interested in getting
philosophic information about the meaning of basic concepts used in justifying
what they regard as important beliefs.
Once again, no such data
is known to exist. But in this day and
age, I would guess that information about the world provided by scientists would
rank first over information about the meaning of basic concepts provided by
philosophers.
5. The Fly and the Fly bottle
The 20th century
philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had a quite different evaluation of philosophy
and its problems. He approached philosophic problems like a doctor
approaches the complaints of a hypochondriac. Philosophic problems exist only
in the minds of the philosophers who created them and they should be treated as
such. Hence, the “real” job of the
philosopher is therapeutic. Wittgenstein writes that “a philosophical problem
has the form: ‘I don’t know my way about’” (Philosophical Investigations
123), and the real job of the philosopher is “to show the fly the way
out of the fly bottle.” (PI 309)."
Suppose that the fly is St.
Anselm who failed to find the meaning of “time” (9.1.3), or the philosopher who
believes that there is a problem about the existence of free will. The
fly bottle is the network of concepts that entraps philosophers and makes them
think that there is a problem when in fact there is none.
The therapeutic work
that philosophers can do is to convince the time and freewill debaters to stop banging
their heads against the walls of the fly bottle. They can do this by
disentangling concepts in a way that shows there is no problem at all.
When this is done, the confused philosopher, like the fly, can fly out of the
bottle. “And this simply means that the philosophical problems should
completely disappear” (PI, 133).
And that, my philosophy
friends, is the end of philosophy as our professors understood it.
If Wittgenstein is right, then the only task of the philosopher is
to make traditional philosophical problems disappear.
Is Wittgenstein right? It
has been almost 70 years since he predicted the disappearance of philosophy and
yet philosophy in books, journals, conferences and the classroom is still going
strong. It would seem that today’s philosophers and students should have no
more to fear about the demise of philosophy than fear itself.
