Would someone from like the government have to come along and make it illegal or something?
Presumably s/he means de-funding everything that pretends to be philosophy, but is, in fact, history of thought, and so belongs in the history department.
But the funding from philosophy programs comes from universities. I doubt the government itself spends more than a pitance on philosophy. So do you mean ‘scrap philosophy’ as in, try to convince universities to fire the philosophers under their employ?
I am not suggesting this, just trying to interpret what Armok_GoB may have meant. My view is that the defunding of the old school should happen organically, as it usually does. Newer, more successful approaches and sub-disciplines slowly replace the old as the old guard retires.
Ah, thanks. Is it weird that this has never happened to philosophy as a named discipline? Certainly schools of thought come and go, but why is philosophy as an academic banner by far the longest lived?
“Love of wisdom” is a very broadly-applicable term. Also, it managed to cough up the entire field of pure mathematics once, and arguably the slim chance of something else as good or better being in there somewhere justifies a lot of scattershot work.
but is, in fact, history of thought, and so belongs in the history department.
No. Historians aren’t trained to evaluate philsophical thought. Ask them the causes of a war, they can tell you, ask them the motivations for Aristotle’s theory of Entelchy, they’ll go “huh?”.
Well, presumably historians do specialize. In the revised world where history of philosophy ended up in the history department, there would be historians specializing in the history of philosophy. For that matter, I’m sure such people exist already.
The real question is which option provides more synergy:
learning about the motivations for Aristotle’s theory of Entelechy, together with a study of the culture of Greece in the 4th century BC (the historical option), or
learning about the motivations for Aristotle’s theory of Entelechy, together with a modern understanding of causality or whatever (the philosophical option).
Presumably s/he means de-funding everything that pretends to be philosophy, but is, in fact, history of thought, and so belongs in the history department.
But the funding from philosophy programs comes from universities. I doubt the government itself spends more than a pitance on philosophy. So do you mean ‘scrap philosophy’ as in, try to convince universities to fire the philosophers under their employ?
I am not suggesting this, just trying to interpret what Armok_GoB may have meant. My view is that the defunding of the old school should happen organically, as it usually does. Newer, more successful approaches and sub-disciplines slowly replace the old as the old guard retires.
Ah, thanks. Is it weird that this has never happened to philosophy as a named discipline? Certainly schools of thought come and go, but why is philosophy as an academic banner by far the longest lived?
“Love of wisdom” is a very broadly-applicable term. Also, it managed to cough up the entire field of pure mathematics once, and arguably the slim chance of something else as good or better being in there somewhere justifies a lot of scattershot work.
No. Historians aren’t trained to evaluate philsophical thought. Ask them the causes of a war, they can tell you, ask them the motivations for Aristotle’s theory of Entelchy, they’ll go “huh?”.
Well, presumably historians do specialize. In the revised world where history of philosophy ended up in the history department, there would be historians specializing in the history of philosophy. For that matter, I’m sure such people exist already.
The real question is which option provides more synergy:
learning about the motivations for Aristotle’s theory of Entelechy, together with a study of the culture of Greece in the 4th century BC (the historical option), or
learning about the motivations for Aristotle’s theory of Entelechy, together with a modern understanding of causality or whatever (the philosophical option).
If I can offer an expert (though probably biased) opinion: 2.