There are philosophers who are unambiguously making useful contributions, but I worry that there are philosophers who seem good to consult, but merely happen to hold smart-sounding positions on the things you checked by something like chance—it’s bound to happen, given the number of philosophers who happen to hold dumb-sounding positions by something like chance.
As a philosopher, I must admit that there is some truth to this claim. There is, unfortunately, no established philosophical methodology that is reliably truth-producing. Thus, the competence of the practitioner becomes far more relevant than it is in science. In science, mediocre practitioners may not be relied upon to produce ground-breaking results, but they can at least be relied upon to produce results that are more likely true than not (if they are at least competent enough to follow the conventions of the discipline). This is because a significant amount of the cognitive labor involved in producing truth is codified in the scientific method, which every practitioner can be trained to follow. Philosophy has developed no such innovation.
In so far as there is “philosophical methodology”, its advantage is not so much that it helps get at the truth but that it helps explore logical space and clarify the structure of concepts and the relationships between them. So I think it might be worthwhile to consult philosophers in general for this purpose—not to try and figure out the answer to some philosophical question, but to get a richer sense of the conceptual terrain associated with the question.
If you’re going to consult a philosopher in order to get an idea of the correct answer to the question, however, then you need to proceed on the basis of trust in the particular philosopher, not philosophy in general. It might make sense to say, “I’ll ask Dennett what he thinks about this because he says reliably insightful things about the mind and cognition”, but unfortunately it does not make as much sense to say “I’ll ask Dennett what he thinks about this because he’s a philosopher working on this sort of question.” Not if the purpose is to get an answer and not merely a richer understanding of the question.
This is because a significant amount of the cognitive labor involved in producing truth is codified in the scientific method, which every practitioner can be trained to follow. Philosophy has developed no such innovation.
Um… you do realize that PHILOSOPHERS developed the scientific method, right? That was not something scientists just came up with on their own. So, when you say that philosophy has developed no such innovation, you miss two things.
First, philosophy did come up with that exact innovation, for science.
Second, scientists have not come up with any such innovation, for themselves or others.
As a philosopher, I must admit that there is some truth to this claim. There is, unfortunately, no established philosophical methodology that is reliably truth-producing. Thus, the competence of the practitioner becomes far more relevant than it is in science. In science, mediocre practitioners may not be relied upon to produce ground-breaking results, but they can at least be relied upon to produce results that are more likely true than not (if they are at least competent enough to follow the conventions of the discipline). This is because a significant amount of the cognitive labor involved in producing truth is codified in the scientific method, which every practitioner can be trained to follow. Philosophy has developed no such innovation.
In so far as there is “philosophical methodology”, its advantage is not so much that it helps get at the truth but that it helps explore logical space and clarify the structure of concepts and the relationships between them. So I think it might be worthwhile to consult philosophers in general for this purpose—not to try and figure out the answer to some philosophical question, but to get a richer sense of the conceptual terrain associated with the question.
If you’re going to consult a philosopher in order to get an idea of the correct answer to the question, however, then you need to proceed on the basis of trust in the particular philosopher, not philosophy in general. It might make sense to say, “I’ll ask Dennett what he thinks about this because he says reliably insightful things about the mind and cognition”, but unfortunately it does not make as much sense to say “I’ll ask Dennett what he thinks about this because he’s a philosopher working on this sort of question.” Not if the purpose is to get an answer and not merely a richer understanding of the question.
Um… you do realize that PHILOSOPHERS developed the scientific method, right? That was not something scientists just came up with on their own. So, when you say that philosophy has developed no such innovation, you miss two things.
First, philosophy did come up with that exact innovation, for science.
Second, scientists have not come up with any such innovation, for themselves or others.