Philosophy, justify your existence

[iamlying]

I just came back from a philosophy conference in Nantes. During one of the breaks, a professor from the University of Nottingham told me that there's a polemic over the purpose of philosophy. He said that right now, in England, there's a big debate about whether philosophy is worthwhile in any way. Every couple of years, each department in British

Comments

[hajenso]

linguistics was founded off of the philosophy of language

Are you sure that's true in an unqualified way? I was under the impression that the origins of modern linguistics are tied more closely with anthropology.

[iamlying]

Well, statements can often get closer to the truth by being qualified. It can just get kinda long and unsuitable for posting. Here goes:

I believe modern linguistics owes a large part of many of its branches to philosophy. That seems pretty uncontroversial. Whether it's the "foundation" is what you're questioning. There are important contributions by other fields certainly. Which field played the most important role might be open to interpretation. After all, linguistics is a big field. The parts influenced by anthropology are not the same as the parts influenced by semantic theory or logic. Saying that one sub-branch is more important than another does seem like a subjective judgement call. That said, in my opinion philosophy played a key role. (this is less controversial than it already seems: most all fields were subsumed under philosophy until they each broke away in the modern era. Also theories of meaning, grammar, etc have been fundamental debates in philosophy for hundreds of years)

[iamlying]

The difficulty is, I think, more acute than you make it out to be. The problem is not just whether philosophy holds any value whatsoever. As you say, it seems prima facie valuable to develop knowledge. There is however still a problem in saying that, therefore, the greater society is justified in being deprived of resources (equal to the sum needed to fund philosophical research). One of the most important problems is that the group that receives the benefit is not the same group that pays the price

[yurifish]

I think it's cool that France has philosophy as a subject in high school that most students have to take and Education Nationale's reasons for doing so would provide some good insight into "what it's good for".

I'm having trouble formulating my reasons for why I think philosophy is useful so let me resort to a list:
- Ethics: indispensable in law, medicine, education as well in business
- Philosophy as impetus for paradigm shifts: we become better people through getting our minds blown, and this is as true for Steve Jobs as it is for a young learner
- Ideas nourish: we're more than omnivorous bipeds and while of course we need food to stay alive, we look to ideas to feed our humanity.

Seems like British universities are headed down a slippery slope -- I can imagine many of the same criticisms leveled at Women's Studies, not to mention Art History...

[yurifish]

we become better people through getting our minds blown

I like this. What a great way to put it!

[hajenso]

Uh, that was me. Not sure why it's showing as anonymous.

[iamlying]

woman's studies was already purged in britain in the last couple of years, unfortunately. In a way, a more democratic system is less forgiving for what it will fund

[hajenso]

Hey, I need to borrow some TP. Could you please hand me a roll?