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froci, sapevo che avrei attirato la vs attenzione con il titolo.
https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/why-study-philosop...
We must challenge the thought that philosophy aims to contribute to human knowledge of the world. Its task is to resolve philosophical problems. The characteristic feature of philosophical problems is their non-empirical, a priori character: no scientific experiment can settle the question of whether the mind is the brain, what the meaning of a word is, whether human beings are responsible for their deeds (i.e. have free will), whether trees falling on uninhabited desert islands make any noise, what makes necessary truths necessary. All these, and many hundreds more, are conceptual questions. They are not questions about concepts (philosophy is not a science of concepts). But they are questions that are to be answered, resolved or dissolved by careful scrutiny of the concepts involved.
The only way to scrutinise concepts is to examine the use of the words that express them. Conceptual investigations are investigations into what makes sense and what does not. And, of course, questions of sense precede questions of empirical truth – for if something makes no sense, it can be neither true nor false. It is just nonsense – not silly, but rather: it transgresses the bounds of sense. Philosophy patrols the borders between sense and nonsense; science determines what is empirically true and what is empirically false. What falsehood is for science, nonsense is for philosophy.
So, why study philosophy?
There are many reasons, and many different kinds of reason. At a very general level, it is a unique technique for tackling conceptual questions that occur to most thinking people: questions concerning the existence of God, of an afterlife, and of free will. Also questions concerning human nature: what is the mind? How is the mind related to the body? Do we have a soul?
For although these look as if they are factual questions, they are not. They are purely conceptual questions that are to be resolved by conceptual inquiry. Philosophy also gives us techniques for handling fundamental methodological problems concerning explanations of human behaviour: what is the difference between being caused to do something, being made to do something, and acting for a reason? These in turn are pivotal for understanding the rights and wrongs of allocating responsibility. And philosophy is the sole subject that confronts questions about how we ought to live, what kind of society we ought to aspire to, and what system of laws befits rational beings living under the rule of law.
The study of philosophy cultivates a healthy scepticism about the moral opinions, political arguments and economic reasonings with which we are daily bombarded by ideologues, churchmen, politicians and economists. It teaches one to detect ‘higher forms of nonsense’, to identify humbug, to weed out hypocrisy, and to spot invalid reasoning. It curbs our taste for nonsense, and gives us a nose for it instead. It teaches us not to rush to affirm or deny assertions, but to raise questions about them.
Even more importantly, it teaches us to raise questions about questions, to probe for their tacit assumptions and presuppositions, and to challenge these when warranted. In this way it gives us a distance from passion-provoking issues – a degree of detachment that is conducive to reason and reasonableness.
Peter Hacker | Emeritus research fellow at St John’s College, Oxford University and noted scholar on Wittgenstein.
https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/why-study-philosop...
We must challenge the thought that philosophy aims to contribute to human knowledge of the world. Its task is to resolve philosophical problems. The characteristic feature of philosophical problems is their non-empirical, a priori character: no scientific experiment can settle the question of whether the mind is the brain, what the meaning of a word is, whether human beings are responsible for their deeds (i.e. have free will), whether trees falling on uninhabited desert islands make any noise, what makes necessary truths necessary. All these, and many hundreds more, are conceptual questions. They are not questions about concepts (philosophy is not a science of concepts). But they are questions that are to be answered, resolved or dissolved by careful scrutiny of the concepts involved.
The only way to scrutinise concepts is to examine the use of the words that express them. Conceptual investigations are investigations into what makes sense and what does not. And, of course, questions of sense precede questions of empirical truth – for if something makes no sense, it can be neither true nor false. It is just nonsense – not silly, but rather: it transgresses the bounds of sense. Philosophy patrols the borders between sense and nonsense; science determines what is empirically true and what is empirically false. What falsehood is for science, nonsense is for philosophy.
So, why study philosophy?
There are many reasons, and many different kinds of reason. At a very general level, it is a unique technique for tackling conceptual questions that occur to most thinking people: questions concerning the existence of God, of an afterlife, and of free will. Also questions concerning human nature: what is the mind? How is the mind related to the body? Do we have a soul?
For although these look as if they are factual questions, they are not. They are purely conceptual questions that are to be resolved by conceptual inquiry. Philosophy also gives us techniques for handling fundamental methodological problems concerning explanations of human behaviour: what is the difference between being caused to do something, being made to do something, and acting for a reason? These in turn are pivotal for understanding the rights and wrongs of allocating responsibility. And philosophy is the sole subject that confronts questions about how we ought to live, what kind of society we ought to aspire to, and what system of laws befits rational beings living under the rule of law.
The study of philosophy cultivates a healthy scepticism about the moral opinions, political arguments and economic reasonings with which we are daily bombarded by ideologues, churchmen, politicians and economists. It teaches one to detect ‘higher forms of nonsense’, to identify humbug, to weed out hypocrisy, and to spot invalid reasoning. It curbs our taste for nonsense, and gives us a nose for it instead. It teaches us not to rush to affirm or deny assertions, but to raise questions about them.
Even more importantly, it teaches us to raise questions about questions, to probe for their tacit assumptions and presuppositions, and to challenge these when warranted. In this way it gives us a distance from passion-provoking issues – a degree of detachment that is conducive to reason and reasonableness.
Peter Hacker | Emeritus research fellow at St John’s College, Oxford University and noted scholar on Wittgenstein.
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■ @ 2018-02-20 16:07:03.0 di Non Autenticato
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■ @ 2018-02-19 22:05:04.0 di ::1
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■ @ 2018-02-19 22:42:45.0 di Non Autenticato
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■ @ 2018-02-19 22:38:15.0 di avvelenato
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■ @ 2018-02-19 17:06:38.0 di Non Autenticato
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