Unrevolutionary philosophy

Thomas Kuhn has a lot to answer for. Ever since his book,

people writing about science love to talk about conflicting views, rather than

the much more realistic and boring facts, whereby models are slowly honed and

refined.

Now, that idea seems to have overflowed into philosophy, of all disciplines.

Look at Jon Lackman’s piece

on experimental philosophy in Slate. It’s an interesting and new discipline,

but that’s not enough for Lackman: to make it into a story, he needs opposition

and conflict. "The challenge is being mounted from within," he says:

now, a small band of renegade philosophers is defying the "lofty remove"

at which all other philosophers work.

I very much doubt that x-phi is really so revolutionary: most mainstream philosophers,

I’m sure, welcome empirical data on the subject of what people think, so long

as that data is well formed. Indeed, Lackman fails to find anyone to actually

oppose experimental philosophy. He finds "a respected critic of the field,"

Ernest Sosa, who warns against drawing too broad conclusions. Then:

Perhaps surprisingly, Sosa’s biggest objection to x-phi is that it hasn’t

gone far enough.

Why would that be surprising? It’s only surprising if you think that x-phi

is some kind of revolutionary discipline, bent on upending traditional philosophical

enquiry. But it isn’t.

Lackman ends up tying himself into ridiculous knots:

What makes x-phi revolutionary, and horrifying to some,

is that once philosophy opens up to the methods, and the irreducible uncertainties,

of empirical science, its tenets can no longer be articles of faith. Philosophy

is no longer something you believe in.

Remember that Lackman has adduced no evidence whatsoever that x-phi is revolutionary,

let alone given us any reason to believe that anybody at all is horrified by

it. But that’s the premise of his piece, so he’s going to stick to it. Even

if that means saying that up until now, philosophy’s tenets have been "articles

of faith" and "something you believe in". No, Mr Lackman, I think

you’re confusing philosophy with religion. The whole point of philosophy

is that it is based on rational discourse and does not have articles

of faith.