Hacker News Reader

Comment by istjohn | Hacker News Reader

> Science is a tool, we don't ask tools for their opinions or for our goals or for what to do with them. We use them to make things or to examine things, no to think about what we want to make, or to think about what is best to make. That's for philosophy.

And yet philosophy is utterly incapable of telling us what to make or do. People often come to philosophy with the hope that studying philosophy will help them live a better life or help them make sense of life. The truth is, it won't. They can devote their life to studying philosophy and they won't squeeze a single drop of utility from that parched rock.

View on HN

>And yet philosophy is utterly incapable of telling us what to make or do.

Actually it is perfectly capable.

In fact, nothing has been made or done without a philosophy guiding it.

It's just that for most people this is usually a self-made, uninformed, ad-hoc (and usually bad and unfit for the purpose) philosophy, or some low-tier second hand pop philosophy.

If you mean "philosophy can't tell what X exactly everybody should make or do" that's true. But that's also true for science and everything else. We are individuals, in different situations, different problems, and different goals.

Philosophy teaches us how to think about our problems, goals, etc, and how to put them in perspective, value them, examine them, etc.

It doesn't hand them out to us. Philosophy is not an oracle telling you what to do and absolving you from thinking (and that's true whether some philosophers treated theirs as such or not).

In its totality, philosophy is the exact opposite, a set of prior observations, discussions, hypotheses, thinking tools and approaches, to make you think better and to give you the benefit of the insight of others.

You get that insight on technical matters from science.

You get that insight on meta-matters (thinking about thinking, morals, etc) from philosophy.

I don't think that there's a universal truth about what you should be making or doing. It's up to each person to decide that for themselves. Philosophy exposes you to different ideas and ways of thinking, showing that there isn't a single correct answer to the questions people have in life. What you make of that is up to the person on the receiving end of those ideas.

I basically agree with this. My suggestion to OP would be to take this comment to heart. If they are looking to develop a personal philosophy, any amount of study of formal philosophy will not get them further than this.

"philosophy is utterly incapable of telling us what to make or do"

Take a look at the enormous popularity of Stoicism on HN. I think quite a few people here would disagree with you about philosophy being "utterly incapable of telling us what to make or do".

And yet most philosophers aren't Stoics. Physics will tell you how fast an object will fall. You can ask a dozen physicists and they will all give you the same answer. Philosophy only tells you how to live if you ask exactly one philosopher. Ask a second, and you will be no better off than when you started.

The point of philosophy is to teach you how to think so you can formulate your own answer. Apparently you expect everything to be 1+1=2, which really is kind of sad.

You are a person who desperately needs philosophy, yet you seen incapable of understanding why you would need it. Science seems to have ruined you.

> Science seems to have ruined you.

This is a very interesting thought. Is this something you came up with, or are you quoting any specific philosopher? I’d love to read more about this topic.

It's basically the idea of "scientism".

Scientistm being to science what nationalism is to patriotism.

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/science-versus-scie...

> The point of philosophy is to teach you how to think so you can formulate your own answer.

This canard has been raised several times in this thread. Yes, who will teach the physicists how to think? Who will teach the engineers how to put two and two together?

> Apparently you expect everything to be 1+1=2, which really is kind of sad.

If by this you mean I reject irrational thought, then yes, guilty as charged. This has nothing to do with my views on philosophy, though. Philosophy is a type of rational inquiry.

> Science seems to have ruined you.

Or perhaps math has ruined me, expecting everything to be 1+1=2? But isn't math an extension of logic, and logic a part of philosophy? Maybe philosophy has ruined me.

"And yet most philosophers aren't Stoics"

You're moving the goal posts.

First you said:

"philosophy is utterly incapable of telling us what to make or do"

I gave you an example how philosophy is in fact capable of doing that, and it does so for many people (philosophers and non-philosophers alike).

Instead of granting the point, you move the goal posts.

Suddenly, philosophy being capable of telling us what to make or do is no longer good enough for you. Now you want answers to satisfy "most philosophers".

"You can ask a dozen physicists and they will all give you the same answer. Philosophy only tells you how to live if you ask exactly one philosopher. Ask a second, and you will be no better off than when you started."

Philosophy is not physics. There is no consensus on many of the problems that concern it.

Philosophy, by the way, is far from the only academic discipline that lacks such a consensus.

Harry Truman said "If you laid every economist in the country end to end, they would all point in different directions."

There are also many disagreements on fundamental issues in psychology, and probably many if not most other "soft sciences".

But philosophy is not a science, so why are you holding it up to scientific standards?

Art and music aren't sciences either, but most people recognize they have tremendous value anyway.

By the way, I've noticed that you're laser-focused on this consensus issue, while completely being unable to acknowledge that philosophy has value apart from the issue of whether it gives you answers that everyone can agree on.

How about philosophy's value in training the mind?

Please answer if you find that valuable.

How about philosophy's value in letting people question their own assumptions?

Do you find that valuable?

Or philosophy's value in letting you see things from a different perspective?

Can you specifically address these points instead of endlessly returning to the one point of philosophy not having answers that everyone can agree on?

You've misunderstood me if you think I'm arguing philosophy has no value. I'm only arguing that studying it will not help someone develop a personal philosophy.

I will make this one concession on reflection. It may help immunize one from simplistic explanations and just-so stories. It will not give one truth, but perhaps it will reveal the lie. The study of philosophy is a great way, for example, to disabuse someone of religious faith.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com