The Prophet 22;376166 wroteWE EACH EXIST FOR BUT A SHORT TIME, and in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe. But humans are a curious species. We wonder, we seek answers. Living in this vast world that is by turns kind and cruel, and gazing at the immense heavens above, people have always asked a multitude of questions: How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a creator? Most of us do not spend most of our time worrying about these questions, but almost all of us worry about them some of the time.
Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. So says Stephen Hawking in his book The Grand Design Ch. 1
Being the philosophical guy, How would you respond to Dr. Hawking’s? In reality, aren't Dr. Hawking’s writings philosophical in nature not purely scientific, yet people flock to him like he is the absolute final authority in the realm of the scientific community?
(I, more or less, wrote a whole blog article on this topic before.)
It’s true that philosophy is a “dying” discipline nowadays in a sense. It is being offered less and less in schools and more and more people are questioning its importance. There are some school boards and some countries that are trying to revive it though from what I’ve read recently. Bertrand Russell wrote a good rationale for the usefulness of philosophy which I agree with whole-heartedly.
First we must consider how philosophy started. The first schools were pretty much philosophy and math classes to begin with. As content was developed and expanded upon, it was able to separate from philosophy to spread out to its own discipline. So for example, the study of the cosmos became astronomy, the study of the mind because psychology, and so on. As this continued to happen philosophy had more and more “parts” of it taken away. So philosophy today differs greatly from original philosophy. Therefore, I can somewhat understand why people think of philosophy as “dead” because it’s pretty much all the stuff left over after all the other disciplines were extrapolated from it. On top of that, it is also difficult for people to see any value in philosophy as obviously it is not like science that can result in products and inventions that we literally use. That is, it is difficult to give an example of a direct influence of philosophy on a person who doesn’t read it on their own. Normally, it is more of an indirect influence.
So what does that leave us with then? According to Russell, there are still many questions and concerns that full under the umbrella of philosophy. Further still, he acknowledges that many of these questions cannot be answered and may never be answered. That does not mean that philosophy is pointless or about nothing though or that we should not care about it. Quite the opposite in fact!
Russell argues that even if science was able to make all humans well off and disease and poverty were reduced to their lowest possible points, there would still be a lot to do to create a valuable society. One of philosophy’s main goals is knowledge as a result of critically analyzing ourselves, our convictions, our beliefs, our prejudices, etc. Perhaps we cannot find absolute truth in asking these questions, but the continued questioning itself helps us to remember the importance of such questions and self analysis, it helps us examine the possible approaches to the questions, and (most importantly for Russell) it “keeps alive that interest in the universe which...would be destroyed if we were to confine ourselves to only the definitely ascertainable knowledge.” Therefore, the uncertainty that is inherent in philosophy is where its value can be found.
I love the way Russell phrases it: “The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from habitual beliefs of his age or nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operations of consent of his deliberate reason”. In other words, philosophy helps us avoid dogmatism and what Russell calls “tyranny of custom”.
With respect to Hawking and science specifically, yes I think that there is a connection with philosophy but that is mostly because there is an overarching connection between philosophy and pretty much everything - it’s practically impossible to separate it from anything that has to do with humans.
There are many aspects of science and scientific concepts that lead to philosophical debate. Hawking definitely does not relegate himself to just the scientific sphere; he makes philosophical comments and arguments all the time from what I’ve read (for example, I do recall him making comments on the existence of aliens and what they would be like and how they would interact with us - all of which comes from his philosophical view point).
However, that’s how I feel it should be. Science should be formed from within a philosophical perspective, same with political decisions, moral decisions, and the like. It’s silly in my opinion to try and separate them or think of them as separate ideas. Not to mention, they both (science and philosophy) follow a very similar format and they both have the same ultimate goals. Religion can also be thrown into the same category in this manner as well.
Thanks for the question Brent!