Free Why-Phi!

A philosopher and a statue

My area of philosophy is metaphilosophy.  Most people are baffled by this including philosophers.  It is difficult enough to try to persuade people that philosophy is useful never mind that the philosophy of philosophy is useful.  Others have argued that philosophy is useful.  I am not going to repeat nor review their thoughts here.  Rather, I am going to explain how the philosophy of philosophy is useful; this will, in turn, show how philosophy is useful.

Philosophy, I believe, originally began with the intended purpose and belief that one can find answers to philosophical questions, e.g., “What is real?”, “How are we to live our lives?”, “What is knowledge and what do we know?”, and “What patterns of thought do we follow to discover the truth?”.  Each of these fields, in turn, have been called metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, and logic.  Today, the problem is not that we don’t have answers to these questions—the problem is that we have a glut of answers.  Some philosophers have hopes of finding a way through the answers; some philosophers have no hope; and, frankly, most philosophers act as if they don’t care. [1] I am actually going to ignore this question.  I think sometimes philosophers and thinkers in general become too focused on what we think philosophy (or any field of inquiry) should do and ignore what philosophy can do.  I have a few suggestions.  Before that, however, I have a few suggestions as to why metaphilosophy is useful to philosophers, which in turn tells us why philosophy is useful.

Metaphilosophy reveals the patterns of philosophical inquiry.

Not every philosopher reasons in the same way.  There are multiple patterns of reasoning—one very obvious divide is the analytic-continental distinction.  Continental philosophy has a great deal of diversity within it; analytic philosophy has fewer divides but is nonetheless somewhat diverse, e.g., the distinction between naturalists and intuitionists, between ex-phi and armchair, between mathematically inclined and plain-speak inclined.  Discovering patterns is very valuable in philosophy for it can tell us whether the patterns we are using can even result in responses that are comparable.

Metaphilosophy reveals what presumptions we have in philosophical inquiry.

Once we have these patterns of philosophical inquiry, we begin to discover the presumptions of that reasoning.  For example, one presumption of mathematical logic is that all conditionals with a false antecedent are true.  While this seems to work in some cases, it does not explain why we think “Since Barack Obama did not graduate high school, he is the only President to have nine successive terms.”  Both the antecedent are false; so, in mathematical logic this is a true conditional.  But it bothers us since there is an obvious disconnect between failing to graduate high school and being elected nine times to the Presidency.  Uncovering presumptions is very enlightening.  I have discovered that we are sometimes ignorant of the presumptions we are relying upon.  Uncovering ignorance, I take it, is valuable in and of itself.

Metaphilosophy examines whether those presumptions are meritorious.

The next step after uncovering presumptions is examining whether they are worth having.  I realize that this can result in a potential infinite regress in questioning presumptions; however, I do not think this is necessitated.  Drawing from the previous example, one might question the value of mathematical logic in this case or the value of material conditionals.  One might argue that the material conditional is very valuable despite its being different from the conditionals we usually use, and that mathematical logic can account for the conditionals we usually use (say, by arguing that the above example is really a counterfactual in disguise).  However, one does not need to regress too far for these questions.  For example, one need to regress too far to realize that the inductive reasoning, while facing a huge problem, is nonetheless valuable—critical, in fact, for getting around in the world.

I have provided several statements claiming a value of metaphilosophy.  I will attempt to point out how these values have a direct impact on philosophy itself which in turn make philosophy valuable.

Philosophy demands that we be consistent in our reasoning.

I realize that consistency is a value that is not universally shared.  In fact, in many conversations with non-philosophers, they are not worried about being inconsistent.  This in turn may be a presumption to be questioned as mentioned above.  However, I cannot help but to think that consistency is an obvious value; which, I surmise, means that I think a great deal of people are confused at best and poor thinkers at worst.  Metaphilosophy’s emphasis on uncovering patterns and presumptions uncovers whether we are consistent in our reasoning.  For, by uncovering patterns and presumptions, we see how these particulars may or may not “fit”.  For example, the ex-phi philosopher might innocently enough appeal to mathematical logic (which, arguably, is strictly an armchair endeavor; i.e., most people do not reason mathematically).

Philosophy tells us what we have faith in.

This is not obviously seen nor is it shared amongst philosophers.  Recall that metaphilosophy helps us uncover presumptions and helps us determine whether those presumptions have merit.  I contend that a large influence on what presumptions we consider meritorious is determined by what we value and trust.  I think value and trust are big constituents in what we mean when we say we have faith in something. [2] The very notion of deciding whether some presumption is meritorious depends on what you value—and value is not always rational, i.e., it could be suprarational or irrational.  Which philosophical position you adhere to, and for what reasons you hold on to it, goes a long way to telling you what you actually believe—with or without reason.

Philosophy gives us reason to be humble and forgiving.

Even though philosophers have been slow to write about the value of forgiveness,  at least one psychologist talks about the value of forgiveness to mental health and most of the world’s religions espouse that forgiveness is desirable if not outright required.  Philosophy’s ability to tell you what you have faith in, and realizing that you could have easily had faith in something else, gives one good reason to tolerate other people’s beliefs.  It is through this tolerance that one can forgive another for their beliefs.  And, perhaps more importantly, gives good reason for you to realize that you could very easily have held some very wacky belief (if it is wacky).  Further, since you could have held some other belief through no effort on your own, if you do hold the truth, you have been given a gift.  To realize that it is gift, one should develop humility.

[1] I argue in a different post that there is a way to sort through these answers to find the philosophical truth here.  However, let us not deal with this right now.
[2] By the way, defining “faith” as “unjustified belief” is about one of the most simple-minded, and stupid, things I have ever heard in my life.  It is an instance of a “straw man”.