Rescuing Aristotle(scientiasalon.wordpress.com)
scientiasalon.wordpress.com
Rescuing Aristotle
http://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/rescuing-aristotle/
5 comments
One of the things that was emphasized to me when I was studying the ancient greeks was that I should try to step outside my own mindset and try to read the text as it is, rather than to try to interpret it from my own cultural or modern perspective. I think this is an important step to take when you study these kinds of texts.
Thank you for this post! Loved it.
I feel like this is part of a larger bias among scientists to view the history of science as a clear progression from worse methods of explanation to better. This pernicious misreading of history seems to lead many scientists to view philosophers as proto-scientists rather than the more complex thought pioneers and concept creators that they are. Notable exceptions to this would include Albert Einstein who cited inspiration from and exhibited a competent understanding of Spinoza.
I feel like this is part of a larger bias among scientists to view the history of science as a clear progression from worse methods of explanation to better. This pernicious misreading of history seems to lead many scientists to view philosophers as proto-scientists rather than the more complex thought pioneers and concept creators that they are. Notable exceptions to this would include Albert Einstein who cited inspiration from and exhibited a competent understanding of Spinoza.
Philosophers are proto-scientists in the same way that alchemists are proto-scientists. They were both pursuing a goal that we now know is both impossible and uninteresting: turning base metals into gold in the case of alchemists, and certain propositions in the case of philosophers.
As a scientist who has studied philosophy seriously, I am comfortable saying this is generally true of everything philosophers do: it is based on a fundamentally mistaken approach to understanding the world that vastly over-states the role of introspection, the fidelity of the senses, common-sense, memory, and the human perspective. The arts are an appropriate place for such explorations, and they should be understood as what they are: studies of human experience, and nothing else. They can't teach us anything about the way the world actually is, or what are the optimal principles to govern our behaviour, or any of the other things that philosophers claim to this day is their unique subject of study. There is a role for natural philosophy as the foundations of science, but the rest? Un-natural philosophy has neither place nor use, and Einstein's modest affection for Spinoza was almost completely irrelevant to this actual science.
Philosophers have been trying to claim "inspiration" for the work of scientists for centuries (there used to be a significant contingent of Aristotelians who claimed Newton was inspired by Aristotle, which is almost completely without empirical basis.) It's kind of sad, seeing a several thousand year exercise in wrong-headedness finally meet its inevitable end, and of course there will be a few who insist on soldiering blindly on, arbitrarily privileging the human scale and human senses, blissfully unaware they are spouting gibberish, while the rest of us feel rather sad for them, and try to keep them away from sharp objects and the reins of power.
As a scientist who has studied philosophy seriously, I am comfortable saying this is generally true of everything philosophers do: it is based on a fundamentally mistaken approach to understanding the world that vastly over-states the role of introspection, the fidelity of the senses, common-sense, memory, and the human perspective. The arts are an appropriate place for such explorations, and they should be understood as what they are: studies of human experience, and nothing else. They can't teach us anything about the way the world actually is, or what are the optimal principles to govern our behaviour, or any of the other things that philosophers claim to this day is their unique subject of study. There is a role for natural philosophy as the foundations of science, but the rest? Un-natural philosophy has neither place nor use, and Einstein's modest affection for Spinoza was almost completely irrelevant to this actual science.
Philosophers have been trying to claim "inspiration" for the work of scientists for centuries (there used to be a significant contingent of Aristotelians who claimed Newton was inspired by Aristotle, which is almost completely without empirical basis.) It's kind of sad, seeing a several thousand year exercise in wrong-headedness finally meet its inevitable end, and of course there will be a few who insist on soldiering blindly on, arbitrarily privileging the human scale and human senses, blissfully unaware they are spouting gibberish, while the rest of us feel rather sad for them, and try to keep them away from sharp objects and the reins of power.
Dismissing ethics seems unfair.
How do you propose we approach the question of what we aught to do, or even decide how we go about deciding what we aught to do, if we don't approach it through philosophy?
There are many contexts this appears in: medicine, war, politics, economics, day-to-day trivialities, etc.
How do you propose we approach the question of what we aught to do, or even decide how we go about deciding what we aught to do, if we don't approach it through philosophy?
There are many contexts this appears in: medicine, war, politics, economics, day-to-day trivialities, etc.
'gibberish', eh?
Ouch.
I refute it thus: science itself cannot tell us why I should believe the claims of the astronomer over the claims of the astrologer.
The moment you try to explain why the belief system of the former should be privileged over the belief system of the latter you have left the realm of what science itself claims it can do.
I have no problem with scientists thinking they have displaced theologians with their better explanations of the natural world; I reject totally that science can in any way replace the inter-generational philosophical project, I reject that the proper place for the philosophical project is the arts, and I reject that the philosophical project has in any way come to an end.
Also, your insults do you an injustice. And didn't anyone ever tell you that pride comes before a fall?
Ouch.
I refute it thus: science itself cannot tell us why I should believe the claims of the astronomer over the claims of the astrologer.
The moment you try to explain why the belief system of the former should be privileged over the belief system of the latter you have left the realm of what science itself claims it can do.
I have no problem with scientists thinking they have displaced theologians with their better explanations of the natural world; I reject totally that science can in any way replace the inter-generational philosophical project, I reject that the proper place for the philosophical project is the arts, and I reject that the philosophical project has in any way come to an end.
Also, your insults do you an injustice. And didn't anyone ever tell you that pride comes before a fall?
The object of science, in the final analysis, is the collection, evaluation, and‒if the stars align‒acceptance as truth of sufficiently explanatory evidence. It is laughable to assert that the astrologers have better assisted us in this endeavor, or even that their contributions are on a par with those of astronomers. If you cannot adopt this perspective, you are simply lost to logical discourse; what evidence could possibly be provided to you to convince you to value evidence?
For what it's worth, you might like to know that it's destruction which pride precedeth.[0]
0: http://biblehub.com/proverbs/16-18.htm
For what it's worth, you might like to know that it's destruction which pride precedeth.[0]
0: http://biblehub.com/proverbs/16-18.htm
Yes, I'm aware of that. I'm not asserting that there is any kind of equivalence between astrology and astronomy, I'm asserting that it is not science itself that can draw the distinction between the claims of the two but rather it is the philosophy of science where this takes place. that was my rebuttal.
I never knew (obviously) that 'pride comes before a fall' is a common misquote but I do now! Thanks!
I never knew (obviously) that 'pride comes before a fall' is a common misquote but I do now! Thanks!
> what are the optimal principles to govern our behaviour
Given the litany of factual errors in your post, I'd be entertained to hear what you imagine is able to provide optimal principles to govern our behavior.
I hope you say science.
Given the litany of factual errors in your post, I'd be entertained to hear what you imagine is able to provide optimal principles to govern our behavior.
I hope you say science.
Philosophers like Lakatos offer a lot to scientists. Because science is a human endeavor, and its participants may reflect on why they do what they do. It can go well if the philosopher tries to understand science, speaks with scientists, etc.
(Maybe mainstream philosophy is full of decadent garbage, but so is lots of mainstream programming, in my view.)
Also, science has limits. (Which is fine because that's how it derives strengths.) Chomsky-as-philospher discusses them.
To the extent that they act like martial arts schools, where each tries to prove the superiority of their own school... well we can all reflect on whether that's how we want to spend our one life.
(Maybe mainstream philosophy is full of decadent garbage, but so is lots of mainstream programming, in my view.)
Also, science has limits. (Which is fine because that's how it derives strengths.) Chomsky-as-philospher discusses them.
To the extent that they act like martial arts schools, where each tries to prove the superiority of their own school... well we can all reflect on whether that's how we want to spend our one life.
Crockford articulates this point quite well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxAXlJEmNMg#t=260, specifically the myth of inevitability.
I don't think that any of the scientists/philosophers/mathematicians mentioned (not even Hawkings) can damage Aristotle that much. Aristotle is kind of far and away in terms of perceived importance. Perceived because I don't know the body of work of all the people mentioned in the article.
IMHO these ancient scholars from whom western civilisation started, will be read and re-read from the original text, studied and re-studied much more thoroughly and many more times in the years to come than Russel of Hawkings. Maybe unfortunately so, maybe not. I'm not able to judge any of the names mentioned in the article. That's just a feeling, only time will tell.
As other posters already pointed out, when science comes at play, we have to understand the dynamics of ancient Greece at 400 BC, with their lifestyle, beliefs and lack of knowledge (in any science: physics, chemistry, etc.).
However the most important body of Greek philosophy is the questions/answers surrounding men, existence, purpose (in life), knowledge (inherited or learned?), etc. Because these are universal questions that any human being with acceptable intellect will have to confront in his lifetime.
Off-topic: I've read an essay some time ago - can't find the link :-( - saying that especially today the difference between the body of knowledge of a top notch scientist and average peasant Joe is chaotic. Might be, but thinking how Aristotle, Euclid, Newton or Gauss would have felt in their era when talking to a peasant is a lot more scary to me.
IMHO these ancient scholars from whom western civilisation started, will be read and re-read from the original text, studied and re-studied much more thoroughly and many more times in the years to come than Russel of Hawkings. Maybe unfortunately so, maybe not. I'm not able to judge any of the names mentioned in the article. That's just a feeling, only time will tell.
As other posters already pointed out, when science comes at play, we have to understand the dynamics of ancient Greece at 400 BC, with their lifestyle, beliefs and lack of knowledge (in any science: physics, chemistry, etc.).
However the most important body of Greek philosophy is the questions/answers surrounding men, existence, purpose (in life), knowledge (inherited or learned?), etc. Because these are universal questions that any human being with acceptable intellect will have to confront in his lifetime.
Off-topic: I've read an essay some time ago - can't find the link :-( - saying that especially today the difference between the body of knowledge of a top notch scientist and average peasant Joe is chaotic. Might be, but thinking how Aristotle, Euclid, Newton or Gauss would have felt in their era when talking to a peasant is a lot more scary to me.
I think people commit a grave error when they try to pick out absurd-sounding beliefs that ancient people may or may not have held. The larger point is that Aristotle and Plato gave us ideas and concepts that we still think with.
To give some perspective, at the time these guys lived they were still inventing alphabets and didn't put spaces between words. Reading was still a crude and unpolished form of communication, most people (Plato included) were illiterate.
Their ideas are rudimentary but fundamental so it's easy to nitpick technicalities but completely ignores their most important contributions.
/rant
To give some perspective, at the time these guys lived they were still inventing alphabets and didn't put spaces between words. Reading was still a crude and unpolished form of communication, most people (Plato included) were illiterate.
Their ideas are rudimentary but fundamental so it's easy to nitpick technicalities but completely ignores their most important contributions.
/rant
Can you back up this claim of an illiterate Plato? That sounds like the sort of assertion this post complains about. Plato's dialogs do have Socrates complaining about book-learning.
AFAICT literacy rates in classical Athens are uncertain. I recently read http://www.amazon.com/Intimate-Lives-Ancient-Greeks-Peoples/... which left me with an impression of relatively high rates for male citizens, but I don't remember anything concrete. Searching turns up http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/classical-stud... which says the orthodoxy is for low rates, but argues against it.
AFAICT literacy rates in classical Athens are uncertain. I recently read http://www.amazon.com/Intimate-Lives-Ancient-Greeks-Peoples/... which left me with an impression of relatively high rates for male citizens, but I don't remember anything concrete. Searching turns up http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/classical-stud... which says the orthodoxy is for low rates, but argues against it.
In my hasty reply I wrote Plato but meant Socrates. In fact Plato was most definitely literate. In fairness this was also only unsubstantiated rumor. Socrates upbringing was supposedly poor so it's possible he could have been. However my overall point was that this isn't important in light of his larger contributions.
On the general point that the European literate culture pretty much starts with classical Greece: yeah. OTOH if you look just a little later at people like Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes, ... you see work that's both correct and of the highest quality. I wish there was much more left from that era to give us a better idea how that happened. Later antiquity had terrible taste in what to preserve.
So people misquote Aristoteles, so what? His philosophy is over 2000 years old, and severely outdated. Even if he didn't say a bunch of the non sense that is often attributed to him, he still said a lot of non sense. Perhaps not his fault (I'm sure in the year 4000 Bertrand Russel and Ludwig Wittgenstein will be considered obsolete gibberish). The point is that attributing truth value to authority is bad. Western science halted for many centuries because truth value was given to what Aristoteles said (or didn't say). I suppose that the OP has learned her/his lesson by not trusting Bertrand Russel on the claims. But he/she is then just re-iterating Russel's point. Don't base truth on authority.
It is also worth remembering that we know today that Aristotle's physics accurately describes human experience. If you inquire into the physical beliefs of non-physicist college students you will find they give accounts that are Aristotelian to the core. The degree to which Newtonian physics is bizarre, abstract and counter-intuitive is often forgotten by people who bash Aristotle. He was often wrong, but the problems he was working on were fiercely difficult, and the tools he had to bring to bear on them incredibly crude by modern standards.