Philosophy of…

Philosophy of…

I wish to point out an oddity in the way a typical philosophy curriculum is structured, which calls for revision. We normally distinguish the philosophy of mind from the philosophy of psychology: the former deals directly with the mind, the latter with the science of psychology (it is about that science). Philosophy of mind, however, deals with philosophical questions about the mind itself, which may never crop up in the science of psychology (or folk psychology). You can be a philosopher of mind and never crack open a psychology textbook (though it might be wise to do so every now and then). You might never even talk to your colleague the philosopher of psychology and still have a career (though it would be deemed not very collegial). These are distinct fields of inquiry. Of course, you might do both, in which case a decent knowledge of psychology would be necessary. But we don’t make a similar division in relation to the physical world: we don’t distinguish philosophy of the physical world (matter) from philosophy of physics (the science of that name). But we should, and it would be possible to specialize in the former while not being particularly up on the latter. Here the philosophers of physics will be up in arms: how dare you suggest that there could be a philosophy of the physical world that ignores physics! But the model of philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology should be our guide. For there is a difference between being interested in philosophical questions about the physical world and being interested in philosophical questions about the science of physics. We can be interested in metaphysical and epistemological questions about physical things and not trouble ourselves with the latest theories in physics: for example, whether such objects reduce to their physical parts, how they relate to space, the nature of physical causation, whether they reduce to possibilities of sensation, whether they are perceptible, whether their perceived properties are subjective or objective, whether material objects are really mental objects. You could describe yourself as a philosopher of matter and spend your days thinking about such questions. You might also be interested quantum theory and the like, or you might not be; the two interests are distinct and equally legitimate. What is not legitimate is claiming that only the philosophy of physics is legitimate—that the other questions are so much hooey. The philosophy of matter should take its place beside the philosophy of mind—intellectually, institutionally.

The same is true of the philosophy of biology: do we mean the philosophy of biological reality (organism etc.) or do we mean the philosophy of the science of biology? You could be interested in ontological questions about organisms such as whether they are entirely physical or how they are to be defined or the concept of purpose, or you could be interested in what the science of biology has come up with (genetics, evolutionary theory, echolocation, etc.). These are both worthwhile enterprises, but they are not the same—the latter being meta in a way the former is not. We should not suppose that all philosophy of biology is about the science of biology, though it can certainly borrow from that science. We might distinguish them under the titles “philosophy of the living world” and “philosophy of biology”. Again, this mirrors the distinction between philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology. We see a pattern emerging and it generalizes: philosophy of history, philosophy of economics, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of archeology. In each case we can ask “Do you mean the thing or the discipline?” The philosophy of history might discuss whether we can ever know anything about the past or whether the past really exists, or it might deal with the methods used by historians. It isn’t that these subjects are entirely insulated from each other, but it serves clarity to keep the distinction in mind.[1]

[1] My book Basic Structures of Reality (2011) is mainly about the philosophy of the physical world not the philosophy of physics, though that does creep in. Physicists themselves often have philosophical views about the physical world that intermingle with their official science—for example, that physical objects exist independently of human minds. It is the same with psychologists, biologists, historians, economists, and archeologists. For some reason, there is hardly any philosophy of chemistry in either sense (though there once was, as in the days of alchemy).