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Let's re-evaluate Arts
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HappyCrackHead wrote:Just one small point to make about the part i've emboldend? LIVING? SCIENCE? you've gotta be kidding me.
Do you know what they call economics? The dismal science!
and theres another chunk of it thats just... well... evil heartless money grubbing filth. You can justify child (near slave) labour through economics. Thats what i learned in first year
The urge to flame is almost unbearable, but I will resist....but you quoting Carlyles misinterpretation of Malthus says it all really!
Having studied nothing else but the 'dismal science' this year, believe it or not, I have not learned to con, fraud, mug old ladies, blackmail or otherwise. But then again, you may have had Moore McDowell in first year
I don't see the need to cut any arts courses to be honest. I think my course would be more rounded if I took a philosophy module. One of the major criticisms of our college is the lack of academic atmosphere amongst the students. Whether this is accurate or not, would curtailing an arts subject like philosophy really help in this goal?0 -
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Blowfish wrote:That's us comp. sci. people buggered then:)
So ironic, given that he's a fellow comp sciFirespinner wrote:7) Philosophy is not included in the social catagory (in my opinion) because while literature, art and music are enjoyed by all people in a state, and more importantly are signatures of that country. I associate countries with their most famous are, literature and music (sometimes architecture). Great philosophers (except in Greece) don't really add much to a state.
Actually, no firespinner. If you've ever been to the NCH, you'd realise great music is not widely appreciated. It's one of the reasons why opera is so rarely performed in Ireland, unfortunately. Also, I've often been to the theatre and it's about half empty (then again I do go to the cheaper showings - studentsville :rolleyes:)
Philosophers- what about Voltaire, Rousseau, Locke, Mill, Hume, Burke - do you think these individuals add nothing to a country's culture?0 -
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Firespinner wrote:Both of you miss my point. You name Mill and *gag* Chomsky as political philosophers but I would point out that their theories and writings are covered in politics. Why teach the material twice? That is what I was trying to say above. Political writers are no longer philosophers as politics has established itself as a seperate discipline. As such the scope of philosophy has shrunk.
I was taught Mill, Locke etc as political theory, what I interpreted to be the philosophy of the discipline.
Exactly!pretty*monster wrote:Hmm... if you want to talk about the parameters of a diciplin, in this case politics you're already getting into a philosophical discussion :rolleyes:
I've studied Northern Ireland in both politics and history, and both departments taught it from a very different perspective.0 -
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Ok, so some forums I've been on tend to dislike what's called "thread necromancy" and consider it a breach of netiquette. I've never quite understood that, as I see no reason to keep old threads and keep them open, if we're not keeping with the remote prospect that a discussion might be continued at some point. Further, on other sites I frequent, thread necromancy is seen as a good thing, and is considered infinitely preferable to simply starting a new thread on the same topic and thereby taking up server space, and bloating the database with redundant duplicates.
I perused the charter here, and there's nothing specifically against it. If I've broken an unspoken rule, well, I'm sorry. I think it's relevant, because the topic has come up in recent Pros and Cons thread, and rather than drag that thread off topic, or start a new duplicate of this one, I thought it would be a good idea if I simply revived this one to take pressure off it. Further, it seems that this thread had deteriorated, and then was left hanging, and I felt that nobody had given Firespinner a convincing defense of philosophy, and the Arts generally, yet, and so it seemed as if the thread hadn't really been finished. I hope that the thread can be continued civilly, since I think there are good points to be made.
Finally, I don't presume that in the intervening three years Firespinner (who is now someone else! ) hasn't matured in his attitude. I consider it an inevitability. So I don't presume to straw-man the present boardsie by attributing to him the views of his first year self. Nevertheless, I think the views of Firespinner expressed in this thread are representative of common misgivings concerning the Arts, and philosophy in particular, and I don't think it's a waste of time to address them here, in order to be informative.
I think what scop meant to express to you was the following...Firespinner wrote:Scop wrote:Firespinner, your utterly woeful grasp of good old fashioned thinking suggests a 3 year stint with Philosophy might just be useful.
9)Vaugely offensive and largely meaningless, you must be proud. Exactly how would philosophy help me?
s1) That experience of philosophy might bequeath you with the formal training in argumentation to argue your case more effectively, or to see the flaws, and formal errors in the arguments you have already presented.
s2) That direct experience with philosophy might bequeath you with a sensibility (read: humility) about things you don't know an awful lot about, and an appreciation for what sorts of features and issues might arise even in discussion of topics with which you have no experience.
s3) Since your argument touches directly on philosophy, that direct experience of philosophy might have appraised you of some of the facts concerning the discipline, the sore lack of which have impoverished the persuasive power of your statements about the discipline.
There are perhaps more points, but I should think that these cover a goodly portion of what scop was likely to have been saying, rather pithily.
I think, though, that what is wrong with your approach can be quite neatly encapsulated in your misunderstanding of philosophy. Consider:
and also:Firespinner wrote:and finally we come to the trickiest subject to judge - Philosophy. As a subject over the ages it has spawned many other now cherished fields of study such as Economics, Politics, Sociology and even Mathematics. For this it deserves respect. But, its children have outgrown it and no longer nurse on't. Has it got any other fields in the metaphorical womb? No. It has given all it can to society. All that is left now is random thoughts, worded to sound profound, telling us nothing. It has become a hollow science, all meaning long since stripped from it. It is one of the oldest disciplines, but it has been exhausted. It is with great regret that I must Cap it.
I think these posts reveal nothing other than a fundamental misunderstanding of what the word "philosophy" means, and what the discipline of philosophy represents. For one thing, you dismiss philosophy as meaningless verbiage, and yet your entire argument takes as its premises assumptions on points of philosophy.Firespinner wrote:6)Philosophy. I capped this with great regret. It was once a great science but to compare it to the subject that astounded the Greeks is completely disengenuous. Philosophy is a shell of its former self. As it gave birth to fields like psycology and economics they took great chunks out of philosophy's mandate, leaving it the bare bones of what it was. It no longer ponders things of relevance or bases them on evidence but is merely basket-weaving for the brain, seeking the admiration of others by creating complex thoughts that lead nowhere. What was the last great achievement of philosophy? It has been riding on its "great history" for over a century.
7) Philosophy is not included in the social catagory (in my opinion) because while literature, art and music are enjoyed by all people in a state, and more importantly are signatures of that country. I associate countries with their most famous are, literature and music (sometimes architecture). Great philosophers (except in Greece) don't really add much to a state.
Take, for instance, your decision on how to evaluate the relative worthiness of different fields:Some Arts subjects must be either downgraded or terminated and their funds transferred to more useful and important subjects.
The assumption being that the "more useful" subjects will be coextensive with the most important subjects, and this is how we are to find out which subjects ought to prioritized.
Well... first of all... you must understand that (it is a philosophical commonplace that) "usefulness" is always usefulness for something. Subjects aren't just disinterestedly useful. They are always useful towards some or other end. Elsewhere you've clarified that your particular brand of usefulness is a usefulness to society, to the state's cultural and economic wellbeing, and to some conception of the knowledge economy. Well, I feel there's a crucial ambiguity in how you measure that usefulness, but when you go on to pick through the different disciplines one by one, I find your evaluation is rather patchy, and arbitrary in places, suffering from ignorance in many quarters.
For instance, you dismiss Ancient Greek as only "useful" in terms of Biblical study:
which certainly isn't the first thing I would have thought of Greek as useful for. The study of ancient history (often written in Greek) is one thing your regime would expel, and yet, I assume, since you intend to keep on history and literature, these disciplines will be deprived of the tools to appropriate more than a passing appreciation of the context in which their disciplines operate.-Greek-This could be downgraded as its only real use is Biblical interpretation
Furthermore, you seem to have confused the notion of pragmatic value with the notion of intrinsic value:How do we decide what goes and what stays? What subjects are intrinsically worthy? By examining each subject and judging its merit.
Surely you understand that when you talk about intrinsic worthiness you've already stopped talking about usefulness? The intrinsic worthiness a subject possesses is a worthiness it possesses by virtue of itself. The reasons why the subject itself is valuable, rather than the reasons why it is useful towards some other intrinsic good. This is often talked about as its use value, utility, extrinsic worth, or its pragmatic value.
So you see, it isn't a simple matter to "examine each subject and judge its merit." You've already run into problems by conflating extrinsic worth with intrinsic worth. Literacy in this sort of issue is something you learn in philosophical discourse touching on values, which you could look on (to be simplistic) as an outgrowth of the Platonic discourse on the Good.
Furthermore, it isn't as if this sort of discussion isn't already something that is carried out. Do you know where it is carried out? In the philosophy of education. Therein, you can find an array of discussions on whether education ought to value only the pragmatic/state/social application of a subject, or whether there are intrinsic reasons why education, in particular subjects or as a whole, ought to be regarded as a good in itself. Seeing as you obviously feel that this topic warrants concern, you're already knee deep in hypocrisy, since you are engaging (albeit inexpertly) in a philosophical discourse in which you attack the worth of all philosophical discourse.
It isn't at all clear, as you will find in the philosophy of education, that we always ought to select only those subjects which are useful for some societal goal. There are plenty of positions on that question. The idea that education is an end in itself is at least as prevalent, and in fact, is the idea that was responsible for the evolution of the university. Many believe that the university is specifically for fostering the pursuit of knowledge as an ultimate goal, and not as a stop-gap to greater things. For instance, within the hard sciences, pragmatic usefulness is a popular sort of justification, but you hear just as often the idea that the advancement of mankind's knowledge is the enrichment of the lot of man. That's the sort of talk that tends to be prevalent within a university. According to this sort of philosophy, the university is the organ of knowledge for a society, and ought never to be thought of only as some engine to drive the economy. So it isn't a foregone conclusion that, as we start to look at the subjects, it will be automatically on the basis of usefulness that we adjudicate their value. I'll warrant that difference of opinion on that point is a main reason why you ticked off so many people.
Furthermore, your commitment to the use-value of subjects seems to indicate a thorough-going pragmatism about value within society, but that just isn't a tenable position. Where do you cash out your use-value? As I've already said, usefulness is always usefulness for. Now, what is the ultimate goal towards which things within a society are useful? Presumably education is useful towards fueling the ship of state? But what is the success of the state useful for? Why do we engage in this collective civilizing process to begin with?
Some people would answer: to be prosperous... but prosperity in terms of money seems to me to be a prime example of something with only use-value. In a consumerist society, I suppose, we are free to pursue whatever we want with our now plentiful resources, for which we have to thank your educational pragmatism? But what will we pursue? More prosperity? The shallow cultural milieu we are left with in the wake of your purge of the university? How is culture, as an end in itself, to survive if you impoverish the organs by which it is maintained? Many believe, as I do, that riches can be more than merely money. The sciences and the arts represent the crowning achievements of our species - they truly differentiate us from the other forms of life we are aware of. They are richly rewarding to those who pursue them, and many regard them as the most fundamental sort of riches that are available to a human being. This is actually a commonplace within civilised society - it tends to figure in the definition of civilized society. In a radical reversal of the picture of the state you have haphazardly implied, many people believe that the systems and institutions of the state are in place so as to ensure the relative comfort and prosperity of a population so that we can all go and educate ourselves to the fullest potential available to us. In other words, university subjects aren't there in order to contribute to the vast machinery of the state, but the state machinery is there to enable us to pursue the sorts of things represented by university subjects. These things are often produced as evidence of the disparity in quality of life between the relatively comfortable middle classes, and the working classes. That the rich can enjoy theatre, and the fruits of philosophical discussion, while the poor man must toil only to stand still. So, once again, it's not at all clear that, even if we're going to be relatively pragmatic about social policy pertaining to education, we're going to want to cut down on the arts.
And further again, we're still not convinced that any of the Arts subjects, intrinsically worthy though they are, really are as useless as you say they are. Look at what you said about philosophy again:
Now, that really is just ignorant. That's what that sounds like... it sounds as if you are ignorant of what is actually done in philosophy. It sounds as if you heard some philosophical discourse, and, not understanding it, wrote it off as "meaningless." Do you seriously believe that philosophy is no more than obfuscatory, attention seeking quackery? Allow me to remove your prejudices.All that is left now is random thoughts, worded to sound profound, telling us nothing. It has become a hollow science, all meaning long since stripped from it. It is one of the oldest disciplines, but it has been exhausted... It no longer ponders things of relevance or bases them on evidence but is merely basket-weaving for the brain, seeking the admiration of others by creating complex thoughts that lead nowhere. What was the last great achievement of philosophy? It has been riding on its "great history" for over a century.
Now, this is profoundly misinformed (and you have your ignorance of the history of philosophy to thank for that), but the truth is that philosophy is the original investigatory discipline. Not only the fields you mentioned above, but science itself, as an institution, claims descent from philosophical parentage. Greek Presocratics took the physical universe itself as as much an object of inquiry as what are these days considered perennial subjects. Ancient Greek medicine wasn't really distinct from Greek philosophy. The scientific endeavour, as we know it today, was for a long time talked about as Natural Philosophy, or the philosophy of nature. Scientific method represents an array of philosophical positions on how to inquire effectively into the natural world.Firespinner wrote:As a subject over the ages it has spawned many other now cherished fields of study such as Economics, Politics, Sociology and even Mathematics... As it gave birth to fields like psycology and economics they took great chunks out of philosophy's mandate, leaving it the bare bones of what it was.
And you claim that the birth of these disciplines heralded the compartmentalization of philosophical inquiry into the subdisciplines, and the obsolescence of the parent. But this is actually to miss the point of the university. Psychology, and its many different branches, not all of which broke off together from philosophy (or even from philosophy at all!) represents an assortment of different philosophical positions, and assumptions, about the correct mode of inquiry. History happens within the context of various philosophical assumptions. Economics has a philosophical mandate only in virtue of its taking certain philosophical assumptions as a starting point. Politics, political science, and sociology each encompass, among their more empirical or contentful considerations, a swathe of social and political philosophy. As you've already mentioned, there is a crossover between many disciplines, and many disciplines end up having to touch on the same topic from a different angle. Disputes, for instance, between different branches of psychology end up being philosophical disputes, concerning the philosophical assumptions we are entitled to make.
It turns out that philosophy, at least in part, remains as a metasubject. And this is reflected by the variety of meta-disciplinary fields within philosophy. We have philosophy of science, philosophy of physics, of mathematics, and of psychology. There is philosophy of history, political philosophy, social philosophy. There is philosophy that encompasses the sorts of theory that are applied in literature studies. Most of the influential thinkers within sociology, (which you have kept) are philosophers. There are philosophies of the environment, and philosophies which adjudicate the metaquestions concerning economic theory, and its relevance within a social context, and its supposed value. There are ethical discourses concerning the use of the sciences, and philosophy of law, and philosophy examining the relationship of law to social policy, and the relationship between evolutionary psychology and progressive law reform in nascent political theories. When religious leaders and highly specialized scientists come out and make general claims, that is, in fact, a matter of philosophy. Philosophy is, in fact, ubiquitous. It underpins just about every major university discipline. You can't get by in interdisciplinary settings (which a university will produce) without doing a bit of philosophy. In fact, you were unable to avoid doing a bit of philosophy in this thread.
Now, you might imagine that if psychologists want to talk to zoologists, or historians of political thought want to converse with historians proper, they can do the relevant philosophizing. And that's true. But I don't see how you could not regard as useful a discipline devoted to analysis of the fundamental premises of the other university subjects, and devoted to generalism in this analysis. Philosophers specialize in abstract speculation, and it takes that to discourse on the proper places and relationships of the specialized disciplines.
Wilfrid Sellars, in a famous essay, advocates philosophy as the quintessential generalism, and I tend to think he displays great wisdom in doing so. It isn't for no reason that philosophy has been prolific in spawning sub-disciplines. Philosophy has been the formation point of a number of more recent hyrbid disciplines, too, which I'm about to mention.
I came to philosophy from a practical discipline... actor training, because I felt ignorant and blind. I felt as if my training had been overspecialized, and that I was operating in a vacuum, when it seemed to me that there was a vast intellectual context in which my discipline sat, and which situated it among the other fields. That was philosophy... and the study of it has been like finding the control room from which the grand academic project is planned and surveyed.
Would it interest you to know that scientific method is not a monolith, and that it is likely that many scientists don't really have a clear idea what the scientific method really entails, or why it can be considered effective? Would it interest you to know that the philosophy of science has had endemic effects on the evolution of the scientific disciplines over the 20th century? I just couldn't enumerate all of the useful philosophical disciplines to you here if I had an age to do so, so numerous are they. I feel like I'm explaining the virtues of food. What you've dismissed really is that much more diverse than you seem to have imagined.
Now this is really just codswallop. the 20th century was possibly the most active and fruitful period philosophy has ever had.It has been riding on its "great history" for over a century.
I wonder what sort of empirics vindicate that assertion. There are already a number of exciting new fields that promise to become more and more relevant and urgent as time goes on.Has it got any other fields in the metaphorical womb? No. It has given all it can to society.
Ethical studies within philosophy, for instance, show no sign of becoming irrelevant. The advance of science, and new technologies present new ethical fields, which involve philosophers. Hence, we have bioethics, medical ethics, the ethics of genetic engineering, the ethics of neural enhancement, the ethics of artificial intelligence, the ethics of technological enhancement etc etc etc. These fields often invoke far more perennial and abstract topics within philosophy, like the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of personal identity, and metaphysical studies on the freedom of the will, and the nature of the self. There are advanced scientistic philosophies that advocate radical new ways of conceptualizing the self, in accordance with the data from scientific study, which would promise to change irrevocably and fundamentally the way we think about each other, about action, about thoughts and emotions, such as eliminative materialism. Surely you've heard of cognitive science, which is a hybrid discipline of neuroscientists psychologists, AI theoriests, mathematicians, and philosophers of various persuasions. Likewise, there are new fields of moral philosophy that converge interestingly with the sciences, and suggest new ways of investigating ethical problems. Experimental ethics is a burgeoning field, which is pretty heavy, too, on empirical data, which gives the lie to
And still, philosophy is the substrate by which all of the other disciplines converse, which is what they have to do if any progress can be made within them... if they are to deliver any fruits of research back to the public knowledge. On what basis are the merits of competing claims from different fields addressed... on no possible basis but one involving the doing of some manner of philosophy.It no longer ponders things of relevance or bases them on evidence
I'm getting tired now, and I'm sure there is a fair helping of incoherencies above, since I'm not proof reading. But what I hope is that the above discussion goes some way towards making clearer the naivety I discern in statements like this:4)I tried to be objective in my treatment of subjects, even ones which I study. I looked at what I percieved were the merits of each subject and their relevence and tried to decide what society needed. I never said that any field of learning should be abandoned, but not all areas are equal.
yours in discussion,
Fionn.0 -
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