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Abstract
Big philosophical questions—about the mind, the idea of the good, justice, beauty, knowledge—have been the prime interest of philosophers ever since Plato first raised them in his dialogues. However, regardless of how hard philosophers have been trying to find answers to them, it seems that all they have ever managed to do was to find reasons for disagreements, and, on the whole, to have failed to reach a consensus on pretty much anything. Some philosophers now claim that there hasn’t been much progress in philosophy, especially when compared to the sciences. I take up this verdict and try to refute it, first by offering an alternative view on what counts as progress, and then by analyzing big philosophical questions and their relevance for our intellectual and practical pursuits. I argue that, due to the distinctive nature of philosophical curiosity, coming up with answers to the big philosophical questions is an ideal that can hardly be met, but that philosophy nevertheless delivers various benefits, intellectual and practical, which the proponents of the No-Progress View tend to ignore.
Acknowledgment
I am very grateful to the anonymous referees of the journal, whose comments were immensely helpful for my research, to Peter Swirski and in particular, to Edna Rosenthal, for her insightful suggestions regarding the views expressed here. My warmest gratitude goes to Philip Kitcher, for his unyielding support and encouragement for my work during my stay at Columbia University, USA, and thereafter.
Notes
1. Dietrich, “There Is No Progress,” 329–44. I take the notion of “getting things right” from Overgaard, Gilbert, and Burwood, Introduction to Metaphilosophy. In “The Will to Believe,” William James pinpointed the clash between philosophers’ firm belief that the truth is out there and that they can find it, what I call the epistemic commitment to truth, and their inability to do so.
2. Unger, Empty Ideas.
3. Peter van Inwagen, cited in Chalmers, “Why Isn’t There More Progress?” 3–31. Given that my concern is the longevity of the big philosophical questions, I will not dwell on the differences between the various formulations of the No-Progress View, or address their separate challenges. This view challenges the apparent inability of philosophy to get things right, as manifested in the persistence of the big philosophical questions. I will also not go into the question of the nature of philosophy and its tasks, as developed by leading thinkers such as Richard Rorty and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
4. Kitcher, “Philosophy Inside Out,” 251.
5. Danto, “Letter to Posterity.”
6. Of course, the impact can be positive—better cars, faster trains, safer airplanes—and negative—better nuclear weapons. But the point is that the sciences not only discover truth and offer knowledge but, by virtue of their practical and technological applications, directly influence how people live. I will argue below that philosophy too has a potential to impact people’s lives.
7. See Kvanvig, The Value of Knowledge.
8. See Zagzebski, “Recovering Understanding,” 235–52; Kvanvig, The Value of Knowledge.
9. Here I must confess my debt to Blackburn, Think.
10. For an account of how the search for truth and for meaning come together in philosophy, see Kitcher, “Philosophy Inside Out.”
11. Brady, “Curiosity and the Value of Truth,” 265–84.
12. Card, The Atrocity Paradigm.
13. For an overview and comparison of these theories, see Solomon, “The Philosophy of Emotions,” 3–16.
14. See Ekman and Davidson, The Nature of Emotion.
15. See Ibid.; Lewis, Haviland-Jones, and Feldman Barrett, Handbook of Emotions.
16. See Kitcher, Philosophy Inside Out, 252.
17. See Chalmers, “Why Isn’t There More Progress?”; and Dietrich, “There Is No Progress.”