Progress in Philosophy
Please join us at our next meeting of the University of Hartford Philosophy Club this Wednesday, Nov. 10 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. in Room 420 Auerbach Hall at the University of Hartford. You can also join the meeting online by clicking on the WebEx link below.
Note: If the link above is not functional, then cut and paste it into your search line or URL line and hit “enter”.
Meeting Password: Alive CwqT3MBG33 Toll-free call-in number: 1-877-668-4493
Meeting Number (in case calling in): 171 628 0135
This week, Brian Skelly will present the topic:
Progress in Philosophy – A Reflection on Socratic “Skepticism”
Philosophers agonize over the puzzling question of what constitutes progress in their field. In recent times, the phrase “settled science’ has come into vogue to refer at least obliquely to progress in science. In contrast, any talk of “settled philosophy” seems absurd, leading a cynic perhaps to conclude that philosophy, unlike science, is a waste of time.
Nonetheless, the activity of philosophizing is often if not usually experienced as being inspiring, enlightening, and rewarding. Yet when we come together in philosophical discussion of controversial matters – which is what, after all, philosophy is all about - we are pained by how apparently widely divergent people’s thoughts and even language may be at the outset that we might wonder why, after all these centuries of sustained culture, we have not achieved a more stable and well-defined common grounds for philosophical discourse.
Discomfort about this topic is only exacerbated by our occasional comparison of philosophy with science, which surely seems to have shown progress over the centuries. This has prompted some philosophers in recent times to tie their wagons to science either by urging philosophy to reorganize itself in the image of science; or by considering science as the actual starting point – or ending point! - of philosophy; or by considering philosophy to exist in the service of science.
The trouble of defining progress in philosophy goes all the way back to its Socratic roots, where Plato – very much a non-skeptical philosopher himself - faithfully depicts his teacher Socrates on multiple occasions as pronouncing what sounds like a radical skepticism: “All I know is that I know nothing”. This ancient reference is often used by modern skeptics – and some ancient ones as well – as a sort of certification of pedigree, even though their versions of skepticism have little in common with the thought of the great master.
These are the two points of irritation with which those who seek an answer to the question of progress in philosophy have to contend: that Socrates himself seems to have been a radical skeptic, and that another field of inquiry spawned from philosophy: science – seems to have progressed considerably down through the centuries. One might reasonably wonder how there can be any progress to a field in which skepticism reigns right from the beginning. Moreover, one might well wonder whether after science was spawned from philosophy, anything remained in the latter of progressive value.
I will attempt to establish here that a deeper reflection on so-called Socratic skepticism does not, in fact, undercut the prospects for progress in philosophy, but to the contrary gives us a way of more acutely envisioning it. Moreover, a closer study of progress in science reveals, on the one hand, good reasons why science progresses, albeit only in a practical sense, in a way philosophy by design not only can’t but shouldn’t; and on the other hand, that the kind of theoretical progress that science makes is something shared in common with philosophy. (See attached for full document).
An ongoing weekly tradition at the University since 2001, the University of Hartford Philosophy Club is a place where students, professors, and people from the community at large meet as peers. Sometimes presentations are given, followed by discussion. Other times, topics are hashed out by the whole group.
Presenters may be students, professors, or people from the community. Anyone can offer to present a topic. The mode of presentation may be as formal or informal as the presenter chooses.
Please be a part of us as we continue this great tradition live and online.
Brian D. Skelly, Philosophy
413-273-2273