tiistai 29. syyskuuta 2015

There is nothing radical about anti-philosophical scientism

In fact, pro-philosophical, armchair-friendly traditionalism is much more radical. Contemporary philosophers' projects are downright hubristic:

"From our perspective the ambition of contemporary metaphysicians [and their project of describing the fundamental nature of reality by the power of pure reason] is much greater than ours. Where we seek to synthesise into a unified picture insights from fundamental physics and the special sciences, based on the empirical knowledge accumulated by a vast collective effort, many metaphysicians imagine they can discover deep general truths while paying no attention to the results and conclusions of their colleagues in the lab. This is not just ambition but hubris." (Ladyman & Ross, Protecting Rainforest Realism, 2010)

If analytic philosophy had never existed and somebody would invent it now, when we already have contemporary science, and demand a place for it in our best universities, she would be considered radical and crazy. Given how successful science is and how unreliable intuitions are, why on earth would we need an intuition-based extra-scientific discipline to provide us with competing or complementary pictures of reality?

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