Well, if philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom, then in what does wisdom inhere? How are we to judge whether we have it, or others, or by which standards to even make such a judgement?

Why should we expect progress, and how would it be judged? If viewed from the perspective of Platonism, the attainment of wisdom is in some sense an individual matter, or rather, it is only the individual that can attain wisdom, by living the life of reason and virtue and by the attainment of the vision of the Good. How and by whom should such attainment be judged? If a philosophical aspirant realised such a vision, how would we know?

In some ways, your question is also a reflection on the meaning of ‘progress’, which perhaps can only be properly judged in terms of economic development, political liberty and instrumental proficiency. When viewed in those terms, progress and its absence is not hard to conceptualise, but the mere fact progress doesn’t guarantee that those living in developed economies will understand or pursue wisdom in the philosophical sense.

Philosophica' 'progress' can nowadays only refer to 'ethical' matters. Its days of contributing to 'epistemology', as for example in promoting empiricism, are long gone, where it has been superceded
by a variety of rationalities applicable to 'science'.

I'd say that the times when professional philosophers defined their profession as "pursuit of wisdom" are long gone. Quine, Davidson, Sellars, Rorty, Dennett, Searle... they are IMHO not pursuing "wisdom" - whatever that might be - but they try to be as rigorous in their endeavor as any scientist or mathematician (just look at all the formalizing, not only in logic!). It looks, and it is certainly intended to be , intellectual research, more science than art (not so with philosophers like Derrida or Heidegger, but they belong to a different tribe).

What really bugs me is that they never seem to come to a conclusion, not even in a minor detail, so that they could say: Now, this question (about, say, 'qualia') has been solved. On the contrary: the more they debate, the more questions arise, which fuels more debates... and so on.
Is this really is virtuous circle?

Philosophy's value is primarily methodological. Its progress is primarily methodological.

Sounds good, but what does this mean? Could you put some meat on these bones? Care to elaborate?
When philosophers discuss "qualia" for decades without arriving at a conclusion (any conclusion!): what kind of methodological progress is achieved in this debate?

Could you give an example? Some debates have been decided already by reason and logic but one side or the other simply doesnt acknowledge they have come up short.

Agnes Callard made a really nice case recently about how progress in philosophy consists of 'raising the costs' of asserting anything, which I quite like. In her own words;

"[The contemporary philosopher] has better interlocutors to think with than people did 10 or 100 or 1000 years ago: later philosophers always have the advantage. The more we respond to one another, the better materials we hand down to our descendants for thinking with. For example, nowadays if you want to go ahead and assert, in a philosophical context, that there aren’t any true contradictions or that what didn’t but could’ve happened is unreal, or that you are sometimes morally responsible for some of the things you do, there are philosophers who have made it hard for you to do that. Graham Priest and David Lewis and Galen Strawson have, respectively, raised the cost of saying what you’re reflexively inclined to say. They’ve made you work for it—made you think for it.

Priest, Lewis and Strawson offer the person who is willing to do this work a decrease in the entropy in their original claim, which now has to be more specific and determinate. What one had before encountering them was, one now sees, nothing more than a way of vaguely gesturing at the idea in question. Engaging with them introduces order into one’s thinking as to what exactly is meant by claiming, e.g. that one is morally responsible. If someone is willing to do the work, she can have thoughts about these common sense, intuitive claims that are better than anyone could’ve had 10 or 100 or 1000 years ago".

This doesn't necessarily exhaust what constitutes 'progress' in philosophy, but it's a very nice start I think. For myself I definitely think there are what might be considered 'milestones' in philosophy, without which we would be set back disastrously. My list is perhaps idiosyncratic, but the cleave between pre-Kant and post-Kant would mark one hopefully not too controversial step.

I'd say that the times when professional philosophers defined their profession as "pursuit of wisdom" are long gone. Quine, Davidson, Sellars, Rorty, Dennett, Searle... they are IMHO not pursuing "wisdom" - whatever that might be — Matias

While I agree that they would not characterize what they are doing as the pursuit of wisdom, it is simply not true that those days are long gone. When Wayfarer responds he is likely to mention Pierre Hadot. Much or the best work being done on Plato and Aristotle (Strauss, Klein, Benardete, and others) takes the pursuit of wisdom as fundamental. From a broader perspective so do Alexander Nahamas, Robert Solomon, and many other "professional" philosophers.

Does modern philosophy still make valuable contributions that create new knowledge, or are contemporary philosophers just busy analyzing existing knowledge? — Matias

One way to think about it:

Did any philosopher contribute anything new to philosophy in the 19th Century? Was there anyone then that made us think about issues in a new way. Do we refer to any 19th Century philosopher when talking about philosophy or should we more accurately only refer to philosophers before 19th Century, who had the original ideas?

Did any philosopher contribute anything new to philosophy in the 20th Century? Was there anyone then that made us think about issues in a new way. Do we refer to any 20th Century philosopher when talking about philosophy or should we more accurately only refer to philosophers before 20th Century, who had the original ideas?

If you answer "yes" to both 19th and 20th Century philosophy, why would you think nothing would happen in the field in the 21st Century?

I'd say that the times when professional philosophers defined their profession as "pursuit of wisdom" are long gone. — Matias

I think the idea of there being wisdom is nowadays treated rather coyly, because of its religious overtones; but that in traditional philosophy ‘sapientia’ was deemed as important as ‘scientia’ - kind of an equal partner, if you like. Virtue ethics, and Aristotle generally, might provide an example; as would the tradition of Catholic philosophy, generally (but again, not regarded favourably in the secular academy for obvious reasons.)

One thing to consider is that traditional philosophy is not necessarily forward-looking, as the ideal to which it aspires might be provided by ancestral wisdom or revealed truth, and the passage of time represents a 'falling away' rather than 'progress towards', so negating the very idea of 'progress'.

And also, there's a sense that the ‘idea of progress’ itself originated with belief in the imminent second coming (just as an original impetus for science was as a corrective to the intellectual disability resulting from the Fall). The idea of progress is very much a product of the Christian notion a linear history (arguably now transposed to a scientific key wherein ‘heaven’ is represented by (the hope of) interstellar travel).

The post mentioned above is also well worth reading, particularly this paragraph:

It is not the point of philosophy to end philosophy, to ‘solve’ the deep questions so that people can stop thinking about them. It is the point of people to think about these questions, and the job of philosophers to rub their faces in that fact. Of all of philosophy’s achievements, perhaps the greatest one is just sticking around in the face of the fact that, from day one, anyone who has plumbed the depths of our ambitions has either joined us or … tried to silence, stop or kill us. This is an “old debate” indeed.

Quite true. Also consider in this context the Buddhist principle that Buddhism itself, as a philosophical paradigm, serves an ultimately pragmatic purpose, namely, as a raft to 'cross the river of suffering'. And what becomes of 'the raft' when that purpose is served? Why, it's left behind! And there's also a sense, therefore, in which the 'abandoned raft' of the Dharma comprises the whole vast edifice of Buddhist iconography, liturgy and sacred texts; represented iconographically (or iconoclastically?) in Zen Buddhism by the figure of the patriarch Hui Neng literally tearing up the sacred texts:



(This has sometimes been compared to Wittgenstein's aphorism that the student 'must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after climbing up it'.)

What really bugs me is that they never seem to come to a conclusion, not even in a minor detail, so that they could say: Now, this question (about, say, 'qualia') has been solved. — Matias

As long as the notion of the ontological primacy of brain over mind persists, then so too will the puzzle of "qualia". Many have long since come to the conclusion that the paradigm is false, and that solves it.

Does modern philosophy still make valuable contributions that create new knowledge, or are contemporary philosophers just busy analyzing existing knowledge? — Matias

I'd say that the times when professional philosophers defined their profession as "pursuit of wisdom" are long gone. Quine, Davidson, Sellars, Rorty, Dennett, Searle... they are IMHO not pursuing "wisdom" - whatever that might be — Matias


While I agree that they would not characterize what they are doing as the pursuit of wisdom, it is simply not true that those days are long gone. — Fooloso4

One way to think about it:

Did any philosopher contribute anything new to philosophy in the 19th Century? Was there anyone then that made us think about issues in a new way. Do we refer to any 19th Century philosopher when talking about philosophy or should we more accurately only refer to philosophers before 19th Century, who had the original ideas?

Did any philosopher contribute anything new to philosophy in the 20th Century? Was there anyone then that made us think about issues in a new way. Do we refer to any 20th Century philosopher when talking about philosophy or should we more accurately only refer to philosophers before 20th Century, who had the original ideas?

If you answer "yes" to both 19th and 20th Century philosophy, why would you think nothing would happen in the field in the 21st Century? — ssu

Thinking of philosophy as a science, as knowledge, opens the question as to what counts as knowledge. There is the old etymological definition of philosophy as "love of wisdom" as noted by @Fooloso4; but what constitutes wisdom? Is it a form of knowing? If it is, then the further question is whether it is a kind of "knowing-that" or "knowing-how" or both.

It seems the understanding of philosophy as wisdom is an understanding which sees philosophy as predominately an ethical activity, a practice through which we may come to know how to live well. But then, on that model, philosophy is an individual pursuit, and there could only be thought to be general progress if it is the case that people are ethically wiser today than they have been in the past.

It would seem that philosophy is also something else apart from the pursuit of ethical wisdom since, as @Matias notes, that is not the way that most, or even many, professional philosophers define their field today. Philosophy does not give us empirical knowledge of the world as the sciences do. The natural sciences give us knowledge of the natural world through observation, conjecture and experiment. The human sciences give us, or at least purport to give us, empirical knowledge.

So, if philosophy gives us knowledge, then what could that knowledge be? Philosophy gives us knowledge of how we think and of what the limitations of our thinking are, and it gives us this knowledge through analysis of linguistic practices and also through introspective analysis of our intuitions of meaning and reference. This is the domain of analytic philosophy, philosophy of language and ordinary language philosophy. So, analytic philosophy presents us with new ways to think about these epistemological and semantic issues.

Then there are the phenomenological and pragmatic approaches which open up new ways of thinking about human experience and knowledge itself. I think what @ssu writes, quoted above, asks the right question Thinking about the greatest contributions to philosophy in the 19th and 20th Centuries, the progress seems to consist in the achievement of new and different ways of thinking about the world and our relation to it.

It seems reasonable to regard these new ways of thinking as knowledge, even if no question is ever finally and definitively answered, even if only on account of the necessary contextual relativity of different ways of thinking, We should not expect final and definite answers at all, even in the sciences, where knowledge is by definition fallible and open to potentially endless revision.

Zhuangzi figured you either got it or you didn't.
And then spent pages upon pages torturing those who did not. Explaining in detail where people get it wrong.
There is a disconnect between the different expressions.

I'd say that the difference between philosophy in the 19th century (and , say, the first half of the 20th too) and the situation today is that at that time philosophers used to be also public intellectuals, they opened - as philosophers - new horizons of thoughts and then fed these insights into the public debate, whereas professional philosophy has become during the last decades a rather esoteric occupation: professionals sitting in their "ivory tower" and their "bubbles" talking at each other, citing each other, debating ultra-subtle questions that have no significance for the public.
This came to my mind because Habermas - who always has been the 'public intellectual' par excellence celebrates these days his ninetieth birthday

Don't overlook Jules Evans - he's made a splash, and a living, as a working philosopher. https://g.co/kgs/T6zikf . Alain de Botton is another - he's got no academic posting and has succeeded solely as an author/presenter on philosophy.

So, if philosophy gives us knowledge, then what could that knowledge be? Philosophy gives us knowledge of how we think and of what the limitations of our thinking are, and it gives us this knowledge through analysis of linguistic practices and also through introspective analysis of our intuitions of meaning and reference. This is the domain of analytic philosophy, philosophy of language and ordinary language philosophy. So, analytic philosophy presents us with new ways to think about these epistemological and semantic issues. — Janus

We find all of this in Plato and Aristotle.

Are you claiming that there are no new ideas in all of analytic philosophy; that there is nothing significant there which cannot be found in Plato and Aristotle? If so, I wonder how you could substantiate such a claim.

What about phenomenology, existentialism, pragmatism and post-modern thought? Is all of that to be found in Plato and Aristotle too?

Are you claiming that there are no new ideas in all of analytic philosophy; that there is nothing significant there which cannot be found in Plato and Aristotle? — Janus

No. I made no such claim. What I am claiming is that the things you mentioned can be found there. I should have added that these things are not the exclusive domain of analytic philosophy either. These same issues are addressed in Continental philosophy.

I am not claiming that nothing has changed or that they saw or thought or conceived of things in the same way as an analytic philosopher does, but then, not all analytic philosophers see things in the same way either.

The topic question is about progress. While it is true that analytic philosophy has a great deal of technical rigor, it is not at clear what its relevance is outside its argumentative circle. Is that progress?

No. I made no such claim. What I am claiming is that the things you mentioned can be found there. I should have added that these things are not the exclusive domain of analytic philosophy either. These same issues are addressed in Continental philosophy. — Fooloso4

But I was claiming that significant new ideas (which are "the things I mentioned") can be found in modern philosophy, (and not merely in analytic philosophy), so it seemed that you were counter-claiming that no significant new ideas can be found in modern philosophy and that it is all to be found in Plato and Aristotle. So, it seems I misunderstood you, but I remain puzzled as to why you responded to my claim in that case.

I also agree that some of the concerns of analytic philosophy are also addressed (in quite different ways) in "Continental" philosophy and that of course analytic philosophers don't all think exactly the same thoughts.

The progress of philosophy (or one aspect of it at least) consists, for me, in the generation of new ideas, of interesting new ways to look at things, and that was the main point I was making. So what is of interest to the analytic philosopher may well not be of much interest to anyone totally unfamiliar with, or totally uninterested in, the history of analytic philosophy, but that goes without saying. You could saying something similar about any specialized pursuit: quantum physics or ornithology for example, but I doubt anyone would deny that progress is made in those fields.

.

One thing to consider is that traditional philosophy is not necessarily forward-looking, as the ideal to which it aspires might be provided by ancestral wisdom or revealed truth, and the passage of time represents a 'falling away' rather than 'progress towards', so negating the very idea of 'progress'. — Wayfarer

This is a good point. While I do believe that philosophy progresses in various important ways, I also believe in something like human nature. We've been talking to ourselves for a long time now, and it's plausible indeed that some of the most vital things that we can hope to grasp have been grasped and recorded again and again. I relate this to the intersection of religion and philosophy, and I am hardly the first to do so.

The more I live, think, and read...the less original I realize myself to be. But this isn't a source of pain. Because the insights are good even if I can't claim them.

In light of what you say here, you are not agreeing with @Wayfarer that we have "fallen away" from those insights which you see as belonging to human nature, though.

As I said in the other thread, I see the falling away as consisting, not in the advance of naturalism over supernaturalism, but in the increasing objectification of ourselves and nature, due mostly to the creeping capitilization, monetization, commodification and propertization of the natural world, and the concomitant widening gulf between ourselves and nature.

If there is an environmental or economic crisis which ends civilization in its current form, with all its indulgences and conveniences, many, or perhaps even most, people will be helpless insofar as they have little or no practical skill. It is in this sense that we have, due to the self-indulgence which comes with prosperity, convenience and comfort, become separated from nature in ways which are dangerous for our long-term survival.

This is the one problem which is little addressed in philosophy, but which I think is of the most vital significance, and it is an ethical problem, a problem concerning phronesis, concerning how best to live. The life of the modern consumer is, our lives are, becoming increasingly unsustainable, neurotic and tragic and this most important of all questions is the very one which almost everyone ignores, preferring to distract themselves with self-indulgent fantasies of physical, intellectual or supernatural control, self-cultivation and achievement.

To change our whole way of thinking about things as "yours" and "mine"; now that would be real progress!

In light of what you say here, you are not agreeing with Wayfarer that we have "fallen away" from those insights which you see as belonging to human nature, though. — Janus

That's true. I don't believe in the fall. @Wayfarer is our resident reactionary. While I do like some of the old school thinkers, I'd really miss 'Heidgenstein' and many others.

I see the falling away as consisting, not in the advance of naturalism over supernaturalism, but in the increasing objectification of ourselves and nature, due mostly to the creeping capitilization, monetization, commodification and propertization of the natural world, and the concomitant widening gulf between ourselves and nature — Janus

I relate to what you say, but I do think there's a connection. Does culture die into civilization? I for one can no longer experience reality in the same way as an atheist. It's all a 'dream.' The species itself will pass eventually. And there's the issue of the 'other.' It seems that groups are constituted by an exclusion.

I can think this abstractly and do as the others do, pay my rent, try to be 'good' in various ways. The hustle is haunted by a laughter from the back row or the balcony. It's those two old men from the muppets. Sometimes I forget my next line and join them.

This is the one problem which is little addressed in philosophy, but which I think is of the most vital significance, and it is an ethical problem, a problem concerning phronesis, concerning how best to live. The life of the modern consumer is, our lives are, becoming increasingly unsustainable, neurotic and tragic and this most important of all questions is the very one which almost everyone ignores, preferring to distract themselves with self-indulgent fantasies of physical, intellectual or supernatural control, self-cultivation and achievement. — Janus

Well I can relate to all of this. In school I took some philosophy classes that were all about the baldness of the present king of France. And that kind of philosophy is a bore, at least for me.

What you are criticizing reminds me of Epicurus. And I mentioned in another post the goal of feeling free and standing tall --of getting some distance from the rat race and Instagram's Vanity Fair. I'm talking about a state of feeling complete and unhurried, of being able to affirm the world and feel some gratitude for one's life. Some of this is a practical matter, but an unwise person can't even enjoy their free time when they have it.

Where I can't follow you is the inclusion of 'self-cultivation' on your list as a kind of vice or folly. And 'fantasies of achievement' are only as bad as the details of the fantasy. Obsessing over fame or great wealth is ugly, but what about the goal of finding a more suitable way of making a living? Of working with or for better people? Or of living within one's means and not being the slave of debt? Or having the discipline to eat healthy food? Ethically produced food?

I think happy people are usually invested in a suitable project or set of projects.

To change our whole way of thinking about things as "yours" and "mine"; now that would be real progress! — Janus

Hmm. Well I like this idea when applied to ideas. But I'm skeptical about the transcendence of private property. There are just too many jerks in the world.

But I'm skeptical about the transcendence of private property. There are just too many jerks in the world. — g0d

Yes, I wouldn't advise giving everything away while the present condition of the world continues to prevail. I was more talking about the steady creep of monetization over the centuries being a major factor in our alienation from nature.

Nature is alien.

Yes, to us it does seem more or less alien; that's what I've been saying.

> If we assume that philosophers do create new knowledge

Philosophers rather discover new questions.

Success means that the question can actually be answered in one of the epistemically-restricted subsets of philosophy (math, science, ...). An answer that stays within general philosophy, is usually disappointing in terms of justification.

I was saying it has always been so. We’re probably less fearful of what we don’t know today as we generally live more comfortable lives. We’ve come to understand a lot about how the world functions and fit ourselves into many different niches.

Money, as an abstraction of economic requirements, is perfectly natural and observable on all manner of biological levels - we can apply the term ‘resources’ here though instead of ‘money’.

How could you possibly know it has always been so? We are way more fearful of nature today than hunter-gatherers were; just think of what the most likely reaction of the average person would be to being lost in the wilderness or even having to spend a night in the bush. Through distancing ourselves from nature we have come to possess far less practical understanding of it than the hunter-gatherer.

I was referring to monetization, not money per se; but, in any case, I have no idea what you mean by saying that "money, as an abstraction of economic requirements, is perfectly natural and observable on all manner of biological levels - we can apply the term ‘resources’ here though instead of ‘money’".

I know so because nature is alien. It is our environment. I guess there is a good argument against my point if we look at humanity’s changing cosmological perspective and how we’ve abandoned the finite view of existence for the infinite view - there fear is certainly something that becomes abyssal/abysmal.

Depends exactly how far back you were thinking? We have a far better understanding of nature today than 2000, or even 10,000 or 50,000 years ago. I’d say we’ve lost respect for the force of ‘nature’ because lives are easier now and we’re not worried about being eaten, dying due to dental problems or overly concerned with be taken away or possessed by ‘spirits’.

I’m guarding against the idea of some ‘noble savage’ at one with the trees and animals.

Monetization is just a means of abstract valuation. It’s perfectly natural to assess the value of resources - all animals do this on some level. Our priorities have changed today thanks to our ability to manipulate our surroundings. That is all I meant.

Someone with an average education would fair well in the wild if they possessed the same rudimentary tools as bushmen - granted it would take some time to adjust, but not a lifetime.

I know so because nature is alien. It is our environment. — I like sushi

Why does it follow that because nature is our environment it is alien? In any case there is no real separation between the human and the natural environment. The very idea of it being "our environment with its implicit notion of separation is a fairly modern idea. On the contrary I see even modern cities as being part of nature; the only separation between us and nature is a psychological or philosophical one This notion probably began with agriculture where ownership and the struggle against the intrusion of wild nature began. Agriculture is born of the idea of imposing control on the wild, and it is no surprise that the wild would henceforth be seen as "other".

Our priorities have changed today thanks to our ability to manipulate our surroundings. That is all I meant. — I like sushi

Sure, and our worldview, our understanding of nature, has also changed due to our ability to "manipulate our surrounding". And that is what I meant.

It’s perfectly natural to assess the value of resources - all animals do this on some level. — I like sushi

I doubt animals do that; I think such a valuation requires symbolic language. Also there's a difference between valuing and evaluating which I think is pertinent here. Seeing nature as a resource to be used rather than as a provider to be trusted and venerated is the kind of gestalt shift I have in mind.