16. SCIENCE AND THE ANATOMY OF WISDOM One of the most important lessons we learned from our discussion in the previous session was that philosophy, like learning to fly, is primarily a skill. I want to begin today by emphasizing this point, especially since the first fourteen lectures dealt mainly with the theoretical aspects of the tree of philosophy. If your study of philosophy so far has given you the impression that philosophy is more a set of theories or doctrines than an activity, then please forget that impression right now! Philosophy is first and foremost something people do. And learning to do philosophy is in many ways similar to learning to play football or speak a language. There are always certain theories and methods that have to be learned along the way; but in the end you'll never become a good football player without repeating hours of drills out on the field, and you'll never become fluent in a language without finding someone who speaks that language and conversing with them. The examples of games and languages suggest that two indispensable steps to learning a skill are practice and imitation; and the same applies to the skill of doing philosophy. This is why I have encouraged everyone who takes this course to set aside a regular time for reflecting on philosophical issues raised in the lectures or listed in the "Questions for Further Thought" sections, and then to write insight papers in response. The insight papers are your chance to practice doing philosophy. But, unless you have a natural talent for philosophizing, mere practice is not enough to bring success. You also need someone to imitate. With this in mind, I hope that as you are attending (or reading) these lectures, you are paying more attention to the way I do philosophy than to memorizing "facts" about various philosophers. But, just as there are many different strategies for playing good football and many different ideas about how best to learn a language, so also, as we have already seen, there are many different conceptions of the best way of doing philosophy. This is why it is important for you to read the original writings of other philosophers as well (such as those I suggest in the "Recommended Readings" sections at the end of each lecture). When reading these texts, you should not think of yourself as merely learning the content of philosophical ideas, but also as learning to imitate how that philosopher does philosophy. Eventually, you should be able to do philosophy as you read, by actively employing appropriate methods in dialogue with the text you are reading. Philosophy is a skill, but it is not just any skill. Indeed, it would be easy to take the comparison between philosophy and other skills too far. For philosophy can actually be regarded as the ultimate skill, or the skill of skills. In other words, philosophy at its best, as the skill of having ideas and discovering the truth in them, provides the foundation for all other skills. This is the reason virtually every academic discipline has a "philosophy of ..." attached to it. In addition to the branches of the tree of philosophy to be considered here in Part Three--philosophy of science, philosophy of moral action, and philosophy of politics--we could study the "philosophy of religion", the "philosophy of physics" (and of other specific sciences), the "philosophy of art" (and of specific forms of art), the "philosophy of education", ... and the list goes on and on. The fact that the skill of philosophizing is the foundation of all these skills is reflected in our educational establishment by the fact that a person who masters a certain academic discipline is usually given a degree entitled "doctor of philosophy". Although most people who receive such doctoral degrees are not actually required to study any philosophy as such, the name of the degree does suggest that such a person has mastered the foundation of his or her discipline--and so, in principle, at least, ought to be able to philosophize about it. However, even skills not normally associated with university education can have a "philosophy of ...", such as the "philosophy of playing chess", the "philosophy of cooking", the "philosophy of hunting", etc. And then, of course there is the "philosophy of life", not to mention the "philosophy of death", both of which refer primarily to skills (namely, learning how to live, or learning how to die). How does this view of philosophy as the ideal skill relate to the fundamental myth of this course? In other words, if philosophy is like a tree, then what should we call the skill of doing philosophy? And what should we call the philosopher? Philosophers work with philosophy in much the same way that gardeners work with the plants in a garden: just as gardeners do not create or even construct plants, but nurture something which is already given (at least in the form of a seed), so also philosophers do not (or at least should not) see their task as inventing arguments out of nothing or as building systems up in some mechanical fashion, but as nurturing a reality which is already given (at least in the form of an idea). With this in mind, let's take this opportunity to explore our basic myth in more detail. The tree of philosophy as I am describing it in this course is quite different from the one suggested by Descartes (see Figure 6.1). In fact, the only thing these two analogies have in common is that both associate metaphysics with the roots of the tree (cf. Figure 16.1). Just as the roots of a tree are almost entirely hidden under the soil, so also the subject-matter of metaphysics is hidden almost entirely from the inquisitive gaze of our cognitive minds. Hence, the fundamental lesson we learned from studying metaphysics was that, just as a gardener who continually uproots a tree to see how its roots are growing would soon kill the tree, philosophers who refuse to recognize the necessity of our ignorance of ultimate reality and who instead claim to have reached a definite knowledge of ultimate reality, will soon inadvertently kill the very organism they are responsible for nurturing. The trunk and branches, as we have seen, are for us not physics and the other sciences, but logic and science (where "science" is taken in its original meaning to refer to any justifiable "knowledge", not just to those types of knowledge patterned on the methods of the physical scientists). Just as all the branches of a tree grow out of the trunk, all our knowledge (i.e., scientia) is expressible in words (i.e., logoi). We could add that the bark of the tree is like analytic logic, showing us the protective surface of our ways of thinking, whereas the core of the tree is like synthetic logic, taking us to the very heart and life of thought itself. Although Descartes did not carry his analogy of the tree beyond the branches, we will see in the final part of our course that the leaves of a tree can be compared to the area of philosophical inquiry usually known as "ontology" (the "study of being"). Just as the leaves of most types of trees fall off each year and grow anew in the spring in a continuous cycle of birth, growth, death, and rebirth, so also the phenomena we will study in Part Four are often fleeting and temporary. Yet, even as a tree's leaves give it its distinctive character, so also the distinctive character of human beings is determined by such experiences as beauty, love, religious experience, and death. Moreover, just as dead leaves fall to the ground and then decompose, in order to constitute the soil that nourishes the roots of the tree, so also the accumulation of generations of human experiences has constituted a tradition, which cannot be neglected without peril, since it forms the very ground in which the tree of philosophy grows. [Figure 16.1: The Tree of Philosophy] Now let's take this myth of the tree of philosophy one step further, by assuming we are nurturing a tree that bears fruit. If so, what is the nature of this fruit? I suggest we view it as the starting point of the various sciences. History tells us that most of the disciplines we now regard as "sciences" were at one time regarded as a branch of philosophy. Mathematics, for example, can be traced back to the ancient Greek philosopher named Pythagoras (whose "Pythagorean theorem" we all learned in secondary school). Sciences as diverse as Physics, Biology, Psychology, and Politics all have their origin in Aristotle's philosophical empiricism. Even Chemistry developed out of a quasi-philosophical discipline, named Alchemy, in which people who called themselves "philosophers" tried to find ways of converting various common materials into gold. (Alchemists often used the "arbor philosophicus" as a symbol of this transformation process, though this version of the tree of philosophy was very different from the one employed in this course. See Carl Jung's Psychology and Alchemy, p. 420 and Figures 122,131,135,188,221,231.) Sociology and Economics also began as aspects of philosophical systems. And again, the list goes on. Why is it that sciences so often arise in this way? The tree of philosophy provides a plausible answer: on the branches of this tree, which represent "science" in the special sense of the love of wisdom, grow various types of fruit; when one such fruit drops to the ground, rots, and then takes root, a specific science is born. This explains, incidentally, why it is hopeless to try to make philosophy itself into just another science: the tree of philosophy can never become a science, because she is the mother of all sciences! The tragedy is that these younger trees, which, as tender young shoots, were themselves protected by the shade of the tree of philosophy, often threaten to choke out their mother when they reach maturity. If the new trees that grow out of the fruit of the tree of philosophy are the specific sciences, then what are the seeds we find at the center of each fruit? The seeds can represent our ideas, or insights. I believe most, if not all, of us have many valuable insights throughout our lifetime. The problem is that most of us fail to recognize their value when they come to us, so we eat the sweet fruit of opinion, to satisfy our appetite, but we throw away the bitter seeds, which could eventually give birth to knowledge. An insight must be planted, watered, and nurtured by our constant attention if it is to grow into an idea worth considering by other people, not just held by ourselves as a personal opinion. This distinction between knowledge and opinion is an important one to understand before we proceed with our discussion of science and the love of wisdom. Towards the end of his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant suggested an interesting way of distinguishing between knowledge, belief, and opinion. He said that in order to claim we "know" something, we should have both objective (external) certainty and subjective (internal) certainty. "Belief" can have a level of certainty just as strong as knowledge, but its certainty is only subjective; if I feel certain of something, even though the external facts are not sufficient to construct an objective proof (i.e., a proof constraining other people to agree), then and only then should I say "I believe ...". In a situation where I am neither objectively nor subjectively certain, by contrast, I should regard myself as holding an opinion. Kant's distinction is actually based on two questions which construct a 2LAR: (1) Is the truth of p subjectively certain? and (2) Is the truth of p objectively certain? Kant explained three of the possible situations that arise out of these two questions, but he did not address the fourth possibility. He probably assumed it is meaningless to think of a proposition as being objectively certain, yet subjectively uncertain. Yet I do not think we should be too quick to regard this as an imperfect 2LAR. For what about ignorance? Is not ignorance the state of being subjectively uncertain about something which has in itself some kind of objective certainty? If so, then we can map these four cognitive states onto the 2LAR cross, as in Figure 16.2. [Figure 16.2: The Four Cognitive States] An insight is never a mere opinion; it is more like a sudden revelation of something new, an awareness of potential knowledge about something which, prior to having the insight, we were completely ignorant. Accordingly, once we have recognized our ignorance, philosophy requires us to focus our attention away from opinions and towards knowledge and belief. Science, by contrast, always aims for knowledge alone, in the sense of objectively provable certainty. The scientist studies the relations between particular natural phenomena by observing their general structure, and attempts to discover patterns which will eventually lead to the understanding of some natural law, according to which the phenomena in question always operate. If a phenomenon always operates in a certain way, then its activity will be predictable; and of course, one of the great attractions of science is that, whenever it truly reaches its ultimate goal of establishing objectively justifiable knowledge, it enables us to know the future! The philosophy of science, by contrast, is not interested in establishing particular items of empirical knowledge, but in studying the nature of the overall assumptions and methods of science. Thus, philosophers of science, instead of asking questions about particular phenomena, ask questions such as: What is science? What is the proper scientific method? What gives science its reliability? and Does science give us knowledge of a reality which is entirely independent of our minds? In this course we will not be able to examine these questions very thoroughly. For example, we will not be able to go deeper into the last question than we did in Lecture 7, where we saw that Kant, at least, believed all our scientific knowledge is dependent upon certain "synthetic a priori conditions" which the mind itself imposes upon objects in order to make them knowable. This aspect of his criticism of metaphysics is therefore closely related to the philosophy of science as well. In the next lecture we will look more closely at one of Kant's arguments, concerning the philosophical foundation of the reliability of science, which also has implications for the nature of the proper scientific method. But today I would like to make a few more remarks about the nature of science itself. There is a common view, especially popular among scientists and science students, that in order for anything to be true, it must be scientifically provable. This view is often called "scientism". A similar view, called "naturalism", goes even further, claiming everything that exists is material, determined, and mechanical. These two views often go together, since inhabitants of a world which is entirely "natural" (in this special sense) would be unlikely to be able to discover truth by any non-scientific methods. As we shall see in Lecture 17, there is a sense in which scientists must assume the phenomena they study are natural in something like this sense, because otherwise it would be impossible to gain objective knowledge about them. However, the naturalist takes this a step further by claiming there is nothing outside the realm of what scientists can observe. Even in the social sciences, where the knowledge established is often knowledge about people's opinions and beliefs, there is sometimes a tendency to assume the scientist's objective knowledge is somehow untainted by any stain of subjectivity. However, as Figure 16.2 suggests, true knowledge always has a subjective as well as an objective element. Indeed, the notion that we can have purely objective knowledge is dangerously misleading, since such a state actually indicates ignorance, not knowledge! The ignorance accompanying any view which makes scientific knowledge absolute can be described as, at the very least, ignorance of the mythical character of the subjective beliefs forming the very foundation of such views. The main point I want to make about views like scientism and naturalism is that, contrary to the assumption of many who hold such views, they are not a part of science, nor are they in any way necessitated by the nature of science; rather, they are philosophies of science. Scientism is, or ought to be regarded as, an epistemological theory, and naturalism, a metaphysical theory. Yet in many cases they are more a result of a one-sided prejudice, an inability to see anything from more than one point of view, than a well-reasoned philosophical foundation for science. The fact is that there are other philosophies of science, which recognize that there is more to our world than just mechanically determined material, that science is only one of many legitimate ways of discovering truth, and that these views of science provide just as good a foundation for scientific research as do their more narrow- minded alternatives. Once we realize that an absolute trust in science has nothing to do with science itself, much of the force is taken away from philosophies such as scientism and naturalism. The difference between science and the philosophy of science illustrates how the disciplines of applied philosophy relate to the kind of wisdom under consideration here in Part Three. For we have come to view "wisdom" in a general sense, as referring to the activity of knowing how to decide what counts as real; or knowing where to place the boundary between knowledge and ignorance, and where to pass beyond that boundary. In other words, loving wisdom requires us not so much to gather as many scientific facts as possible, as to come to know what we could call the Way of science. Indeed, this same notion is suggested by one of the most common definitions of wisdom, as "knowing how to use our knowledge (scientia)". One problem this raises is that applied philosophy, understood as related in this way to the love of wisdom, might be regarded by some as itself useless. Complaints such as the following have, in fact, been raised by some of my previous students: "Why study the 'philosophy of' something, when we can study the thing itself?" "Scientific facts enable us to make all kinds of technological advances; but what improvement to our technological society has ever been made by the philosophy of science?" "It's just a waste of time to study this mysterious 'way', when we could be using our precious time to study something really useful!" Chuang Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher whose ideas we met in connection with our discussion of synthetic logic, was, of course, a champion of "the Way" (called the "Tao", or "Dao", in Chinese). As we might expect, he was acutely aware of this accusation that a study of the Way is useless. On several occasions his response was to point out that a tree which we think of as "useful" is likely to have a short life. If the wood is very hard, we will want to use it for building something. If it is very soft, we will want to use it for carving something. If it has a fragrant aroma, we will want to use it to make decorative ornaments. But if the tree is useless, we are more likely to leave it alone. He concludes from this that being useless can be very useful: the apparently "useless" tree is more likely to have a long life! This application of synthetic logic may not be the most persuasive way of defending the usefulness of the tree of philosophy; but it is not without merit, for it suggests that we must revise our understanding of what counts as "useful". According to Wittgenstein, philosophy is useful only for people who are plagued with a certain kind of "mental cramp", and his task as a philosopher was to act as a "masseur" to relieve that cramp. Since it is mainly, if not exclusively, philosophers who suffer from this cramp, he saw his task as that of helping philosophers to avoid falling into meaningless ways of thinking. Once we recognize, however, that ordinary people are just as likely to apply knowledge in meaningless ways as are philosophers, the usefulness of philosophy can be more fully appreciated. Indeed, it is precisely our inability to use wisdom in an instrumental sense--e.g., as we use a fork and knife, or chopsticks, to eat--which enables it to serve as the foundation for all that is useful. Merely knowing the boundary between our knowledge and our ignorance will not enable us to build a new kind of rocket to explore the universe faster, nor will it insure that we will automatically do the right thing when we are in a morally difficult situation, nor will it empower us to make peace between the leaders of two warring nations. But it will enable us to see more clearly the difference between a meaningful and a meaningless application of these and other kinds of knowledge. Hence, we can use philosophical knowledge to help those who are engaged in such human activities not to use their technological know-how, or their moral reasoning, or their political power, in an irrational, destructive, or self-defeating way. QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER THOUGHT 1. If philosophy is the "mother of all sciences", then who is the father? 2. How can we be certain of our own uncertainty? 3. Where do insights come from? 4. Are there any absolute boundary lines--boundaries whose position can never change? RECOMMENDED READINGS 1. Saint Augustine of Hippo, Augustine: Earlier writings, tr. J.H.S. Burleigh (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1953), "On Free Will", pp.113-217. 2. John Losee, A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980). 3. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions2 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1970[1962]) 4. Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics2 (London: Fontana Paperbacks, 1983[1975]).