High-profile science champions such as Stephen Hawking, Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye The Science Guy have all gone on record to have a pop at philosophy as past its sell-by date, now that we have SCIENCE to tell us the truth about the world – even going as far as to proclaim the centuries-old discipline, like jazz or guitar rock*, is dead. Doctor of philosophy James Wakefield and ex-philosophy teacher Thomas Morton have found themselves on the wrong end of this frustrating pub conversation and, frankly, take umbrage at what seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference in what science and philosophy respectively do. In this talk they intend to gather up their "beefs" and air them – in the process outlining a personal take on what philosophy is all about, while making a case for why it is not going away and is worth paying attention to. Even for scientists. (*perhaps tellingly at least one of the speakers listens to both)

2. “What has philosophy given the
world?”
Politics
Ethics
Formal logic
SCIENCE

3. “What do you imagine philosophy
is?”

4. “What do you imagine philosophy
is?”
From ancient Greek: “philo”, meaning love, and
“sophos”, meaning wisdom – the love of
wisdom.
Oxford definition: “The study of the
fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and
existence, especially when considered as an
academic discipline.”

5. Greeks (from “What is
the universe made
of?” to “What is a
‘good’ life?”)
Medieval religious scholars
What can we know and how can we know it?
The human condition:
psychology, consciousness,
free will, existence in general
and our place in the world
Ontology:
what exists and what is it anyway?
Logic and language: how do they work?
Politics and ethics again
Cultural studies and criticism:
what is actually going on in
our society and others,
could it or should it be different?

6. What philosophy is not
• NOT one method
• NOT tied to any particular subject
• NOT tied to any particular time or culture
• NOT tied to a functional end goal or practical
application
• NOT just “what I believe” (Marilyn Monroe quotes,
touchy feely platitudes, dogmatic religion or politics,
random cute “thinky thoughts” that are not pursued or
subjected to any scrutiny)
• What distinguishes philosophy is that it is rigorous,
structured, rational, analytical thought – even if you
think it is wrong!

8. Contention #1:
“Philosophy” is a catch-all term
for the history of analytical
human thought

9. Reponse to Bill Nye The Science
Guy
Olivia Goldhill in Quartz:
• “The video, which made the entire US philosophy community
collectively choke on its morning espresso, is hard to watch,
because most of Nye’s statements are wrong. Not just kinda wrong,
but deeply, ludicrously wrong...”
• “Nye’s remarks, which conflate ideas from completely different
areas of philosophy, are a caricature of the common misconception
that philosophy is about asking pointlessly “deep” questions,
plucking an answer out of thin air, and then drinking some pinot
noir and writing a florid essay.”

10. Reponse to Bill Nye The Science
Guy
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry in The Week:
• “To argue that philosophy is useless is to do philosophy.”
• “More to the point all of the institutions that make modern
life possible, very much including experimental science, but
also things like free-market capitalism, the welfare state,
liberal democracy, human rights, and more, are built on
philosophy. All of these things are cultural institutions:
They exist because many people find certain ideas valuable
and decide to act on that basis.”
• “If the ideas that underlie these cultural institutions
become lost, or misunderstood, those cultural institutions
might malfunction. This is very much the case of science.”

11. “What do you imagine science to
be?”
• Science is a method - what unites its disparate
fields, unlike philosophy.

12. “What do you imagine science to
be?”
• But science is not as united
as the layman thinks – all
fields tend to be deeply
divided by rival schools with
different outlooks competing
for supremacy.
• Much of what is taken as
“hard fact” by the layman
(because a man in a white
coat said it) is not taken that
way in the academic field –
there is a lot of uncertainty,
theorising and “best fit”
interpretation going on with
a only a relatively small core
of undisputed “fact”.

13. • The facts themselves do not tell us what meaning we
should take from them – interpretation and meaning
is put on by us afterwards, in applying how the facts
relate to us and what relevance they appear to have to
our current lives, given our other knowledge – other
knowledge which in turn is filtered by interpretation.
• When scientists start banging on about the “meaning
of life” or the “ultimate TRUTH”, they are leaping
beyond what science is supposed to be about or
equipped to do.
• Do not confuse the pseudo-philosophical bluster with
the actual science (amateurs!).

16. Levels of thinking
Eg 1: Morality

17. Levels of
Thinking
Eg 2: God
Notice the more “hard-core” philosophical questions get,
the less “practical” they are

18. Contention #2:
Philosophy, like art, is defined by
being removed from practical
concerns – in fact a focus on
practicality can undermine it

19. Contention #3:
BUT: If you say hard-core
philosophical questions are
pointless to think about, you are
essentially saying it’s pointless
for individuals, societies, cultures
etc to BE SELF AWARE.

20. Philosophy and “THE TRUTH”
If philosophy was only about discovering “objective facts” about
the objective world, then – Yes! – science does that much
better.
But even science is riddled with everyday assumptions and
concepts that are virtually never analysed outside of
philosophy.
As every philosopher knows our even our basic concepts often
start to unravel on scrutiny, proving to be much more
complex than assumed, as elusive as trying to catch a cloud,
or simply liable to fall apart all together.
These concepts underpin everything about the human condition,
the human world, the human experience – and are the
product of “us” in relation to the “world”. As such thinking
and talking about them is a perfectly valid way to unpick and
analyse them, for greater understanding.

21. Contention #4:
The focus of philosophy is not
simply on pinning down objective
facts – rather it is about
analysing the very concepts that
make up how we engage,
experience and interact with the
world and others.

23. Contentions Summary:
• 1: “Philosophy” is a catch-all term for the history of
analytical human thought
• 2: Philosophy is removed from practical concerns
• 3: If you say philosophical questions are pointless,
you are saying it’s pointless for individuals and
societies to BE SELF AWARE.
• 4: The focus of philosophy is not simply on pinning
down objective facts – rather it is about analysing
the very concepts that make up how we engage,
experience and interact with the world and others.

24. Final contention:
It’s about the journey, man, YOLO
You rarely get a “right” answer in philosophy, but
you can certainly uncover “wrong” – ie
arguments that simply don’t work, concepts that
are inadequate or flawed.
Philosophy is not just about bagging a fact as an
end result – it is as much about the deeper
understanding gained by analysing and unpicking
the concepts we use and assumptions we make –
of the structure of our thought and the world as
we experience it.