Do people routinely assert that the tools and activites of your field are utterly worthless in real life? Do they go so far as to say that what you’re doing is worse than nothing, because it distracts from the real tasks that need tackling?
Or is it mostly just philosophers who get this kind of reaction?
While there are some issues on which some philosophers focus that don’t have what I’d describe as wide appeal (problem of universals, anyone?), I’d like to think at least some of what philosophy has to offer is portable to all manner of questions and thus could be useful in real life. But perhaps I’m mistaken. So, let’s kick off the debate:
Resolved: The Socratic method, as a way of approaching questions, is harmful because it occupies people in critical examination of issues and delays (or prevents altogether) action.
Alternative formulation:
Resolved: Critical thinking has failed as a tool with which to address pressing societal problems, and teaching students critical thinking as if it were the key to making the world a better place is tantamount to corrupting the youth.
Those in the front of the room: please argue the affirmative. Those in the back: please take the negative.
(Also, don’t go on about how highly ranked your debate team is — just get to the arguments.)
As a mathematician, I get it all the time. Ironically, most often from my SO – a political philosopher.
Philosophers are not alone; artists hear it, too.
And while it may be just a work of fiction, I did enjoy how the philosopher Eddie Coffin brought his education to bear in robbing banks in Tibor Fischer’s The Thought Gang.
I’ve heard it often commented by younger students of chemistry at my school that they can’t see the point in studying it anymore, and they question its applicability to “the real world”. I think the problem is they can’t see the breadth of sharing of labour and information among the various scientific disciplines, and they don’t appreciate the power of interdisciplinary areas in bringing otherwise disparate scientists closer together in their study areas. I’d imagine this is something that comes with age.
I’m not the best case study here, since I became a chemist in the same sort of way homosexuals come out of their closet – they describe it as a realisation; in my case, I was initially hooked by the organic chemistry we were studying and realised that attached closely to it was a whole wealth of wonderful things and before I knew it chemistry was my life. I’m curious to know if this is a common happenstance among scientists or if there’s a variety of routes through which one can become a scientist.
If you are a fearful person, conservative, afraid of change, and preservation of order is the paramount goal of the society, then teaching critical thinking that (hell, no!) can give the youth revolutionary ideas, is bad, bad, bad.
On the other hand, if you are bravem excited about the progress and the future, and unhappy with the status quo, then you certainly want the next generation to be able to make the world a better place.
I’m an astronomer. I do get that sometimes.
Astronomers have the advantage that lots of people think it’s cool, so they don’t quite get to the “why are we spendng money on this” question. But I do get that sometimes. “Why are we wasting money doing astronomy when we have so many problems to solve here on Earth?”
The answer I give is that surviving is important, but it’s only treading water. Humans are naturally curious about the world around them; we are driven to explore, to know. When we stop doing that, we’ve given up one of the very reasons we want to try to survive in the first place. Exploration and activation of our natural curiosity to understand is food for the soul. The tiny fraction of human effort and government money that goes to astronomy is not wasted.
(I know, I didn’t argue one of the sides of your question. I think it’s difficult to say that critical thinking has failed as a tool with which to address pressing society problems, because it has so rarely been tried…. Society problems are addressed by competing and balancing ideologies which may have no critical thinking behind them at all. The whole left/right political debate, I fear, isn’t trying to find the best way to solve societal problems, but is just a big societal problem all it’s own. See what David Brin has written about this, for instance.)
-Rob
Do people routinely assert that the tools and activites of your field are utterly worthless in real life? Do they go so far as to say that what you’re doing is worse than nothing, because it distracts from the real tasks that need tackling?
I’m a maths student specialising in pure maths. The answer to this question is a very loud “yes”…
Critical thinking has failed as a tool with which to address pressing societal problems, and teaching students critical thinking as if it were the key to making the world a better place is tantamount to corrupting the youth.
Actually, since the Enlightenment, critical thinking and its products (in particular science) have assisted in pretty much obliterating major societal problems such as starvation in the areas in which they are practised, and that’s with just an intellectual elite continually using these techniques. Imagine what could be achieved if everyone could be persuaded to discard crazy notions.
“Critical thinking has failed as a tool with which to address pressing societal problems…”
Yelling and disparaging is often very effective in damping down any useful debate.
Well, in order to conclude that it had failed, I guess I really should be able to give some examples of where it had been tried.
While it’s always tempting to conclude that things are Uniquely Bad at the current moment, I do have the sense that less of what could be called useful debate or discussion in the public policy arena is taking place compared to … well, to whenever you think the Golden Age was.
I blame everyone … the voters want simple answers to complex questions, the media flog politicians for sins real or imagined, and the politicians behave in ways worthy of flogging. It’s a truly vicious circle, and I don’t know how you break into it and disrupt it.
Case in point – my local MP. Oh, yes, I’m from Canada – MP = Member of Parliament, my federal representative. Talk to him one on one, and he’s reasoned and reasonable, willing to consider alternatives, willing even to consider the possibility of (gasp!) error on his part or the part of his party. Read his public comments, and you might wonder if it’s the same person speaking.
In other words, my diagnosis is that what we have is less a “people” problem than a “process” problem,” and process is where I believe philosophy can indeed make a contribution. Philosophy can help to find the right questions … it’s less effective at trying to point out the right answers, in my view.
(Somehow, I have to find a way to drag in the moldy old definition of a philosopher (which I’m sure you know) as a blind person who goes into an unlighted basement room at midnight looking for a black cat that isn’t there.)
My neighbor couldn’t get his head around the fact that I was permitted to use his “tax dollars” to research the staling process in muffins. Of all the work I do/have done that was the most practical to the real world! Admittedly what I tried to do didn’t really work, but at least in involved real food products.
Mind you, he complained when the city used his “tax dollars” to repave our street. I don’t know what he thinks he pays taxes for.
“…to research the staling process in muffins.”
Buy fewer and/or eat faster.
Along similar lines, the oppostion leader in Ontario has just made a prime fool of himself (well, at least I think so) in picking on a modest research grant of just over $100K for some ongoing research on flying squirrels and reproductive success related to environmental factors. Would seem to have some potential to me, and a reasonable part of the $$ will go to giving students some field experience.
His line? “With all the other priorities we have, we’re spending good money to research the sex lives of squirrels??”
“Critical thinking”? Not bloody likely … a few minutes of investigation & a modicum of critical thought would have shown him that he ought to look elsewhere for something to flog the government about.
Where’s a philosopher when you need one???
Do people routinely assert that the tools and activities of your field are utterly worthless in real life?
Hey, Rob. At least you have people thinking about things astronomical.
I think my experience is sort of a contrapositive to the stated question. When word got out at suburban social gatherings that I was spending my days becoming an astronomer, I most often got: “Oooh, I love astrology. My sign is …”.
I guess I had spent too long on the mommy-thing, PTA meetings and such, for anyone to imagine that I was re-tooling into real science.
This is not to say I don’t love the kids! But happily I was given the space (by a supportive spouse, an mostly understanding children) to “scratch the itch” that astronomy had been for me since I became enraptured while trying to avoid taking physics with my math major. It was kind of like a long distance love-affair: a long wait, but worth it.
So Dr. F-R, was your eureka moment WRT philosophy when you won arguments with your bros by reason of your superior critical thinking? Inquiring minds want to know.
When I was studying theoretical particle physics, I got asked a lot what real-world applications my work had, and I had to say I couldn’t think of any; it was usually awkward.
Once I started working on the production of consumer gadgets, nobody ever asked me “what’s it all for?” any more, but, strangely, I asked myself that question much more often. Science seemed like a noble quest even if I was only working on a tiny obscure corner of it; the production of gadgets that are marginally cooler than the ones of the previous generation seems pointless from the 50,000-foot view. But people do seem to want them, and as something of a technophile I can see the superficial attraction myself, and it pays.
I personally can’t see a problem with delaying action by thinking about it first; I’d argue that most human failings on a personal and world scale have stemmed from people rushing in with first quick fix they thought of. OK, so there are things that need to be acted upon ASAP, but surely better to act in the right way a little late than go in all guns blazing and make the situation worse. (Iraq liberation, anyone?)
I disagree so strongly with that statement that it is hard to articulate exactly why I disagree with it – it’s a deep-emotional-core-belief-thing for me, that one. In reply, I can only quote Socrates himself: ‘The unexamined life is not worth living’. Critical thinking encourages the embracing of other points of view (or it should do if it’s being done right), and a little pluralism in the man on the street would be a refreshing tonic for many societal ills of the moment, most of which could be argued to stem from the inability of people to imagine that there could be a different way of seeing something other than their own.
My two pence, anyway.