Are inventions ever made possible by philosophy?
April 28, 2011 4:47 PM Subscribe
A little over a hundred years ago, William James wrote in Pragmatism that "the philosophic stage of criticism [as opposed to the scientific] ... so far gives us no new range of practical power. Locke, Hume, Berkeley, Kant, Hegel, have all been utterly sterile, so far as shedding any light on the details of nature goes, and I can think of no invention or discovery that can be directly traced to anything in their peculiar thought." (Emphasis mine.) Is it still -- or, for that matter, was it true then -- that there are no inventions made possible by the works of philosophers?
Oh that was cynical, and inappropriate from someone with little or perhaps almost negative academic credentials.
So perhaps the clarity of thought, not applied to moral or abstract issues but once a philosopher encourages clear thinking, those analytical tools applied to physical sciences have helped clarify many of the hard to understand problems with the world. I look forward to getting slammed by serious mifi thinkers.
posted by sammyo at 5:02 PM on April 28, 2011
So perhaps the clarity of thought, not applied to moral or abstract issues but once a philosopher encourages clear thinking, those analytical tools applied to physical sciences have helped clarify many of the hard to understand problems with the world. I look forward to getting slammed by serious mifi thinkers.
posted by sammyo at 5:02 PM on April 28, 2011
First of all, I'm not sure that I can stipulate to a distinction between "philosophic" and "scientific" criticism; certain Nietzsche would adamantly oppose such a distinction. One could argue that, for the critical perspective to be available to be applied to the useful sciences in the first place, it had to be created as a philosophical perspective and approach to the acquisition of knowledge.
Secondly, I think (in this passage anyway) James is trying to win the argument by the selection of terms. One tends to think of "inventions and discoveries" as falling within the category of science and technology; one tends not to think of books, music, etc., as being "invented" or "discovered" (sometimes discovered, I'll grant you that). Some societal benefits to adopting the "philosophic" critical perspective - outside the domain of science - would be, for example, adopting a critical perspective towards advertising and not falling for every product pitch you ever see. Surely this is valuable for the critical thinker, but is it an "invention"?
posted by rkent at 5:08 PM on April 28, 2011 [3 favorites]
Secondly, I think (in this passage anyway) James is trying to win the argument by the selection of terms. One tends to think of "inventions and discoveries" as falling within the category of science and technology; one tends not to think of books, music, etc., as being "invented" or "discovered" (sometimes discovered, I'll grant you that). Some societal benefits to adopting the "philosophic" critical perspective - outside the domain of science - would be, for example, adopting a critical perspective towards advertising and not falling for every product pitch you ever see. Surely this is valuable for the critical thinker, but is it an "invention"?
posted by rkent at 5:08 PM on April 28, 2011 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Secondly, I think (in this passage anyway) James is trying to win the argument by the selection of terms.
Agreed. The philosophical tradition to which James is referring is concerned primarily with disabusing its readers of particular beliefs, prejudices or misconceptions.
But if you're looking for 'philosophical inventions', the Boolean logic is a nice, discrete example.
posted by holgate at 5:16 PM on April 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
Agreed. The philosophical tradition to which James is referring is concerned primarily with disabusing its readers of particular beliefs, prejudices or misconceptions.
But if you're looking for 'philosophical inventions', the Boolean logic is a nice, discrete example.
posted by holgate at 5:16 PM on April 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
What about secularism? It's prevalence certainly wasn't completely independent of the British empiricist tradition.
posted by goethean at 5:31 PM on April 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by goethean at 5:31 PM on April 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
Calling something "sterile" implies a specific goal that the thing has failed to reach. But philosophy isn't trying to "make inventions possible."
If it's trying to do anything with respect to inventions, it's trying to explain how they're possible, given the fact that they are. Philosophy doesn't try to get ahead of the future and cause a certain kind of future to happen (with the notable exceptions of ethics and political philosophy). It's happy to look at what already exists and give a generalized explanation of that.
So no, I don't think there are inventions that are "directly" created by philosophy (if we're excluding all philosophy itself from the very definition of "invention"), but the same could be said of many other areas of intellectual thought.
posted by John Cohen at 5:55 PM on April 28, 2011
If it's trying to do anything with respect to inventions, it's trying to explain how they're possible, given the fact that they are. Philosophy doesn't try to get ahead of the future and cause a certain kind of future to happen (with the notable exceptions of ethics and political philosophy). It's happy to look at what already exists and give a generalized explanation of that.
So no, I don't think there are inventions that are "directly" created by philosophy (if we're excluding all philosophy itself from the very definition of "invention"), but the same could be said of many other areas of intellectual thought.
posted by John Cohen at 5:55 PM on April 28, 2011
The Soviet Union? Can you invent a country?
posted by mittens at 6:05 PM on April 28, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by mittens at 6:05 PM on April 28, 2011 [2 favorites]
Many years ago I visited a Shaker community in New Hampshire. Based on the history I heard and saw, the Shaker philosophy was responsible for a great many practical inventions, including closets that dried clothes for you, practical and durable furniture and rooms designed for the easy clearing of same for dancing ("shaking"), just to name two.
More generally various philosophies in different countries and times have resulted in people living their lives with a greater devotion to the benefit of society as a whole, which spawned inventions.
I would also suggest that various new ways of thinking about existence and the human situation have resulted in great new inventions, but they are masked because once they leave the thinkers' minds and enter into application, they become shrouded in mathematics and engineering. I am thinking specifically about Claude Shannon's Information Theory which ultimately transformed the earth. If I recall correctly from articles I read about him a while back, his original interest was philosophical and entailed how people communicated ideas in different situations (parties, games, semaphores). I imagine a case could also be made for Newton's original speculations being philosophical, and I believe that was also common in Greek civilization.
posted by forthright at 6:18 PM on April 28, 2011
More generally various philosophies in different countries and times have resulted in people living their lives with a greater devotion to the benefit of society as a whole, which spawned inventions.
I would also suggest that various new ways of thinking about existence and the human situation have resulted in great new inventions, but they are masked because once they leave the thinkers' minds and enter into application, they become shrouded in mathematics and engineering. I am thinking specifically about Claude Shannon's Information Theory which ultimately transformed the earth. If I recall correctly from articles I read about him a while back, his original interest was philosophical and entailed how people communicated ideas in different situations (parties, games, semaphores). I imagine a case could also be made for Newton's original speculations being philosophical, and I believe that was also common in Greek civilization.
posted by forthright at 6:18 PM on April 28, 2011
You can't dig very deep into modern information and user-interface design without hitting semiotics.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 6:26 PM on April 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by KirkJobSluder at 6:26 PM on April 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
The US Constitution was heavily influenced by Locke. Does that count?
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:06 PM on April 28, 2011
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:06 PM on April 28, 2011
Linguistics is rooted in Locke.
Literary criticism starts with Aristotle (or thereabouts we could quibble about it).
Leibniz and Descartes invented (or discovered, your choice) fields of mathematics. Pascal created the mechanical calculator.
Without the groundwork of logicians we would not have computer programs.
The theory of natural, inalienable rights. The panopticon (i.e. modern prison design).
Berkeley and Descartes were massively important in optics.
I know of philosophers working on semantic search/programing.
These are just off the top of my head and mostly from the early modern period (17th and 18th c.).
Oh, one of my favorites, St. Augustine invented original sin as we know it (more or less).
posted by oddman at 7:23 PM on April 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
Literary criticism starts with Aristotle (or thereabouts we could quibble about it).
Leibniz and Descartes invented (or discovered, your choice) fields of mathematics. Pascal created the mechanical calculator.
Without the groundwork of logicians we would not have computer programs.
The theory of natural, inalienable rights. The panopticon (i.e. modern prison design).
Berkeley and Descartes were massively important in optics.
I know of philosophers working on semantic search/programing.
These are just off the top of my head and mostly from the early modern period (17th and 18th c.).
Oh, one of my favorites, St. Augustine invented original sin as we know it (more or less).
posted by oddman at 7:23 PM on April 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
It seems clear that without David Hume, Darwin would not have come up with evolution by natural selection.
posted by jamjam at 7:27 PM on April 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by jamjam at 7:27 PM on April 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
The field of cognitive science, with applications in robotics and artificial intelligence, draws heavily from 20th century philosophy of mind.
posted by fatbird at 8:16 PM on April 28, 2011
posted by fatbird at 8:16 PM on April 28, 2011
Frege invented symbolic logic, which is one of the theoretical foundations of computing.
posted by mellifluous at 8:27 PM on April 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by mellifluous at 8:27 PM on April 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
Many of our legal apparatuses have expressed philosophical backing, i.e. criminal law policies grounded in utilitarianism vs. retributivism.
Ditto for many educational policies, esp. as they draw from people like Dewey.
Lacanian psychoanalysis has developed with heavy influence from Marx and Hegel, among others.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:51 PM on April 28, 2011
Ditto for many educational policies, esp. as they draw from people like Dewey.
Lacanian psychoanalysis has developed with heavy influence from Marx and Hegel, among others.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:51 PM on April 28, 2011
20th-21st century.... Elizabeth Lloyd's contributiOns to biology, Evelyn Fox Keller's contributions to physics, Alfred Tarski and Rudolph Carnap to math and logic, Hilary Putnam to math and computer science...
posted by terezaakarenin at 9:31 PM on April 28, 2011
posted by terezaakarenin at 9:31 PM on April 28, 2011
Inventors invent things;
Philosophers invent ways of looking at things;
(Sometimes Philosophers invent methods that help inventors invent things).
posted by ovvl at 8:20 AM on April 29, 2011
Philosophers invent ways of looking at things;
(Sometimes Philosophers invent methods that help inventors invent things).
posted by ovvl at 8:20 AM on April 29, 2011
Wittgenstein came from an engineering background and his biographers mention innovations in medical testing that he came up with while volunteering as an orderly in WWII...but it's not as if his reflections on language and the mind led to those in any obvious way.
posted by Beardman at 10:19 AM on April 29, 2011
posted by Beardman at 10:19 AM on April 29, 2011
Ovvl, most of the previous comments demonstrate that your claim does not make sense.
posted by terezaakarenin at 11:27 AM on May 2, 2011
posted by terezaakarenin at 11:27 AM on May 2, 2011
Thanks for the insight,, but I'll stand by my statement for now, which is defined by it's definitions. Some philosophers do invent things, and we can technically categorize them as 'inventor/philosopher'.
posted by ovvl at 5:10 PM on May 7, 2011
posted by ovvl at 5:10 PM on May 7, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by sammyo at 4:56 PM on April 28, 2011