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This is Part 2 in a two-part series on two very distinct styles of philosophy<\/a>. <\/em>Click here for Part 1<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Eric Schwitzgebel doesn\u2019t want to \u201creserve the name of philosophy\u201d for non-naturalistic philosophy. The swallows of philosophy have increasingly given up on that goal. However, the many swallows housed in philosophy departments do want to preserve the label philosophy<\/em> for all \u201ctheir fallacious attempts at superscientific knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n Like Machery, I respect Schwitzgebel, and I, too, agree that his writing makes for a mind-bending and enjoyable read. But I don\u2019t think it is philosophy. It\u2019s more akin to a science-fiction novel that bends the rules of reality, but shouldn\u2019t be taken seriously as telling us anything about the actual world. Schwitzgebel, of course, is more than competent in doing actual philosophy, masterful even. He has frequently dealt in deeply naturalistic work, even conducting empirical research himself. And so he is a good foil here, since his case shows that swallows can become moles. While I think that philosophy has no need for swallows\u2014indeed, that it must \u2018purge\u2019 itself of swallow-like flights of fancy to become respectable again\u2014no one is prevented from becoming a mole and doing serious work.<\/p>\n Ironically, I did see some swallows today. I hope their reputation won\u2019t be harmed by their association with wild speculation.<\/p>\n Machery\u2019s metaphor is unfortunate, of course, for a multitude of reasons. After all, animals do not metamorphose into other species. I and many other philosophers are also animal lovers. How could anyone want to get rid of swallows? Don\u2019t we want a diverse ecosystem? Furthermore, given the choice between being a swallow soaring through the skies or a mole burrowing in the dirt, philosophers uninterested in finding themselves constrained by science will feel themselves vindicated. Swallows are free. They can explore the whole world, whereas moles can only ever explore parts of it. Worse, moles have poor vision. So it might be read as a kind of self-own of Machery to describe himself as a mole.<\/p>\n But there is a better way we can think of the difference between moles and swallows here, and it is ironically one provided by Schwitzgebel himself in the final paragraph of his book:<\/p>\n Childlike philosophy toys with wild ideas at the boundaries<\/a> of our understanding. Wild theorizing about consciousness is common. But are these ideas useful or true? Can we plug them in straightaway into our existing conceptions and put them to work? For me, if I was already sure they were false and useless, that would steal away their charm. But to be in a hurry to judge their merits, to want to expunge doubt and wonder so as to settle on a final view that we can put immediately to work, to want to close rather than open\u2014let\u2019s not be in such a rush to grow up. What\u2019s life for if there\u2019s no time to play and explore? \u2013Eric Schwitzgebel<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Rather than thinking about the two kinds of philosophers as swallows and moles, I believe it is more useful to think of them as placed at different stages in the maturity of philosophical development. Children and adults. Childlike and mature philosophy. Or in Reichenbach\u2019s terminology, the \u2018speculative philosophy\u2019 of the past and the \u2018scientific philosophy\u2019 of the future.<\/p>\n Children engage in wild speculation entirely untethered from the knowledge humanity has accumulated. Even logic is thrown out of the window. As adults, we look at their innocence and curiosity with nothing but encouragement and love. But if an adult fails to distinguish imagination<\/a> from reality, the only response left is pity. Childlike philosophy is but one step in one\u2019s development as a philosopher. But eventually it is time to grow up.<\/p>\n Earlier in his book, Schwitzgebel writes: \u201cIt would just be too sad if the world had no space for speculation about wild hypotheticals.\u201d Sad that<\/em> may be. But no one is trying to ban wild speculations. They are just no longer viewed as philosophy and should thus be confined to the fiction sections of bookstores. They can still make for an enjoyable read and even hit bestseller lists nonetheless. Mature philosophy is also not against all<\/em> speculation or diversity either. Science is filled with speculations that are motivated by what we have learned. Science is filled with bizarre and unintuitive conclusions because intuitions and common sense play little to no role in the search for truth. But what would be a truly sad and pitiful state of affairs is if \u201cwild\u201d speculations entirely unconnected from the sciences were continued to be viewed as serious philosophy within the field. For it would justifiably lead to the continued decline in the respect philosophers once held. It would undermine the status of philosophy as a serious academic field in search of truth.<\/p>\n If we are keen to experience the weird, diverse, and wonderful, one has to look no further than to the actual world. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n This is Part 2 in a two-part series on two very distinct styles of philosophy. Click here for Part 1. Eric Schwitzgebel doesn\u2019t want to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/77038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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