The best ethical philosophers give us the foundations of utility calculation, clarify when we can (and can't) derive facts and values from each other, generate heuristics and frameworks within which to do politics and resolve disputes over goals and priorities. The best metaphysicians give us scientific reasoning, novel interpretations of quantum mechanics, warnings of scientists becoming overreliant on some component of common sense, and new empirical research programs (Einstein's most important work consisted of metaphysical thought experiments). The best logicians and linguistic philosophers give us the propositional calculus, knowledge of valid and invalid forms, etc., etc. Even if you think the modalists and dialetheists are crazy, you can be very thankful to them for developing modal and paraconsistent logics that have valuable applications outside of traditional philosophical disputes.
And, of course, philosophy in general is useful for testing the tools of our trade. We can be more confident of and skilled in our reasoning in specific domains, like physics and electrical engineering and differential calculus, when those tools have been put to the test in foundational disputes. A bad Philosophy 101 class can lead to hyperskepticism or metaphysical dogmatism, but a good Philosophy 101 class can lead to a healthy skepticism mixed with intellectual curiosity and dynamism. Ultimately, the reason to fund 'philosophy' departments is that there is no such thing as 'philosophy;' what the departments in question are really teaching is how to think carefully about the most difficult questions. The actual questions have nothing especially in common, beyond their difficulty, their intractability before our ordinary methods.
I'm a bit worried that your conception of philosophy is riding on the coat tails of long-past-philosophy where the distinction between philosophy, math, and science were much more blurred than they are now. Being generous, do you have any examples from the last few decades (that I can read about)?
I'll agree with you that having some philosophical training is better than none in that it can be useful in getting a solid footing in basic critical thinking skills, but then if that's a philosophy department's purpose then it doesn't need to be funded beyond that.
Consider these two versions of the famous trolley problem:
Here it is: a standard-form philosophical thought experiment. In standard analytic philosophy, the next step is to engage in conceptual analysis — a process in which we use our intuitions as evidence for one theory over another. For example, if your intuitions say that it is "morally right" to throw the switch in both cases above, then these intuitions may be counted as evidence for consequentialism, for moral realism, for agent neutrality, and so on.
Alexander (2012) explains:
In particular, notice that philosophers do not appeal to their intuitions as merely an exercise in autobiography. Philosophers are not merely trying to map the contours of their own idiosyncratic concepts. That could be interesting, but it wouldn't be worth decades of publicly-funded philosophical research. Instead, philosophers appeal to their intuitions as evidence for what is true in general about a concept, or true about the world.
In this sense,
But anyone with more than a passing familiarity with cognitive science might have bet in advance that this basic underlying assumption of a core philosophical method is... incorrect.
For one thing, philosophical intuitions show gender diversity. Consider again the Stranger and Child versions of the Trolley problem. It turns out that men are less likely than women to think it is morally acceptable to throw the switch in the Stranger case, while women are less likely than men to think it is morally acceptable to throw the switch in the Child case (Zamzow & Nichols 2009).
Or, consider a thought experiment meant to illuminate the much-discussed concept of knowledge:
When presented with this vignette, only 41% of men say that Peter "knows" there is a watch on the table, while 71% of women say that Peter "knows" there is a watch on the table (Starman & Friedman 2012). According to Buckwalter & Stich (2010), Starmans & Friedman ran another study using a slightly different vignette with a female protagonist, and that time only 36% of men said the protagonist "knows," while 75% of women said she "knows."
The story remains the same for intuitions about free will. In another study reported in Buckwalter & Stich (2010), Geoffrey Holtman presented subjects with this vignette:
In this study, only 35% of men, but 63% of women, said a person in this world could be free to choose whether or not to murder someone.
Intuitions show not only gender diversity but also cultural diversity. Consider another thought experiment about knowledge (you can punch me in the face, later):
Only 26% of Westerners say that Bob "knows" that Jill drives an American car, while 56% of East Asian subjects, and 61% of South Asian subjects, say that Bob "knows."
Now, consider a thought experiment meant to elicit semantic intuitions:
When presented with this vignette, East Asians are more likely to take the "descriptivist" view of reference, believing that John "is referring to" Schmidt — while Westerners are more likely to take the "causal-historical" view, believing that John "is referring to" Gödel (Machery et al. 2004).
Previously, I asked:
For one thing, we would never assume that people of all kinds would share our intuitions.
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