Philosophy discussion

If philosophy is indeed not dead, wherein lies its future? Wild speculation is welcome.

Note: This thread is intended as a sequel to the "Philosophy is Dead" thread. Some overlap, therefore, is in order, as any answer to the current OP necessarily makes reference, if only implicitly, to one's account of where the current crisis in philosophy lies, which was also the theme of that previous thread. I think though that the two can be more fruitfully answered if dealt with separately.

Although thought-provoking, your question is essentially unanswerable as it is the very nature of philosophy to reach out into the great unknown. Starting from our present situation, steeped in religion (calcified philosophy, if you will), the philosopher’s task is to open new doors to thinking that stretch the imagination into new realms. So where philosophy will go next is anyone’s guess.

Some philosophical questions don't have a specific answer, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be asked. Its future thus lies partly in its past. To me, moral philosophy is one example.

It appears morality and ethics have been punted to the social sciences while professional philosophers dwell on increasingly abstract questions of language and such. But in dealing with an ancient question such as "What should man do?" I have trouble seeing what it is the social sciences are supposed to do with it that philosophy can't. While speculative philosophy is important, especially now, philosophy is best equipped to deal with essentially human problems and this will remain important far into the future. A future in which that was not the case would entail a non-human outcome for mankind, and such a state of affairs would in turn be grist for speculative philosophy.

Re: Tim's "where philosophy will go next is anyone’s guess."

The OP wasn't really intended to extort prophetic visions out of people (though those are always fun), but rather to glean what sort of philosophical projects different folks considered to be still relevant, or, even better, to be crucial to helping philosophy move past its current state of disarray.

I found it interesting that the Philosophy is Dead thread is one of the most popular on here - obviously this is a preoccupation for many people. Many seem to sense, instinctively, that this perspective poses an issue or a possible threat, even though they themselves strongly disagree with it (as I do). There seems to be something to it that makes most deniers adopt a defensive posture. This implies there is a strength to the attack that must be acknowledged and dealt with (because critiques tend not to go away if we just ignore them). So I came to wonder: Why -is it- that it seems to so many thinking people that the only future philosophy has lies in a maggoty grave, or perhaps as a museum specimen, as a kind of archaic relic of human thought? And what kind of projects and strategies can philosophy set for itself in the future to surpass this state and attain greater relevance for thinking people? How can it come to define itself and compete more adequately in the postmodern, interdisciplinary arena?

I am not suggesting either that the way to the future lies in discarding the past. Forgetting tradition is intellectual amputation. But upholding the relevance of tradition doesn't really answer the question of future direction.

The future of Philosophy is intimately tied to the physical Sciences.

We are JUST beginning to discover the hypercomplex bioelectrochemical symphony that is life animating matter, and giving rise which we call "spirit".
The "spirit" having been defined previously by the slang of Religion.

i believe that life exists galactically,
and the complete mandala when presented to a human mind would just blow all its' circuit breakers.
Incomprehensible incomprehensibility...

i see the future of Philosophy as being a guide thru the maze...always a "way out"

The way out of any maze, is to run your hand on one side or the other...
always following it..
you will hit many dead ends (all of em)
but you get out,
because you turned it into a tube(internal/external..or a spiral (spiral in then spiral out)..
and a dimensional reference gives you the key to the structure..

and i must mention exotic mathematical shapes as well..
the philosophical implications of Mobius strip, Klein bottles, fractals, Fibonacci spirals are immense.
Perhaps it requires a quantum leap in Mathematics,
or perhaps human perception itself is limited..
we cannot do enough things at the same time in our minds...think of how much is going on in any cell!

and even if we did (were able to map hundreds of simultaneous interactions, the Bonini paradox begins its' feedback.

i am sorry for the fragmentary post.
no sleep will do that
:)

I take the view of John Dewey from his Reconstruction in Philosophy, in that philosophy is in fact a that very process of constant reconstruction, a renewal of itself whenever new topics, ideas, social changes, new problems emerge. Philosophy should go hand in hand with the society it is born in, and be in a constant conversation with it, and thus reconstruct itsef as needed.

I agree with the idea of constant adaptation Silver described. And it is hard to say what is the future of philosophy, unless there is some hidden epochal genius among us. The rest of us will probably mention just the problems that trouble us. I would hesitate to interpret popularity of the previous thread as a sign of some weakness or illness of philosophy, particularly in respect to science (although philosophy must share the undeniable disarray of the current age). Philosophy has faced opposition from its very beginning and always has felt it must protect its insights against contempt or blindness which is all too natural.
However, speaking of the future, I'd like to propose two negative reservations. We should not expect some knowledge that will satisfy us. It has been said we need a science of human nature. Yet I think, as far as philosophy is concerned, we must be much more radical in this questioning. We must add one more pre-scientific "meta" that will question desire for this science itself, desire for some positive, ultimate or satisfying knowledge. This, not science, but rather practical knowledge of human nature, that predetermines all our advances to the world, is best defined in terms of wisdom or virtue of the old. And I suppose it can lead us to conclusion that nature and destiny of man is to exist in state of dissatisfaction, in this unsatisfiable quest for ultimate truth. I just point out what many philosophers have already articulated and I find their discoveries - strangely enough - very satisfiable, not to say liberating.
Second, I really like the idea of philosophically competent science and I believe it could be very beneficial project. But I just cannot imagine (but my imagination may be limited) how could philosophy hope to get some help from science for its fundamental tasks. Philosophy has largely given up metaphysical presumptions and focuses mainly on what I'd call a fundamental encounter with being. I find it good direction, since philosophy must ask the most fundamental questions. Not questions of science but how can be science possible? Scientist is at first human being living in his everyday world and all science is based only on this intimate substratum. There is something very simple and primitive in the matters philosopher deals with and yet I agree it "is anything but easy". It does not give us anything new, it is just a new, revelatory view of what there already was, what was so close we never saw it. There are some pretty impressive results in this field and I expect further advances from future. But since we have no ultimate, satisfying or all-embracing knowledge in our pre-philosophic life, we cannot expect philosophy will change it. Neither will science, for how could it challenge our fundamental encounter with being if the possibility of science is based solely on possibility of this encounter?

Pavel, I think there's a certain strand of philosophy in which a heated competition over who is more meta than whom goes on (thinking here of the numerous movements spawned by Nietzsche and Heidegger). I think you're right to say though that your position "out-metas" the philosophy-as-meta-discipline perspective that deems discovering some ultimate human science as an ultimate goal for philosophical inquiry. I myself am torn between these two styles of philosophy - I recognize in a sense that the latter is just another intellectual toy, while the former is where the real adventure of mind is at.

Still, a point needs to be made here: there can be no ultimate meta perspective. For every meta achieved, there will be another position to "out-meta" it (this is what the structuralists realized, with dismay, when they spoke of an infinite regress of meta-languages) . This is because the only real meta is the position of mind, and that position cannot be exhaustively compassed by any particular formulation, question, or inquiry we make. We are always beyond all these, watching ourselves as we try to explain ourselves and contain our experience in some definite form. Science of course is the expulsion of such meta perspective, and if it ever tackles the subject, it does so with concepts and methods applicable to the realm of objects. It "flattens" subjectivity, and makes the meta perspective seem inaccessible and impossible. As a result, science almost seems to strive towards attaining some ultimately tautological status, as was touched on the other thread (and this doesn't apply only to evolutionary theory). The only place this ultimate perspective (or any explicit exploration of perspective, period) can occur is philosophy.

Myself, I think the two meta perspectives will always exist in fruitful interplay: we will strive ever to formulate a comprehensive science of man which will make possible a map of the a priori principles of knowledge, while each attempt at formulation will be undermined every time by the higher position of radical questioning. The questioning pushes the effort of formulation further, and raises the bar bit by bit as it were. This relentless struggling for and continual undermining of form will keep human life from ever fossilizing into some ultimate form, some glorified "mind-forg'd manacle."

Also, I want to stress again that the OP does not merely ask for predictions or prophecies (though those can be enlightening as well). Rather, it touches on how different people conceive of the philosophical project so far, its current crisis, and where they feel that project is going or needs to go in order to solve the current dilemmas. The answer the OP seeks is not predictive so much as prescriptive. I don't think it's realistic to suggest "letting history take care of philosophy's future" We think and act by projecting goals into the future, and everyone who practices or cares about philosophy at all has projected some kind of goal for it that they are actively pursuing in their practice. So the honest thing to do seems to be to lay all cards on the table and negotiate goals, seeking commonalities.

"But since we have no ultimate, satisfying or all-embracing knowledge in our pre-philosophic life, we cannot expect philosophy will change it. Neither will science, for how could it challenge our fundamental encounter with being if the possibility of science is based solely on possibility of this encounter?"

Both philosophy and science challenge and deepen our encounter with being. This is because that encounter is never a fixed fact complete unto itself that later thought simply "adds on" some extraneous structure. In fact, the accretion of ever-more perspectives through philosophy is precisely what deepens our initial embeddedness in being. Though I agree with you in the sense that the notion of "ultimate perspective" seems oxymoronic. This again ties in with the notion that the only true "meta" is mind itself, ultimate theoretical formulation of which is an impossibility. We can't catch the totality of ourselves and of our embeddedness in the world in our own nets.

Elena, I generally agree with the position you have formulated.

And to be prescriptive about the future of philosophy, for myself I would add positive complements of the two reservations I mentioned: Philosophy as standard of sanity in the disarray of world's affairs. And better grasp of more concrete and current problem of the relation of science and philosophy, or better scientific and natural world, which resembles dualism of today resulting in nightmarish alienation.

I have thought about the analytic continental divide recently. There are rumors that this divide has been starting to break down. If we consider the general obsession both sides share with philosophy of language, understanding that not literally as language as we normally think of it, but as symbolic representations and interpretations of experience, we might have something on which to build. The whole idea of meta narratives from the continental side sounds very similar to me to the analytic discussion of paradigm shifts in science. I think we are butting up against frames of reference on either side, looking for some way to get past the interpretive frameworks themselves, assuming the whole time that such a thing is actually possible. The problem is roughly tantamount to trying to look at the eye through which one sees.
I very much like the idea of bringing philosophy back down to earth and making the profession relevant to lay public. On that level, the problem we should all be worried about is the relatively sudden clash of civilizations & cultures that result from the explosion of communication technologies now available. Relativism can't be true, since that implies nothing is. Yet the spirit of relativism has a certain appeal, since it allows us to entertain a wide diversity of existent cultures. My own belief is that a meta culture of sorts is inevitable in the near future, and it is the job of the philosophical community to help ease this transition.

On Achieving the "Satisfaction" of Philosophical Inquiry: Wisdom

On the question of achieving "satisfaction" in philosophical science, at least in a philosophical anthropology, I cannot recommend highly enough Alexandre Kojève's "Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phänomenologie des Geistes":

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11...

Kojève is an original mind himself, and the book is more a creative synthesis of Hegel with some post-Hegelian insights by Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. Yet unlike most other 'continental' thinkers Kojève is a brilliantly and lucidly clear writer -- analytics will not be disappointed by excess jargon here.

He's like the Hemingway of continental philosophers: he builds on short, pithy, and powerful statements which are gripping and compelling. This is not a book for the timid, but for the most serious inquirers after the truth of the human condition.

Kojève like Hegel is a master of the entire Western philosophical tradition, and his sole aim in this book is to describe exactly, precisely, and powerfully what it might mean to achieve a full satisfaction of the hunger or quest of philosophy for man, in coming to know definitively what we are, and thereby to achieve what may be called Wisdom -- no longer philo-sophia, or love of wisdom, but the thing in itself.

Whatever your opinion of Allan Bloom, on whom my own judgment is mixed, he was surely right in describing and introducing Kojève's work this way:

"This collection of Kojeve's thoughts about Hegel constitutes one of the few important philosophical books of the twentieth century -- a book, knowledge of which is requisite to the full awareness of our situation and to the grasp of the most modern perspective on the eternal questions of philosophy."
-- Allan Bloom (from the Introduction)

For myself, I can say the only thing approaching a full "satisfaction" or resolution of the philosophical itch to know and understand the human condition is Kojève's argument in this book:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11...

http://books.google.com/books?id=OJNY...

-Tom

Tom wrote: "On the question of achieving "satisfaction" in philosophical science, at least in a philosophical anthropology, I cannot recommend ..."

Thanks for the tip, sounds interesting.

Two words ..

Rational Religion

I am waiting for my copy of Kojeve's book to arrive. In the meantime, I am curious to hear what other folks' thoughts are on where the consummation of thought may lie. Also curious whether you folks think systematic, positive philosophy is somehow finished for good (and if so, what kind of philosophic method it is to be replaced by), or whether it is simply to be postponed and preceded by some other form of reflection, as Kant suggested when he argued that transcendental meta critique must be a new starting point for philosophy through which we must pass before systematizing again.

An Apology up front for this post sounding like an 'end of philosophy' post. It can be read as a 'future of philosophy' post by seeing how it is that the historical 'end' of reason in the old sense, of discovering the ultimate Truth Behind things, might now be turned into a science of man -- Wissenschaft or Geisteswissenschaft -- and thereafter a focus on the creative or synthetic, rather than the discovering or analytic powers of reason. Of course discovery and analysis will always need to be done by individuals, but Kojève's Hegelian argument is that on the whole, in the big picture of the appearance and unfolding of human history, a final analysis of man has already been rendered available, all the necessary materials have already historically appeared, for those who inquire into the subject.

For understanding Kojève's deeply thought Hegelian-Marxist diagnosis of the end (telos, consummation) of reason or thought, Slavoj Žižek provides an important contemporary figure for comparison and contrast.

I just saw the new film with Žižek, "The Pervert's Guide to Ideology" (2012). This is the follow-up to the prequel "The Pervert's Guide to Cinema" (2006). The new film is a much sharper, more philosophically substantive work in presenting Žižek's critique of the modern, liberal, 'atheist', bourgeoise ideological framework in which we live, move, and have our being today.

Now, many of Žižek's analyses -- because they are drawn from the same deep well of historical-anthropological studies in the Hegelian tradition -- are brilliant, even if he is wrong, on my view, in his adherence to aspects of traditional Marxism. Full disclosure here: after much study and reflection, I'm persuaded more by Francis Fukuyama's right-Hegelian argument that our liberal, democratic, capitalist, consumer, and technologically-driven society is roughly the 'end (telos) of the historical development of mankind', not the communist society Marx predicted, even if this is a difficult result to accept for us liberals and some of our hopes.

What Žižek says in this film, and in this he agrees with today's best-known right-Hegelian Fukuyama, is that the end (telos, consummation) of philosophy and human historical progress necessarily involves the discovery of the radical freedom of philosophical-critical nihilism -- the negative -- the critical discovery of absence behind all prior and current ordering myths for society. But before you get comfortable assuming this is a 'critical thinking' platitude, let me add that this includes our contemporary social ordering paradigms of Naturalism, Evolution, and Technological Progress. In Žižek's Lacanian psycho-analytic terms, these newer, 'scientific' or 'enlightened' paradigms function in the same inescapable ideological role or purpose of the old gods, the ordering principles in which we are supposed to socially situate ourselves and the meaning of our lives. Human society cannot not have an ideology! This is the unique insight of the Hegelian or philosophical Marxists like Kojève, Fukuyama, and Žižek: there must always be a normative or ruling Idea regulating the social order. Societies generate ideologies; thus perhaps a sense of Irony about the ruling Idea is the only real freedom for the individual thinker.

Both Left and Right Hegelians, both Žižek and Fukuyama, agree with Kojève that this critical 'end' for philosophical thought is a difficult, even painful one. As Hegel says in his Phenomenology of Spirit, philosophical critique is a "path of despair" -- the self-destructing of one belief after another, till Nothing is left. Yet wisdom or Wissenschaft is a fruit which can nevertheless give satisfaction to the inquirer. This was Hegel's big objection to Kant's mysterious, unknowable 'thing-in-itself': Hegel insists that we are capable of Knowing, achieving the Satisfaction of Reason -- IF we are not afraid.

The historical discovery is that man and his reason are nothing other than Desire itself, a Nothing-in-itself that can Become creative in attempting to fill itself: one of the precise meanings of "spirit" in the Hegelian lexicon. This includes desire and labor for natural goods like food, as well as desire and labor for the spiritual goods of recognition by others, e.g., being desired by their desire -- being loved.

Evidence our celebration of celebrity in the modern, post-historical liberal society: sheer recognition as reason for celebration.

This latter point is part of how the Hegelian tradition finds a redeeming virtue -- contra Anglo Enlightenment atheism -- in the historical contribution of Christianity, i.e., Christ's message that Love freely realized Between people is ultimately the 'Higher Law', a greater, freer realization than any strict, mechanical adherence to the Rules of Law and Reason.

Yet Being Nothing does not accord with the social, ideological commandment of our liberal consumer order to find and Enjoy!! the specially present magic within whatever commodity-objects of desire are placed before us, including ideas and philosophies. The liberal order to Enjoy!! helps motivate and continue the liberal-capitalist-hedonist economic system of man. For Žižek, the commandment of liberal society to Enjoy!! results in guilt, because we can never Enjoy!! enough, we are always falling short of Full Enjoy!!ment.

When New Age-y types in the West seek 'bliss' in fetishizing Asian religions and philosophies, they are simply manifesting the ideology of our time: to escape your cares into some timeless but vague 'something' which might guarantee an enduring nature or presence and pleasure for us to Enjoy!!. We cannot be fulfilled by the nothing-really-there Behind Transcendental Signs: 'Coke is IT!', 'Coke is The Real Thing!', 'Enjoy!!', or perhaps Westernized Buddhism is IT, The Real Thing, the thing we can finally Enjoy!!.

There is similarity here to the wisdom of Buddhism in recognizing the problem of infinite desire, but there is a meaningful difference too in that the Western tradition discussed here goes by way of reasoned, 'scientific', anthropological and sociological study of human history and its outcome, and how mankind might become relatively satisfied in this world by adopting the most reasonable overall system in which to live, e.g., arguably our liberal-democratic form of life.

For Hegel, Kojève, Fukuyama, and Žižek, Desire, unfulfillable Desire for natural goods and recognition-by-the-other, is intrinsic to the human condition. There is no escape from Desire for that Beyond the fulfillment of temporary desires. Facing this difficult, 'negative' result of the philosophical search for Truth is at least part of what it means to be Wise in Kojève's sense of Hegelian Wisdom, Geisteswissenschaft, or Science of Man.

This conversation is getting exciting now.

There is this insistent desire to lock reason into a complete system of thought, to forge a perfectly enclosed aesthetic artifact with no cracks left in it through which the intractable elements of existence cannot penetrate. If we could find (or forge, if need be) a matrix of beautifully interlocking conceptual formulations that lock the entire field of reason in their bounds, these could, through their own shimmering mechanics, crush every solid nugget of dirt into a pellucid clarity. Problems would solve themselves, we could just let our minds be carried away with the motion of the fool-proof conceptual mechanics of The System. We would have a perfectly watertight universe of clarity, a perfectly spherical and impregnable bubble we could lock our minds into. We could traverse the ocean of existence unperturbed in our perfect little formal world. Such it seems is the traditional understanding of consummation: complete formal realization. Reason -needs- system.

The desire that fuels the traditional quest is understandable. Reflection is born of a primal dissatisfaction with immediacy (Hegel's insight). It is maintained by the desire for autonomy and full self-realization. This means of course formal realization, as form seems to be one of those fundamental conceptions that underlie human experience. Yet the great dilemma facing the human condition is that, as we are a part of an infinite process (Whitehead's insight), full formal realization and closure is an ontological impossibility. We could never consolidate the perfect, crystalline, enclosed form if we tried in a universe of process. There will always be cracks through which the background squeezes through to uphold any given formal configuration. To entertain such openness in one's essence is what it means to exist (again Whitehead).

Instead it seems reason is a beam shot in the dark realm of possibility (understanding just what this realm is has plagued great minds such as Kant and Wittgenstein - I don't think that I can contribute anything to elucidating it when they have failed). But as soon as we step back from the stream of integrated existence within the flow of immediacy, the realm of "possibility," or of "possible alternatives" to the given emerges.

Formal reason has traditionally been emphasized, but more fundamentally, I think reason is a big adventure. It seems to be that probing and pushing against all formal limits. It seeks to bewitch itself with partial forms, but contains "an immanent dialectic that drives it inexorably forward" (Cassirer). Give it any form, and it will go meta on it. Not only the nature of our being in the world, but reason's own ceaseless meta-perspectivism thwarts its attempts at formal realization and consolidation. This means we doomed ourselves to perpetual instability when we asked our first question of the world, instead of merely living with it as our accepted companion.

Reason is a groping/extending into the dark, an opening of a field of possibilities over and above given immediacy, a desire to fill itself, creation (as you say, Tom), but above all, decision, I think. It is the radicality of decision in-forming existence. Decision erects topological stability within phenomenological flux: we make/deliberate form; we do not discover it (or to be more precise, discovery is creative). This is perhaps why our early discovery of the revelatory power of symbolism was endowed with magical powers: suddenly, as if with the touch of a wand, the shifting flux of the given world becomes endowed with stability simply through naming, setting apart, forming within consciousness, grasping through reason.

Because I conceive of thought as a sprouting of tendrils in the dark, I cannot conceive that such a process may have some ultimate end-of-history consummation as Hegel envisioned. That seemed to be a pat illusion, a comforting projection - "Stay with it boys because this grinding and seeking is -guaranteed- to turn out well. Yes, we left the guidance of nature and struck it out on our own and are doomed to be guided only by our own measly resources of thought, but reason through its own development will find (make?) its home. Because the world is reason, and reason is not merely a feeble flickering in the dark." So Tom, unless I am misinterpreting Hegel (though he is pretty explicit about this), he is saying precisely the opposite of what you are in this last post of yours. But where is the ontological guarantee he promised? As your own post suggests, there is none.

A perhaps even greater impediment to consummation lies in the fact that everywhere we turn we seem to come upon the formal limits of our minds. We want to penetrate with thought the ever-receding world of substance, and all we come upon is the forming activity of the thought that launched the quest. This is quite spooky, when you think about it (scientistic types sidestep this claustrophobic feeling by simply ignoring the mind-bubble). Think about the proliferation over the internet of those photographs of "eye galaxies," with quotes under them saying something or other about the "eye of God." People penetrate into deep space, and they mythologize it, personify it. They can try not to, but they do it anyway, if only on a higher order of abstraction - looking for laws, fundamentals, etc, as you also point out, Tom. We speak into the darkness, and it merely echoes what we put out. If the word "God" still has any applicability in these depths of space, it is not as word (in the beginning was the Word), but as silence, a silence that swallows everything, including form. There seems to be no escape from what Nietzsche called our "aesthetic anthropomorphisms." Is the only consummation allowed thought then a kind of masturbation?

While acknowledging all these impediments to a penetration of reality by thought (the sexual metaphors for knowing recur - psychoanalysts would love this, as well as the Bible which equates knowing with loving), I do not think the mind has the capacity to create meaning ex-nihilo. We go too far in emphasizing the formal bubble around our minds. We do not, -cannot- exist in an ultimate solipsism of meaning, a sort of brain in a vat scenario. Hence, what is out there cannot be entirely other, or "negative." It must be stuff that our minds can work with to sustain themselves. Indeed, we (our minds, too) are upheld by a continuous intercourse (here we go again) with the unknown and unknowable background of their beings. We put a face on this background, but meaning is, and cannot but be, a dialogic, not a projective process. Mind is like the secret ingredient, the catalyst that sparks truth and meaning from within mere being, but the materials are always there waiting to be pulled together by the singularity of thought.

Last question (sorry that this turned out so meandering and lonnnng): Tom, what do you think a science of human nature would consist of?

Shame, I haven't yet read Kojève nor the Phenomenology of Spirit itself, so I must be silent on these. But regarding the questions Elena proposed about the System and positive philosophy, I am just reading two fascinating books which offer deep insight into the problem. I will attempt some brute and sketchy application of Heidegger's thoughts from his lecture Zeit und Sein and Gadamer's hermeneutics, while I am well aware it cannot stand up to the subtlety of their thinking.
The System is something we can see as a whole, something we can overview. By this characteristic it belongs to imagination, "vorstellung". Imagination is the only place where it can fully unfold and yet remain comprehensible. Totality of system is something imagined.
It is real only as imagined, so the real question is being of the imagining. Here it is something quite different as we are in the middle of the reality, with no point from which it could be overviewed. If we try to ask, where does the being come from, it turns out to be a dialectic process of unconcealing and concealing, and the unconcealing of being, the giving of the given in the process is always accompanied by fundamental withdrawal. We cannot understand the process by which being comes about as some being accessible for our comprehension, we can just stand in the middle of it, but not imagine it, not "vorstellen" it either as an object or as the all embracing. We can just think of it. Heidegger suggests metaphysics as founding imagination has come to an end in the sense of its fulfillment and now it is "task of thinking" to try to step forward. What will be the result remains still unclear.
I am cautious about Heidegger's break-up with tradition. However, his deep insights into the historicity of being can lead also to appreciation of tradition, as shown in Gadamer's hermeneutics. And still more, it can teach us not only how we can understand tradition, but how we can understand anything at all. Positioned in the middle of the process, one can say we are trapped in the historicity of being. "Give it any form, and it will go meta on it." But on the other hand, rather than entrapping us, it sets us free, as it is precisely this original time dimension of being what makes possible the openness, the free space where being comes about. Presence takes place only in the horizon between future and past.
Elena, the quest of reason, finding everywhere just itself, consummation of thought as a kind of masturbation, it really sounds spooky and claustrophobic. But I think it is based on presumption "the radicality of decision in-forming existence" is rooted in our subjectivity. But isn't subjectivity just a spell that must be broken? I would rather reverse it: It is not me I encounter everywhere in being, but it is being that encounters itself in me. I agree with the decisive, creative character of reason. But as you say beautifully, this bringing forth being has character of "continuous intercourse with the unknown and unknowable background". We are rather part of the game of being. We can push it forward or backwards, we can be winning or loosing, unconcealing or concealing. We play our role, but by taking the part we only prove that in the last instance it is not our subjectivity, but the game itself what determines the meaning. The distinction between playing and being played melts down.
So the fact we are standing inside the process of being bans us from totality of system and any other form of divine intuition. Our being and understanding is mortal. On the other hand, this standing in the middle of the process is just that what enables us to understand being at all. It is being effective in us what makes being understandable. Similarly, I think we need no science of human nature, because we already understand human nature by mere being human beings.
Sketchy as it is, I fear it makes little sense. Take it just as a hint on possible approaches.

@ Elena and Pavel:

Granted, Kojève's treatise is a synthesis of Hegel that incorporates the later contributions of Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. What he argues, and with which I agree, is that Hegel's 'system' or 'science of logic' took the metaphysics of categories of being-thought invented by the Greeks as far as it could be taken, thus the collapse of pure philosophy after Hegel and the beginning of existentialism. Hegel was a Kantian in the sense that his system of logic was a more complete post-metaphysical investigation into the way we logically comprehend reality, but to a point where we are no longer bewitched by any notion of a mysterious 'thing in itself' beyond logical comprehension. Heidegger's own announcement of the 'end of metaphysics' is just another articulation of post-Kantian philosophy. BTW Heidegger's books on Kant are incredibly interesting. Now, in terms of an 'end' of philosophy or history I think we need to distinguish between metaphysics and philosophical anthropology. I only argue that Kojève's reading of Hegel demonstrates the most complete and satisfactory account of the latter which has been given so far. It is the reason why we have so many 'post-humanist' movements, because, in a certain sense, this philosophical anthropology and end of history argument has been compelling enough to send subterranean shockwaves throughout the intellectual world.

Tom, I am replying to your view until I can acquaint myself with Kojeve's.

I would say that Pavel has hit the nail on the head when he noted that the whole notion of a Geisteswissenschaft (as well as the dichotomy between Geisteswissenschaft and Naturwissenschaft) is based on the fallacious notion of subjectivity as phenomenologicallly, ontolgically, and conceptually primary. Too intense a beam of self-reflexivity leads to a mind-bubble view of reality. Actually, the notion of a realm of "subjectivity" as some purely "inner" domain is an interesting philosophical fabrication that goes against the grain of our usual experience of ourselves as "standing out in a clearing," as part of a stream with other things and entities (Heidegger himself as well as the later Wittgenstein, did much to dispel this fallacious positing as the starting point for reflection of some "subjective" experience understood as a realm privately possessed and set apart from the clearing of the world).

The miraculous awakening occurs when we realize, at last, that we are already outside, always were, and always will be. Consciousness as an intentional, ie, fundamentally relational phenomenon, cannot be thingified - it appears as a field of interaction and interchange. What we retrospectively denominate "consciousness" and "object-of-consciousness" in fact simultaneously flare up, and are set apart only through great artifice and only for the purposes of analysis. And yet it is precisely this that both items of the dichotomy miss out. Either the mind-bubble approach of Geisteswissenschaft, or the un-reflexive, subjectivity-flattening approach of Naturwissenschaft, are bound to miss out the primal fact that Pavel described so beautifully:

"It is not me I encounter everywhere in being, but it is being that encounters itself in me... We are rather part of the game of being... We play our role, but by taking the part we only prove that in the last instance it is not our subjectivity, but the game itself what determines the meaning. The distinction between playing and being played melts down."

So, Geisteswissenschaft and philosophical anthropology are a new (as well as being the strongest) starting point for thought, as Kant has shown. They make up the anteroom through which we must pass on our way to ontological understanding. But they are not the end point thereof. This is the great confusion I see here. On their own, they do not, -cannot- fulfill the primal philosophical itch, the ontological project, or the primal injunction to "Know Thyself." Both are too narrow, and will take us for an eternal dialectical ride if we keep insisting on the sacrosanctness of the dichotomy.

PS: how surreal is discussing such things while an idiotic pop-up ad on the side goes on about either some shiny car or "escape to Seattle" or "beautiful Madrid's continental atmosphere" airline ads. "Enjoy!!"

I agree with Elena's critique of too much 'innerness' and self-reflexion in philosophy, but with a major BUT regarding Heidegger's influence and the danger of erasing subjectivity. I am quite familiar with Heidegger's philosophy; as usual it is not so much the leader as the followers, the Heidegerrians, who pose a danger. I've come around to agree with much of Slavoj Zizek's philosophic and political-economic critique of Heideggerianism (he is not against a proper reading of Heidegger) and especially its French PoMo expressions as -- perhaps ironically -- part of the erasure authentic subjectivity into postmodern chaos, into a kind of Westernized Buddhist stoic submergence of subjectivity, desperate to escape dualism and the critical-dialectic reasoning it calls for, desperate to submerge into 'oneness' and avoid reason. Zizek identifies this trend rightly as following the collapse of modernist rationalism in the West, a symptom of political-economic ill in the tremendous pressure upon us to conform to and enjoy the neo-liberal techno capitalist paradise we are supposed to inhabit. Zizek and allied philosophers like Alain Badiou defend the Cartesian legacy against its near universal condemnation from many quarters in recent years. The key to this critique, and to a proper understanding of Heidegger, is an understanding of Hegel's dialectic of Master and Servant, showing how the emergence of individual conscience and subjectivity of Being in the West comes from a dialectical conflict, difference, and mediation between the power of the political-universal-authority and the individual who comes-to-conscience in his or her own difference-with-it. Western individualism, crystallizing historically in Descartes' philosophical expression of the self-in-doubt, the dialectical being-not, is a great achievement that can be lost if we do not repeat authentically its legacy.

Tom, I think it shows the difference between using somebody's thoughts and interpreting them. And even in interpreting there is still much of our own. Sure, Heidegger is often approached in marvelous ways. The other day I was browsing across some orthodox Marxist sites that defined Heidegger unisono as subjective idealist of Berkeleyan type... I'm gonna "enjoy" Kojeve.

Pavel wrote: "Tom, I think it shows the difference between using somebody's thoughts and interpreting them. And even in interpreting there is still much of our own. Sure, Heidegger is often approached in marvelo..."

Pavel: That seems quite funny comparing Heidegger's philosophy to Berkeley's subjective idealism, but my guess would be this comes from someone in the Anglo or analytic tradition, for whom Berkeley's philosophy serves as the home-grown whipping bag of ridicule for any philosophy resembling idealism. There is an element of truth in this charge of idealism though, it runs of course throughout all post-Kantian German philosophy, including Heidegger. However, even Wittgenstein and the analytic philosopies of language can be described as variations on idealism. In my view, this is just the inevitable need to recognize the made-character of language, concepual thought, and the expression of truth. Our language, concept, 'the word', does 'the work', of bringing-to-light, bringing-to-definition, revealing definitively whatever does or can come to light in the world. In his new 2008 Preface ("The Idea's Constipation?") to "The Sublime Object of Ideology", I believe Zizek articulates most clearly, better than Heidegger, how it is that (a) the independent, objective, ontological, and (b) the dependent, subjective, epistemological sides of truth can be satisfactorily reconciled in Hegel's philosophy. One can easily detect the impact and contribution of Heidegger's influence in Zizek's new Preface, even though this Preface is almost nothing but a sharp defense and argument for Hegel's relevance despite all his post-modern critics, the critics of rationalism and totality. It is interesting that both Kojeve and Zizek are enabled to rehabilitate and make stronger current cases for Hegel's continuing relevance only with the aid of serious critical engagement with Heidegger. In particular, Heidegger's thinking and language of "revealing" may be the key to freeing knowledge and truth from the traps of representationalism or the mirror theory of language, in which the Anglo tradition always finds its impasse.

Tom:

"I agree with Elena's critique of too much 'innerness' and self-reflexion in philosophy, but with a major BUT regarding Heidegger's influence and the danger of erasing subjectivity."

And I agree with you. :) In other posts, I actually proposed a definition of philosophy in terms of the autonomous, doubting, questioning stance vis-a-vis reality. In contrast, Mythos reveals the primal experience of immediacy, wherein the world figures as a kind of psychological womb. From adopting such a stance, we come to define ourselves by our relationship to totemic animals. We discern meaningfulness in wind and rain, and project human forms and shape constellations. Inner mental contents and outer happenings form part of a continuous, undifferentiated experience. We feel a strong conviction of the unity of all life, and cling to a notion of ourselves as a part of that unity. The worst experience then is exile, being thrown to the outside of our clan, of our lifeworld. We feel our lives become meaningless when they no longer belong to some greater whole which we believe contains all meaning. We do not really have a sense of the potency of individual creative power: we seem to ourselves to be always upheld from without.

When we step out of the primal stream of immediacy, and through reflection put a distance between ourselves and the rich clamouring of the world (natural as well as social, cultural and political), we enter into a new, more philosophical relation to it. Instead of merely accepting reality and living with it, anthropomorphizing it and conversing with it, endowing it with all creative power while recognizing none in ourselves, we become critical, deliberative, autonomous. This distancing is really the first step to autonomous human realization.

Heidegger reverses this general tendency in philosophy towards greater distancing through reflection, and instead seems to hanker after the originating perspective of Mythos. More precisely, he wants to bring that perspective within the grasp of philosophy. I believe he is motivated in this aim by the modern hunger for sources. With the exhaustion of accepted cultural frameworks of meaning, the highest creative journey for many modern thinkers (such as the greater existentialist movement) lay precisely in a "return to the sources" - particularly to the creative sources of subjectivity. Therefore, his position is somewhat paradoxical, from my point of view: he tries to encompass in philosophical -reflection- the stance of immediacy! The artists were more successful in their return to the sources. I do not think the philosophical mind is at all equipped for source-mining; its tools are the distancing, generalizing, abstractifying POV. The end result is more interesting for the project it sets out and the ways it fails than it is for its achievements.

So Heidegger's reduction of subjectivity to a more primary ontic reality resulting from his constituting the subject-as-immersion is understandable, considering his historic moment and its struggles to retrieve a pre-cultural source of meaning. It is also incomplete (for the reasons you point out, Tom), and it fails (because at least insofar as philosophy is concerned, it cannot exist in that kind of existential stance Heidegger tried to put it in).

I would conclude these meandering explorations by suggesting that the traditional, Socratic-Cartesian subject-as-doubt/subject-as-questioning on the one hand and the Heideggerian subject-as-immersion on the other must be brought into a perpetual dialectical cross-fertilization. Without the first, you get passive quietism - the integrity of mind bowing to the "revelations" of its historic moment, as Heidegger's own career shows (ie in his reverence for the realization of historic Volk spirit in Nazism). Without the latter lies the dessication of thought, analysis without insight and method without a strongly-discerned end as can be grasped only through a broader feeling for life. On the other hand, the two together push thought forward, even though the latter can be brought into philosophy merely indirectly, or as an opening left somewhere in the system through which the sky can peep in.

Elena wrote: "Tom:

"I agree with Elena's critique of too much 'innerness' and self-reflexion in philosophy, but with a major BUT regarding Heidegger's influence and the danger of erasing subjectivity."

And I a..."

Elena: You make a good distinction between the artistic and philosophical minds. Where there may be some overlap, one contributing to the other, their primary strengths need to be respected rather than an attempt to combine from cultural pressures. This may act as a further preventative from dilution and stagnation in both areas.

Tom wrote: "my guess would be this comes from someone in the Anglo or analytic tradition, for whom Berkeley's philosophy serves as the home-grown whipping bag of ridicule for any philosophy resembling idealism."

All wet, it comes from some Czech communists. The problem is that ideological premises do not allow them to see beyond the materialism - idealism alternative. And anything that is not strict materialism is idealism and leads, as Lenin threatens, to sacerdotalism. Brilliant example how starting position can affect interpretation to the extent of complete distortion. Which is, by the way, the problem with Hegel. If you take the premises, he is genius, if not, he is crazy.
Your references to revealing language reminded me of Gadamer: "Being that could be understood is language." Obvious, but for me rather new and fascinating idea.

Elena wrote: "Heidegger reverses this general tendency in philosophy towards greater distancing through reflection..."

Unable to comment on different readings of Heidegger, I am happy if I manage to read him myself. But as I see it, there is clear evolution of the same philosophical tradition from Descartes through Kant and Husserl to Heidegger (whatever the later says). They all start in situation where being becomes question and they are still more and more aware of the fact the answer does not fall down from heaven, but it must include the unknown questioning one that stands in the beginning (still immediate and unreflected). The questioning one transforms from naive res cogitans, through transcendental subjectivity (as if it could stay out of the question) to Dasein, coming to still greater translucency. So it is one and the same direction of the distancing through reflection that leads to immersion. Really - it looks like reflexion encompassing immediacy. And I am not too reluctant to accept this.

"They all start in situation where being becomes question and they are still more and more aware of the fact the answer does not fall down from heaven, but it must include the unknown questioning one that stands in the beginning (still immediate and unreflected). The questioning one transforms from naive res cogitans, through transcendental subjectivity (as if it could stay out of the question) to Dasein, coming to still greater translucency."

- Brilliant.

there's a book review on the future of philosophy that might be of interest. http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/39977-on-phil...

I think the future of philosophy is secure. One basis for philosophy is asking questions. Humans are addicted to questions; I might even advance the idea that it is one of the things that makes us human. Another basis for philosophy is ignorance. Ignorance I believe will always be part of the human story.

With these two things, maybe Socrates started it all, or maybe it should be credited to Plato, since he is the one who wrote what Socrates said, and how can we tell that Plato didn't add, mix, or make up Socrates' philosophy?

Tim wrote: "Although thought-provoking, your question is essentially unanswerable as it is the very nature of philosophy to reach out into the great unknown. Starting from our present situation, steeped in re..."

Today's philosopher is relegated to the position of academic teacher, but in truth the job of the philosopher is no different in principle than the archaic shaman: to have a vision and heal the tribe.

Philosophy is not dead as long as I have blood in my veins. The future of philosophy is in Biopantheism, permaculture, planetary organism, and the integration of memes and genes.

I'm going to dive in the deep end here with my first post to this group - Looking at the history of ancient philosophical thought across the world there seem to be only a handful of amazing philosophers and a lot of highly derivative and boring philosophers. People today often seem to think philosophy is dead/doomed just because it's hard to point to the one monolithic and influential contemporary name.

Philosophy has developed the image of being an elitist pastime for people with no real world skills... and we are left to forget where all our practical sciences came from. People laugh when you tell them you're studying philosophy, not realising how valuable critical thinking skills are, or how much they're missing out on by ignoring philosophy.

As a sociology student I've seen lecturers ignore the philosophical background of major sociological thinkers again and again, but have personally found great value in examining philosophy itself to see where the ideas in modern day sociology come from. Sometimes I even discover previous thinkers have already answered problems with 'current' sociological theories, but they go unrecognised in the curriculum. It feels like we're being taught to reinvent the wheel, but it has to be ultra-modern and over-engineered or it's not a 'real' sociological wheel. It's frustrating.

As a novice to philosophy I really don't see the death of philosophy looming. I just see it being re-branded as other things by people who want to distance themselves from ancient people who thought the earth was the centre of the universe.

To put it another way; Even academics like to be modern and cool. Philosophy isn't the height of academic fashion right now. Hopefully the hipster scholars who delve into it ironically develop real love for the field and see it's true value.

"There is this insistent desire to lock reason into a complete system of thought, to forge a perfectly enclosed aesthetic artifact with no cracks left in it through which the intractable elements of existence cannot penetrate. If we could find (or forge, if need be) a matrix of beautifully interlocking conceptual formulations that lock the entire field of reason in their bounds, these could, through their own shimmering mechanics, crush every solid nugget of dirt into a pellucid clarity. Problems would solve themselves, we could just let our minds be carried away with the motion of the fool-proof conceptual mechanics of The System."
I'm pretty sure this won't work. If you include mathematics within this system, its been proved that if mathematics is consistent it can't prove every statement relevant to it (as well as the converse of this): Godel's Incompleteness Theorems.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/go...
"Gödel's two incompleteness theorems are among the most important results in modern logic, and have deep implications for various issues. They concern the limits of provability in formal axiomatic theories. The first incompleteness theorem states that in any consistent formal system F within which a certain amount of arithmetic can be carried out, there are statements of the language of F which can neither be proved nor disproved in F. According to the second incompleteness theorem, such a formal system cannot prove that the system itself is consistent (assuming it is indeed consistent). "

As has been pointed out, the question of the future of philosophy entails a knowledge of its past. We should always turn to the resources that the philosophical tradition provides. But not only the tradition, the history it swims in. The greatest transitions in Philosophy (imo) coincided with the rise and fall of world eras. (By World Eras I mean the Ancient, Medieval, Modern Eras.) I believe that the modern world era has entered its death spiral. And I find only three modern philosophers speaking of the transition from the modern world era to the next one.
First, Hegel. His quasi-christian doctrine of ever-moving Spirit is meant (imo) to transform a failing Christianity into the next Universal Religion. He borrows this idea from Joachim, who taught that while the Jewish Religion was of the Father, and the Christian Religion was of the Son, there is a Religion of the Spirit yet to come. Why is Hegel so smitten with this idea? Because this coming theology of the Holy Spirit will be one of _Movement_. (Yes, Movement must here be underlined.) And in this manner, this uniquely changeable Religious Dogma and (a dialectically) ever-changing History can walk together (perhaps forever!) into the unknown future. In this manner, the World Era of Spirit (yet to come) by dialectically evolving as History changes around it (in Hegel, there is no Absolute History), can be the last new thing.
Second, Nietzsche. Nietzsche, of course, does not believe that Christianity can (in modern circumstances) usefully change itself, nor does he believe in any (cosmological or historical) Telos, whether Hegelian or Platonic. (Always remember that for Nietzsche, Christianity Itself is but a Platonism for the People.) But Nietzsche is convinced that secular modernity is doomed thanks to its belief in universal popular enlightenment. (His objection is grounded in his understanding of human nature as divided into three: philosopher, exceptions, 'herd'. Of course he doesn't think Enlightenment bad, he thinks modern popular enlightenment is impossible.) He accepts what he knows. In the final period, from "Gay Science" and 'Zarathustra' on, he divides his work in two (see Ecce Homo). The positive "yes-saying" part is Zarathustra. The rest is the destructive "no-saying" part. The one is intended to lay the ground for a new Universal religious Ethos, the other destroys a secular modernity that, Nietzsche believes, will inevitably destroy itself.
Third, Heidegger. From Heidegger (in the final post-war period) we learn that humans are not in control of their History. This is even true for philosophers, according to Heidegger. (See especially his tremendous essay "European Nihilism" on this last.) There is no One in control. Being Itself, beyond Reason (it would be un-Heideggerian to say 'without Reason'), brings forth the historical Epochs within which each unique historical era unfolds.
Now, I agree with Heidegger on this much, Hegel is unwarranted to believe that Reason guides (or could guide) the rise and fall of World Eras. Also, according to Heidegger, the Nietzschean attempt of world construction (by the spreading of a Dionysian Ethos via Zarathustra) is impossible and unnecessary. Again, humans don't control the rise and fall of epochs. The next Epoch, though inevitable, cannot be conjured by philosophy. The next 'gift' of Being will be for all ...but from No One. (The first assertion of this last sentence is, I think, legitimately controversial among some Heideggerians. But I believe it is correct.)
What do I think? Heidegger is right. The collapse of the modern world era and the rise of the next world era is outside of humanly rational control. Hegel is right. Within a given world era, after it is meta-rationally constituted, there is the dialectical unfolding of Its Unique Concept. -But, again, there is no Concept in the chaos between world eras. Chaos has no Concept. (And therefore Philosophy is here helpless, both to do and even [god(s) help us] ...understand.) This chaos is what I believe we have now entered, which will likely last decades, if not centuries, and here (and only here) Heidegger is right. Nietzsche is right. (As was Plato.) Philosophy must intervene whenever necessary and possible to protect (this means changing, or defending, or maintaining) whatever World Era it inhabits. Today, in the chaos between world eras, philosophy Herself is powerless, all she can hope to do is influence the few exceptions who still listen to her. (That is, all She can hope is to survive.)
Now, Her interventions, at a given juncture within a world era, may of course come to nothing. If so, when circumstances change within that Era, She can try to intervene again (perhaps in a very different manner and even with very different purposes) in radically changed circumstances. In the Chaos between World Eras, Our Lady Philosophy (the Philosophical Tradition) does not even Know if She can survive.
And this is why Heidegger is 'The Philosopher' (of and for) Today. And I believe he is also justified to speak of a New Beginning of Thought. World Era change changes how our Lady Philosophy speaks to others, and Herself. (See, for instance, how different Augustine and Alfarabi are from the Neoplatonism that preceded them. Or how different Machiavelli and Descartes are from the Scholastics who preceded them.) This is why I doubt that anyone knows what Philosophy will be in the next world era.
Joe

Elena wrote: "If philosophy is indeed not dead, wherein lies its future? Wild speculation is welcome.

Note: This thread is intended as a sequel to the "Philosophy is Dead" thread. Some overlap, therefore, is in..."

The future of philosophy is now the Philosophy of Broader Survival. Read it and understand it.

Numi, you have mentioned the Philosophy of Broader Survival a few times. I would love to learn more about it. Why not start a separate thread and provide more information.

Here's my thought on the issue in this thread, the "philosophy is dead" thread, and the issue I address in the book discussed in my goodreads.com/topic/show/19899299 thread as well.

Philosophy is necessary not only for determining the "truths" that actually exist, but also the possibilities that might not otherwise be considered. Philosophy is a discipline that demands an open mind. It doesn't mean that philosophers will believe just anything. They are just willing to consider and discuss even impractical things because such discussion could possibly lead to other ideas that really are practical. A willingness to consider and discuss a seemingly impractical concept is not the same as accepting that concept as a "truth". It's simply a way to explore ideas to see if they might lead to some other "truth" that might not have been apparent without considering the impractical possibility first. Consider the problem many people have with any kind of discussion on topic of creationism or a supernatural reality.

Even if there absolutely is no deity, there was no creation, and supernatural reality does not exist, philosophers can still ask questions like "If such things did exist, could that result in a perfectly natural universe." Such a question might seem pointless, but it actually has real world value in developing logical constructs for information processing, computer algorithms, virtual reality programs, AI development. and potential other unknown possibilities. What if a supernatural reality actually doesn't exist, but we could somehow create one or something fundamentally similar. Might that open up possibilities for the science fiction concepts like psionics, telekinesis, subspace communication, etc., or maybe even things we haven't yet imagined. Those things may never actually be possible, but if they are we'll be unlikely to discover them if we don't first have discussions about things which might seem to be impossible or impractical. That's why philosophy will never be dead.

So why are people so closed minded that they can't even entertain the mere discussion of supernatural things even at a philosophical "what if" level?

The idea that our universe was created by a deity took hold in the group consciousness very early in development of human society. It was one of the earliest attempts at explaining the universe. As humans studied the world to learn more of the properties of the things around them, philosophy as a discipline developed as a way to evaluate and categorize the growing base of knowledge. Philosophers developed methods of rational thought that could be used for critical thinking. This eventually developed into the scientific method which included an acceptance that understanding of knowledge could change as new information was gathered

By the time the scientific method was developed, the earlier methods of determining knowledge through feelings, intuition, and "spiritual experiences" had grown into religious institutions with the political power to control the masses of the population. Part of that power was based on inerrancy of the knowledge given to prophets and priests, and the new scientific discipline was somewhat at odds with that idea of inerrancy. At first the two were able to exist together because the things learned were basic enough that they could easily be fit in with the knowledge provided by religion. Eventually though, it reached a level in which scientific understanding was affecting knowledge the priests had already claimed was inerrant information given them by god.

The Age of Reason, brought about much change that moved society in many ways toward the philosophy of science, but was not able to diminish the power of religion over peoples thoughts. So, by our current era the conflict between religious beliefs and scientific understanding has become dogmatic in many ways on both sides.

One way that affects philosophic thought, is that when the mere mention of "creationism" or any supernatural deities or reality is brought up for a discussion, many peoples minds just "slam shut". For religious believers there minds are closed to any scientific knowledge that goes against the knowledge provided them through religious texts. For many non-believers their minds are closed to any suggestion that the lack of evidence of a creation, deity, or supernatural reality is not enough to conclude that such things cannot exist.

For philosophers and scientists dogmatism is a bad thing. No matter how unlikely one thinks the idea of creation or a deity is, their mind should still be open to look at additional ideas. Regardless of whether such things are real, are possible, or might not be true, the open minded discussion of such things can provide answers to things beyond just the questions at hand.