A Defense of Philosophy Part 1

We philosophers are rarely, if ever, in consensus about anything. I am sure we can all agree on one thing: We are all tired of defending our decision (if it really was a decision) to study philosophy. There are many varied answers to the question “Why philosophy?” Some of us turn to the age and respectability of the philosophical tradition. Some of us discuss the role that philosophy played in “birthing” the special sciences.
I think these answers miss the point of the question. A responsible inquirer might respond, “Certainly philosophy has had a wonderful and fecund past, but why philosophy now, and what can it do in the future?” In other words, why does philosophy continue to exist, and why study it these days?
Some of us do try to answer these questions. This paper is an exploration of two general approaches to answering them.

Part One: The Extrinsic Value Response
The first approach we will examine attempts to justify philosophy in terms of its value to the world now. Here is an example of one such response:

“We all have our philosophies, whether or not we are aware of this fact, and our philosophies are not worth very much. But the impact of our philosophies on our actions and our lives is often devastating. This makes it necessary to try to improve our philosophies by criticism. This is the only apology for the continued existence of philosophy which I am able to offer.”
Karl Popper. Objective Knowledge. Oxford University Press. 1972. P. 33.

While I think Popper gets to the heart of why philosophy needs to continue, I think we can improve on his “apology for philosophy” somewhat.

1. People base their actions on their beliefs
I’ve changed the terminology a little bit. “Philosophies” in Popper’s usage can easily be replaced by “worldviews”, “concepts”, “ideologies”, or “beliefs”. We all have beliefs (both in the sense of propositions we accept as true, and in the sense of belief-systems). These are decision-making principles that abbreviate the process of gathering information and insight into a state of affairs. They also give meaning and evaluation to things in the world.
A person’s religious, political, or scientific views put events into a context or background that enables action.

2. Most people hold their beliefs unreflectively
People typically do not think much about the background beliefs they hold that form the bases of their action. Some people are “brought up” in a religious or political tradition, and take the beliefs of such a tradition as granted. Many beliefs are simply picked up “second-hand” by word of mouth, which includes media sources that may or may not be well-reputed.
There have also been a number of psychological studies that suggest that a) people are less rational about their beliefs than they think they are and b) people are susceptible to fooling themselves into thinking that they are better at decision-making than what they really are. This susceptibility is called a “confirmation bias”: people who have in fact made an incorrect decision may introspect about their reasons for having made the decision, and convince themselves that they are not in error.

3. The truth, justificatory status, & consistency of unreflective beliefs are indeterminate
By definition unreflective beliefs are not considered properly. The question of their accuracy is never asked. People do not think about why they believe what they in fact believe, or whether or not they ought to. Any such belief runs the risk of being contradictory with other beliefs held by the same person.
This is not to say that unreflective beliefs are all bad. Many of them are true, held with decent justification, and perfectly consistent with other beliefs. But, without thinking about the beliefs carefully, there is no way for the individual to tell which the “good” beliefs are and which the “bad” ones are.

4. Action performed on the basis of unreflective beliefs is dangerous
Now, because actions are based on beliefs, and because beliefs people hold may be untrue or unjustified, actions can be harmful to others. In the paragraphs above the one quoted, Popper discusses the case of National Socialism. This shows the extreme harm that unreflective beliefs can bring about.
But we need not look to the Nazis for examples of unreflective beliefs that lead people to act in harmful ways. Any daily interaction is informed by beliefs about the sort of people we interact with, about the way to talk to people, about what the objectives of such interactions are, etc. Merely considering what these beliefs are, how accurate they are, and how well-supported they are can not only reduce the amount of harmful action, but can bring about interactions that are more positive, helpful, and productive.

5. Conclusions from the Extrinsic Value Approach
We have seen that basing our actions on our unreflective beliefs is risky business. It is the philosophical (or critical) method that we use to properly analyze and evaluate these beliefs. This is essentially Popper’s argument. We should take issue, however, with the idea that this critical method is only useful insofar as it can be used to reduce harmful action. We should add that this method encourages positive, or helpful action.
What can be said against this approach? One thing that stands out is that this argument seems to impoverish the study of philosophy down to merely correcting action. Perhaps this isn’t so impoverishing, though. Not all action is moral action, after all. There are all sorts of areas of activity that can be improved upon by reflecting on our beliefs using this critical method.
Even at that, many philosophers would not be inclined to go along with this “apology”. They would argue that, while philosophy may have extrinsic value, the reason for their interest in the field is its intrinsic value. They would argue that philosophy is good “in itself”. In Part Two we will examine arguments from this approach to defending philosophy.