Most philosophers are wrong
Not every philosopher is wrong about everything but most are wrong about most things.
I recently completed the Open University’s module Exploring Philosophy and a prospective student from another class asked me what it was like.
Is it about the knowledge of the great philosophers?
Or is it about ‘doing philosophy’ and demonstrating one’s own ideas?
It is very much the latter. There’s hardly any memorisation of facts and most of your grade seems to come from explaining an idea clearly and making a good argument for or against it regardless of whether the conclusion of your argument is correct.
Most of my essays took this form:
Explain what X is.
Explain what Philosopher Y said about X.
Explain why Philosopher Y is wrong* about X.
Guess what Philosopher Y might say about my argument.
Explain why Philosopher Y is still wrong.
Fortunately, the great philosophers were mostly wrong so there is a lot to work with!
* You can argue that they were right about X of course but that’s boring. And you can still get a good grade without introducing any original ideas, but that’s boring too.
I especially liked that we were encouraged to disagree with both the great philosophers and with our tutors. As long as you make a good argument, you can agree or disagree. It’s all good. It’s hard to imagine another class like that. I’ve just started my next class about the Classical World and I doubt that I’d get a good grade for arguing against my tutor’s explanation for Achilles’ long sulk in the Trojan War but, in philosophy, it’s expected.
Looking back at the philosophers we studied, I wonder if they were chosen specifically because they were so wrong. Let’s look at a few examples…
John Locke (1632-1704) believed that someone continues to be the same person if and only if they continue to have the same memories. If your 40-year-old self doesn’t remember what your 15-year-old self did then your 40-year-old self is no longer the same person.
I think Locke was wrong.
Continuity of memory is not a reliable way to determine whether someone is the same person. People lose memories for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes they lose them temporarily and recover them later. Does this mean that they were briefly a different person? Sometimes we forget some memories but remember others. Does that mean we are a little bit the same? Of course not. Derek Parfit would disagree but he is wrong too.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) said that doing something right simply to feel the warm glow of satisfaction of doing the right thing has no moral worth. Conversely, striving to do the right thing simply because it is the right thing is morally valuable even if your efforts come to nothing.
I think Kant was wrong.
Doing something that makes the world better has moral value whether or not it makes you feel good, whether or not it follows your conception of duty and doing something that you know to be futile has no moral value either way.
René Descartes (1596-1650) believed that we are made of two distinct substances—the body is made of material stuff and the mind is made of immaterial stuff. Furthermore, the immaterial stuff is the part that constitutes the ‘real you’ because we can imagine what it is like to live without a body but we cannot imagine not being able to think.
I think Descartes was wrong.
There is no immaterial substance and the mind is simply what the brain does.
John Rawls (1921-2002) argued that people with natural talents or with a natural tendency to work hard do not deserve to be rewarded for their talents or tendencies because, ultimately, they acquired their talents and tendencies through the luck of genetics or their upbringing and no one deserves to be rewarded simply for being lucky.
I think Rawls was wrong. People who work hard deserve to be rewarded.
Not every philosopher we studied was wrong about everything but most were wrong about most things. Was this just a big coincidence? Or did they deliberately choose philosophers who were wrong so that we could argue against them?
More about Rawls here:
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It won’t make me rich but it’ll make me happy.
(I promise I won’t spend it on beer!)
Michael Huemer believes that what makes for a great philosopher isn't that their arguments are sound, but that their worldview is interesting.
https://open.substack.com/pub/fakenous/p/great-philosophers?r=4952v2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
I did try A222 a couple of years ago, but had to defer. I am now in the first cohort of DA223 students going through the next iteration of the 'intro Philosophy' module.
I am gong to be interested in the material for the Philosophy of Race discussion (this will be the post-Easter block) and materials haven't been released for the second block.
Maybe by then, I could write an article on the contentious contents of an module!?
Enjoyed your critique of the music industry... was wondering how you were going to approach the obvious challenge of "yeah, but what about every managed boy-band since ever". I had Franki Valli and the Four Seasons in my head, and Suzie Quattro - but your graphic references work just as well.