Saturday, 22 October 2011
A quick thought on Stef's use of the word "philosophy"
A thought I had earlier today: Stefan Molyneux generally describes what he does as "philosophy", in fact he tends to be very emphatic that that's what it is. However, very many of the positions he defends actually pertain to psychology, which is an empirical science. Regardless of what his intentions are in calling it "philosophy", I think it's worth noting that it can serve the purpose of making it appear legitimate to not bother with empirical evidence - which, indeed, Stef generally doesn't.
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While I have significant issues with Stef's blanket use of the word "Philosophy" to describe his distinct branch of philosophy, I think you may be stretching your point to claim that psychology is an empirical science only. Or at the very least you're ignoring a very real and ongoing debate (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/nov/10/freud-and-cocaine-exchange/).
ReplyDeleteI highly recommend Freud Wars by Lavinia Gomez (I'd be happy to mail you my copy). It explores the debate between empirically-based science vs a hermeneutic science.
Thanks for your comment :)
ReplyDeleteYea, that book might be quite interesting to me.
I know Karl Popper made the argument that psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience, on the grounds that its claims are unfalsifiable. Frank Cioffi later took issue with that, (he has a book called "Freud and the Question of Pseudoscience",) and argued that psychoanalysis does, in fact, make lots of falsifiable claims, which he says is illustrated by the fact that most of them are, indeed, falsified.
I would certainly argue that insofar as claims about how the human mind works are, in principle, impossible to assess empirically, they are also meaningless. And insofar as they are actually about the human mind, they can also be empirically assessed in principle. I fully agree with Frank Cioffi, too: the claims made by psychoanalysts pertain to psychology in that they are about how the human mind works; psychoanalysis is only "not empirical" in the sense that psychoanalysts generally don't bother to test their claims and ignore evidence that refutes them when it comes up.
Of course, people can use the word psychology as they wish. This has no bearing on the point I was making in the original post, of course, since Stef does make claims about the empirical science of psychology. Empirical claims, that is.
Thanks for the link, too. I a familiar with Frederick Crews from having read "Le Livre noir de la psychanalyse" (the black book of psychoanalysis), which he contributed to. I very highly recommend that book, but unfortunately, while it has been translated into 8 languages, English isn't one of them.
No problemo, thanks for making the post :)
ReplyDeleteNow, down to business:
"I would certainly argue that insofar as claims about how the human mind works are, in principle, impossible to assess empirically, they are also meaningless."
My response may sound facetious but I mean it genuinely. I find the above sentence very interesting, particularly in your use of the word "meaningless", as "meaning" is an entirely subjective, non-empirical concept.
Perhaps you meant something along the lines of "lacking in material-world truth", which of course has nothing to do with "meaning", that's a term that psychoanalysts are interested in, not biologists.
Of course, I would say that what you and others find "meaningful" may inform us on how the human mind works. That would have to be supported by an argument, but here we're falling away from empiricism and towards hermeneutics.
"Of course, people can use the word psychology as they wish. This has no bearing on the point I was making in the original post, of course, since Stef does make claims about the empirical science of psychology. Empirical claims, that is."
I won't argue with what you intend to say and I hate to nitpick, but your statement above is: "...pertain to psychology, which is an empirical science" not "pertain to empirically-based psychology as presented by...".
I just want to be clear: I'm not trying to step in to defend Stef's position on things (I'm sure others will make their case and I'm not a member of FDR any more), I just took issue with your definition of psychology.
I'll keep an eye out for that book you listed, I'm actually trying to learn a new language so it might be a good one to test myself out on - in time.
What I meant here by "meaningless" is very straightforward: not having predictive value.
ReplyDelete"Having predictive value" is not the same as "being empirical", since mathematical statements also have predictive value.
(Just preempting the objection that my initial statement was circular :P :D)
I don't agree that meaning is for psychoanalysts to talk about and not for biologists (although this depends on your definition of "meaning"; yours seems very mysterious). I strongly recommend the book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life" by Dan Dennett. It's basically about how the theory of evolution links the world of matter with the world of meaning. (I haven't even read it :D but I know Dennett and his ideas well enough to be confident that this is a good recommendation, and that that's what the book's about.)
I know that the part you objected to was my statement that psychology is an empirical science, which I did, indeed, make. (I will continue to make it, too, since I decide to define psychology as the empirical science of the human mind. In my experience this is the most common definition, and it's what is generally taught in universities in "psychology" courses. It's also the kind of "psychology" I like and want to continue to prosper. You may have gathered that I have no such hopes for psychoanalysis :D )
That statement was not meant to be the point of my post, though, so I still maintain that your objection has no bearing on the point I was making, or meant to be making.
Said point can also be made without using the word psychology: Stef calls what he does philosophy, but very often makes empirical claims. This could be used to serve the purpose blah blah blah.
I need to sleep now. Good night! :D