Stephen asked:

Why do philosophers disagree?

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Yes. You know, this is the kind of infuriating question that really, in my opinion, needs to be taken
quite seriously. The easy and obvious answers are things like: philosophers are trained to see details,
to argue, and indeed to disagree. And they are trained to question everything. Thus disagreement is
inevitable. Well that's all very fine, but one could say the same about mathematicians or physicists, or
even engineers... but we find massive agreement in those fields, don't we. Now, why is that? Well, in
part it's the old trashcan story: philosophers are cheaper to hire than mathematicians... neither need
labs or machines... but with philosophers you save money on trashcans; we don't need those, either.
To put it another way, just what doesit take to refute a philosophical position? As long as the logic is
clear, all we can do is attack the assumptions, and how does one do that, if they are not empirically
based? And once they become empirically based, somehow, magically, we're not philosophers
anymore, we're scientists. Given enough background and subtlety in arguing, one can defend pretty
much any position. As far as I can tell, the only reason philosophical positions are not held is that
either 1) they turn empirical and philosophers (mostly) lose interest; or 2) someone does find a flaw in
the logic and a question does get settled or eliminated; or 3) upon analysis, it is found that a question
has been inadequately or too simplistically formulated; or 4) they just go out of fashion.

1) Mostly the case. As far as I know (though there are people who disagree with this claim), most of
the sciences, etc., arose as branches of philosophy.

2) Flaws in logic are rare, and usually when they are found the person just reformulates their position.
Look at all the "unmoved mover" arguments.

3) More common than 2. But again, it is rare that a position is abandoned in consequence. It is
usually elaborated to take the additional complexities into account. But at least here we can argue
that there is a reason to continue the discussion, i.e., that elaboration may lead to further insights,
and so forth.

4) Lots of these. Why don't we debate Medieval religious questions any more? Well, who cares?

All very fine. But where is the agreement? 1) After becoming empirical, we test against the world, and
it's hard to argue against things either exploding or not, and so forth... although it's always tried. But
ultimately we tend to get agreement here. 2) Back to the beginning after the reformulation; no
agreement. 3) Here maybe we make some progress, but we still don't agree. 4) If you can call this
agreement.

If it comes to it, there are still people arguing the pros and cons of Aristotle's analyses of causation.
There are still arguments about the validity and consistency of Thomism. We have discovered a "new
problem of induction", but we're also still debating whether induction is merely a type of deduction or
a different kind of reasoning.

It seems that philosophical positions just fade away... they never really completely die, but eventually
they just lay there gathering dust: they are conceded to be valueless dead ends. I have no idea if
anyone has addressed whether this process is a valid form of induction; someone probably has, but if
not, it might be a good idea for someone to think about.

Steven Ravett Brown

My personal opinion is that philosophy is either giving a view on statements as made in any language
that developed during evolution, or extending such a language. Differences in views are inherent.

But Nobel Prize winning physicist Steven Weinberg wrote that he mainly noticed philosophers who
refuted other philosophers.

So you may assume that there is some truth in this statement.

Maybe the majority of philosophers drowned too much in quarrelling, because that is what the 'man
on the street' observes. It isn't much different in 'harder' sciences, so maybe evolution caused this
tendency to fight.

According to Bertrand Russell in "The value of philosophy":

"If the study of philosophy has any value at all for others than students of philosophy, it must be only
indirectly, through its effects upon the lives of those who study it."

So if you're happy studying it, then this happiness inflects others. In the same chapter Russell writes:

"But it cannot be maintained that philosophy has had any very great measure of success in its
attempts to provide definite answers to its questions. If you ask a mathematician, a mineralogist, a
historian, or any other man of learning, what definite body of truths has been ascertained by his
science, his answer will last as long as you are willing to listen. But if you put the same question to a
philosopher, he will, if he is candid, have to confess that his study has not achieved positive results
such as have been achieved by other sciences."

And he concludes:

"Thus, to sum up our discussion of the value of philosophy; Philosophy is to be studied for the sake of
the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible,
enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind
against speculation.</BLOCKQUOTE

The value of philosophy for Russell is: (1) enlarging our view on what is possible, (2) improving our
intellectual imagination, and (3) lessening dogmatic assurance. Perhaps he meant that is what
philosophy should do. Points 1 and 2 or more or less similar, it is improving knowledge like any study
should. There remains probably the main point of making one humble, because of an overview on
'the problems of life'.

Back to your question. Those philosophers who act like their main job is disagreeing with one another
are certainly not being humble. For Bertrand Russell these are not real philosophers. So if that is the
impression about the whole of philosophy of the majority of people, then there is something VERY
WRONG.

Henk Tuten

Perhaps the question should be, why should philosophers not disagree. After all, there is
disagreement among practitioners in all areas of investigation: physicists, psychologists, and
economists, to name just three. So why should philosophers be any different? Disagreement in
general is caused by differences in view, or mistakes by one party or another. The same is true in
philosophy.

You may think that there is something special about philosophy that causes disagreement, and it is
true that there is perhaps more controversy in philosophy than in some (but not all, for instance
political science) areas. Of course, philosophy is an especially abstract subject, and that, perhaps
makes for the possibility of differences in view as well as for the greater possibility of mistakes in
thinking.

Ken Stern