Bick asked:

How does philosophy view the UFO phenomenon?

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The eighteenth century philosopher David Hume observed that human beings have an irrational
tendency to believe things that appeal to the imagination, or that they would like to be true, rather
than according to any defensible notion of what does, or does not constitute a good explanation.

It is perfectly possible that the Earth is visited every day by alien beings. The Earth might even be a
regular tourist stop in between other planets in this sector of the galaxy. Naturally, given our primitive
and warlike nature, the aliens would not risk making contact. Or, if they did capture a few human
beings for experimental purposes, they would be perfectly capable of covering up evidence of their
activity.

Is that the bestexplanation of UFO reports? I somehow doubt it. Meanwhile, we can only dream
along with Bowie:

There's a star man

Waiting in the sky.

He'd like to come and meet us

But he thinks he'd blow our minds.

Or the Byrds:

Hey, Mr space man

Won't you please take me along?

I won't do anything wrong.

Hey, Mr space man

Won't you please take me along for a ride?

Geoffrey Klempner

Second opinion:

1 do not know what UFOs are and I do not think that philosophy is equipped to tell us. That is an
empirical matter for physics, psychology, doctors and the like. But as philosophers we can try to
elucidate the implications of the various hypotheses about the origins of UFOs.

If UFOs are a purely human phenomena such as some kind of modern (space age influenced) folk
lore or some semi-spiritual event it is interesting to ask what part of the human psyche is responsible
for them — a manifestation of a subconscious search for a "higher meaning" in a life of despair and
hopelessness?

If UFOs turn out to be the work of ETs then the philosophical implications are immense and
multi-layered.

On one level we will have a positive answer to the question "Are we alone?" (in fact I would be more
surprised if we were alone in the universe than by the discovery of alien life.) This discovery of ETs
would force us to review our theories about our origins and development on Earth. We could no
longer view our existence as an accident, a lucky random event, but would have to think in terms of a
universe that has as a consequence of its existence certain inevitable conditions (this does not mean
that we have to talk of any design or teleology implicit in the universe, just that there may be some
"Cosmic Code " that the universe "operates " by).

However 1 think that the most important philosophical implications of the discovery of alien life would
be on a more relative level. It would be more interesting philosophically to think about the kinds of
minds ETs would have, what ideas about personal identity , morality and free will, the nature of
knowledge and the meaning of truth.

Even if they had the same theories as we do this would be just as significant as if they had utterly
alien conceptions. If they were the same it would go a way to confirming our own ideas and may
indicate some fundamental necessary features of intelligent rational beings (although we should not
be surprised that they understand maths or logic or physics).

If they were so different from us that we could not understand them it would indicate the limits of our
subjective conceptions of the world based on our existence as finite creatures with a finite abilities.
The fact that we are human beings influences our perception of the world. Exposure to an alien life
form would help us understand how much and may lead to a revolution in our thinking.

A book that looks at these issues is Paul Davies Are We Alone?

Brian Tee
Dept of Philosophy
University of Sheffield.