Comment on unleash your humanities
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 days agoNot really. I’m just presenting arguments I have always had about philosophy not being a science.
Even if rare, not a single philosopher could make an experiment or present me a scientific theory that would prove that abortion is right or wrong. So the opinion of a single philosopher is as good as any other, and as good as mine for this matter.
Most modern philosophers are left wing, so yes, most philosophers would agree that left-wing morals are right, and that would present an opportunity for left-wing people to say that global morality should be decided by philosophers. I’m left wing myself but I’m against tricks and lies, even if they “benefit the cause”. And even if considering philosophers the moral light of our society would benefit me (as I mainly agree on most modern philosophers views) I personally consider it to be a false statement.
The not funding thing is on the air, yet. I’m just convinced is not a science, is more like literature and other forms of personal expression. And for me the argument would be founding all equally or none. And of course I don’t agree on giving any philosopher a position of authority on morals “just” for being a philosopher in the same way I would give a scientist an authority position in science just for being a scientist (once again, because the whole thing of science is that it’s subjected to experiments and falsifiability.
I don’t even want to diss philosophers. I enjoy reading philosophy a lot. But just as I enjoy reading any other kind of literature. I have respect for Liu Cixin (for instance) but I wouldn’t give him an special position in telling people what to do just because he writes good books that make you think.
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 days ago
And now you’ve moved your goalposts; first it was ‘convince me philosophy deserves government funding,’ now it’s ’philosophy isn’t a hard science and can’t show me on a graph why abortion is wrong’.
If you just don’t like the humanities receiving government funds, just say so instead of doing this song and dance about how it’s really about science and equality.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 days ago
I literally wrote “I have a hard time understanding why we should fund philosophy studies with government money.”.
If you do a bias interpretation on that in your search for an enemy is on you.
I don’t write here trying to achieve any goal. I’m not a partisan not a propagandists.
My only goal, as suggested from the original comment was to know other people’s opinion a debate a little on that.
And I’m not even American, so I don’t really have much stakes on that the US government does or stop doing with their fundings.
As I have already said, it’s not that I don’t like humanities being funded. I don’t like them being treated as sciences, when they are not. I would support a humanities funding that would consists in a more democratic and spread funding that would allow to any member of the society to work on their humanities if they want. For instance funding for anyone self publishing a book on any matter (philosophy or fiction), building national archives and forums for this humanities to coexist.
But funding a philosophy department with a few elite philosophers who sre getting a lot of money to do some philoshophing is just wrong from my pov. I could be convinced otherwise if a good argument is presented, but as far as it goes it has not been presented such argument.