this field is required

I came across an inter­est­ing post by Adam over at Sophist­pun­dit called Being a Scholar When You Can’t be a Sci­en­tist. The author argues that, although dis­ci­plines like his­tory and phi­los­o­phy are not sci­ences, there exist rel­e­vant virtues to be hon­ored in their prac­tice: humil­ity, trans­parency of method, engag­ing exten­sive sources, and clar­ity of presentation.

I basi­cally agree with all of this. But I have kind of a prag­matic objec­tion to bit­ing the philosophy-isn’t-science bul­let all the way, at least in my capac­ity as a phi­los­o­phy teach­ing assis­tant. Allow me to illus­trate this reser­va­tion with a vir­tual skit.

Scene: Phi­los­o­phy Teach­ing Assis­tants’ office. Late after­noon. A young woman, casu­ally dressed, spins in a chair in her cubi­cle, fid­dling with an iPhone.

Enter, stage left. An even younger women, car­ry­ing a large back­pack, approaches the cubi­cle and ten­ta­tively takes a seat.

TA: Hi, are you here for office hours? What can I help you with?

Stu­dent: Well, I stud­ied really hard for the last test, but I only got a B. I thought I knew all the right answers but appar­ently they just aren’t good enough!

TA: (look­ing at blue book) Well, on this first ques­tion here, you were sup­posed to show that you know that some things just might be valu­able intrin­si­cally, apart from anyone’s beliefs or choices. Do you remem­ber when we dis­cussed that in class?

Stu­dent: Um, kind of, I don’t know. I try to take good notes to mem­o­rize later but (brac­ing self) it’s just all so SUBJECTIVE. I’m an engi­neer­ing major, and in sci­ence there are facts. In phi­los­o­phy, it’s like every­one is just MAKING STUFF UP.

TA: (get­ting excited) Oh no, it’s not like that at all! So you know how sci­en­tific exper­i­ments work, right? You come up with a hypoth­e­sis and then test it?

Stu­dent: (meekly) Yes…

TA: (get­ting a lit­tle too excited) Well it’s actu­ally alot like that in phi­los­o­phy! We started with a the­ory — or hypoth­e­sis — about the ori­gin of moral value. We decided to test whether all value is nec­es­sar­ily sub­jec­tive. But then, we did an exper­i­ment of sorts! A thought exper­i­ment! And we found evi­dence that sub­jec­tivism might not be true! Because we had intu­itions that it’s good that a beau­ti­ful planet exists, even if no one knows about it!!!!!

Stu­dent: Oh, I see now! Philoso­phers dis­agree on mat­ters, and they have meth­ods for test­ing which the­o­ries fit the rel­e­vant data better!

TA: Hal­lelu­jah!

Stu­dent: It all makes sense! I love phi­los­o­phy now! (kiss­ing TA’s feet)

All char­ac­ters appear­ing in this work are fic­ti­tious. Any resem­blance to real per­sons, liv­ing or dead, is purely coincidental.