Science And Western Philosophy

In what follows, as in my blog generally, the term "philosophy" refers to Western philosophy. This is not because I have anything against philosophy from China or India or the indigenous cultures of the Western Hemisphere or from anywhere else on the planet; on the contrary, it's merely because I know so little about non-Western philosophy.

Every now and then someone who knows a bit about physics or biology or geology and remarkably little about a lot of other things will answer the question "What is philosophy?" by saying that philosophy was what very weakly and incompletely plugged a few gaps in things before Francis Bacon formulated the scientific method and the Scientific Revolution got underway, and add with a condescending smirk that of course this answer doesn't sit well with philosophers. And of course he or she (usually he) is right, that answer does not sit well with philosophers. Or with anybody who actually knows what philosophy is, or knows that the scientific method actually was used now and then -- by philosophers -- for thousands of years before Francis Bacon formulated it.

Western philosophy is the pre-Socratics, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and their pals, and Russell, Wittgenstein, Sartre, Rorty, Sloterdijk and their pals, and all the people in between who studied Plato and Aristotle and the people in between up until their own time, however you want to describe them, and whatever their attitude toward their illustrious predecessors was.

Within Western philosophy, up until and including Galileo and Francis Bacon, the terms "philosopher" and "scientist" mean pretty much the same thing, and since then, by and large, with a few exceptions, philosophers have tended to know a shitload more about science than scientists have known about philosophy. People generally these days have a healthy appreciation of and respect for science, and philosophers are very rarely an exception to this rule. It's a shame that some prominent scientists don't know jack about philosophy, or history, or art or literature or music or psychology, and yet publicly hold forth on their special area of ignorance as if they had a clue. That's really a shame.

I am notorious for my unwillingness to describe philosophy any more exactly than by saying that it's been what has been written by those people known as philosophers: the pre-Socratics, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Zeno, Boethius, Roger Bacon, William of Occam, Machiavelli, Copernicus, Francis Bacon, Pascal, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Russell, Sarte -- you know, all those guys plus the handful of gals which they, unfortunately very misogynistic, very many of them, have let into their club. What it is is what those people have done, however you choose to describe it. I don't define it any more exactly than that because I happen to think that that is exactly what it is. If you have something intelligent to say about Plato and Hume, because you've actually read and understood them, there's a good chance you could reasonably be called a philosopher. If you can't, because you haven't, then chances are you can't be. Just as I think that a religion is that group of people who identify as belonging to that religion, and not a set of beliefs, so I think that philosophy is the above-described group of people, and not something they all have in common which can be abstractly described in several dozen words or less. Philosophers, including the famous ones, have been brilliant and stupid, gregarious and misanthropic, nationalistic and enemies of cultural boundaries, polyglots and bigoted haters of all but one language (although more usually polyglots), world travelers and agoraphobes, sometimes not misogynistic at all, sometimes women, and so on and so forth. As we all know, "philosopher" means "lover of wisdom," but it's not as if there's anything close to a consensus among philosophers about what actually is and isn't wise, or who's wise and who's a fool.

I suppose I actually can think of one characteristic which philosophers generally share, just one: we like to read the works of other philosophers, even the ones we disagree with intensely. We read the latter so as more soundly to refute them and overturn the influence of their folly. It's not as if we're doing it for the money.

17th-Century Atheism: I Don't Know How Widespread It Was, And Neither Does Daniel Garber

Daniel Garber is not only a professor of philosophy, at Princeton, no less, but he actually specializes in philosophers of the 17th century, and he says things like:

"Many important scientists and mathematicians in the period were also believers, including Bacon, Descartes, Boyle, Pascal and Newton. Not that there weren’t atheists in the period"

Professors of philosophy have often been roundly mocked by actual philosophers, and with good reason. Yes, Pascal and Newton believed in God. With Bacon and Descartes, there is a lot to read between the lines, just as there is with Hobbes and Spinoza. I assume that the latter two may be among the people Garber counts as atheists, but they didn't come right out and say they were. Not even David Hume, born decades after both Spinoza and Hobbes had died, did that. It would've been extremely dangerous.

The first open, public avowal of atheism in Europe after the 5th century of which I am aware is contained in the book Système de la Nature ou Des Loix du Monde Physique et du Monde Moral, written by Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach,



and published in 1770. Published, but under a pseudonym. And it was banned in France, and an executioner publicly burned some copies of it. Was Holbach himself in danger of being burned at the stake? Probably not, but the treatment of his book probably reflected what some of the authorities would've liked to have done to him. Diderot, not an aristocrat like Holbach, spent some time in prison in the mid-18th century in France for atheism expressed between the lines. (The Marquis de Sade spent some time in prison for his writing, and Marquis is a few ranks above baron, but Sade's writings are many shades more shocking than Holcach's. In case you haven't read any of Sade's work, and you have read some Penthouse Letters, imagine writing which might make a Penthouse Letters editor cringe in horror and scream, "That's sick! It's wrong! I want nothing to do with such filth!" and burst into tears like a little girl. I'm telling you, Sade was an uninhibited writer.)

Jean Meslier, 1664-1729, was a French priest, and after his death a strongly-worded essay in favor of atheism was found among his papers. So that may be an actual written smoking-gun, no-doubt proof of 17th century atheism -- or maybe not, maybe Meslier didn't lose his faith until after 1700. In any case, he, like many other clergypeople in the 18th and 19th centuries, when atheism gradually emerged and asserted its right to be, demonstrates that one could be publicly religious and privately atheist. Descartes, whom Garber counts among the religious believers of the 17th century, was often thought by his contemporaries to have been an atheist, as was his follower Spinoza, and whether they were atheists or not, they certainly paved the way for later generations to say openly that they didn't believe in God, without fearing punishment for it. As did Francis Bacon and Hobbes and Hume and Holbach and Diderot and Sade and Voltaire and Franklin, because they all pushed the boundaries of what was permissible to say. They all stuck their necks way out for the sake of the freedom of expression of the likes of you, me, and Garber.

It's soooooo absurd to make sweeping generalizations about the religious beliefs of people who were subject to punishments up to and including torture and being burned alive for religious dissent. Both Garber and I are, of necessity, reading between the lines when it comes to the religious beliefs or lack thereof of 17th century philosophers. But only one of us acts as if he is and admits how much guesswork the subject involves.