Talk:Is philosophy any good?

Michael Ten

This is a vague question. "Is philosophy any good?"

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy, and studying the epistemology and history of medicine and psychiatry is incredibly useful (at least some would agree).

Ethics is a branch or type of philosophy. If I am remembering correctly, in the book The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement, psychiatrist Thomas Szasz indicates that some individuals attempt sort of medicalize and de-philosophise morality (ethics and philosophy), so rather than human behavior being in the realm of morality and philosophy (or theology), human behavior is completely in the realm of medicine and science (physics, genetics, biochemistry, neuroscience).

It is pure reductionism and absolute positivism. So to de-philosophise illegal violence has unintended consequences, at least according to Szasz (as I understnad his writings).

According to psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, humans are "moral agents". If this is true, then human behavior can and should be analyzed through the lens of ethics and morality (which involves philosophy). So if philosophy is no good, then humans must not be moral agents, since philosophy is useless, and analyzing the moral behavior of humans is pointless (since really behavior is just a byproduct of impersonal mechanistic biology, genetics, biochemistry, and so forth).

If humans are moral agents, and all behavior is either morally good, morally bad, or morally neutral, then to consider philosophy as useless (or no good), is extremely dehumanizing.

However, if humans are not moral agents, and are in fact only mechanistic biological machines totally driven by deterministic biochemistry, genetics, and physics, then sure, philosophy is useless and no good.

If philosophy is no good, then analyzing human behavior in terms of ethics and morality (areas of philsophy) seems pointless.

I do not feel like messing with the formatting and so forth on the actual resource page, but please feel free to integrate these ideas into the resource page if desired, respecting Creative Commons (CC-BY-SA 3.0 License) [BY MICHAEL TEN], of course.

Per this wiki, this comment on this talk page is licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0, but as I understand, but I still may publish my own writings elsewhere as I prefer/want.

Inner and outer peace to you. Humans are moral agents, and if this is true, then the answer to "is philosphy any good [useful]" (as I read the question), then the answer is "yes". Limitless Peace. Michael Ten (discuss • contribs) 17:27, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

@Michael Ten: I added section heading "Michael Ten"; I hope it's okay. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 06:34, 2 October 2024 (UTC)