Penultimate draft of an article forthcoming in Philosophia. The final publication will be available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1007/s11406-015-9591-9.

Is Philosophy a Humanistic Discipline? Carlo Cellucci

Abstract. According to Bernard Williams, philosophy is a humanistic discipline essentially different from the sciences. While the sciences describe the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective, philosophy tries to make sense of ourselves and of our activities. Only the humanistic disciplines, in particular philosophy, can do this, the sciences have nothing to say about it. In this note I point out some limitations of Williams’ view and outline an alternative view.

Keywords: The nature of philosophy · The character of scientism · The absolute conception of the world · Philosophy and the sciences · Philosophy and the humanistic disciplines · Philosophy and history

Introduction The recent publication of Williams (2014) has revived the attention on a basic question raised by Williams (2006): What is philosophy? From its very beginning philosophy has called into question all human knowledge including itself, so it is not surprising that Williams raises this question. What is somewhat surprising is rather his answer: Philosophy is a humanistic

1

discipline, essentially different from the sciences. This answer is somewhat surprising because Williams is an important representative of analytic philosophy, and it is widely held that analytic philosophers “are expected to integrate the results and methods of the sciences with their own philosophizing” (Schwartz 2012, 322). In this note I point out some limitations of Williams’ view and outline an alternative view.

Williams’ View of Philosophy Williams characterizes philosophy via a constitutive contrast with scientism. He says that scientism is “a misunderstanding of the relations between philosophy and the natural sciences which tends to assimilate philosophy to the aims, or at least the manners, of the sciences” (Williams 2006, 182). According to scientism, since the sciences “possess intellectual authority,” philosophy should “try to share in it” (ibid., 188). But this is a mistake, because philosophy and the sciences have different aims. Indeed, on the one hand, the sciences describe “the world ‘as it is in itself,’ independent of perspective” (ibid., 184). They provide the kind of representation that “might be reached by any competent investigators of the world, even though they differed from us—that is to say, from human beings—in their sensory apparatus and, certainly, their cultural background” (ibid., 185). Thus the sciences give “the ‘absolute conception’ of the world,” namely “a conception of the world that might be arrived at by any investigators, even if they were very different from us” (Williams 1985, 139). On the other hand, philosophy is “part of a wider humanistic enterprise of making sense of ourselves and of our activities,” and in order to answer many of its questions, “it needs to attend to other parts of that enterprise, in particular to history” (Williams 2006, 197). Therefore philosophy “should get

2

rid of scientistic illusions” and “should not try to behave like an extension of the natural sciences” (ibid.). Admittedly, “some philosophical subjects have scientific neighbours,” but “even in areas where its practices are most relevant, science can be a bad model for philosophy” (Williams 2014, 367). Indeed, “there are several features of natural science which, applied to philosophy, may have a baleful effect on it” (ibid.). Therefore, the assimilation of philosophy to the aims of the sciences “is a mistake” (Williams 2006, 182). In particular, there is no reason why “the idea that science and only science describes the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective,” should mean that “there is no independent philosophical enterprise” (ibid., 184).

Williams and a Non-Analytic Tradition Although Williams is a significant representative of analytic philosophy, his view of philosophy as a humanistic discipline follows a well-established nonanalytic philosophical tradition concerning the relation between the sciences and the humanistic disciplines. The main representatives of this tradition are Dilthey and Husserl. For example, Husserl criticizes scientism because, by assimilating philosophy to the aims of the sciences, it “decapitates philosophy” (Husserl 1970, 9). Scientism implies that, “in our vital need,” philosophy “has nothing to say to us. It excludes in principle precisely the questions” which humanity “finds the most burning: questions of the meaning or meaninglessness of the whole of this human existence” (ibid., 6). But this is a mistake, because philosophy and the sciences have completely different aims. The sciences aim at “objective knowledge of the world, the universe of realities existing in themselves,” and have “the intent of knowing being-in-itself through truths in

3

themselves” (ibid., 316–317). Conversely, philosophy is a humanistic discipline in which “theoretical interest is directed at human beings exclusively as persons, at their personal life and accomplishments, and correlatively at the products of such accomplishments” (ibid., 270). In order to deal with these questions, philosophy needs to attend to its own history, because we must “reflect back, in a thorough historical and critical fashion,” in order to arrive at “a radical self-understanding: we must inquire back into what was originally and always sought in philosophy” (ibid., 17). But, although Williams’ view of philosophy follows a well-established philosophical tradition, it is based on some problematic assumptions. In what follows I will critically discuss such assumptions.

What Is Scientism, Really? Williams describes scientism as the view that assimilates philosophy to the aims, or at least the manners, of the sciences. This is a common way of describing scientism. For instance, Blackburn states that scientism is “the belief that the methods of natural science, or the categories and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other enquiry” (Blackburn 1996, 344). This description of scientism, however, suffers from the indeterminacy of the expression ‘the sciences’ because, from the seventeenth century, new sciences have arisen and continue to arise. Thus the methods of natural science, or the categories and things recognized in natural science, are not fixed but change over time. Scientism is better described as the view that assimilates philosophy to the aims of the present sciences. A representative of scientism, in this sense, is Quine, according to whom “the only point of view” philosophy can offer is “the point of view of our own science” (Quine 1981, 182). That is, the only

4

point of view philosophy can offer is that of the present sciences. The philosopher “begins his reasoning within the inherited world theory” and “tries to improve, clarify, and understand the system from within” (ibid., 72). Thus, according to Quine, the task of philosophers is to improve, clarify, and understand the theories of the present sciences from within. But to assign this task to philosophers seems unrealistic, because improving, clarifying and understanding the theories of the present sciences from within is an integral part of the work of the scientists, and they are much more competent to this task than the philosophers. Scientism, intended as the view that assimilates philosophy to the aims of the present sciences, arises from overrating the scope of the latter. It assumes that the present sciences cover all fields of knowledge, and that they make us know the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective. Several analytic philosophers share this assumption of scientism, even those who, like Williams, are opposed to assimilating philosophy to the aims of the sciences. As Putnam points out, “analytic philosophy has become increasingly dominated by the idea that science, and only science, describes the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective” (Putnam 1992, ix–x). As I will presently argue, however, this idea is unjustified.

Sciences and the World as it is in Itself According to Williams, the sciences describe the world as it is in itself. This view seems to be rather widely shared. For example, Dummett states that “science is in large part an attempt to answer” the question “what things are like in themselves, as opposed to how they appear to us” (Dummett 2010, 43). Nagel states that “Kant’s claim that empirical reasoning tells us only about the phenomenal world is empirically incredible, given the evidence—

5

and what is empirically incredible is incredible” (Nagel 1997, 99). On the contrary, “the move toward objectivity reveals what things are like in themselves as opposed to how they appear” (Nagel 1979, 212). This view, however, is unwarranted, because the sciences do not describe the world as it is in itself. Galileo’s philosophical revolution that gave rise to modern science consisted in the renunciation of Aristotle’s aim “to penetrate the true and intrinsic essence of natural substances,” contenting ourselves “with coming to know some properties of them” mathematical in character, “such as location, motion, shape, size” (Galilei 1968, V, 187–188). With such renunciation, a mathematical treatment of nature became possible. The latter was impossible within Aristotle’s perspective, because essence is not mathematical in character. Therefore Newton states: “The moderns, laying aside substantial forms and occult qualities, have endeavoured to subject the phenomena of nature to mathematical laws” (Newton 1972, I, 15). Since, with Galileo’s philosophical revolution, scientists have renounced Aristotle’s aim to penetrate the true and intrinsic essence of natural substances, their theories are not about the essence of natural substances. Therefore, it is unjustified to say that the sciences describe the world as it is in itself, they only describe certain phenomenal properties of the world. It is because of this philosophical revolution that Galileo has an important place, not only in the history of science, but also in the history of philosophy. In particular, without Galileo’s philosophical revolution, Kant’s distinction between phenomena and things in themselves would not have been so significant.

Science and the Independence of Perspective

6

According to Williams, the sciences describe the world independent of perspective. They provide the kind of representation of the world that might be reached by any competent investigators even though they differed from human beings in their sensory apparatus and their cultural background. This view too seems to be rather widely shared. For example, McGinn states that “scientific knowledge aspires to transcend the human viewpoint and human limitations—to describe the world as it exists independently of the human perspective” (McGinn 2015, 100). Nagel states that, through scientific knowledge, “limited beings like ourselves can alter their conception of the world so that it is no longer just the view from where they are but in a sense a view from nowhere, which includes and comprehends the fact that the world contains beings which possess it” (Nagel 1986, 70). But saying that the sciences describe the world independent of perspective, conflicts with the fact that the representation of the world that the sciences provide is essentially dependent on the human cognitive apparatus. As Kant states, our form of knowledge is something “which is peculiar to us, and which therefore does not necessarily pertain to every being, though to be sure it pertains to every human being” (Kant 1998, A42/B59). Similarly, Calvino states that, although the sciences make “efforts to escape from anthropomorphic knowledge,” our “imagination cannot be anything but anthropomorphic” (Calvino 1988, 90). Indeed, “we can know nothing about what is outside us if we overlook ourselves” (Calvino 2010, 107). In particular, the representation of the world that the sciences provide is affected by the limitations of our cognitive apparatus—not only our perceptive apparatus but also our conceptual apparatus, because the latter is derived to a large extent from our perceptual apparatus. Such limitations are

7

not accidental because, as Locke pointed out, if our cognitive apparatus had no such limitations, it “would be inconsistent with our being, or at least wellbeing, in the part of the universe which we inhabit” (Locke 1975, 302). In other words, such limitations are essential to the survival of the species.

Sciences and the Absolute Conception According to Williams, the sciences give the absolute conception of the world, where “the notion of an absolute conception can serve to make effective a distinction between ‘the world as it is independent of our experience’ and ‘the world as it seems to us’ ” (Williams 2006, 139). However, as Putnam points out, to this end Williams “needs an absolute notion of ‘absoluteness’ ” because only such a notion could serve to make effective a distinction between ‘the world as it is independent of our experience’ and ‘the world as it seems to us,’ but in fact he has “only a perspectival notion of absoluteness, not an absolute one” (Putnam 2001, 608). Indeed, the question of whether some conception of the world might be absolute is the question of whether any investigators, even very different from us, would converge upon it. But this will inevitably be a question of interpretation, and such question can be settled only by the best interpretations that can be given of the different communities of investigators. Now, on a Quinean or Davidsonian view of interpretation, such interpretations are open to the indeterminacies of translation, and “Williams accepts a Quinean or Davidsonian view of interpretation, and the corollary of semantic indeterminacy” (Blackburn 2010, 253). This means that, within one perspective, there may be convergence upon a given conception of the world

8

while, within another perspective, there may be none. Then, as Putnam states, the notion of absoluteness is only perspectival, not an absolute one.

Philosophy as Different from the Sciences According to Williams, philosophy has a different aim than the sciences, because it is part of a wider humanistic enterprise of making sense of ourselves and of our activities. This view of philosophy, however, ignores that we cannot make sense of ourselves and of our activities if we do not have a global view of the world and our place in it. Only on such basis we may understand who we are and where we are going. This requires that philosophy be an inquiry into the world which aims at acquiring knowledge about the world, including ourselves. And, of course, it needs to make use of the achievements of the present sciences, since the latter are what we already know. In assigning philosophy the role of being part of a wider humanistic enterprise of making sense of ourselves and of our activities, from which the sciences are excluded, Williams assumes that the conclusions reached by the sciences are irrelevant to those reached by the humanistic disciplines, and in particular by philosophy. But, as Zeki points out, “the path to acquiring knowledge—whether grounded in scientific experimentation or through philosophical or humanistic speculation—must use similar mental processes” (Zeki 2014, 13). And, if “similar brain processes are involved in humanistic and scientific inference, we are led ineluctably to the view that conclusions reached by one are relevant to those reached by the other” (ibid., 14). Williams’ claim that philosophy has a different aim than the sciences is based on the assumption that values and knowledge must be thought of as rigorously separated. But this assumption is unjustified. On the one hand,

9

what we believe ought to be is affected by what we know about the world including ourselves, since knowledge may modify values. On the other hand, values affect theory appraisal, guiding the choice of problems and hypotheses and affecting the evaluation of hypotheses. (For more on this, see below).

Philosophy and History According to Williams, a feature which characterizes philosophy as being a humanistic discipline different from the sciences is that, unlike the sciences, philosophy needs to attend to other parts of the humanistic enterprise, in particular to history. Indeed, Williams contrasts philosophy with the sciences by stating that, although it is “desirable that scientists should know something about their science’s history,” this “is not essential to their enquiries” (Williams 2006, 204). On the contrary, philosophers need to know about their discipline’s history, because the ignorance of the history of philosophy “stands in the way of our understanding who we are, what our concepts are, what we are up to” (Williams 2014, 412). Philosophy “can get a real hold on its task only with the help of history; or, rather, as Nietzsche put it, philosophising in such a case must itself be historical” (ibid., 409). The reference to Nietzsche is not surprising, because Williams admired Nietzsche. Conversely, the claim that philosophy can get a real hold on its task only with the help of history may be surprising because, according to Williams, analytic philosophy “remains the only real philosophy there is” (Williams 2006, 168). Now, analytic philosophy has traditionally proceeded with strongly ahistorical assumptions about the practice of philosophy. Williams himself has done so for most of his life, except in his last book,

10

where he states that “at a certain point philosophy needs to make way for history, or, as I prefer to say, to involve itself in it” (Williams 2002, 93). Therefore, Williams’ acknowledgment that philosophy can get a real hold on its task only with the help of history, is a change from the traditional practice of analytic philosophy. And, clearly, it is a change for the better, since philosophy really needs to make use of the experience of the philosophers of the past. Without such experience, philosophy risks hunting down trails that are known to be dead ends. As Santayana states, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (Santayana 1948, 248). On the other hand, Williams is wrong in assuming that, while history is fundamental, the sciences are irrelevant to our understanding of who we are, what our concepts are, and what we are up to. Such understanding requires us to acquire knowledge about the world, and the sciences are part of that aim. Of course, the present sciences may not be sufficient to the task, new knowledge may be required in new areas. For this reason, as stated above, philosophy must be an inquiry into the world which aims at acquiring knowledge about the world, including ourselves.

Rethinking the Aim of Philosophy Contrary to the assumption of scientism, philosophy does not reduce to the present sciences. But, on the other hand, it is not opposed to them. Philosophy and the present sciences are part of a common enterprise, aimed at acquiring knowledge about the world, including ourselves. Philosophy and the present sciences are a continuum, not in the sense of scientism, but in the sense that the kind of knowledge at which philosophy aims does not differ essentially from scientific knowledge and is not limited to any area.

11

The only difference between philosophy and the present sciences is that philosophy deals with questions which are beyond the latter. The present sciences are what we already know, philosophy is about what we do not yet know. But philosophical speculation as to what we do not yet know may open the way to new knowledge. Indeed, when successful, philosophy may even give birth to new sciences. This has repeatedly occurred in the past four centuries. For example, as already mentioned, in the seventeenth century modern physics originated from Galileo’s philosophical revolution. In the nineteenth century, psychology developed from philosophy. In the twentieth century, computer science originated from Turing’s philosophical attempt to analyze the computational behavior of human beings; cognitive science originated from an interaction between a philosophical tradition of speculation about the mind and Turing’s analysis; Bayesian statistics originated from the philosophical efforts to clarify what a rational belief is. Thus, as Glymour states, computer science, cognitive science, and Bayesian statistics “were all informed by developments in philosophy within the last 100 years” (Glymour 1997, 5). Sometimes problems and concepts which arise from philosophical speculation and give birth to new sciences come back for further philosophical reflection, thus strengthening the connections between philosophy and the sciences. For example, Rota states that “the awesome complexities of the phenomena that are being studied” in “experimental psychology, neurophysiology and computer science” have convinced scientists that “progress in science will depend on philosophical research in the most classical vein” (Rota 2008, 99). There is no reason to think that philosophy will not give birth to new sciences also in the future. For example, knowledge has an important role in

12

evolution, even the simplest organisms cannot survive if they do not acquire knowledge about the environment. But the current theories of evolution disregard the role of knowledge in evolution, so knowledge processes are not taken into account in such theories. Therefore, there is need for a new science which completes the current theories of evolution with a theory of knowledge. As another example, although it is evident that the mind is intimately linked to brain processes and that the study of such processes will give us much insight into operations of the mind, it should also be understood that the mind also involves processes that are external to the body. The present psychology and cognitive science do not account for such processes. Therefore, there is need for a new science which considers not only the processes internal to the body but also those external to it. These are just two examples of possible new sciences, but others could be suggested. There is much space for philosophy, because the things which we do not yet know, even on basic questions, are numerous, and philosophy is about what we do not yet know. In this connection, it is worth recalling Seneca’s prediction: “Veniet tempus quo posteri nostri tam aperta nos nescisse mirentur [A time will come when our posterity will marvel that we were ignorant of such obvious things]” (Seneca, Naturales Quaestiones 7.25). For more on this view of philosophy, see Cellucci 2014.

Continuity with the Philosophical Tradition The view that philosophy is aimed at acquiring knowledge about the world, including ourselves, is continuous with the philosophical tradition. It is simply the view of philosophy that Plato and Aristotle put forward at the beginning of philosophy as a discipline. Thus Plato states that “philosophy is the acquiring of knowledge [ktesis epistemes]” (Plato, Euthydemus, 288 d 8).

13

Only “the one who is wholeheartedly ready to taste every sort of knowledge, and who is curious to learn and is never satisfied, may be justly termed a philosopher” (Plato, Respublica, V 475 c 6–8). Aristotle states that “philosophy is rightly called the knowledge of truth” (Aristotle, Metaphysica, α 1, 993 b 19–20). This view of philosophy is reaffirmed in various ways at the beginning of modern philosophy. Thus Bacon states: “I have taken all knowledge to be my province” (Bacon 1961–1963, VIII, 109). Indeed, “under philosophy I include all arts and sciences, and in a word whatever has been from the occurrence of individual objects collected and digested by the mind into general notions” (ibid., X, 405). Descartes states that philosophy aims at “a perfect knowledge of all things that man can know, both for the conduct of his life, and for the preservation of his health, and for the invention of all the arts,” indeed, acquiring knowledge “is properly called philosophizing” (Descartes 1996, IX–2, 2). Admittedly, the view that philosophy is aimed at acquiring knowledge about the world, including ourselves, is not shared by several contemporary philosophers who seem to have abandoned the aim that Plato and Aristotle originally set for philosophy. Thus Wittgenstein states that philosophy “arises neither from an interest in the facts of nature, nor from a need to grasp causal connections,” on the contrary, it is “essential to our investigation that we do not seek to learn anything new by it” but only “to understand something that is already in plain view” (Wittgenstein 2009, § 89). Wisdom states that philosophy “does not provide us with knowledge of new facts but only with clearer knowledge of facts already known” (Wisdom 1934, 1). Ryle states that philosophy is “intended not to increase what we know” but only “to rectify the logical geography of the knowledge we already possess” (Ryle

14

2009, lix). Dummett states that “philosophy does not advance knowledge: it clarifies what we already know” (Dummett 2010, 21). It “does not seek to observe more, but to clarify our vision of what we see” (ibid., 10). This alternative view of philosophy, however, has led many scientists to conclude that contemporary philosophy is sterile, wan and irrelevant, or even dead. For example, Dyson states that, “compared with the giants of the past,” the present philosophers “are a sorry bunch of dwarfs” (Dyson 2012). They “are historically insignificant. At some time toward the end of the nineteenth century, philosophers faded from public life,” they “suddenly and silently vanished,” which compels us to ask: “When and why did philosophy lose its bite? How did it become a toothless relic of past glories?” (ibid.). Hawking states that traditionally questions such as, ‘How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves?’ or ‘What is the nature of reality?’ “are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead” (Hawking and Mlodinow 2010, 5). Pinker states that “philosophy today gets no respect. Many scientists use the term as a synonym for effete speculation” (Pinker 2002, 11). If philosophy wants to be adequate to its past, it should not abandon the aim that Plato and Aristotle originally set for it. Rather, it should be inspired by the hope that it will contribute to that aim.

Theoretical and Practical Knowledge It might be thought that the view that philosophy should be aimed at acquiring knowledge about the world, including ourselves, excludes ethics and politics. But it is not so. This is clear from the fact that Plato and Aristotle, who put forward the view in question, concerned themselves with ethics and politics. Like the sciences, the latter are aimed at knowledge, though practical knowledge rather than theoretical knowledge. Thus Aristotle

15

states that all philosophy–theoretical or practical, which includes ethics and politics–is rightly called the knowledge of truth, because “the aim of theoretical knowledge is truth” (Aristotle, Metaphysica, 993 b 20–21). And likewise the aim of practical knowledge is truth, since also “practical philosophers investigate the way in which something is” except that, unlike theoretical philosophers, “they do not aim at knowledge of what is eternal, but of what is relative to a certain circumstance and a certain moment” (ibid., 993 b 22–23). In fact, they aim at truth not for its own sake but only as a means to something else, that is, action, because the ultimate aim “of practical knowledge is action” (ibid., 993 b 21). Williams himself does not deny that there can be practical knowledge. He only claims that, while the end of theoretical knowledge is absolute truth, that is, truth independent of any perspective, the end of practical knowledge is relative truth, that is, truth dependent on a given perspective. In his view, “ethical knowledge is dependent on ‘the local perspectives or idiosyncrasies of enquirers,’ whereas scientific knowledge may not be” (Williams 2006, xvii). Admittedly, the logical positivists popularized the view that ethics and politics are essentially different from the sciences because they are concerned with values, whereas the sciences are concerned with facts. Thus Carnap states that “the philosophy of moral values or moral norms” is “not an investigation of facts,” its purpose is “to state norms for human action or judgments about moral values,” where stating a norm or a value judgment “is merely a difference of formulation” (Carnap 1935, 23). Indeed, a norm “has an imperative form, for instance: ‘Do not kill!’ The corresponding value judgment would be: ‘Killing is evil’” (ibid., 23–24). Since the value statement, ‘Killing is evil’ has the grammatical form of a declarative

16

sentence, “most philosophers have been deceived by this form into thinking that a value statement is really an assertive proposition, and must be either true or false” (ibid., 24). But “actually a value statement is nothing else than a command in a misleading grammatical form,” so “it is neither true nor false. It does not assert anything and can neither be proved nor disproved” (ibid.). Therefore, facts and values are essentially heterogeneous and, unlike facts, values cannot be investigated. This view, however, overlooks that, on the one hand, values depend on what we know about the world, including” ourselves, and may change as our knowledge changes, therefore facts affect values. On the other hand, values guide us in choosing scientific problems to work on and hypotheses to solve them, as well as criteria for evaluating hypotheses, therefore values affect facts. This is especially clear if, as argued in Cellucci 2015, the aim of science is to make plausible hypotheses about the world, namely hypotheses such that the arguments for them are stronger than those against them. Determining whether the arguments for are stronger than those against requires value criteria. In particular, every scientific revolution leads to a change in values which produces a change in the choice of scientific problems to work on and hypotheses to solve them, as well as criteria for evaluating hypotheses. Therefore, it is unjustified to say that facts and values are essentially heterogeneous, and that, unlike facts, values cannot be investigated. As Dewey states, “inquiry, discovery take the same place in morals that they have come to occupy in sciences and nature” (Dewey 2004, 100). If the claim is made that, in inquiry in the human area, “ ‘values’ are involved and that inquiry as ‘scientific’ has nothing to do with values, the inevitable consequence is that inquiry in the human area is confined to what is superficial and comparatively trivial” (ibid., xvi).

17

It might also be thought that the view that philosophy should be aimed at acquiring knowledge about the world, including ourselves, excludes scholarship which re-examines philosophy of the past. But it is not so. As pointed out above, without the experience of the philosophers of the past, philosophy risks hunting down trails that are known to be dead ends. Specifically, as we have seen, the view that philosophy should be aimed at acquiring knowledge is based on the experience of the philosophy of the past, from Plato and Aristotle to Bacon and Descartes.

Conclusion From what has been said above it follows that, if by a ‘humanistic discipline’ is meant a discipline which is essentially different from the sciences, then we must give a negative answer to the question whether philosophy is a humanistic discipline. Philosophy is not essentially different from the sciences, on the contrary, it is akin to them, being an inquiry which aims at acquiring knowledge about the world, including ourselves. In carrying out such inquiry, philosophy may even give birth to new sciences. Then it is unjustified to say that philosophy is a humanistic discipline opposed to the sciences. In particular, it is unjustified to say this on the ground that philosophy, as a humanistic discipline, can make sense of ourselves and of our activities, while the sciences cannot. Only if we have a global view of the world and our place in it we may understand who we are and where we are going, and this requires that philosophy be an investigation about the world, and needs to use the achievements of the present sciences. Humanistic disciplines need not be viewed as opposed to the sciences, they can be viewed as disciplines that study human beings. Not only there are already several scientific disciplines that study human beings, such as

18

psychology, cognitive science, anthropology, sociology, political science, economics, linguistics, but even the traditional humanistic disciplines, such as art and literature, may contribute to this study. Thus Zeki states that “the experiments of Picasso and Braque” of “how a form maintains its identity in spite of wide variations in the context in which it is viewed, resolves itself scientifically into the neurobiological problem of form constancy” (Zeki 2014, 12). And “one is likely to acquire as much experimentally testable knowledge, for example, from reading Kant on aesthetics or Balzac and Zola on creativity than one would from any presently available scientific text” (ibid., 13). This supports the claim that the humanistic disciplines and the sciences are not opposed.

Acknowledgments I am grateful to Reuben Hersh, Stephen Schwartz, Fabio Sterpetti, Semir Zeki, and an anonymous reviewer for their comments and suggestions. I also wish to thank Arlette Dupuis who kindly copyedited the final draft delivered to Philosophia.

References Bacon, F. (1961–1963). Works. Stuttgart–Bad Cannstatt: Frommann Holzboog. Blackburn, S. (1996). The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blackburn, S. (2010). Practical Tortoise Raising and Other Philosophical Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Calvino, I. (1988). Six Memos for the Next Millennium. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

19

Calvino, I. (2010). Palomar. New York: Random House. Carnap, R. (1935). Philosophy and Logical Syntax. London: Kegan Paul. Cellucci, C. (2014). Rethinking Philosophy. Philosophia 42: 271–288. Cellucci, C. (2015). Rethinking Knowledge. Metaphilosophy 46: –

.

Descartes, R. (1996). Œuvres. Paris: Vrin. Dewey, J. (2004). Reconstruction in Philosophy. Mineola: Dover. Dummett, M. (2010). The Nature and Future of Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press. Dyson, F. (2012). What Can You Really Know? The New York Review of Books 59, No. 17 (November 8): 18–20. Galilei, G. (1968). Opere. Florence: Barbera. Glymour, C. (1997). Thinking Things Through: An Introduction to Philosophical Issues and Achievements. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Hawking, S. W. & L. Mlodinow. (2010). The Grand Design. London: Bantham. Husserl, E. (1970). The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Kant, I. (1998). Critique of Pure Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Locke, J. (1975). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McGinn, C. (2015). The Science of Philosophy. Metaphilosophy 46: 84–103. Nagel, T. (1979). Mortal Questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nagel, T. (1986). The View From Nowhere. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nagel, T. (1997). The Last Word. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

20

Newton, I. (1972). Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. The Third Edition (1726) with Variant Readings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pinker, S. (2002). The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. London: Penguin Books. Putnam, H. (1992). Renewing Philosophy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Putnam, H. (2001). Reply to Bernard Williams’ “Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline”. Philosophy, 76: 605–614. Quine, W. O. (1981). Theories and Things. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rota, G.–C. (2008). Indiscrete Thoughts. Boston: Birkhäuser. Ryle, G. (2009). The Concept of Mind. London: Routledge. Santayana, G. (1948). The Life of Reason: Reason in Common Sense. New York: Scribner. Schwartz, S. (2012). A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy: From Russell to Rawls. New York: Wiley. Williams, B. (1985). Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Williams, B. (2002). Truth & Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Williams, B. (2006). Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Williams, B. (2014). Essays and Reviews 1959–2002. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wisdom, J. (1934). Problems of Mind and Matter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

21

Wittgenstein, L. (2009). Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Wiley– Blackwell. Zeki, S. (2014). Neurobiology and the Humanities. Neuron 84: 12–14.

22