Is Philosophy a Science?, Professor Timothy Williamson

Good evening everybody and uh welcome to another lecture in this year's centinary series of lectures brought to you by the Royal Institute of Philosophy. It's a

great pleasure to have with us our speaker this evening Tim Williamson. Tim

is uh will be well known to many of you as one of the most productive and the most influential philosophers working today. After posts at Trinity College

today. After posts at Trinity College Dublin, Oxford and a chair at Edinburgh, he went back to Oxford as Wickcham professor of logic, a post he occupied

for 23 years as well as numerous visiting professorships around the world. He's a fellow of the British

world. He's a fellow of the British Academy and a foreign honorary fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His work spans formal and

Sciences. His work spans formal and philosophical logic, epistemology, metaphysics, and more recently meta ethics. And his many books include

ethics. And his many books include Knowledge and Its Limits from 2000.

Tetrologue, I'm Right, You're Wrong from 2015, which I understand is going to be made into a film. Not many philosophy books make it that far. And Good as usual in 2025. And perhaps closest to

his topic this evening, the philosophy of philosophy. And tonight his talk is

of philosophy. And tonight his talk is about is philosophy a science. Tim.

>> Right. Well, thank you very much. Um,

and since we're it here to in part celebrate the the centinery of uh the Royal Institute of Philosophy, I thought

I would take an an issue which has been in one form or another quite live all the way through the the century of the

institute's uh uh existence. But um but has but not because it's just one that philosophers have always been um talking about since um Plato or anything like

like that. It's it's a more specific

like that. It's it's a more specific issue than that and and one about the the relation between uh phil philosophy

and science in some sense of the word which I'll say something more about in just putting things in very sort of um

impressionistic big picture terms. Um what's happened is that as we're with

the the rise of um modern uh science um since the 17th and 18th centuries um

philosophy has has come under increasing um pressure to to find a role for itself.

um where it it doesn't get into into some kind of uh competition

with particularly with natural science where it's it's offering its own answers

to to questions that um natural science also has answers to.

And um and where it seems that if if philosophy does start competing with natural science, um it it's very hard to believe

that philosophy will be uh the winner once one starts thinking about the all the um the experimental evidence, the

the mathematical power and the uh confirmed predictions and uh and so on of uh well initially physics was the uh

the mo the most obvious uh case. Uh it

seems that the kind of armchair um methods of uh philosophy they or the if you like the ar priori methods of uh philosophy somehow are not really in a

position to compete. And so philosophy has to uh in some way define itself so that it doesn't get into um some kind of

um competition that it can't hope to uh to win. Um and of course this is not

to win. Um and of course this is not something that that happened so quickly and and as you may know um in the um

17th and 18th centuries what we would now call physics was called natural philosophy. So it was only um beginning

philosophy. So it was only um beginning to as it were pull away um from philosophy. Well, um I mean maybe the

philosophy. Well, um I mean maybe the the the most uh intense form of this kind of un unease um initially was in

the relation uh between physics and metaphysics where it seemed that they were they were both in

competition for um telling us what the the fundamental structure of the the world uh is like or

at least the spatiotemporal uh world and um and where it was very hard to see how how philosophy could

could hold its its own against um physics once um metaphysics could hold its own um once

you had the kind of achievements of uh Newton and and that uh tradition Um, and so you you can already see in the 18th century, I mean, I'm being

incredibly crude about the the history here, but just just to give the big picture that with with Hume, he was he

was already um very skeptical about um about metaphysics uh because um it it

metaphysics didn't seem to be a matter of um matters of fact that were open to an empirical investigation, but also

didn't seem to be a matter of uh relations of ideas or what might in the 20th century be called conceptual uh connections. And so it it wasn't clear

connections. And so it it wasn't clear how how there was a a respectable job for metaphysics to be doing. And and

then of course with in with with uh canu you have you know a much more sophisticated treatment of issues like uh like that but there still ones where

um the idea of sort of speculative metaphysics um that that might be trying to do things somewhat similar things to the natural

sciences but just doing it by by thought was uh also came under a cloud. Um and

and then I you know in the 19th century you can see another version of this um where um psychology started uh

separating itself from uh philosophy but because of its use of experimental uh methods and and so that that left a

question about what we might now call philosophy of mind. um what room there was for that when it seemed to be in danger of competition uh with uh

psychology that that had all sorts of experimental backups for um its its claims. So as I say that's that's a very crude way

of putting it but but there's something like that is kind of in the background of of a lot of um discussion which had

to do with philosophy trying to find an appropriate um job description for itself. Some kind of job that we we can

itself. Some kind of job that we we can do better than anyone else can roughly speaking. Um and in in the

speaking. Um and in in the in the 20th century, an awful lot of

different ways of uh relating philosophy uh to natural science have implicitly or explicitly been uh tried.

So I mean one one thing that we could do is to try to just to imitate the methods of natural science and and specifically when I'm talking about natural science,

you know, I mean things like physics, chemistry, biology and so on. Um so we could try to imitate uh their methods.

This was something that that Russell was talking about before the the first world uh war. Um,

uh war. Um, but of course there's a suspicion that if we just try to imitate their methods, they they might not actually be very relevant to answering the kind of

questions that we're interested in in in philosophy. Um so you know another

philosophy. Um so you know another popular view by on the part of some philosophers uh in the 20th century was

the idea that that we could um as philosophers you know our job could be to clarify the concepts of of science so that as it were we would be there in the

background sort of polishing up their um intellectual instruments. Um

intellectual instruments. Um but but it it's not that easy to persuade the scientists that they really need any help from philosophers as far

as uh that goes. I mean it seems that that where any science worth its salt is is going to be able to to clarify its

own concepts or at least its own terms uh when when that's really needed. and

any other kinds of clarification may just be you know some kind of um irritating pedantry that is is not

helping the the science. Um another

version of this view would be that well another version of what the the um relation between philosophy and science could be.

it was that um that philosophy's job is somehow to to generalize the uh the results of of natural uh

science. Um I mean so for example you

science. Um I mean so for example you know in the well maybe in the late 19th century there were there were people who were you know trying to to to think what

the more general lessons of uh Darwinian evolutionary theory should be for the nature of society and things like that.

Um but that kind of activity tends to lead into a somewhat

dumbed down po popularization of the science that that it sort of loses a lot of the rigor of the original science.

And yet another proposal was that that somehow philosophy could um could dig the

foundations for the sciences. So so that they really need us. But it's not at all clear that the that natural science really uh does need anybody to dig its

foundations. It seems to manage most of

foundations. It seems to manage most of the time quite well without anything like that. Uh, and a more subversive

like that. Uh, and a more subversive variant on that would be that it's not so much that we're supposed to be providing the um the natural sciences

with with foundations, but that we're trying to undermine them in some way.

You know, maybe by as it were, some kind of um post-modern idea that that science is just provide uh you know, one one

more or or many more uh fictions that are on on a not not in any objective way better than the kind of fictions that

you can get by uh reading a novel. Um

again, that seems pretty extreme. Um,

you can you can also see people who's who are just in effect trying to distance philosophy as far away from natural science as they can to insist that whatever we're doing as

philosophers, it's radically different from what natural scientists are doing.

And uh it's it's not playing anything like the same kind of game. Um and and then well finally at least on this list um you could just look away from natural

science you from natural science you could do your best to uh ignore it and and if if you've had an education mainly

in the humanities and and you don't look around too much at the at the the world that you live in you you might be able

to to do that. Um

so so as there are lots of different ideas about how philosophy and science

uh might be uh related. Um and you know you could probably you write a a history

of uh philosophy over the last uh 100 plus uh years in which the um the framing theme was how different uh

philosophers related their activity to that of natural science. I mean of course lots

natural science. I mean of course lots of other things were going on as well but but but you could take that as some kind of organizing uh principle.

Okay. So to to address this issue a a little more uh carefully uh we we need

to get somewhat more precise about the the way that the word science is used.

Um and it a very unfortunate feature of the use of the word science is that there's there's quite an important

ambiguity in the term um which isn't very salient to people just as as they're using it. And this this has been

more of a feature of English than than of some other languages such as German.

Although my what the impression I get talking to to speakers of other languages is that English is somehow managing in its role as sort of

international uh language for the academy. It is managing to infect uh

academy. It is managing to infect uh other languages with a similar ambiguity. Um so so it's it's not that

ambiguity. Um so so it's it's not that switching to another language automatically avoids this problem. So,

so let me explain what the the fundamental ambiguity in the word science um is that is causing a lot of uh trouble.

So there's a na a narrow sense of the the term science where it means natural

science um natural science and um where the natural sciences are things like as I mentioned physics, chemistry, uh

biology and and where there's in a kind of loose sense a a very recognizable sort of methodology. Of course, the

methodology varies within these sciences, but um but I mean we're talking about things like controlled experiments, special instruments for

observation such as microscopes and telescopes and so on and measurement uh using special measuring instruments of

quantities and lot statistical data that you can you know on a large scale that you could analyze. um the you know

making predictions about um what you will observe if you if you do a certain experiment or or certain um observation

and then which can be tested and uh so on. So so that's that's the that's the

on. So so that's that's the that's the sort of paradigm that that people tend to have in mind when they hear the word

uh science.

But there's also a a broader sense of the the term science um where it just means

any kind of systematic critical evidence-based uh inquiry. Um,

uh inquiry. Um, and the trouble the trouble is that people

kind of oscillate uh between these these two uses of the term science of I think

often without realizing what they're they're doing. And um if if you if you

they're doing. And um if if you if you don't take care to keep them apart then this can introduce all sorts of fallacies because you know you can you

can say that um that something you know if you want to want to criticize some other kind of um inquiry um you know you could if it's if it doesn't meet the

sort of experimental quantitative kind of paradigm that I was sketching before you can say well it's uh it's not scientific um because

because it's it's not like physics or whatever. Um

whatever. Um but then but then you can in effect conclude that it isn't much good as a discipline because you know it's not

really systematic and critical and evidence-based and and so what that's um doing is surreptitiously moving from

saying it's not a science whatever this you know kind of inquirying question is it's not a science in the narrow sense to saying

that it's uh it's not a science um in the in the broad sense either and therefore roughly speaking it's a load

of rubbish. Um and th this kind of

of rubbish. Um and th this kind of oscillation between narrow and broad senses of science is something that you

can quite often uh observe in the the sort of the rhetoric and what sort of

arguments um of um of people uh who who identify as naturalists. you sort of thinking that the only kind the only

good kind of inquiry um is uh is natural science. Um,

science. Um, so just to bring out how

consequential this confusion is, I it's important to look at some examples of non-natural

sciences. I mean, all all all natural

sciences. I mean, all all all natural sciences are sciences in the in the broad sense, but but there may be things that are sciences in the broad sense that are not natural science. And the

the most striking and important well I don't maybe not important but the most striking example of these is mathematics

because mathematics doesn't have any of that the kind of um

methodology that is um prototypical for uh science. It doesn't use uh

uh science. It doesn't use uh experiments normally. It it it doesn't

experiments normally. It it it doesn't um involve measuring instruments and you know and observation and so on. It's

done um as mainly by thinking or at least you know drawing diagrams on a board and talking about them and and

those kind of things. So so it's it's very very obviously not a natural science.

uh but it in the broader sense it is absolutely a paradigm of science. It's it's maybe the

most rigorous discipline that we that we have. Um and and it's particularly

have. Um and and it's particularly difficult for um for naturalists who you

know who uh want to give priority to natural science to um to trash talk mathematics because of course

uh virtually all of um natural uh science in one way or another relies on mathematics. And the as it were the if

mathematics. And the as it were the if like in in some ways the most prestigious um natural science physics uh is also the

natural science that that most blatantly and deeply uh relies on on mathematics.

So, so that there is a we've got one excellent example of um a and vitally

important um science that is not a natural science in mathematics. Um

another example may less dramatic but but try to give you a sense of the variety of things that may in some sense count as science without um counting as

uh natural science. um is is history and I'm talking about serious scholarly history that is done using you know the

archives and and so on which I mean it's um a pretty uh systematic critical evidence-based uh inquiry uh but it it

doesn't it doesn't use the methods of uh natural science at least um not normally

and um and it you It it seems to be, you know, the best way of finding out as were about the uh the human past.

Actually, I had a I had a striking um experience in in a a sort of an exchange with a very hardline

um naturalist who um who really thought that the only kind of knowledge comes uh from uh from natural science. And I

mean, and then just as I thought completely uncontentiously, I I said, "Well, look, if you want to if you want to find out what happened at the Battle of Gettysburg, um you can guess he was

an American. Um the that that you'd ask

an American. Um the that that you'd ask a historian, you would not ask a physicist." And you know, it seemed to

physicist." And you know, it seemed to me that that was just pretty platitudinous. But but he said, "Oh, no.

platitudinous. But but he said, "Oh, no.

I don't that's that's too quick. um the

history isn't really a source of knowledge at all. And um I mean that that seemed to me practically insane a

as a a view of uh what history can um can produce. But but it was striking as

can produce. But but it was striking as well how how far he was willing to go on his in his naturalist uh line. But I

mean the case that really had him in difficulty was the case of mathematics because he really didn't know what to say about that. Um but he was perfectly

prepared to to throw history to to the into the dust bin. Um

so the claim that I'm sympathetic to uh is that um that philosophy is a science

but that it's not a natural science. Um

so that it's a science in the sense that it's a systematic critical evidence-based uh form of inquiry. um in some ways

quite like mathematics, but other parts of it are more maybe more like uh history. Um but and but it obviously

history. Um but and but it obviously doesn't mainly uh rely on experimental uh methods and measurement and and so

on. I mean you you may be aware of a

on. I mean you you may be aware of a movement um known as or which calls itself experimental uh philosophy which

is trying to to make uh philosophy much more of a of a natural science. and they

they have a um a website um with a a a little video of a a a burning armchair um an armchair in flames because that

that's what they think should happen to armchair methods in in philosophy. Um

but the kind of the kind of experiments they do I mean there effectively they're things like you you know you take key

examples that philosophers uh have have used typically hypothetical cases and you know and for example you know getier cases which are supposed to be cases of

um justified true belief that are not uh cases of knowledge and then you ask you ask people who have not been trained in philosophy what they think about these

cases. And um

cases. And um there was a time when it was it seemed to be coming out that there was there

were quite um big um variations between the judgments that people uh made um about these experiments um you know with

with ethnicity and gender and so on.

Although the most of those differences have um sort of evaporated when the when the the testing was done in in a more uh

rigorous way than in the the early attempts. Um

attempts. Um but anyway these kind of experimental methods I mean they're they're okay for finding out what uh human beings in

general or human beings in particular groups think about you know some question. And I mean they're they're

question. And I mean they're they're okay for you know let's say for finding out um what um what people tend to

answer to the question let's say is capital punishment um permiss morally permissible but I mean they that but the

fact that you get uh you know some answer predominating if you if you do I mean of course that's that just tells you what people think. It doesn't

tell you about what's what's true. Um

and and so it's you know I mean and we don't we don't just want to do philosophy by opinion

poll. Um so

poll. Um so so those attempts to to turn philosophy into a natural science really don't look

very uh promising. Um that doesn't mean that we have that philosophy has nothing to learn from natural science. I'll say

a bit more about that later. One thing

you might be wondering about is well what what counts as evidence in philosophy because it it's you might initially

think you know comparing it with natural science that we don't have very much evidence but but we in fact what we have

is a sort of very disperate array of evidence. Um and one one way in which

evidence. Um and one one way in which we're similar to mathematics is of in mathematics of course that the the role of evidence is played by mathematical

proof but in philosophy we we have u logical proof which is very very similar to mathematical proof perhaps in fact

the very same thing. Uh and and so we have that kind of evidence. Um, we also have a whole lot of common sense

knowledge of the of the world. I'm not

suggesting that common sense is always right. But but like other like any other

right. But but like other like any other species of uh animal, we we have plenty of knowledge of our uh environment for

evolutionary uh reasons and and we also you know as well as having all kinds of

actual cases that we can use. Um we we can use hypothetical cases uh which uh

as long as they're possible will tell us something about um these cases you know about whe whether some principle is actually necessarily true and the way the way we use those hypothetical cases

are not very different from the way that they're used in all sorts of um other scientists. I mean, you know, famously

scientists. I mean, you know, famously physicists do thought experiments. Um,

and so all of I mean, got all of this we can we can learn from other sciences just in the way that other sciences learn from uh each other. We you know,

we don't we don't have to as we're keep ourselves pure of uh what we can what we can learn from other sciences. and all

all this I think is just um really an application of a view of evidence that I've defended um in my epistemology

where really your evidence is simply the totality of what you know um it I mean you know there isn't some

special connection between evidence and observation for example Um so just to

consider an alternative um something that you see some philosophers saying is that um

that philosophy is is radically different from the sciences because it it has a a practical role and maybe a

practical role either at the individual level of some kind of you know purveying some kind of practical uh wisdom um or

you know maybe you know in traditionally people sometimes thought that you know philosophers were good people to ask about how to be happy

or at least how to be less miserable and and things like that and and this could also be a practical role at a social

rather than just an individual uh level.

For example, um people talk about uh conceptual engineering, which actually really is just linguistic engineering, but where they where they want to

propose different ways of um drawing the lines around the for the application of words which in ways which they think would be more socially uh productive or

something than than the traditional ones. Um, and so you might think, well,

ones. Um, and so you might think, well, isn't that a a quite an alternative view of what philosophy is doing, which is

radically opposed to um to sciences and and this can be, as it were, exacerbated by by a lot of

the the rhetoric that that you get from people who are often pro-science about how um science is is just is valuefree.

and that it it's just concerned with facts, not with uh values. But I mean that's that's a very hard

line to to pursue. Um and in in particular it's

to pursue. Um and in in particular it's it's not very obvious how any science can really be value free because it seems that that the any science in um

values knowledge over ignorance and um truth over over falsity. Um but also if

you if you think about for example medicine I mean medicine is quite obviously um focused on the value of health. I

mean that's that's the point of of medicine and so but that doesn't stop um modern medicine from being you know a very scientific uh pursuit. So that it's

it's not as though uh just introducing uh values automatically disqualifies you

from uh from being a a science. And you

know, and if if you if you think about what what a philosophy would be like that that was concerned

with kind of giving advice uh in some way to about how to live either advice at the at the individual level or at the

uh social level. I mean, you would think that it ought to have some kind of evidence for the the good effects of uh the

advice that it's giving. I mean that that that if you follow this advice, it really will make you happier or at least less miserable or what whatever it is.

And if if philosophers try to proceed in in a as it were an evidence um free way while dispensing all kinds of advice, I mean they seem

really not much better than than a quack doctor who's just handing out pills without ev any evidence about what the effects of these uh pills uh are. So

that it's not clear that that as we're just going practical is really an alternative to the the kinds of um

systematic critical evidence-based uh inquiry uh that that makes you a science in the in

the broad sense.

Okay. Um

so just checking the time. So in the final part of the talk what I want to do is as we're to look to the future. I mean

presumably the Royal Institute of Philosophy is interested in what the next hundred years will be uh like if if

um human civilization lasts that long.

Um and and so I I want to talk now about a few ways in which philosophy might

be able to become much more scientific than it has been so far. I mean I've been saying that it's a science. Um but

all these things like being being systematic, being critical, being evidence-based, I mean these are obviously matters of degree and uh and

it m may well be that we could do much better than we've done so far. And so so I'll discuss a few

examples of that. um one one kind of um intellectual style that I think we we can learn a lot

about from the uh the natural sciences but which can be applied in genuinely philosophical uh ways is what's called

uh model building where models in in this sense used in the sciences they're they're very uh simplified

as people sometimes say idealized um mathematical uh descriptions

of some system which is too messy and complicated to study directly. So we

can't we can't just give a a direct description of how this thing works. Um,

and I mean the the the idea with these models is that although we know that they're not strictly um correct, they're

they're they're good enough to capture um some relevant feature of the target phenomenon we're trying to understand.

Um and uh you know and and and a and give us some kind of structural understanding of how this feature works.

I mean a typical example of an idealization in this sense is that um you know in models of the social sorry

of the solar system you uh you treat uh planets as just point masses as if they were just a mass concentrated at a single point. Of course, we all know

single point. Of course, we all know that that planets are not like that really. But but al although it's a

really. But but al although it's a massive idealization, it actually still uh is good enough for many purposes that

you you can use it to get quite accurate uh results. And and this this kind of um

uh results. And and this this kind of um model building is something that already

happens a bit in in philosophy. Uh so

that so for example um in epistemology the in formal epistemology we we we have models um that uh we use to understand uh

phenomena and which do involve just this kind of idealization. So, so for example, when epistemologists are interested in discussing uncertainty,

the their favorite model is is one of uh a lottery um and they'll say things like, you know, there are 10,000 tickets and only one of them will win and you know, it's a fair lottery and then you

can do all sorts of calculations really pretty much on that uh on that basis.

That might seem well that's not much of an idealization. I mean there are real

an idealization. I mean there are real lotteryies there's the national lottery and so on and but actually in fact when you when you look very carefully you see that there are lots of idealizations

which are playing an extremely important role so epistemologically so for example um it's when epistemologists discuss lotteryies they they pretty much always

assume that the person who buys a ticket in the lottery knows exactly what the number of tickets uh sold in the lottery

is uh and if if you tried to uh be more realistic about the assumption because of course when you buy a lottery ticket you don't know how many tickets will be

sold. um it would actually make the

sold. um it would actually make the mathematics so complicated and messy that um that we just wouldn't be able to to do the calculations and and we and

we'd have to make more arbitrary assumptions it you know in even in order to have some kind of go of it. And

you've in in areas in and moral and political uh philosophy, you you can find people um talking about somewhat

similar kinds of models um including things like prisoners dilemma and which often they're um the kind of assumptions

that in the background have to do with um assuming that everybody is rational and everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody's rational and things like like that which

are manif estly idealizations, but you you still you can get some kind of insight from these. I mean, of obviously, you know, we'd we'd want something in the end more nuanced than

than that. Um

than that. Um so so I think that um that using

models is some it's something that we that we do in um in philosophy a bit uh and and as with other sciences there are two but basically two kinds of knowledge

that that you can get concerning these models and then combine which and which do give insight and one One kind of knowledge is just precise mathematical

knowledge about how the specified model works mathematically. And another kind

works mathematically. And another kind of knowledge is is knowledge about roughly

how this model in in some very vague way corresponds to the actual target phenomenon about where where it's uh it's similar and and what the divergencies are. And if you put these

divergencies are. And if you put these two kinds of knowledge together, you you can um you can get a lot of insight. And

this this case of the model building methodology actually um it casts some light on the kind of worries that

philosophers very naturally have about whether philosophy makes any progress. And

typically what you find is that philosophers get gloomy about their subject and feel that it's a bit of an intellectual disaster area or somehow

try to recycle these disasters as if they were uh quite good in some funny way. But they

way. But they what they're doing is they're comparing philosophy which which they're very well

acquainted with with um some kind of imagined version of scientific progress.

Um and so for example they you know they think that that progress in science is because scientists keep discovering new laws of nature and then they think well

what what laws of philosophy have we discovered recently and of course you you know you you you can't think of any and and these laws are supposed to be exceptionless but

most most scientific progress is actually not of the form of discovering new new laws.

That's a very rare thing to uh to do. Um

and in a subject like biology for example, progress consists much more in terms of um

building better and better models of um biological uh phenomena that that are um models that that involve all kinds of

idealization and approximation. But

nevertheless do cast some light on these subjects. And uh you know if I if we

subjects. And uh you know if I if we thought about philosophy in a similar model building spirit that that what

we're doing is not trying to to find exceptionalist laws. Um but uh but

exceptionalist laws. Um but uh but rather models that that give us some insight into the phenomen. We might

realize in fact we're making a lot more progress than we think we are because because we our view of what progress should look like has been distorted by a

false model um of um of what progress in the sciences look like. I was at at a a conference um in in Italy a couple of

days ago where um which was about the relation between philosophy and science and there were there were a couple of physicists in the audience and and they

were they were complaining about the the sort of naive uh conception of progress in um

in the natural sciences that philosophers tend to have. and how the the natural science just they just don't live up to the what what philosophers

sort of enviously imagine. Um

okay. So,

so I think that because on the whole model building has not been

a a big uh thing in um in philosophy. uh

or even though there are these cases where it's done, philosophers have not been trained in how to build or evaluate

models and and often when they first encounter models, they they just think they're rubbish because oh, you know, the it's equivalent to saying, oh, but look, we

we live on the Earth and we know it's not a point mass, so that's a counter example to this model of the solar system. and um and they they make kind

system. and um and they they make kind of mistakes like that. But you know what it strongly suggests is that there is a

lot of room for for more model building in philosophy because it's it's a method that is very powerful and that that philosophers have really not been trying

uh most of the time. And so there may well be quite a lot of lowhanging fruit.

And if we were just more alert to this as a way of thinking about our subject, we might be able to to make more progress there. Um, okay. So, I I don't

progress there. Um, okay. So, I I don't want to go on for too long, but I'll I'll talk for another five minutes. So I

I mentioned also on the handout the uh evolutionary epistemology and the the reason I well this I mention it because

it's it's this idea strikes strikes me as a much better way of thinking about epistemology. So in in epistemology you

epistemology. So in in epistemology you get maybe a majority still of epistemologists who think that the the distinction between knowledge and ignorance is not

the focus for epistemology. that the real

for epistemology. that the real distinction should be between um justified and unjustified belief where a

justified belief can be uh can be false.

And and when they're discussing epistemology, they virtually always have

in mind the epistemology of human agents. they hardly ever uh talk about

agents. they hardly ever uh talk about the epistemology of um for uh non-human uh animals. And and in fact, you know,

uh animals. And and in fact, you know, it's not at all unusual for epistemologists to deny that non-human animals have beliefs, for example. Um,

but you know, when you when you think about how much human cognition has in common with the cognition of non-human animals,

I mean, for a start that our perceptual systems work fundamentally in a very similar way to those of non-human animals and and memory also has a lot of

things in common. So that that as it were some very basic level um human epistemology I is quite similar to that

of uh nonhuman animals. Of course, lots of layers of sophistication are built on top of that because because we have a a language. That's the biggest single uh

language. That's the biggest single uh difference. But um but at the same time

difference. But um but at the same time it seems very kind of methodologically wrongheaded really for epistemology to

be focusing on this super sophisticated um case of uh cognition and and not thinking about what are far more

fundamental kinds of cognition that that humans have in common with other animals. And and if you if you think

animals. And and if you if you think about uh why um creatures should evolve that have minds in the first place and

and so are capable of having knowledge.

It's I mean the point of it is presumably to um that that a creature

with a mind is able to uh interact um flexibly with a you know its complex and rapidly changing uh environment. And

it does that by gaining knowledge of its environment um and and acting on that knowledge. and and what so what matters

knowledge. and and what so what matters is um is not the distinction between justified and unjustified beliefs. I

mean, who cares whether a cat's beliefs are justified or not? But but what does matter is is whether um or how much the creature knows about its environment.

And and so I mean one one way um in which this

this kind of neglect of evolutionary considerations shows itself is in the obsession of uh epistemologists with

what is happening at the level of consciousness. Um and they where that's

consciousness. Um and they where that's supposed to be where all the epistemological normativity um comes in where you can blame more

people or not.

And they and they have models of um the what goes on for example in perception where where you have the

action is all crucially is at the level of consciousness. Uh because you know

of consciousness. Uh because you know you you h you're you're supposed to have some kind of perceptual seeming and then you either um

take it at face value or or you refuse to do so if you have some reason for suspicion or whatever. Um and

and so so the their account of uh perceptual knowledge you know involves these

elaborate processes in consciousness.

But once you think that the um I mean you realize that that conscious processing is literally millions of times slower in how much uh information

it can process than unconscious uh processing. It's incredibly unlikely

processing. It's incredibly unlikely that uh that perceptual knowledge would would require this kind of uh

grotesqually complex conscious uh structure. um it would just create a

structure. um it would just create a terrible bottleneck and and we you know we would any any creatures that that did their that gained uh perceptual

knowledge that way. Um you know would be eaten by by their uh their predators before they had time to uh react and

would be wiped out by evolution and deservedly so. Um so so that I think we

deservedly so. Um so so that I think we could do far better if we thought in epistemology if we just thought about it a little bit more in terms of the kind

of evolutionary uh pressures on cognitive processing and I think we we'd have in a way a much more downto- earthth uh conception of epistemology

than this rather rarified stuff about um people's how justified people are and and so on. Um so well I've I've

mentioned two two further things heruristics and overfitting uh which are also ways in which I think um we

epistemology can can learn from uh scientific ideas but I I think I'm running out of time so I I mean I I have actually written a book called overfooting and huristics in philosophy

which um talks a lot about those things.

So if if you're really interested, you can look at that. And and so um so I want just want to end up saying this

that um of course everyone likes to think that they're special and then you kind of you you know in

life you come to learn that you're not so special. Um and it's exactly the same

so special. Um and it's exactly the same with intellectual discipline. every

discipline likes to think that it's special. Um and in with with in

special. Um and in with with in philosophy is no exception uh to to that. Um although you know philosophers

that. Um although you know philosophers divide on whether they like to think of philosophy as aspcially uh exceptionally good or exceptionally

bad but but they want it to be exceptional and just completely unlike anything else. this this kind of

anything else. this this kind of exceptionalism is is just a uh in a way a somewhat narcissistic

delusion that that philosophy uh has even if it's sort of I mean selfhate is is is just as much an obsession with

self as as self-love can can be and and really I if we if we stop thinking that that we're such a special discipline If

we if we are willing just to be you know there in the general intellectual landscape of worthwhile uh activities that in some broad sense count as

sciences uh I think we all come to know ourselves uh much better than than uh we seem to do at the moment. Thanks very

much.

Great. Thank you very much. So,

uh, maximum of three questions I promise depending on the length of your answers.

So, this first question is about sort of how do we identify what is and isn't science. So you said that um you asked

science. So you said that um you asked whether science can really clarify its own concepts. That was one of the rather

own concepts. That was one of the rather useless offers that philosophy makes to science. But which bits of the

science. But which bits of the utterances that scientists make belong to science as opposed to to philosophy?

And I'm thinking both of arguments within the philosophy of physics about the interpretation of certain equations and arguments in the philosophy of

biology which look pretty philosophical.

Are they just because they're scientists by training does it follow that they're doing science when they enter into those discussions?

>> Well, I I don't think that we should assume that all disciplines have to be

mutually exclusive. So, so that it it's

mutually exclusive. So, so that it it's I absolutely agree that um when when you

see um let's say philosophers of physics and theoretical physicists talking they're they're often addressing the the same kind of issues and um and this you

you get this all all over the place in philosophy. For example, um in

philosophy. For example, um in philosophy of language, philosophers of language and linguists who are doing s say semantics or pragmatics, they're

often addressing the very same questions and uh and and there's quite a lot of overlap in their methods as well. And so

so I don't I don't think we should be worrying about, you know, is this philosophy or is it is it physics or is it is this linguistics or is it philosophy of language. I I

think it's just unproatic that it can be both. Um and uh and by the way, this

both. Um and uh and by the way, this makes it very weird for people to kind of insist that everybody else is making progress but philosophy isn't because you know if if we've got these areas of

overlap, you know, which are both philosophy and and some other discipline. If the other discipline is

discipline. If the other discipline is progressive, then then how can it be that somehow philosophy isn't progressive? Um

progressive? Um >> good. Thank you. Um, one of the things

>> good. Thank you. Um, one of the things that you said sort of in in the middle of the talk that um was arresting was that you didn't think I think I've got this right. You didn't think there was

this right. You didn't think there was any special link between evidence and observation. Somebody might say, well,

observation. Somebody might say, well, evidence is observation is a privileged form of evidence because it's more direct and the closer you further away

you get from observation, the more possibilities of error come into play.

Is that a good plea for the privileged status of observation?

Well, I mean, if if you look at the role of observation in science, the more scientific you get,

the the less direct it becomes because because all sorts of filters are applied and you know, and um and you you can't, you know, it's it's not good enough just

to say, you know, oh, you know, last night I saw a witch flying past on her broom or something. I mean it's um and um and you know and

so for example in in animal ethology where where um they looking at videos let's say of

chimpanzees interacting with each other and um and there are all all kinds of descriptions that it's very natural to say like you know like the the chimpanz

a chimpanzeee was trying to do such and such and so on and but of you had to be very very careful about what it is that you observed and then and then they so it's it's not a matter just of of

writing down what you what you thought you saw. It's it's you know they have

you saw. It's it's you know they have things like you know three graduate students looking independently at the videos and and and um and saying you

know giving their descriptions of them and it's only if they all agree and so on. So that of of course I mean we do

on. So that of of course I mean we do get huge amounts of knowledge just by very ordinary perception just we you know all the time our eyes are open we're getting

a stream of knowledge about what's happening around us. Um and and so you know and if if we if we didn't get that

kind of observational knowledge uh natural science could hardly get off the the ground. But but it it still um you

the ground. But but it it still um you know for it to be evidence we we need all kinds of further filters and and so on. So that um it you know I the a sort

on. So that um it you know I the a sort of crude empiricist account of what's going which I'm I'm sure you you're not actually proposing um it just doesn't

get right what's happening with this.

>> Good. So I think we've got time for third one. Th this might be grist your

third one. Th this might be grist your mill in the end but and I don't want to um restage the battle of Gettysburg but this is about your extremist

interlocutor who is saying that history wasn't a reliable source of knowledge. I

mean um if you wanted to argue that it was a respectable source of knowledge and that it was continuous

with the methods of natural science. Not

just because it was rigorous, because it's scientific in a narrow sense. You

might say, well, don't focus too much on the recent past. The more remote the periods you're writing the history of, the more history resembles science

because, you know, if we're looking at what happened 5,000 years ago, we don't know what individuals did. We just have to rely on scientific principles about what people generally do, what rain

does, what sheep do, and this sort of thing. What do you think of that?

thing. What do you think of that?

>> Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it's it's clear that that archaeology is much closer to to um one of the natural

sciences that um and uh and and and you know, a lot of things like carbon dating and so on are you know obviously highly

scientific. But I my my sense is that

scientific. But I my my sense is that as were people who would describe themselves as historians think that

history is it's hardly count it's hardly counts as history if you if you're not dealing with um

doc well typically written documents I mean of that that you can then use to understand um you know what individuals were thinking and and so on. Of course I mean

a lot of social history is not meant to be at the level of of individuals exactly but it's still it um it's gets its distinctive flavor from the use of

written materials. Of course there are

written materials. Of course there are there are things like oral history so that um where you know in cases of um nonliterate societies you you may have

to rely on um on narratives that that you get from informants that have never been written down and but there are I mean there are ways of testing you know

how reliable people are and so on and and so that that's I mean that's one of these kind of slightly trickier cases

but I mean it surely is the case that um that we you know we get we get some um we can do history of of non literate societies to some extent. And after all

you know it it's not as though the things that somebody might might tell you uh just in speech that they suddenly become much more serious evidence once

they've written them them down.

>> Great. Thank you. Over to you for questions. Uh yes about halfway up on

questions. Uh yes about halfway up on this side.

Yes.

So science it is not the question of uh whether is philosophy is science rather

I'm thinking uh we all know that the science need philosophy and the reason for it is if we think about the Heisenberg uncertainty

principle the quantum mechanics where Heisenberg just wrote an equations delta pip delta Q is h /

But philosopher come back saying that that the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is a statement about the nature of things which is ontological

and not just about what we can know that is the epistemological so that interpretation came from the philosophers you know but so science

need philosophy. Now I'm question for

need philosophy. Now I'm question for you that the coin philosopher coin he

reject the idea that the philosophy provide a foundation and that science proceed on that

foundation. He reject that. So I come up

foundation. He reject that. So I come up with alternative for you that the science provide the foundation

or say groundwork and philosophy provide a structure on that foundation and that structure is language method

interpretation. What do you think?

interpretation. What do you think?

>> I think there are many many scientists who would not agree that that science needs philosophy. Um and of course in

needs philosophy. Um and of course in taking the the case of Heisenberg I mean you were not taking you know a typical piece of science you were taking you

know one of the most famously problematic um developments in in science. Um and

science. Um and so so I think that e even with these very abstract

theoretical issues. Um

theoretical issues. Um scientists can can do quite a lot them themselves. Um

themselves. Um I I think the philosophers sometimes can add something extra. I mean the you know

it if if you take the the case you know of quantum mechanics I mean the um you know the the Copenhagen interpretation you know the advanced by Neils Boore and

so on that that was I think much more his if you like amateur philosophizing but but amateur as a philosopher but

still of course you know informed by you know immense knowledge of the of the science And um you know I

think that phil philosophers do sometimes have something extra that they can contribute. Um and so I you know I

can contribute. Um and so I you know I think that actually in the case of quantum mechanics it the physicists have

been tending to stick to um the the Copenhagen interpretation when when philosophers have been more open perhaps because they've got slightly less

invested um it more open to alternative interpretations and I and I think it it looks as far as I can tell but I'm a real outsider to this as as though the

the Copenhagen interpretation is gradually you know falling uh into into decline and and the moves to towards you

know other views I mean many worlds or the bombian interpretation um but I mean I you know I think it's it's not it's not as though the the scientists are

themselves incapable of putting structures uh on on the kind of work that they've done and and of And often I mean it's not and of course

some of them themselves are to some extent informed by philosophy in the way that Einstein was influenced by Mark although he wasn't really a Marian I

think but um so so I think it's it's much it's much harder to do this sort of division of labor than that and I don't I don't think any simple formula is actually going to capture it but it's

just that sometimes philosophers coming at things from a different angle can contribute something and and not only in the there's very very obviously metaphysical issues about quantum

mechanics. So I know people I mean I

mechanics. So I know people I mean I know one philosopher of biology um who um who was kind of in he just who'

started as a biologist and was interested in you know what by what principles do we do we divide populations into species and we'll group

them into species and and he just he found that the the most illuminating things that had been written about that were by a philosopher Elliot sober rather than biologists. And so it, you

know, I I think it's um it's it's just a much messier picture. But but we do have something to contribute. But it's it's not as though um it's not as though if philosophy

departments were all closed down that all the science departments would collapse.

Okay. So now there was I can see lots of people towards the back. Who had their hand up first? I can't remember now. Go

on. You you go first then. Oh okay go on.

>> Thank you for the talk. Um I guess the way I understood kind of from the beginning of the talk the setup there was sort of a competition between science and philosophy. There was some

threat that philosophy might become irrelevant.

Uh and sort of you mentioned that initially there were sort of bad fellows back in you know natural philosophy day.

But uh it seems to me that there was another sort of bad fellow was religion right and sort of over time where when sort of science was ascending religion

we see at least in the western society kind of losing ground right and that made me think that kind of based on the examples you gave of the good life or

what not kind of the typical sort of philosophical questions back in the day that there was kind of an overlap app between philosophy and religion in terms

of the kinds of questions that they were trying to pursue. And so that made me think that do you think that maybe

sort of you know while we're kind of chasing after science and trying to get there maybe sort of a more prudent approach is to say well are there some

questions that sort of wouldn't fall in the purview of science but typically would be maybe catered to by

religion that philosophy can also try to address or do you think rather that pretty much there are no questions worth

exploring that are not solidly in sort of the realm of scientific inquiry.

Thank you.

>> Yeah. Well, I mean I mean of course you're right that that religion did play a significant role and um and so for but

certainly there in the mix and you can you can see that with um for example George Barkley uh you know who who was

very concerned about the the way in which the uh autonomy of um well it was still natural philosophy that then would

seem to to be giving you a universe that that didn't need God and and then tried to undermine um the

calculus which was supposed you know the basis of a lot of the science with a critique of infinite decimals and so and and of course you know we you know we

know about old Galileo's troubles with the the church and so on Um but you know I

I think when when you look at sort of medieval philosophy which of course was you know the people doing it were um

well in in the west they were they were all Christians and and uh well the northwest um but you know there was something similar going on with Islamic

uh philosophy. And um I was talking

uh philosophy. And um I was talking actually talking about this issue with an with someone who's studying early Islamic philosophy and he he what he was saying was that you know people have

this model where there are just certain things that you mustn't you mustn't say because the you know the religion is operating as this kind of sensor of what

what you're allowed and that it's in fact much messier than that uh because um the

you know for for any p for any passage in the Quran for example there would be you know a dozen different interpretations of it and you know and

so so that it wasn't as though religion was just saying look here's the bottom line that you you can't you can't cross this it was more a matter of people

picking inter interpretations of this sacred texts that that would that would suit their philosophy and so that that in In fact, there was there was more room for maneuver than than one one

might think. But I mean, of course,

might think. But I mean, of course, you're right that, you know, if one was doing some serious history of this, one would have to talk about the role of of religion as well.

>> Okay. So, there was somebody else in uh let's go by the wall then.

>> Uh hello.

I was wondering about some of the contributions philosophy has made to the sciences in terms of methodology. Uh

because it seems largely arguable that in computer science there's a link between logic. Uh perhaps considering

between logic. Uh perhaps considering computer science and computer simulations applied logic. Uh similarly

now the social sciences are celebrating basian statistics and basian inference but it has its roots in mathematical philosophy and it seems like many times

over there has been this pattern of philosophy conceding its methods to the sciences uh now computer science now

statistics uh and it just strikes me as oddly tragic and I'm wondering what role institutions might play in allowing that bit of concession because it seems to me

like model building is fundamentally something that computer scientists and statisticians are interested in and yet their methods stem from the philosophy

department. I'm wondering why that

department. I'm wondering why that almost displacement of the endeavor occurred.

>> Yeah, I mean so in the case of computer science of course the basic origin of of uh well at least if we're talking about

modern computer science is is with uh Turing's work which came it well Turing was a was a mathematician rather than a philosopher although obviously a

mathematician with with highly philosophical um interests and and so the the the whole idea of a universal computing machine came out of a solution

to the whole thing problem which was a a mathematical uh problem but but one

sort of embedded within um formal logic.

Um so so that um I mean there yeah there are those very deep connections and um and I don't my experience of computer scientists is

that they're not really in denial about that. I mean they um I mean they they

that. I mean they um I mean they they simply publish uh I mean they p a lot of the a lot of the work being done on logic these days is coming from computer science departments rather than either

philosophy departments or mathematics departments and um and but you know but they're uh in some ways work you know working to the same standards of rigor

and and and for example they computer science has been very open to uh new developments in in logic. that um you know when

in logic. that um you know when epistemic logic which is is very much a model building uh enterprise the sort of logic of knowledge and belief where they

that was used by computer scientists uh as a way of understanding um things like how knowledge is passed around in distributed systems and so on and you

know another example which I think um just strengthens the the point that you're making is um if if you look in

ling linguistics particularly in formal semantics and pragmatics the the fundamental um explanatory frameworks

are taken by by lingu linguists from philosophers I mean they're things like um the possible world semantics um you

know taken which was developed by you know kryky David Lewis Robert stoleaker and so on and then that the the linguists have found that that is

exactly what they need and they've and they've applied it and and so I I think one could make a yeah a good a good case

that that philosophy um has contributed to a lot of scientists sciences but you know in in these kinds

of innovation which which um philosophers can do in a somewhat more freewheeling way but but often turn out to have very serious ious applications.

>> Okay. Now, there was Okay, let's let's You've had you've been waiting for a long time. Yeah.

long time. Yeah.

>> Uh thank you very much. Um I had one question about whether or not uh you perhaps minimize the difference between uh what you call sort of like the

practical or ameilator role of philosophy against uh disciplines that are called you know said to be scientific. uh because you said that

scientific. uh because you said that well the claims being made by the people who say that this is uh different uh from sciences is that you know values are involved here but you said well

values are involved as well in disciplines that we call scientific um but usually I think what's said is that there are non-epistemic values involved in the internal stages of

science um which you might think is not involved here but then you said that you know well you know if if this sort of practical a meal to a role of philosophy

is going to be any good. We're going to have to, you know, come up with some evidence for it. Wonder if you could say a bit more about that because that sound just a little bit quick to me. Um, uh,

just because evidence is needed isn't clear to me that it's, uh, it's science yet, uh, in the in the broad sense. Uh,

so I just wanted to hear a bit more about that.

>> Yeah. So

I I was just considering not not something like moral philosophy or whatever but but something that is

really you know um much much more practical. the way in which people have thought of philosophers as

you know uh as wise and and you know able to to give you good advice about how to live your life

and and so on and um and I think very often what people have had in mind is is just the

as it were the the philosopher as guru um which is the kind of as it were the the you know the sort of the prescratic

role of uh the philosopher who's ju just somebody who who will come out with these apherisms and and you know your

job is is not to uh to question them but but somehow to interpret them and and so on but of course

phil philosophers were trying to do metaphysics but in in in a kind of guru mode as well and um and we we really did

have to get get beyond that um you know to to get very uh far um and the thing is of

course you know I mean you know if we're comparing all this let's say to psychiatry or or whatever I mean the there are all sorts of questions about you know exact how good the evidence es

although I mean there are some questions uh about that in the you know in the case of just regular medicine as well because I mean there is this movement of you know which calls itself

evidence-based medicine but but where the the there's a very narrow conception of what can count as evidence in such a way that most evidence most medicine is not

evidence-based because they're thinking of the you know the required evidence base is is sort of massive um big data, you know, with all sorts of, you know,

controls and and so on. And I mean so you know it's it's a it's a matter of degree but I you know I take it that

people who you know who had who had a reputation for for wise advice. They

they pro there was probably something you know in their track record that um that that made people think that. I mean, I'm assuming that it

think that. I mean, I'm assuming that it wasn't simply that these were sort of charismatic characters who could could get people to um to do all sorts of

things just by their say so maybe including killing themselves or whatever. I mean, you know, as in with

whatever. I mean, you know, as in with some sects, but um and so that I mean, you know, it's it's not as though either we have statistics or we

don't have any evidence at all. that

there's um you know there's quite a lot of room in in between and um I mean it does strike me that the philosophers who

you know who are pretending to give or you know claiming to give uh ad advice that will that will you know transform

people's lives um if they're serious about that they they they ought to have some evidence for that. I mean, if I, you know, if if I'm

that. I mean, if I, you know, if if I'm if if I'm g giving um somebody some advice, um, you know, and I know that they're going to act on it and and that

it will transform their life for for better or or worse. If if I'm just saying the first thing that comes into my head, I mean, that's that's no good.

I mean, you it's utterly irresponsible.

and and so so I you know these questions of um of evidence uh just naturally come up and of course you know it's not it's

I mean you know I was medicine is the most obvious example but um you know even subjects like engineering are you

know in fact um that they involve values you know all over the place because um you know engineers need

to be able to to build um bridges that that don't fall down and you know that that that robustness is is a value and

and um and so so you know the similar questions about what what the evidence is for for the their normative claims arises there as

well and I think one could show that in range of >> okay let's give the people closer to the front a turn were there any hands on this side of the room at um front. Go

ahead.

>> Um thank you for for the talk. Um I just wonder from an educational point of view because um I did physics and we had a short we had a course on history and

philosophy of science and up to that point in my life I'm going to admit that I was very naive. Science is fact fact.

And we had I think three lectures on philosophy and they were transformative.

We did Thomas Coons the revolution of scientific discovery and we also covered POA and I never looked at the way science is done then we epistemology has

been mentioned a lot this evening. I

never looked at science again in the same way and I worried I worried after that uh I mean with the passing years um

instead of uh I think the convictions grown stronger and stronger that um I I almost feel it should be a necessary part of every every uh science

discipline but I wonder whether amongst practicing scientists there's a kind of a blind spot when it comes to their epistemolog epistemological uh

foundations and I wondered what your comments would be on that. Thank you.

>> Well, just I mean one comment by the way about is that he was not trained as a philosopher. He was he was trained as

a philosopher. He was he was trained as a well he was a I think he started in physics and then moved to the history of physics and then and then as it were

became more philosophical. But um but he was he was always liable to to make terrible philosophical mistakes from you know some of which he got called out on in in

the structure of scientific revolutions.

He but even, you know, he he insisted that he was a real a realist, but he also said that of course there were no galaxies before somebody had had the

word galaxy and um things that are just obviously uh wrong like um like that.

But the thing I mean it's it's you know part this partly has to do with the the way that that

um degrees are structured so that for example you know in um in North America the um people who do science degrees so they they just have to do some some

humanities and it's it's quite often philosophy you know just um as a distribution requirement so that so that they you many many scientists in North

America have had you know as much exposure as as you had uh to to philosophy in that way. Of course,

alas, you know, a lot of them are just sitting there bored and so on and you know, and it may be, you know, that that um you know, I mean, I'm you're you're

not necessarily a random, you know, a completely random sample, particularly given the fact that you're here in this um I mean, the one the ones who sat through some some lectures on philosophy and

were totally bored would probably not be coming to the Royal Institute of philosophy later. But um I I mean yeah I

philosophy later. But um I I mean yeah I I look I I agree that philosophy has a

lot to offer and that in fact and it has it has that that to offer to to people who you know who may spend their careers doing science. But I mean you do

doing science. But I mean you do sometimes see scientists saying that that that the philosophy course that they took somehow gave them a lot more intellectual flexibility and uh and I

think the as it were the greater freedom to ask subversive questions that is part of the philosophy the culture of of philosophy

um is very good for for some people and and and maybe it would be good if only others could take it seriously. But on

the other hand that you get people who really do who who are extremely good at at thinking within within a box and and don't really want to to look outside it

and and for them that may that may be what works best.

>> Okay. Now over on this. Yes. I pointed

to you and make it make it we're nearly at time. Make it quick. And if Tim if

at time. Make it quick. And if Tim if you could >> Hi. Um

>> Hi. Um thank you for the talk. Um I'm just wondering uh whether the um

desire and the duty to uh follow to ask a question and think through it and construct an argument. follow it where

it leads often, it seems to me, to quite bizarre places that then become kind of standardized like um radical skeptical

scenarios, uh brain and avat scenarios and so on. Um,

I I want I can't quite see those going away um in in the near future or or or or

even think that it's good that they should go away completely. But what I'm sorry, I'll try and hurry up here. What

I wonder is um the fact that they will probably persist those questions and those the the duty

to try to to answer them and engage with them. uh is difficult to combine with

them. uh is difficult to combine with the generation of uh some of the new models that you were talking about

because um those models rely on certain assumptions which um you can't make if you've followed an

argument where it leads if that makes sense. Well, the the mo the models build

sense. Well, the the mo the models build in all kinds of of assumptions, but the the point of the model building methodology is that you're not required

to believe these assumptions. So, you

know, if the the pe the scientists who are working with a model um of the solar system on which planets point masses, they don't believe that plan planets

point masses. They're perfectly aware

point masses. They're perfectly aware that they're not. And you know it's not it's not very difficult to be aware that we're not living on a point mass but um

and so so that um you know the model building methodology is actually quite hostile to who to to

dogmatism. And of course people people

dogmatism. And of course people people they may have a model that that that um works well and then they're reluctant to uh to ch to change it. But um you

know I I just sorry I'm I'm going on too long but just on on the the case of skepticism I think one of the one

feature of why skepticism is something I'm completely agree that that we will we will never get rid of some skeptical

in instincts and this the thing is that something that's very intellectually healthy is that people question their assumptions.

But if you do too much of that, you end up just suspending all belief and then you and then you you you're lost. I mean,

you you've got no way of kind of recovering the um uh what you suspended um belief on. And and so it's like the

self-criticism is is like uh and which you know in it extreme cases become skepticism. Um it's like a you know a

skepticism. Um it's like a you know a doctor who you know who hands you a bottle of medicine and and just says look a a little bit of this medicine

will be good for you. Um if you have too much it'll kill you but but doesn't tell you what the do what the right dose is.

He just just leaves it to you to try to to work out what dose you should have.

And with the as it were, you know, our instinct for for self-criticism is like is like that that we have no we have no idea where we should draw the line about

what what is re a reasonable level of self-criticism and and what what is just madness.

Well, I wish we could go on. I'm afraid

we're at time. So, apologies to those of you who had questions and did not have the opportunity to ask them. Um but

before we close, let's thank Tim once again for a very stimulating talk.