<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>The lecture starts by considering analytic philosophy as a tradition, and its global spread over recent years, of which <italic>Disputatio</italic>’s success is itself evidence. The costs and benefits of the role of English as the international language of analytic philosophy are briefly assessed. The spread of analytic philosophy is welcomed as the best hope for <italic>scientific</italic> philosophy, in a sense of ‘science’ on which mathematics, history, and philosophy can all count as sciences, though not as natural sciences. Arguably, experimental philosophy provides no plausible alternative methodology for philosophy, only a way of psychologizing it. However, it serves a useful purpose by highlighting the inadequacy of current methods for detecting errors in judgments on possible cases, which may result from reliance on possibly universal but imperfectly reliable cognitive heuristics. The problem is exacerbated by analytic philosophers’ tendency to regard increased flexibility in a theoretical framework as progress, where natural scientists would treat it as methodologically vicious profligacy with degrees of freedom. The result is a familiar type of bad science, <italic>overfitting</italic> theory to uncritically accepted data. The recent ‘hyperintensional revolution’ may be an example of such overfitting, it is suggested. The lecture ends with a call for a more miserly attitude to degrees of freedom.</p>
</abstract>

The lecture starts by considering analytic philosophy as a tradition, and its global spread over recent years, of which Disputatio’s success is itself evidence. The costs and benefits of the role of English as the international language of analytic philosophy are briefly assessed. The spread of analytic philosophy is welcomed as the best hope for scientific philosophy, in a sense of ‘science’ on which mathematics, history, and philosophy can all count as sciences, though not as natural sciences. Arguably, experimental philosophy provides no plausible alternative methodology for philosophy, only a way of psychologizing it. However, it serves a useful purpose by highlighting the inadequacy of current methods for detecting errors in judgments on possible cases, which may result from reliance on possibly universal but imperfectly reliable cognitive heuristics. The problem is exacerbated by analytic philosophers’ tendency to regard increased flexibility in a theoretical framework as progress, where natural scientists would treat it as methodologically vicious profligacy with degrees of freedom. The result is a familiar type of bad science, overfitting theory to uncritically accepted data. The recent ‘hyperintensional revolution’ may be an example of such overfitting, it is suggested. The lecture ends with a call for a more miserly attitude to degrees of freedom.

Degrees of Freedom: Is Good Philosophy Bad Science?

Disputatio

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Degrees of Freedom: Is Good Philosophy Bad Science?"}

The lecture starts by considering analytic philosophy as a tradition, and its global spread over recent years, of which Disputatio’s success is itself...

Degrees of Freedom: Is Good Philosophy Bad Science?

Publié en ligne: 23 nov. 2021

Pages: 73 - 94

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2021-0005

Mots clés
Analytic philosophy, tradition, hyperintensional, heuristic, sorites

© 2021 Timothy Williamson, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Degrees of Freedom: Is Good Philosophy Bad Science?

Publié en ligne: 23 nov. 2021

Pages: 73 - 94

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2021-0005

Mots clésAnalytic philosophy, tradition, hyperintensional, heuristic, sorites

© 2021 Timothy Williamson, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Mots clés
Analytic philosophy, tradition, hyperintensional, heuristic, sorites