Education needs philosophy, liberal arts and humanities

By Steve Otto

There are times when I write about issues and at times I write about theory and even philosophy. This article is an example of the latter.

It seems at times as if many conservatives and also some scientists just plain hate philosophy. I recently looked at a paper by Carl Rovelli, who looked at the attitude that some scientist have on philosophy, called “Physics needs philosophy and philosophy needs physics,” In Scientific American. There are those who seem to see philosophy as too abstract, of being unscientific and even useless. I also found a paper by Matt McManus, “Conservative Critiques of the liberal arts: a reply to Ben Shapiro,” Areo, with a more traditional account of why some conservatives hate philosophy. They also hate liberal arts. Both of these papers look at philosophy today. Rovelli defends it. MacManus—is not as straight forward.

There are those who just don't see the importance of philosophy. From Rovelli:

"Against Philosophy is the title of a chapter of a book by one of the great physicists of the last generation: Steven Weinberg.¹ Weinberg argues eloquently that philosophy is more damaging than helpful for physics—it is often a straightjacket that physicists have to free themselves from. Stephen Hawking famously wrote that “philosophy is dead” because the big questions that used to be discussed by philosophers are now in the hands of physicists.² Neil de Grasse Tyson publicly stated: “…we learn about the expanding universe, … we learn about quantum physics, each of which falls so far out of what you can deduce from your armchair that the whole community of philosophers … was rendered essentially obsolete.”³ I disagree. Philosophy has always played an essential role in the development of science, physics in particular, and is likely to continue to do so."

For me, acquiring knowledge has been an important part of my life. Science and philosophy are important to me. Another good argument that Rovelli makes:

"Here are a few examples of this influence, from astronomy and physics. Ancient astronomy—that is, everything we know about the Earth being round, its size, the size of the moon and the sun, the distances to the moon and the sun, the motion of the planets in the sky and the basis from which modern astronomy and modern physics have emerged—is a direct descendent of philosophy. The questions that motivated these developments were posed in the Academy and the Lyceum, motivated by theoretical, rather than practical concerns. Centuries later, Galileo and Newton took great steps ahead but they relied heavily on what had come before.⁵ They extended previous knowledge, reinterpreting, reframing, and building upon it. Galileo's work would have been inconceivable without Aristotelian physics. Newton was explicit about his debt to ancient philosophy, Democritus in particular, for ideas that arose originally from philosophical motivations, such as the notions of empty space, atomism and natural rectilinear motion. His crucial discussion about the nature of space and time built upon his discussions with (and against) Descartes."

As he said, the so called-arm chair philosophers came up with such ideas as atoms. Sure, they thought atoms were solid and unbreakable. Today we know they are not. But the idea of atoms came to us from philosophers. They had it right—atoms make up all matter that we have around us, from the water in the ocean, rocks, animals, wind—all made up of atoms. Philosophy is all about ideas. Some of us love ideas.

When I went to college there were a few subjects I really liked. Among them were philosophy and art history. They never helped me get a job, but I really am glad I took those classes. That is not the attitude I found from Stephen Crowder who was quoted by McManus: 

"This economic position is presented by Stephen Crowder in his article “Dear High School Students: Don’t Go to College. No Seriously”:

Don’t go to college. No seriously, don’t. Those essays college admissions want you to write about overcoming your greatest challenge? Don’t write them. Those SATs and ACTs? Don’t take them. All those hours your parents would spend filling out the FASFA form as you dream of what posters to plaster on your college dorm? Spare them. Think of college as an illicit drug and Just. Say. No. Also throw away that Justin Bieber poster. Set it on fire. College or no college, you should feel great shame. General exception clause: if you intend to be a doctor, lawyer, or some kind of scientist … man does it suck to be you. You have to go to college. There’s no getting around this massive problem of fat-feminist proportions. Here’s the obvious reason you should skip the four year degree: it’s a giant waste of money and time. Especially if you’re thinking of dabbling in: gender studies, feminist theory, philosophy, anthropology, fine arts, liberal arts, music, physical fitness and parks recreation, history, art history, communications, theatre/drama. Why? Because on the whole they’re useless degrees."

As a teacher I am often asked "why do we have to study history? I'm going to be a mechanic (or a number of other occupations) and I'll never use this."

I see the same attitude above where Crowder calls a liberal arts degree "useless." I have a hard time understanding such an attitude. People used to go to school just to learn about the world around them. They wanted to understand the world and be well rounded. Now I hear from people who think that an education is only about getting a job. If you don't use it to get a job, it is "useless."

For me, education is never useless. As a Marxist and Maoist, I find that nearly all ideas build on similar ideas before them. While there are differences between Epicurus and Karl Marx, there are similarities between them as well. The first known writings of Karl Marx is on the theories of Democritus and Epicurus, called, "The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature."

Democritus is one of Marx's earlier influences. He took an obvious positive view of early Greek philosophy. So this doctor's dissertation shows how old ideas build on new ones

Even more of an influence was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who was also an earlier philosopher. Marx understood the need to know past ideas.

If someone comes to me and wants to study Maoism and asks me what they should read first, I would insist they study some of the writings of Marx, including The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, if they haven't already read them. Mao Zedong builds on Marx and V.I. Lenin. And if there is one thing too many Marxists overlook it is that there are ideas that Marx has built on, including those classified as Epicurean philosophers, which includes Democritus and Leucippus.[1]

The overall point of this article is that philosophy is too important than to treat it as useless. The old philosophies are part of our culture. There is a danger in trying to create a society in which knowledge is only useful when it allows things to work in a totally mechanical world.

Interesting enough there is a chapter in the McManus article called "One Dimensional Reason:"

"The kind of argumentation deployed by Shapiro and others is characteristic of what the Frankfurt School’s Herbert Marcuse would call “one dimensional” instrumentalist reasoning. It takes itself to be a factual approach to the world, when really the content of its argumentation operates at only one level. This is why many conservatives have been insistent that the liberal arts and humanities must play a central role in everyone’s education. Without a deep understanding of different approaches to normative reasoning, and a robust sense of how those approaches developed historically, political discourse is reduced to little more than assertions of fact and opinion."

McManus points to one of the arguments against liberal arts and philosophy by conservatives who label some of the writings as Cultural Marxism. Herbert Marcuse was a Marxist, but the Frankfurt School as a whole was not. Many conservatives and some centrist and liberals have absolutely no respect for Marxist philosophers, especially Maoism.

One dimensional thinking is a good way of looking at the conservatives who are against the study of philosophy. That is exactly the kind of society they are trying to create.

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[1] Some of these earlier philosophers have very little of their writings left for us to actually read. Leucippus was known to have influenced Democritus and they may have worked together. The known writings of Leucippus are just a few pages.

Above are the three early Epicurean philosophers of Leucippus, Democritus and Epicurus.