Defending Philosophy, the Right Way

I have just read a blog post from the always eloquent Lubos Motl:

Philosophy became a euphemism for crackpot physics

In this post he argues that philosophy is basically bullshit and philosophers don't do anything useful. Also, that 'shut up and calculate' is the way to go in physics. Of course his completely wrong. It doesn't matter that physicists like Hawking, Weinberg or even Feynman agree with him. They are wrong too.

All of them are wrong in the same way as the rest of people in the world are wrong when they say that theoretical physicists are useless and theoretical physics, in its great majority, is just a waste of taxpayer money.

The argument against philosophy is that it is the wrong way to understand how the world works because it does not stick to science's fundamental principle of falsifiability. There are other criticisms, like the over reliance on non-mathematical language and a melancholy preference for classical physics over quantum mechanics. 

However, all those criticisms miss the point of what philosophy really is concerned about. Understanding how the world works is just part of philosophy, and that's the part that serves as foundation and gave origin to science. But it goes beyond that. Philosophy is a whole thinking endeavour that is concerned with the most important sentence in the universe: WHY? 

Philosophy goes beyond science as it allows itself to ask questions and consider situations which are out of the scope of science. What is 'real'? Is there a meaning to 'truth'? And my favourite: is it possible that there is nothing else in the universe but my mind?

Most arguments against philosophy in that article are simply the result of assuming that just because someone has a philosophy diploma, whatever this person says is philosophy. In the same way that science is not what scientists do, philosophy is also not what philosophers do. Just rambling stupid things without sense is not philosophy. Using a fallacies to support your arguments is also not philosophy, it's gibberish. 

One of the greatest problem of academia is this stupid habit of one area of knowledge to completely ignore and ridicularize the other without thinking deeply enough.

Just a last word about 'shut up and calculate'. Never 'shut up' when doing science. Ever. No matter what people say to you.