Disputes in philosophy of time over how to understand the significance of special relativity, for example, are hampered by difficulties over how to read the developments in physics as contributions to philosophy. Disputes arise as to whether the philosophical challenges posed by relativity of simultaneity in special relativity can be safely ignored by philosophers since special relativity is a false theory, and over whether, even if special relativity is to be taken into account, the dispensability of a privileged present in special relativity implies anything about the existence or otherwise of a privileged present, metaphysically. These disputes seem to me poorly framed, because they fail to read special relativity itself as arising through a diachronic process of philosophical engagement with our everyday concepts of space and time, a process which has clarified and transformed those concepts (see DiSalle, 2006). The example I have discussed in this paper is Newton’s work on duration, and I have said nothing about simultaneity, which is more of a hot topic in contemporary metaphysics. But similar work to that which I have done here can be done for simultaneity. The question of whether time flows is another topic that has received attention recently and, as my remarks on mathematical time above indicate, I think that attention to the role of this claim in Newton’s project help clarify how such a claim should be understood. By reading developments in physics as a part of the history of philosophy, we can make visible the ways in which physics contributes to the conceptual clarifications and transformations of the very questions that we are asking about time, and the means by which aspects of our oldest questions concerning time are rendered empirically tractable.
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time (2011) and the Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy Of Time (2013) both contain sections written by metaphysicians (on such topics as presentism, persistence, fatalism, and tense) and sections written by philosophers of physics (on time in classical and relativistic physics, and in cosmology and quantum gravity). Though I have little empirical evidence to offer you, I am doubtful how much each group of philosophers reads one another’s chapters: if cross--‐referencing is anything to go by, they are not really talking to one another, and one reason is their differing methodologies. A more historically driven methodology, in which both philosophy and physics are read diachronically as contributions to our ongoing philosophical conversation, would enable both parties to speak to one another in more fruitful ways.--Katherine Brading "Time for empiricist metaphysics" in Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science: New Essays, 38-39.
Brading is a leading philosopher of physics and historian of early modern (natural) philosophy. The passage I quote is the conclusion of a paper that is both on Newton's philosophy of time (which, in fact, challenges some of my claims about it here [and recall yesterday's post]) and philosophical methodology (or meta-philosophy). Here I ignore our remaining (if any) disagreements over Newton's philosophy of time and focus on some of the meta-philosophical and sociological issues raised by Brading. I warmly recommend Brading's essay. I think she is right that philosophers of physics, metaphysicians, and HPS types rarely talk to each other. My sense is that the situation has, in fact, improved, from an admittedly low level, during the last decade among the first two (so that there is quite a bit more mutual awareness among philosophers of physics and metaphysicians -- in part because quite a bit of philosophers of science have moved into the metaphysics of science --), while HPS, which has been in retreat among analytical philosophers, has become increasingly disconnected from work in contemporary philosophy of physics and metaphysics. [The previous sentence is, of course, extremely subjective impression.] I think some of the disconnect between HPS (focused on physics) and analytical philosophy {the situation is different in philosophy of biology which is a lot more receptive toward history} is due to contingent hiring decisions at top (history and) philosophy of science programs, but it also reflects a more general turning away of philosophy of science from history in the post-Kuhn-era towards rejuvenated formal approaches and a focus on contemporary practice in the philosophy of scientific practice.
Brading is right that a lot of "disputes" in philosophy of physics "are hampered by difficulties over how to read the developments in physics as contributions to philosophy" and that part of the problem is a lack of awareness about the complex ways that scientific concepts arise "through a diachronic process of philosophical engagement with our everyday concepts." I would add to this claim that the everyday or more stylized concepts are not stable over time. The scientific image (to use Sellarsian terminology) and various technologies also helps shape the manifest image as well as the intuitions that are taken to be common sense. (This is also an issue in x-phi, by the way, when it explores, say, concepts of causation.) So, there is definitely a role for the kind of project that Brading advocates in the development phase, as it were, of a metaphysics of (topic/concept) X (hereafter I often delete 'topic/concept' when I speak of X where strictly speaking it should be included.)
The previous paragraph is significant in a further way. The stance she advocates also helps correct for features due to the fact that metaphysics and philosophy of physics tends to be informed by latest textbook descriptions of X. These tend to imagine away all the complexities of fitting a concept to experience and the mutual adjustments among concepts/models/theories that go along with it. In addition, the metaphysics of X informed by textbook characterization of X tends to overlook the model-dependence of X. In addition, by looking at the history of X, "we can make visible the ways in which physics contributes to the conceptual clarifications and transformations of the very questions that we are asking about" X. That is, we will learn that philosophy is itself a diachronic process that changes due to the influence of, say, physics.
But Brading's concluding sentence is a bit too optimistic, I fear. And one philosophical reason for that is that the tools of mainstream, contemporary philosophy are, in fact, somewhat ill-suited for the project she envision. For, while philosophers are very comfortable talking about clarification of concepts, many find talk of transformation of concepts incoherent (or a beginner's blunder). And that's because the standard (non-pragmatist) notions of what concepts are, are quite inhospitable to conceptual change/transformations. So, the lack of interest in genuine, diachronic processes in philosophy -- and the existence of many strategies to avoid talking about them -- is not a bug but a feature of contemporary philosophy (recall also my post on social kinds in Epstein's work on social ontology).*
As a speculative historical aside, a scholar of early modern philosophy, may put the point in the previous paragraph, in part, in light of the rejection of the Aristotelian paradigm which thought questions of origin as genuinely informative and explanatory. As formal and final causes were increasingly rejected, the need for an understanding of concepts that can accommodate change became less pressing.
To return to my main argument. There are also three sociological barriers to Brading's methodology. First, I note one extrinsic to philosophy as such: PhDs are getting shorter and the demands for publication simultaneously higher. Yet the kind of research she is advocating actually demand quite a high investment in time to master more material as well as development multiple kinds of skills (historical, conceptual, and technical, etc.) before a publication is possible. That's rather risky from the vantage point of young scholars trying to figure out what research program to join. Not to put too fine point on this, this is an enterprise that is only going to seem attractive to a would be elite with high risk appetite or those that wish to facilitate other people's project (see my third point below).
Second, and this connects to the point about concepts, many contemporary philosophers are taught to make a sharp distinction between genetic questions and philosophy. While there remain interesting defenses of, say, work on conceptual genealogy, historical epistemology, the dynamics of reason, and the philosophical significance of Kuhn losses in science, they have not really influenced (analytical) philosophy's self-understanding. This is true, too, of many people that are not themselves in any way hostile or indifferent to the history of philosophy (especially if that history is understood as a history of arguments). That is, when philosophy is understood as being about arguments pertaining to X, historical process leading to X just seems irrelevant.
Third, Brading assumes that people in philosophy want to speak to each other productively across distinct areas of specialization with their own ideolects. I am sure this is so on an individual psychological and moral level. But the zero-sum environment (in jobs, status, attention, etc.) as well as the incentives and norms that structure professional philosophy point in a different connection; these all encourage ways to prevent discussion with those that may complicate and slow down the stories we wish to tell.
*It also shows up in the ways in which in the philosophy of social science certain practices in social science were thought not to adhere to canons of intelligibility and respectability.
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