Dino JakušićUniversity of WarwickCoventry CV4 7ALEngleskaUjedinjeno Kraljevstvo3. godina dodiplomskog studija Filozofije (Final Year Undergraduate BA Philosophy)d.jakusic@warwick.co.uk

Stephen Hawking and the death of Philosophy

Introduction

In his latest book the world famous theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking proclaimed the death of philosophy. Initially, the statement enjoyed almost a prophetic status and its influence rang like a big bang between academic and non-academic community.

The first questions this paper will be asking concerns the meaningfulness of the statement that philosophy is dead. Secondly, I will try to focus on Hawking’s reasons for proclaiming the death of Philosophy by trying to uncover his view of what philosophy itself is or should be doing. Finally, I will conclude with suggesting further inquiry into potential reasons for the impact of Hawking’s opinion on this matter and try to suggest a possibility for more constructive criticism of the contemporary philosophical outlook.

Death of Philosophy

How trivially are we to understand the claim about the death of philosophy? What manifestation of Philosophy is Hawking talking about? Is philosophy condemned to death in-itself or is it only currently present within the political structure lethal to it? Is philosophy dead as we speak, or is it in the process of dying? Is the death of philosophy a metaphor, like Nietzsche’s death of God, suggesting that the world of today lives as if there is no philosophy?

Taking the claim trivially we can easily falsify it by saying that, in the academic sense, philosophy is certainly not dead. Regardless of the unfavourable economic conditions philosophy departments still exist and philosophical works are being published. This is, therefore, most certainly not what the “death of philosophy” was meant to signify.

Let us try to interpret it more metaphorically: is the element of the philosophical absent from the minds of contemporary Westerners? Have we all become one-dimensional, single-minded, indoctrinated consumers? Is there no possibility or presence of thought which goes beyond the common discourse? While this might be a potential danger of the future, it does not seem to be the state of affairs Hawking, as theoretical physicist, would be referring to.

To help us understand Hawking’s claim let us bring it forth in its original formulation. Hawking claimed that “philosophy is dead… [because it] has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics.  Scientists have become the bearers of the torch

of discovery in our quest for knowledge…” (Hawking and Mlodinow, 2011: 1). The way this should be understood is as claiming that there is no value in Philosophy since it does not posit itself as an essential element of the scientific paradigm. The view itself shows traces of scientism – the idea that the only valid worldview is the one provided by natural sciences, particularly physics. Philosophy, as a way of thought which keeps opened the possibility of radically rethinking the foundation of its worldviews, cannot be placed into any strict paradigm without stopping being philosophy. This is due to the fact that paradigmisation of the discourse requires of it to treat some of its fundamental beliefs axiomatically and exclude them from the possibility of external reinterpretation. Hawking seems to accept the idea that the only one valid worldview is available to us (through physics) and that everything else which does not subject to it contains no intellectual value.

This view is riddled with assumptions about what the actuality of philosophy and philosophical engagement is and what the function of philosophy is supposed to be. It seems to be treating philosophy as something which fails be ‘scientific’, but not scientific in a way Kant, Hegel or Heidegger conceived the term1. To be ‘scientific’ seems to be understood as holding a perspective based on prediction-capable theories and striving for the incorporation of empirically observed data. What are Hawking’s arguments for saying that philosophy died through not behaving this way?

Argument

Hawking’s arguments seem to be scare. He seems to think it self-evident that not belonging to the same theoretical set of disciplines as physics precludes you from any valuable sort of access to intellectual discourse. In order to understand Hawking’s proclamation of death of philosophy, we ought to look for the opinions he holds about the nature and function of philosophy throughout his works.

Hawking repeats his idea that the problem of philosophy is its inability to track the development of theoretical physics. But what does he consider philosophy to be? In one of his lectures Hawking talks about the “subspecies” of philosophers “called philosophers of science” (Hawking 1994: 35). He then proceeds to identify philosophers of science with philosophers of physics and state that “many of them… [are] failed physicists who found it too hard to invent new theories and so took to writing about the philosophy of physics instead”. At the same place Hawking explains his harshness towards philosophers comes from them not being very kind towards him and calling him “a nominalist, an instrumentalist, a positivist, a realist, and several other ists” (ibid.)

It seems that Hawking decided to respond to his critics by simply rejecting any kind of deeper engagement with his philosophical opponents. It seems as if he did not bother to understand the theoretical background his critics were coming from. This can be seen from his afore-mentioned identification between philosophers of physics and philosophers of science. His confusion becomes more evident through the fact that later in the speech he uses (without giving them any credit) the ‘paradigm model’ of scientific development as an example of development of theoretical physics (Ibid: 36-7) proposed by Thomas Khun and by (less well known) Georges Canguilhem – former of them being analytic Philosopher of Science, and

1 While by Wissenschaft Kant and Heidegger understand methodologically rigorous discourse, the meaning is completely different in the works of Hegel where it referes to the possibility of immanent self-movement of the concepts – cf. Introductions to (Kant 2007 and Heidegger 1998) and Introduction and Prefece to (Hegel 1977).

latter being a similar, French version of Philosophers of Science (épistémologistes). Neither of them were philosophers of physics, while being philosophers of science.

Furthermore, it seems as if Hawking shows the lack of understanding of how philosophical thought and criticism function. This impression seems to arise from his statement that “the people who actually make advances in theoretical physics don’t think in the categories that the philosophers and historians of science subsequently invent for them” (Ibid. 36). This statement is necessarily true since one cannot think in a category which is subsequently invented, however, it seems strange to think that every category developed after the theory it criticises can have no critical access to the theory, especially if we accept that “the owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the onset of dusk” (Hegel 1998: 327).

Hawking also shows the lack of understanding of philosophical terminology by identifying himself as “a realist in the sense that [he thinks] there is a universe out there waiting to be investigated and understood” but then proceeds to say that “physics is just a mathematical model that we use to describe the results of observations… Beyond that, it makes no sense to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what reality is independent of a theory” (Hawking 1994: 38). The idea that “universe is out there and waiting to be investigated and understood” does not seem to tie anyone to the position of realism in a metaphysical sense – universe “out there” can both be a universe of physical substance, such as the one of Descartes or even Spinoza, it can be the completely idealist universe of Berkeley which we are yet to experience but is being kept there by the gaze of God, or it can be the universe which is “out there” in Kant’s noumenal world of Ding-an-sich2. Secondly, the position which Hawking seems to ascribe to (modelar nature of physical science) is usually understood as position of scientific anti-realism since it forbids science the possibility of discovery of some kind of thing-in-itself, but claims the only thing it does is the development of models of prediction. Hence, it does not sound very realistic for Stephen Hawking to call his position one of realism.

Certainly, the unorthodox use of terminology is not usually considered to be a serious offence, however, if shows itself to be the evidence of the foundational lack of understanding of the thought which a thinker dismisses ad hominem and if the misinterpretation of terminology is used as premises to build false conclusions then explication of misused terminology seems to gain more validity. However, if this specific criticism of Hawking’s shows the lack of understanding of philosophy, maybe there still is a valid criticism he can give. We cannot expect of anyone to be completely proficient in the field outside of their expertise.

Another criticism of philosophy Hawking’s gives us can be found in his book A Brief History of Time. His criticism is in itself brief: “Philosophers reduced the scope of their inquiries so much that Wittgenstein, the most famous philosopher of [20th] century, said, “The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language.” What a comedown from the great tradition of philosophy from Aristotle to Kant!” (Hawking 1992: 174-5)

While I can share the affinity towards Aristotle’s and Kant’s philosophy with Hawking, it seems clear that this sort of claim is problematic. Firstly, it is not clear what this “great tradition” of Aristotle and Kant is. The way he refers to Kant in other places does not clarify this question. When talking about Kant’s philosophy Hawking usually refers to Kant’s first antinomy of pure reason which talks about the beginning of the Universe. In his lecture

2 Although this would mean it could not be understood

The Origin of the Universe he seems to dismiss Kant’s idea of the beginning of Universe being an antinomy by saying that “as [Kant’s] title suggests [Critique of Pure Reason], his conclusions were based simply on reason; in other words, they did not take any account of observations of the universe (Hawking 1994: 78-9). Another mention of the first antinomy appears in A Brief History of Time where the antinomy is restated and dismissed by saying that Kant’s idea rests on the “unspoken assumption that time continues back forever”

(Hawking 1992: 8).

This, unfortunately, does not show us why Kantian philosophy belongs to the ‘great tradition’, but it does show us Hawking’s lack of understanding of Kant’s project and philosophy. Firstly, it is questionable whether Kant’s time extends anywhere since for Kant “time is not an empirical concept… Time is a necessary representation that underlies all intuitions… Time is not something which exists by itself… Time is nothing but the form of inner sense, that is, of our intuition of ourselves… the formal a priori condition of all appearances in general.” (Kant 2007: 67-9)

From this we can see that “observation” of the universe does not play a part in giving categorical judgment about the universe since time is not considered to be empirical (and hence observational) concept. Moreover, the Critique of Pure Reason does not aim to derive empirical conclusions about the universe using only reason and no observations, as Hawking suggest. This is, in fact, the essence of what is known as pre-Critical rationalist metaphysics. The goal of the Critique of Pure Reason is to discover the limitations of human reason and therefore discover the extent of pure thought and through it, the limitations of metaphysics as the science of pure concepts.

The only ‘great tradition’ that might apply to Kant (from Hawking’s perspective) might come from the fact that Kant participated in the research of physics, as well as being a philosopher3. This, however, seems impossible for Philosophers of our time since “science became too technical and mathematical for the philosophers” (Hawking 1992: 174).

The reasons why philosophers should want to guide themselves by the paradigm of physics remains unanswered. While doing physics, Kant himself could not have believed that he is giving answers to the questions about how the world is in-itself since for Kant physics (and all other natural sciences) cannot give us any insight into the noumenal, the world of things in themselves, since they operate within the spatio-temporal categories which define phenomenal world and are hence bound to give answers within it (Kant 2007: 48). This has hopefully shown that Hawking lacks understanding of Kant or the ‘great tradition’ leading to Kant and hence shows the lack of understanding of a period which he contrasts with the current philosophical period.

Moving from Kant, Hawking’s claim about Wittgenstein being the most famous philosopher of 20th Century is questionable. Regardless of the question of fame, it is very contentious to take Wittgenstein as the representative of the whole of philosophy of the 20th Century. Firstly, both ‘Wittgensteins’, one of the Tractatus and the other of the Philosophical Investigations can be seen as some sort of anti-philosophers. First makes his attempt in solving all the problems of philosophy by logical reductionism, the other claims that “philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday” (Wittgenstein 2009: 23e). Secondly, while Wittgenstein’s influence is crucial for the subsequent thought of Anglo-

3 The most notable example is Kant-Laplace theory, cf. Kant’s Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels

American Analytic Philosophy, he did not, especially near the middle of 20th century, have that much influence on Continental Philosophy, which was much more influenced by Phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger, philosophy of Bergson (who even engaged in the debate with Einstein) and movements such as Neo-Kantianism, Philosophy of Life, Marxism or Kojèveian interpretations of Hegel’s concept of desire. Today, in 21th Century, purely philosophical influence of Wittgenstein cannot be seen a paragon for philosophy. Wittgenstein left the minimal trace within contemporary Continental tradition. Even within contemporary Analytic approach philosophy of Wittgenstein, Ordinary Language Philosophy or the philosophy of Cambridge Wittgensteinians seems to have been pushed away by the influence of Oxford and USA scholars.

Moreover, linguistic twists in philosophy do not necessarily signify the withdrawal from the “big questions” of philosophy or knowledge in general, as Hawking seems to suggest. Ideas such as the deconstruction of Derrida, Meta-narrative theory of Lyotard, or those contained within Heidegger’s statement that language is the house of being (Heidegger 1998) rest on the idea that the insight into language can reveal the deep (e.g. ontological) structures of the world and access where experimental science is unable to access. Of course, if one is only interested in technological advancements, or describing results of empirical observations it does not seem strange that they would see no merit in this.

This analysis has, hopefully, shown how Hawking seems to be lacking any significant insight into the status of contemporary philosophy or the purpose and significance of certain.

Conclusion and further thoughts

What I have attempted to show in this paper was that Hawking does not have enough of the fundamental philosophical understanding to be able to claim the validity of the claims he gives. His interpretations of philosophical theories contain certain fundamental misunderstandings and his view of philosophy in general is limited in scope, both regarding philosophers (e.g. apparent ignorance of 20th century non-analytic philosophy) and the overall goals and aims of philosophy. The respondents to Hawking, therefore, do not need to feel obliged to answer his criticism of philosophy directly, but to show that his conception of what philosophy is or should be doing is wrong. Maybe we ought to respond by arguing that physics is dead since it did not follow philosophy and has decided, post Newton, to focus on making successful prediction, rather than giving unifying explanations of phenomena.

The main question we should be asking ourselves, is why has Hawking’s criticism, so flawed and unsubstantiated as it is, been so resonant at all? Is it our implicit Western Cartesianism combined with his medical condition which makes him so influential, since he is seen as pure, unbounded thought imprisoned within a useless body? Or have we, philosophers, lost any popular credibility in front of the figure of a ‘scientist’. Has the world become convinced that science provides the only access and model of the truth? What has happened with the philosopher within the public sphere? Can we regain the intellectual authority as non-natural-scientific thinkers? This is the way in which we need to worry about our lives as philosophers, not in the way Hawking is telling us to.

Bibliography

Hawking, Stephen; Mlodinow, Leonard (2011) The Grand Design. London: Bantam Books.

Hawking, Stephen (1994) Black Holes and baby Universes and Other Essays. London: Bantam Books.

Hawking, Stephen (1992) A Brief History of Time. London: Transworld Publishers Ltd.

Hegel, G.W.F. (1998) “Philosophy of Right”. In: Stephen Houlgate (ed.): Hegel Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Pp. 321-355.

Heidegger, Martin (1998) Pathmarks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hegel, G.W.F. (1977) Phenomenology of Spirit. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kant, Immanuel (2007) Critique of Pure Reason. London: Penguin Books.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2009) Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.