Q&A: Philosophers Who Don’t Ground Their Views
Philosophers Who Don’t Ground Their Views
Question
There was a tendency among philosophers in Greece not to ground their views. A convenient example for my question is Philolaus, who claimed that the world is in motion, but people ignored his view, like many other views in his time, simply because he just threw it out there and didn’t base it on anything. In general, a great many interesting ideas come up without any grounding at all. If someone dismisses an idea because it isn’t grounded, he will probably miss very interesting ideas, and perhaps also ones that are factually correct, like that of Philolaus.
What do you think is preferable—to delve into and study only ideas that are grounded, at least on a high level, or also those that are simply interesting, and whose proponents don’t bother, or don’t know how, to ground them?
Answer
The term “grounding” is not very well defined. Philosophy is not an empirical science (see my series of columns on philosophy), and it is based on intuitions. So when people speak about grounding, they mean intuition. But every philosophical claim reflects the intuition of the person making it, and therefore it is grounded. Of course, that does not mean they are all interesting or correct, nor that they are all worth studying. Each person according to his own views and inclinations.