What's the Point of Philosophy?

"Unlike me, Dan Dennett, or-I suspect-most scientists studying the brain, Richard maintains that science is: i) neutral between the view that consciousness is (to simplify) identical to parts of your brain and what goes on inside of it, and the view that consciousness is a fundamental property of reality, found in all particles of matter (or, for that matter, other theories such as dualism and idealism) and ii) to be sharply distinguished from philosophy."

"Too often, philosophers argue about their alternative theories without getting into the meta-philosophical question of what makes one theory better than another. Perhaps more surprisingly, philosophers can have substantial agreement on first-order issues (I agree with much of Richard's excellent blog posts on ethical questions), while having fundamentally different views about second-order questions (my meta-ethical views on the nature of morality are radically different from those of Richard)."

"So let me use this exchange as an opportunity to step back and reflect on the raison d'être of philosophy. When I characterize the scientific study of consciousness as physicalist, Chappell responds: I think this is a kind of stolen valor. There is nothing about the empirical study of consciousness that is inherently "physicalist". The science is (very obviously) unchanged if you adopt an epiphenomenalist dualist metaphysics, for example. Those are *empirically indistinguishable* philosophical theories. So it just se"

Science can be treated as neutral between physicalist accounts that identify consciousness with brain processes and views that treat consciousness as a fundamental property of matter, such as panpsychism, dualism, or idealism. Science and philosophy can be sharply distinguished in method and role. Philosophers frequently dispute first-order theories without resolving meta-philosophical standards for theory comparison. Substantial agreement on first-order ethical questions can coexist with deep second-order disagreements about meta-ethics. The empirical study of consciousness may remain unchanged under differing metaphysical interpretations because some metaphysical views are empirically indistinguishable. Reflection on the raison d'être of philosophy follows from these tensions.

Read at Psychology Today