Interesting topic, Dennis. I think that over the last decades or two, philosophers of science have more and more specialized in particular domains, feeling the need to really familiarize themselves more in detail with such a domain and not engaging in pure 'armchair philosophy'. In many cases, they would even gather some hands-on experience. Many of us share the feeling that just doing philosopher's philosophy is not bringing much to a field, whereas a detailed -philosophical- critique of methods, interpretation of results etc. can help to bring the science further as well. Many would like to offer a third option to the alternatives that Krystzof mentions: doing philosophy of science such that it is adequate in philosophical terms but at the same time connected sufficiently to science (or technology) for scientists to potentially learn from it as well.

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I think we should first all agree exactly what you mean by 'better' in this context.It has so many dimensions that maximising - or minimising as the case may be - all of them at once must axiomatically be impossible. But I would be interested in hearing other's answers!

Let me suggest an *indirect* insight. There is this ongoing discussion on differences/ similarities between Science and Design (Galle, Farrell...),which in practice can be re-formulated in terms of Natural Sciences vs Technology. Of course, we talk of a "scientific approach" to both (e.g., if Design is at stake, then what comes to mind is *Sciences* of Design, see Simon). Regardless of how they are in fact related, both need reflection - a *philosophical* reflection.

Now: if philosophical reflection on Design is at stake, Mitchum ("Thinking through Technology...", 1994) offers a following thought:

There are two parallel discourses, and two communities of discourse that only partially acknowledge and inform each other: "attempts by engineers and technologists themselves to create a technological philosophy,

and attempts by scholars in the humanities, especially phenomenologists and others, to understand modern technology with a hermeneutics or interpretatice framework." Mitchum talks of "neglected engineer-philosophers". Some others (Garbacz...) observe, on the other hand, that genuine engineers are irritated by "philosophical rambling" offered by philosophers that have not designed a single artifact in their life.

EPT: engineering philosophy of technology

HPT: humanities philosophy of technology

If doing philosophy is to fulfil a philosopher's need, and love, of wisdom, both are OK. If philosophy is to bring insight that is immediately useful, both are lousy. Which is better, then?

Cheers,

Chris

Hi Dennis, Am I right in assuming you think it better to have research behind you as a philosopher of science? To me, they don't equate - scientists prove things, philosophers think. A philosophical angle helps think things which can then go onto be proved (if wanted). I'm still young to this field but intend to do much more work in the area soon - I'm following my love but intend it to have practical and a 'for others' orientation too.

Interesting topic, Dennis. I think that over the last decades or two, philosophers of science have more and more specialized in particular domains, feeling the need to really familiarize themselves more in detail with such a domain and not engaging in pure 'armchair philosophy'. In many cases, they would even gather some hands-on experience. Many of us share the feeling that just doing philosopher's philosophy is not bringing much to a field, whereas a detailed -philosophical- critique of methods, interpretation of results etc. can help to bring the science further as well. Many would like to offer a third option to the alternatives that Krystzof mentions: doing philosophy of science such that it is adequate in philosophical terms but at the same time connected sufficiently to science (or technology) for scientists to potentially learn from it as well.

1. Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn were not properly experimental scientists. 2. To do philosophy on a subject you need some experience. 3. But philosophy requires general visions and great abstractions. And that, sometimes, can not be done by those who work in small experimental fields.

Yes, in my opinion, in the scientist there is the experince which tests and resolves the philosophical problems. Hippocrates says: "...But my view is, first, that all that philosophers or physicians have said or written on natural science no more pertains to medicine than to painting. I also hold that clear knowledge about natural science can be acquired from medicine (science) and other course...". (Hippocrates, Ancient Medicine, XX,10-15). Again Hippocrates says: "...Therefore for this reason also medicine has no need any postulate...". (Hippocrates, Ancient medicine, II,25). Added to this, Galen says: "...What, then, still remains for a doctor who wishes to practice the craft in a manner worthy of Hippocrates not to be a philosopher? For if, in order to discover the nature of the body, the differentiae of diseases and the indications for cures, it is appropriate for him to be practised in logic, and to stay diligent in the practice of these things, to despise money, and to exercise self control. If so, he already has all the components of philosophy - the logical, the physical, and the ethical..." (The Best Doctor is also a Philosopher, Galen,60).

To comment on Theo's answer: yes, many examples can be produced for the "scientist who is / becomes / has become philosopher" case. But sticking with the ancient authorities (starting with Aristotle himself) can be deceptive. Something has happened since. Technology (-logy, and thus organized study, in the end - science of techne) has only been with us for some 150 or 200 years, and the organized philosophical study of technical artifacts is the matter of last 50 years or so. Design / Technology (in its modern guise) is a relatively very recent object of philosophical reflection. Much of *valuable* reflection (but certainly not all of it; what percentage? who knows? my 1500+ database on this issue does not bring a definitive answer) was provided by bona fide philosophers. Who, not being engineers, have spared themselves the need for de-contextualization (a welcome design trick in itself). For an engineer or scientist, the danger of not knowing / not listening to those "armchair philosophers" is the necessity to re-invent the wheel, which is a very un-engineering-like sin.

For an almost-immediate relevance of philosophical rambling to engineering situations, consider this. True, a student's project might proceed (for fun, for education, to hammer down the point) like this: "you have no external patterns, no sources to consult - now, design this and this on your own, and then tell me what you think you have done. ". But more often than not, it goes on like that: "First do good literature research; try to see what has been said on the subject matter, and try to look into the work of *other communities*. Look also for *metaphors*, analogies, hints written in a different kind of language, etc.". A philosopher's language is different (if the analytical, American tradition is not taken too seriously to mean: "we, the philosophers, speak your language, because we use logical statements"). One might argue that a good engineer already has all the necessary philosophical insight in him. But - how did this insight get there? If it was laboriously developed by an engineer himself throughout his career, then, again, a huuuuge waste of time was involved. And for at least half of this career, the engineer was *lacking* this insight. Unless, of course, he cared to consult the philosophers...

May I also point to an article: Garbacz (2012), What Can an Armchair Philosopher Do for a `Dirty-Hands' Engineer? Axiomates, 22, 385--401

To clear the point: I am not against what Theo says; I simply think there is an ample "other side" of the story.

Many interesting things have already been said.

If one wants to be a philosopher of science in a field, he needs much knowledge of that field and much erudition about the history of ideas.

Mario Bunge is a physicist (but not an experimental physicist) and a great philosopher of science.

H. Putnam and J. Searle are philosophers in the broad field of knowledge and language philosophy and researchers on artificial intelligence.

Francis Crick, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his research on DNA, but he knew very little about the history of philosophy and for that reason, his book The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search For The Soul, was very disappointing.

It is difficult to be a good philosopher of science without having studied Popper. Perhaps it is not necessary to study Aristotle to do biology, but to study intentionality, as Searle does, it is very good to know Aristotle. And if you want to make a philosophy of mathematics, it is important to know Plato.

The "armchair philosophers", who take everything out of their minds, are certainly not the model. But Aristotle, ..., Popper, Kuhn, Bunge, Putnam, Searle ... are not "armchair philosophers".

Knowledge is based on experience. The experience of how philosophy of science is made must be obtained from how good philosophers of science have done it.

If we want to think about how to do philosophy of science, we can not be "armchair philosophers" and dedicate ourselves only to thinking. We have to go and see how good philosophers of science do it.

(It is a respectful and not aggressive "argument ad hominem")

Thanks, Krysztof, for the reference to the interesting Garbacz article on what an armchair philosopher can do for axiomatics. In a co-authored critical article on the 'Philosophical foundations of neuroscience' I've tried to spell out that, yes, philosophy can help to clarify conceptual definitions & connections for a field like neuroscience, but, no, this is not a task that can be done without an eye on empirical plausibility. Concepts function as heuristics yet not so much as foundations. This is why i believe that philosophers nowadays must be able to evaluate their work in the light of empirical results. ( see Article Concepts - not just yardsticks, but also heuristics: Rebutti...

Machiel, sounds convincing. Yet I have always had one doubt... In design research, one of the philosophical problems is the nature of design objects (i.e., objects that designers talk about and draw when they go about their business. What are they talking about? "This is this house with five windows...". There is no house YET, so it cannot possibly HAVE any windows. They are surely not talking about their drawing of the house, but rather about some (nonexisting) house itself. Nonexisting, just like unicorns (who said unicorns are *impossible* creatures?). "There are five unicorns there, arranged in a semi-circle..."

OK, I know that designers somehow learned to live doing this "magic". Why, I am a designer myself, and I keep living (so far). We do it all the time. Yet a philosopher is puzzled. What is the *nature* and *ontological status* of design objects? At least half a dozen philosophically plausible explanations or hypotheses have been put forward as to the nature of design objects. See Galle 1997 "In pursuit of the Objects of Designing"; Guarino 2015 "On the Ontological Status of Design Objects".

There are differences between "having learned to live with... (some mental burden or puzzle)" and "feeling comfortable with...". Maybe designers need to feel comfortable knowing what they are talking about (what, in the ontological sense). Maybe THIS is the philosophical contribution that, without being empirically verifiable, is valuable to designers / engineers? How would you verify whether design objects *really* populate possible worlds? Or are "ownerless properties"? Or are nonexistent, yet very real objects a la Meinong? Or are abstract objects encoding properties a la Zalta? Or are bona fide objects that only exist "within a designer's story?"

Maybe this is not that unverifiable, after all: let us measure the mental health and professional effectiveness of those designers who have come to explicitly adopt some of the philosophical proposals about design objects, versus those who continue to "talk magic" (and nevertheless continue to design great things).

Very interesting topics you bring up, Krysztof! I am less familiar with the design (thinking) domain you're referring to, but some of your concerns are familiar to me. E.g. in cognitive neuroscience, there are similar problems with the categorizations that are used: what is the ontological or epistemological nature of our concepts of 'delusion', 'empathy' 'ADHD', etc.? These seemingly abstract questions have a direct relation to psychotherapeutical interventions and experimental paradigms. Similarly, in interdisciplinary problem solving, we're also looking at issues that concern the implementation of novel interdisciplinary insights in complex problems. So perhaps there is some similarity in terms of the translation of insights from the lab to the real world in the cases you refer to and my examples? Of course, in the case of design thinking there is a more explicit role for creativity and novelty, yet in some sense those are present in -especially- interdisciplinary solutions, as well. In philosophical/ontological terms, are we also talking about the actualization of potential possibilities of the objects we're talking about or designing? Another form of contextualization, perhaps? Or is designing also a form of empirical testing - testing whether the designed-properties can withstand the test of actual use or implementation?

Returning to the topic that Dennis raised here: I assume that philosophers that have empirical insights in these domains are better in defending some solution over others on both conceptual and empirical grounds.

In continuity of this discussion, I have to add that in nowadays it woud be better a scientist to study philosophy and a philosopher to become a scientist, as Plato says for the Kings and Philosophers (Republic, V, 474c-d). I consider that many scientists wanted to be and to become philosophers but I don't know if some philosophers have been or have become scientists.

All people are philosophers if we want to answer the great questions of life, which from the beginning of philosophy are 3:

1. How can we reach the truth (Logic); if there is no truth or knowledge, it is useless to think more.

2. How the world is made, how can it be explained (Cosmology-Metaphysics)

3. What do humans have to do in this World (Ethics)

A scientist or a normal person can consider or not consider these questions and be a little philosopher or not at all a philosopher.

A philosopher of science is who summarizes the results of sciences in one field. It is evident that if you do not know well that field, what you say hat no value.

Experience also says that many experimental scientists are so involved in their field that they do not have general perspectives, and their philosophy is then very poor (Crick's case).

I know many philosophers of science who have very good scientific knowledge and fewer scientists who have very good philosophical knowledge and experience. I have put some examples.

But before the question posed: "In philosophy of science, is the better philosopher one who has been a scientist and have done hands-on-research, or not?", The best answer is to go to the facts, or transform this question into another:

"Who are the best philosophers of science and what have they done?