by Charlie Huenemann
Generally, in any conflict between long-held, seemingly obvious beliefs and new research challenging those beliefs, defenders of the old beliefs will find themselves charged with sitting in armchairs. It never is a rocking chair, park bench, hammock, or divan. It is an armchair, the sort of chair one finds in venerable, wood-paneled clubs where stodgy old men opine about the world's events more from preconceived opinions than from any well-grounded knowledge. An armchair represents both laziness and privilege, a luxurious class of opinion-mongers who simply will not bother themselves with actual empirical research – the original La-Z-Boys, as they might be called.
Such armchairs – unfortunately, from my perspective – are often associated with philosophers, for those who argue from the armchairs are arguing from broad, philosophical perspectives. These perspectives are allegedly grounded in a priori truths, but those “truths” are in fact little more than prejudiced opinions born of casual reflection. But of course the world has no obligation to pay any attention to what philosophers take to be obvious, and if we want to know what really happens, then we must rise from our armchairs and take up residency in the sciences.
Reflective and informed people will recognize that this is a poor characterization of philosophers, who usually are very well aware of empirical research. One could not find a more ambitious researcher than Aristotle, who is said to have spent his honeymoon collecting biological samples (and no, that's not a euphemism). Descartes busied himself with experiments and dissections. Leibniz knew all the science known by anyone of his day. Kant offered expert lectures on physics, anthropology, geography, and mineralogy in addition to topics in philosophy. Hegel knew his physics, and even the latest research findings in phrenology. Russell and Cassirer published good books on general relativity, and, in general, the bulk of 20th-century philosophers working on matters connected to science have suffered the requisite pains to know what they are talking about – to a far greater degree (I pridefully add) than have scientists who take it into their heads to write philosophy.