Does fringe biology inspire fringe philosophy?

Question

I'm more a scientist than a philosopher, so when I read works about plant consciousness (such as this article from 2007), I am admittedly, skeptical. Yet, while the science is very much fringe here, I wonder if the same holds true in philosophy. I found such a philosophy article (from 2012) remarking on the potential intentionality of plant behavior.

So my question: given that philosophy is more willing to explore strange hypotheses (say, Bishop Berkeley's subjective idealism), is philosophy willing to give more attention to science on the fringes of acceptability (like plant intentionality), or does philosophy treat science as a "gate-keeper"? I suppose part of the answer goes back to the tired analytic vs. continental divide, but not sure how applicable that is here.

Answer 1

One of the purposes of philosophy is to take ideas, explore them, and try to make them coherent and consistent. Philosophy doesn't aim to judge whether an idea is right or wrong; philosophy tests whether an idea holds together under intellectual stress.

In theater circles they talk about 'suspension of disbelief': getting an audience to temporarily put aside the knowledge that they are watching a theater production and accept the acting on its own premises. It's a craft: a poor actor or a poor writer can jolt or annoy an audience so that they lose connection and fall back on disbelief, usually ruining the experience. There are exceptions like Bertolt Brecht, who would intentionally remind the audience that it's just theater to produce a particular effect, but… I digress…

My point is that good philosophy will almost always start from a position of suspension of disbelief, asking readers to do the same, and then work through the reasoning and consequences of an idea to see if that suspension of disbelief can be maintained. The idea is that if we start with a carefully suspended disbelief and work through a detailed analysis without anything jumping out at us that breaks that suspension, then perhaps by the end we will have developed a new belief (or at least, our suspension of disbelief remains so that we have have a newly opened mind). If a philosopher deals with a 'fringe' science, then we will find that:

• the analysis pokes enough holes so that our disbelief comes roaring back, or…
• the analysis doesn't jar us out of our state of suspended disbelief at all, and leaves us with interesting things to consider.

Win/win, as far as I'm concerned.

Most philosophers respect regular science, because regular science is (in its way) good theater: scientific story-telling that leads you from beginning to end without ever giving you reason to let disbelief back in. Fringe science can be good theater as well, though not always in ways the authors intend (or want). But it's a mistake to use the gatekeeper model here. Neither science nor philosophy wants to preclude things prior to investigation and analysis.

Answer 2

You ask:

Fringe Biology Inspiring Fringe Philosophy?

I'd suggest you're putting the cart before the horse. It is the fringe philosophy that is inspiring fringe biology, in this case, by a purported redefinition of consciousness. This plant consciousness nonsense (IMNSHO) is metaphysically possible, but it grates against most conventional definitions of conscious. From WP on Consciousness:

Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of internal and external existence.1 However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate by philosophers, scientists, and theologians. Opinions differ about what exactly needs to be studied or even considered consciousness. In some explanations, it is synonymous with the mind, and at other times, an aspect of it. In the past, it was one's "inner life", the world of introspection, of private thought, imagination, and volition.2 Today, it often includes any kind of cognition, experience, feeling, or perception.

My sense of it is that the overwhelming majority of philosophers if they use the criteria above would reject the notion plants are conscious as fringe. Are plants aware of their inner life? Introspecting and having private thoughts? Engaging in cognition, imagining, conceiving, or willing things to believe? I can't think of a single philosophical source I've read that makes these claims. In fact, the historical bias like that of Descartes is that animals don't even have an inner life or meet these sorts of criteria.

You ask:

given that philosophy is more willing to explore strange hypotheses (say, Bishop Berkeley's subjective idealism), is philosophy willing to give more attention to science on the fringes of acceptability (like plant intentionality), or does philosophy treat science as a "gate-keeper"?

Modern secular philosophy does indeed treat science as a gate-keeper of facts. There's even a fancy philosophical term for it. This is called naturalized epistemology (SEP), and in its radical form simply argues that there is no gap between science and philosophy at all. Philosophers in this view have the fundamental responsibility of reasoning creatively and thoroughly with the sciences providing the body of facts. In fact, in such a world view, the philosophy of science itself is sort of the master program for how science itself should be conducted and how to settle Popper's demarcation problem.

So yes, philosophy is often much more tolerant in spirit of freethinkers than science since modern science often has very resilient, fiercely defended paradigmatic theories. The philosopher Thomas Kuhn coined the terms 'paradigmatic' and 'normal' science to describe the difference, and historically, changing paradigms is far more difficult than just doing the daily business of science according to the accepted way of thinking, a fact noted by Max Planck:

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”

This is humorously known as Planck's principle.

Answer 3

If anything, philosophy has more of an "anything goes" sort of attitude, with a very vague and broad definition of what philosophy even is. Whereas science tries to keep things grounded in what we can actually observe and test and verify and falsify.

Philosophy might be said to be constrained by needing to justify one's claims (in some way) and make sound arguments. Although there is a lot of disagreement about what is justified and what is sound, and also about what needs justification and what can just be asserted without justification.

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Your ideas might get dismissed if they diverge too far from what's observable, testable, etc. (whether that's from them being unobservable or from them contradicting observations). Such ideas might be indistinguishable from pure fiction (unless one can offer other means of justification). Although some philosophers may have some tendencies to indulge or accept such ideas.

Answer 4

The essence of the philosophic mindset is to learn to question the walls of the boxes we think within. So yes, practicing philosophy will generally lead to a pretty openminded approach to the world.

However, the same is true for properly performing science. Challenging and testing one's assumptions in a field, is what leads to breakthroughs in it.

I wonder why you refer to the 2007 article as "fringe science"? The consensus of most philosophic thinking on consciousness has tended to follow Descartes and Kant, and focus on rationality and reasoning. Also the "neuron hypothesis" has dominated much physicalist thinking on consciousness. It has actually been cognitive scientists, who have worked to define cognition functionally piecewise, rather than as only the highest tier of rationality, who have led the way in breaking through walls of the boxes here. CogSci thinking has led to testing the ability of "lower" animals to learn. And -- animals of even very simple phylum have now been found to learn. https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/216/20/3799/11714/An-automated-training-paradigm-reveals-long-term As have single celled creatures: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)01523-9?rss=yes

If single celled creatures can perform basic cognition, why would you consider plant cognition to be "fringe"? It should instead be expected!