Some Remarks on Scientists' and Philosophers' Social Responsibility

Is it morally required for philosophers and scientists engaging in social movement, or by exercising their rationality to change the society into a better place? I think if a scientist or philosopher who tries to change the establishment by participating into social movement, and paying her own effort to change the world into a better place, we have no reason to condemn her as she is devoted her time or even our life to enhance our rights or benefit, assuming that we are living in the same community with her. However, I can't see is there any difference if the one who participating in the same social movement is not a philosopher or scientists, or even uneducated, since we all agree that anyone who devote herself into the enhancement of society should be respected, no matter who is she and what her occupation is.

However, should a philosopher, social scientists or scholars, especially for those who works in the field of ethics, sociology, cultural studies and political science, have mush more responsibility then usual people, to participate in social movement and struggle for the benefit for most of the people? I have to admit that I can't see any plausible reason to support this claim; and on the contrary, a philosopher or scientists shouldn't actively involve in any social movement in certain situations.

To say that a person to have more responsibility, or a person,such as you, should pay more effort to do something, if either, (1) somebody have rights to ask you to act in that way and she did execute her rights, or, (2) You have a special relation with the people who would be affected by whether she acts in that way, or, (3) you committed yourself to devote your life on such a business, or (4) if you don't do it you would violating some general moral constraints such as not harming innocent people, or (5) it would bring damn good effects.

Here what I mean by philosophy and science is this: a systematic explanation and interpretation of what we encounter in our everyday life, and nothing more.

This conception of philosophy and science originated from Aristotle, or even Plato's idea that philosophy should provide some ultimate principles to explain the world. However there is a difference between Plato and Aristotle is that the former thought that by knowing the first principle we can gain a guide of our life and what we should do; but Aristotle claimed that, in the beginning of his Nicomachean Ethics, politics (and ethics) can't be learnt in the way that we learn mathematics or theoretical science, since the former require experience and practical wisdom, which is a different form of rationality required by theoretical investigation.

Therefore, what I mean by philosophy and science may be much more narrower then those referred by Aristotle, as he still called ethics and politics as a sort of science. Here, by "philosophy" and "science" I only refer to a set of propositions which can be interconnected with a logical and systematical way. (put it shortly, all interpretation and explanation of the world must be a set of propositions connected with logical relations).

Explanation may not be necessarily identified as scientific explanation as otherwise it would be impossible for anyone to construct a philosophical explanation. Here I can't give a precise definition of a philosophical explanation, but I think it should be something like the truth-condition analysis of meaning, or Tarskian scheme, having the same form with the following bicondtional statement:

TS: '思歪港每星期天都去行山' is true iff CYKong goes to hike on every Sunday.

" '思歪港每星期天都去行山' " is a name in the meta-language (in here the meta-language is English), referring to the sentence in the quotation in object-language (in here the object-language is Chinese), and the whole TS is a formula in meta-language. The analysis in this form usually can be seen in the linguistic analysis in analytic philosophy, especially those who holds that meaning of a statement is its truth conditions, such as Donald Davidson. The biconditional statements of this sort would not provide a scientific explanation of language or linguistic behavior, but they can provide a semantics for the sentences we are using, by which we can specify the way of using the sentences in different circumstances. And a complete semantics for a language L (a semantics that can clearly specify under what circumstances an utterance of sentence p is true, false and meaningless) can help us to identify the real scientific explanation from those pseudo-scientific theory, or to identify some sentences with insight from mere murmuring.

Therefore, either scientists, social scientists and philosophers are both aimed to provide a set of propositions, by which the former two describe the natural world and human society, as the latter describe the syntax and meaning of words and sentences in humans language. (linguistic analysis may not be all of philosophy, as philosophers also describe our ethical or moral intuition, motives, desire etc., all these are non-linguistic phenomena.)


Readers, if you just like me, as a common person, it is not difficult to realize if philosophy and science are systematic explanation and interpretation of the world in which we are living,the task of philosophers and scientists must be providing an adequate explanation about our world.

Here when I say that providing an adequate explanation is the task of philosophers or scientists, it just like saying that the task of the police is to catch and arrest the criminals; or the task of a cleaning worker is to clean the streets. Of course the the task may not assigned by others but it may be assigned by the agent herself, and it comes under at least one of the conditions I mentioned in paragraph 3. so it seems correct to say a philosopher should pay more effort on providing an adequate explanation of the world.



From here, I can't see why philosophers and scientists should pay more attention then usual people into the enhancement of society, as the task of philosophers and scientists I mentioned above, is not directly relevant to the well-being of our society.

It doesn't mean that philosophers and scientists should be detached from the society, they just like you and me, the usual people, sharing the same responsibility of ensuring the justice in our society.

Later I will explain why in certain situation, a scientist or philosopher should be detached from social movement.