This article got me thinking about why we need philosophy. Of late philosophy and its practitioners have been much-maligned as outmoded, contributing nothing to discourse, and better off not existing. I couldn’t disagree more and here’s why.

It’s absolutely maddening to see smart people like Raj Chetty and Emmanuel Saez study these statistics under the banner of equality of opportunity when they tell us nothing at all about how close we are to that ideal.

There are many, many things in the human world — the vast majority, actually — that science and mathematics can tell us nearly nothing about. Oh, sure, it can give vast amounts of data and numbers and all sorts of trivia (some of it even useful) but it can never, ever tell us what we should do or why we should do one thing and not another, or what outcome we should value or why it should have any worth at all.

Only philosophy and the humanities can do that.

Always, ever. Philosophy and the humanities is the core of what it means to be human.

This is not to diminish science or math at all — quite the opposite. The data and insight they provide is vastly important and has improved human life immeasurably. They give us all more choices. However, they offer minimal insight into anything beyond their sphere, despite the oft-attempted overreach perpetuated by many in both fields.