How much do you like philosophy?

[pineapplebunnybounce]

I wasn't going to bother. But go ahead, qualify your statement, if I am indeed ignorant about science, I would like to know exactly how.

You shouldn't have bothered. But thanks for the information.

You're right, waste of time.

[Angrboda]

You shouldn't have bothered. But thanks for the information.

You're right, waste of time.

I'm right.

[Whateverist]

Well, for starters, a couple of those weren't exactly obvious (I'll admit I'm having a dumb day so apologies if I'm the only one who thinks so). For seconds, I'd argue that for each and every question you could have a wildly different answer, and each one would be just as philosophically accurate (or true/viable whatever word you wish to use) as the next. And this is my problem with philosophy in general.

No, I'd say your problem is you only have a crude enough idea of what philosophy is to dismiss it for the wrong reasons.

---

(When I dismiss it that sucker stays dismissed.)

[MindForgedManacle]

MindForgedManacle must be British, because he continues to fight on, despite the battle being lost.

My grandmother is English, and from (if I'm not mistaken) Edinburgh. But she's also part French, so shouldn't I have given up bu now?! But since I'm from Texas, I don't get a cool, auto-intelligent-sounding-to-Americans accent. ;(

Look, philosophy is like anything else, whether it be beetles of the world or stamp collecting. Some will "get it," and be infected with the same kind of passion. Others will wonder why some people will make such a big deal of beetles, but will leave it at that. And then there's that last group of people, who will be as dissatisfied with the answers of real science as they are with the answers of philosophy.

(I must confess, of all the people to show gross ignorance of science, the person I least expected to bid for most ignorant was pineapplebunnybounce. It just goes to underscore the unfortunate truth that you don't have to know the first thing about science to be a scientist. Maybe the creationists were right...)

I agree I guess. I care less about if people like philosophy as much as I do than what they say about it. Like, if someone didn't like physics I don't think I'd care. But if the reason they don't is because physics isn't contributing to literary criticism, then I might get testy.... because I can be a bitch like that I guess. xD

[bennyboy]

MindForgedManacle must be British, because he continues to fight on, despite the battle being lost.

Look, philosophy is like anything else, whether it be beetles of the world or stamp collecting. Some will "get it," and be infected with the same kind of passion. Others will wonder why some people will make such a big deal of beetles, but will leave it at that. And then there's that last group of people, who will be as dissatisfied with the answers of real science as they are with the answers of philosophy.

(I must confess, of all the people to show gross ignorance of science, the person I least expected to bid for most ignorant was pineapplebunnybounce. It just goes to underscore the unfortunate truth that you don't have to know the first thing about science to be a scientist. Maybe the creationists were right...)

Yeah, except a passion for beetles doesn't underly all of science, of math, of law, of morality. . .

[là bạn điên]

INMO the cutting edge of Philosophy is in Philosophy of language. In that sphere we are gradually establishing that a lot of the great questions are actually problems of language and there are no correct answers because language is not precise enough or there is insufficient agreement on the meaning of words. This is especially true in concepts such as "knowledge" "truth" and "free will" (amongst others).

People influenced by continental philosophy often use the word 'truth' to mean 'beleif', ie it is a "truth" to muslims that that Mohammed was the prophet of god; a usuage that to me is simply absurd but then post modernists don;t actually think there is such a thing as objective reality.

[Rampant.A.I.]

You're talking about Linguistics, of which there's been an Epistemological overlay in recent years. Branches of Epistemology have gone Western Mysticism buck-wild, and crossed with Postmodernism. Which as far as I'm concerned, is the bastard child of Dadism and missing the point of Existentialism entirely. IMHO, the rejection of "truth" in postmodernism is sort of an "**** it" gesture, a nod to the absurdity of reality, and no matter how well intentioned, opens the floodgates to all sorts of irrational beliefs.

You're using Truth and truth interchangeably, when they really aren't. Truth is a religious conviction: A belief so strongly held that nothing can disprove it -- even hard evidence to the contrary -- while truth is and empirically verifiable and falsifiable #hashtag for the commonly agreed-upon knowledge of an era.

People in the 21st Century seem to have a real problem with the idea that there may be no concrete answers. All we have to form "knowledge" are a web of mutually supportive, well-founded beliefs, that support other beliefs. The idea that may be all there is seems to terrify people: They want Truth, Capitalized, Bold-Lettered Truths about the word. And they'll reject any worldview shown to have flaws, no matter how minor compared to their own.

The only path to truth is to discard everything one has been indoctrinated to believe, and form a logical foundation on which justifiable beliefs can be rested. The rest is dogma and cultural baggage.

[Rayaan]

My point is, philosophy is great posing questions, exploring the possible answers and coming up with theories. I'm not here bashing it for that, my only main gripe with philosophy as a form of discerning anything true about the world is that it can't really give you a definitive answer. It's only really good at asking questions. Science on the other hand, can provide you with answers, by way of testable, provable and predictable hypothesis. Can you 'test' the answers philosophy gives? Can you prove them? Can you predict results with them? Not from any brand of philosophy I've seen. So in essence, I'm not all that interested in any answers philosophy does attempt to give me.

I agree with you that philosophy doesn't give us as definite answers as science does. But again, you can't separate philosophy from science because oftentimes science requires criticism and evaluation, which are philosophical aspects. Without philosophy, there would be just bits of data floating in our heads and no way to combine them into a reasonable framework. Without philosophy, Einstein may have never even come up with the Theory of Relativity. Without philosophy we wouldn't even be talking about the notion of a "Big Bang" today, as we so often do. Therefore, philosophy allows us to ask questions, create the right experiments, and then logically connect the dots after gathering all the facts we obtained as a result.

Philosophy doesn't have definite answers, yes, but I don't think that's a bad thing because that produces a wider range of perspectives and more discussion, which in turn produces more new ideas. Then, we use those ideas to solve problems and/or to understand something better. Most importantly, philosophy allows us to contemplate on the essence of things, the value of things, the beauty of this universe, and is an integral part of our self-understanding. All of that is philosophy.

[FreeTony]

Just out of interest are things like the Kalam argument for God considered proper philosophy?

Let's take the WLC Kalam argument:

P1 Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
P2 The Universe began to exist.
C Therefore, the Universe had a cause.

Firstly P1 and P2 must be demonstrated to be true. In order to do that you have to examine the physical world and find evidence for them. Neither P1 nor P2 have been tested in any way. Not only that but in order to make P1 valid, you'd have to first test that the Universe has a cause as the Universe is part of "everything". So it's completely pointless as if you'd managed to test the Universe has a cause, you wouldn't need the argument in the first place.

Some philosophy seems to deal purely with ideas, which I have no problem with and is useful. It is when it starts getting applied to the real world, like above, that it all breaks down. Take Zeno's paradox. It is easy to show it is wrong if you understand calculus, but it was probably useful in that it got people thinking about infinitesimal quantities.

[MindForgedManacle]

Just out of interest are things like the Kalam argument for God considered proper philosophy?

Philosophy, yes. "Proper" philosophy, no. It's the kind of philosophy you would expect to see, I dunno, 300-400 years ago.

Let's take the WLC Kalam argument:

P1 Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
P2 The Universe began to exist.
C Therefore, the Universe had a cause.

Firstly P1 and P2 must be demonstrated to be true. In order to do that you have to examine the physical world and find evidence for them. Neither P1 nor P2 have been tested in any way.

I'm certainly no fan of Craig's, but Craig does not make this argument in a vacuum. Part of the intended power of the persuasion of this argument for Craig is that it DOES have some apparent backing from science and common experience. P1 could be defended by pointing out that all things we see existing have a cause for their existence. Craig does in fact have a further argument to support P1 by trying to logically demonstrate that actual infinities, like an infinite series of events, cannot be actual.

P2 is by even Craig's admission controversial.

Not only that but in order to make P1 valid, you'd have to first test that the Universe has a cause as the Universe is part of "everything". So it's completely pointless as if you'd managed to test the Universe has a cause, you wouldn't need the argument in the first place.

What? No you wouldn't, you seem to be profoundly misunderstanding Craig's argument. The argument isn't that everything has a beginning of its existence, or else how would Craig get to his God? The argument's scope is limited to the set of things that do in fact begin to exist.


There are many flaws in Craig's argument, but I don't think any of those are it. :o

Some philosophy seems to deal purely with ideas, which I have no problem with and is useful. It is when it starts getting applied to the real world, like above, that it all breaks down. Take Zeno's paradox. It is easy to show it is wrong if you understand calculus, but it was probably useful in that it got people thinking about infinitesimal quantities.

Philosophy breaks down in the world? Not so sure about that. Zeno's paradoxes were certainly important for what they were, and calculus gave us a way to show the flaws in his paradoxes. But that isn't the only way philosophy is applied to the world. Certainly ethics and political philosophy are branches of philosophy it would be a little crazy to say "break down" in the world, unless by that you just mean aren't perfectly acted out.