RE: What philosophical evidence is there against believing in non-physical entities?
August 29, 2016 at 10:54 pm
(August 29, 2016 at 10:47 pm)Maelstrom Wrote:(August 29, 2016 at 10:35 pm)joseph_ Wrote: Well maybe not
With those three words you supported my claim.
(August 29, 2016 at 10:49 pm)Maelstrom Wrote:(August 29, 2016 at 10:35 pm)joseph_ Wrote: But there is evidence, virtually all human societies have records and testimonies of people who had contact with spiritual entities.
That is not evidence so much as it is thoughts led astray by fancy.
Science is, in general more rigorous than philosophy, but it makes no sense to try to generalize what "science" is since the definition invokes philosophy and it changes very rapidly. Many of the scientific fields today did not exist before the 19th century. It is also impossible to do science without philosophy or to critique the nature of science without philosophy.
To call something a "science" is to make an argument for its epistemic reliability. There are so called "sciences" of textual criticism that presuppose much more and are less rigorous than philosophy. There are fields within, for example, quantum physics where the scientific status is in question. Philosophy is thousands of years old and every single distinguished scientist has had some acquaintance with it, especially since all natural science comes from Aristotle.