(March 26, 2018 at 10:19 am)Khemikal Wrote: Most lit reviews take that form, don't they? Summarize the subject body, identify potential issues with varying positions, suggest undeveloped areas as potential places for improvement. Still need a few philosphers working on the systems themselves, though. Pure philosophy-as-blue sky analog...as you suggested earlier.
I'm all for blue sky research because we are not always aware of what we do not know, but even blue sky research gives results. In the natural sciences you get to better understand some natural phenomenon that can lead to better predictions, or create a new technique for working with it. In Mathematics you get a proof or find some new way to quantify something and work with those quantities. Successful blue sky research can then become applied research and eventually when it is understood well enough it becomes engineering.
I could well be arguing from ignorance here but what new results does pure philosophy ever give us?
