RE: What's the point of philosophy any more?
March 26, 2018 at 11:28 am
(This post was last modified: March 26, 2018 at 11:36 am by The Grand Nudger.)
(March 26, 2018 at 11:02 am)Mathilda Wrote: Is it appropriate to say that philosophy gave us science? Or is it more apt to say that philosophy evolved into science?Absolutely appropriate..and philosophy didn't evolve into science at all. It's still the study, essentially, of knowledge and -how- we know things. This is distinct from science in that science is the study of what things we know that employs that how.
The how is still, to bring it into familiar terms, an open field of research unto itself.
Quote:You could say that biology for example gave us immunology, true, but it's probably better to say that immunology is a specialisation of biology. How much biology can you still do without specialising?Not true at all, and again science can only -do- anything because of the underlying philosophy. As to how much work there may be for specialists compared to generalists..it's probably useful to point out that philosophy is also full of specialists..philosophy of science -is- a specialty (with many sub-specialties and specialists), and that there are more nurses in the world than surgeons anyway.
After all, everything that philosophy can do, science can also do. But science is also equipped with so much more. Science is self-correcting, even down to reshaping its methodology. In fact, who would know better about the limitations of the current approach than the actual scientists seeing what it is capable of? So it's not like philosophy even has this role any more.
Put simply, the entire enterprise of science could be completely defenestrated by a single person someday, if that person credibly annihilates the underlying philosophy of science - which is why vociferously anti-science nutters tend to go that route rather than deny some observation. Good luck to them, on that count..and for what it's worth I think it's a laudible endeavor even if I don't think it will produce the results they desire, lol.
I think it was jorg that referenced popper, pages back. His work cast horrendous shade on what was, up to that point, a fundamental operating principle of science..but in doing so..rather than destroy it, it was improved. It;s impossible to give a full and credible account of science, today, without at least acknowledging that work...and that work continues.
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