RE: Generally speaking, is philosophy a worthwhile subject of study?
February 28, 2022 at 6:42 am
(This post was last modified: February 28, 2022 at 7:09 am by vulcanlogician.)
(February 27, 2022 at 11:15 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:(February 27, 2022 at 11:55 am)polymath257 Wrote: OK, let's look at a very specific concept that comes up again and again.
How has modern philosophy dealt with causation? How has it integrated what we have learned about quantum mechanics?
Now, I do agree that aesthetics, ethics, etc, are good things to study and are aspects of philosophy. I just don't see them as being knowledge as opposed to refined opinion. But that is also philosophy.
And just where do think modern physics got its theory of causation?
Modern physics doesn't have a theory of causation, does it? (Maybe I'm wrong on that. If so, what is the theory? How does it differ from what philosophers have come up with?)
Not that physics needs to or ought to have a theory of causation. Modern physics has told us many accurate things about causation that philosophers never would have (for example, that there is a speed of causation, the speed of light, or of sound, depending on the medium). But it's like Hume says. You can't observe causation. So unless you think about what causation is, you have no intellectual connection to it besides the fact of it.
(February 25, 2022 at 10:10 am)polymath257 Wrote: Another point I want to make is that consistency is a weak filter for truth. But it seems to be the primary filter for philosophy.
For example, it seems that Newtonian physics is *internally consistent*. It even has intuitive appeal. But, we now know that it is *wrong* (although a good approximation). For that matter, even the Ptolemaic system is *internally consistent*.
Yeah. I think the correct position is internally inconsistent=false.
If somebody thinks internally consistent=true, well shit. That's wrong. I don't even think Plato made such a claim.
