Philosophy Versus Science

[Belacqua]

Yeah, now you're just going through the list and declaring that everything YOU consider worthwhile and successful isn't philosophy, and everything you consider to be not worthwhile is philosophy. 

To repeat (or summarize), my argument is that science, as a spin-off from philosophy, includes enough elements from philosophy as to no longer be accountable to philosophers.  Science has effectively become something else, largely because of its requirements for testing experiments and supporting evidence.

I also think there are other spin-off disciplines which may not be accountable to philosophers.  Those specializations, like science, are now in many ways too detailed and complex for philosophers to encompass.  For instance, much of philosophical moral thinking is now embedded in our detailed laws.  And scientists have all sorts of information and tools at their disposal for their work which most philosophers, unless they are also scientists, do not.  Still, historical philosophers deserve praise for their successes, their offspring disciplines.

I personally am only interested in science and its own embedded philosophical principles because those are the ones which have been most productive.  From that point of view, a lot of historical philosophy is now obsolete.  We have verifiable answers to many of its questions and speculations.

However, I don't want to over-generalize.  I do think that there are some spin-off disciplines, aside from science, which could use some philosophical tinkering.  It's when theists use philosophy to claim that science is off-track that I especially take exception.

This thread implies a false dichotomy, I think. As if the successes of science mean that philosophy is less necessary. But natural philosophy (what they used to call science) is only one part of what philosophy has traditionally done. 

Ethics, aesthetics, the philosophy of art, the interpretation of history, arguments concerning quality (e.g. one ideology is better than another) -- these are things that philosophy deals with which science by definition cannot. 

Moreover, you seem to think that the role of philosophy is to provide us with useful practical answers, and that if it isn't doing that it has failed. But keep in mind that several of Plato's dialogues end with aporia -- the goal of the book is not to provide answers but to demonstrate that the answers people thought they had are unsatisfactory. In other words, one of the main goals of philosophy is to make you less comfortable, less sure of yourself. People are sure of lots of things that they shouldn't be sure of. Their thinking seems universal and self-evident to them, when it is actually contingent on local historical conditions. People benefit by being aware of this, and reading books of philosophy is one method of becoming aware. 

Another example is Slavoj Zizek (who is certainly not on the same level as Plato, but is more recent). Much of his work is devoted to uncovering the ideological commitments people have which they aren't even aware of. We pick up beliefs concerning society and culture from the media, and these sink in without being questioned. Continental philosophy in recent decades has focussed on this particularly, from Roland Barthes to Pierre Bourdieu and many others. I think that becoming self-aware is a good thing, and philosophy fills this role while science does not. 

In fact the values which you are arguing for in this thread -- that scientifically-tested knowledge is the only kind worth having -- comes from a set of beliefs which has its own history. The fact that you hold other kinds of knowledge to be unimportant is a value judgment with implications for politics, ethics, and other fields of human society. Philosophers work on these things, and ignoring them means that you won't be aware.