Do Chairs Exist?

[Brian37]

You keep missing my point. I AGREE, he was not an experimentalist. You keep missing my point. Gene Roddenberry inspired science for sure, I will not deny that. But he also DID NOT invent microwave technology that lead to the cell phone.

If you agree that the farmer cannot claim modern farming for not having access to an arc welder, then why are you disagreeing with me?

We are not disagreeing.

Even in ancient mythology worldwide, in multiple religions, people postulated stories of humans flying like birds. In modern times, it did turn out that humans could put tons of metal in the air with 300 or more humans in the air at 40,000 feet. But that speculation in antiquity will never mean in reality, that a human can magically in a nanosecond become a passenger jet by sprinkling pixy dust on anything.

Point is, that was then, this is now.

We are disagreeing, you just don’t understand the issue. You keep casting aspersions on Plato for not using scientific methodology, but persist in ignoring the fact that Plato wasn’t a scientist. You also clearly misunderstood my farmer/welder example.

You seem intransigently wedded to blaming non-scientists for not being scientists. Plato wasn’t, never claimed to be, and never tried to be a scientist. Modern Neo-platonic philosophers don’t claim that Plato was a scientist, so what difference does it make that he didn’t have access to control groups and peer review?

Plato is perfectly criticizable for a lot of things, but you’re criticizing him for the wrong things.

Boru

No I am not. 

You are focused on him, when I am arguing what people that followed him interpreted him and how they used what he said.

Philosophy had it's day. Plato certainly was/is a big reason for why the western world exists.

But that does not change that people worshiped his ideas, even his bad ideas, and still do today. He had good ideas, but again, he was not perfect in his guesses.

I am not going to ask you to believe me. I know that even if I told you that George Washington was an American President, you'd find a reason to argue he wasn't. I get that you don't like me. 

But do yourself a favor, read the Preface of Dawkins "The Greatest Show On Earth". 

Plato set the stage for future skepticism, but his idea of "essence" unfortunately lead to apology.