Is philosophy dead?

[bennyboy]

Philosophy is not a science.  The explanation is in the definition of the word.  

Philosophy is a never ending study that never reaches the end result that science accomplishes.

Philosophy is religion's weaker cousin.

You don't understand what either of those words means, I think.

[robvalue]

In subjective philosophy there may be no "wrong" answers, but science always helps you become more informed so you don't accidentally reach what you would later describe as a "wrong" answer.

Ah, philosophising about philosophy. Clear my schedule for today please.

[Alex K]

I think there is a grossly distorted picture of what the  majority of theoretical physicists actually do, because literally 99% of the media attention goes to people like Michio Kaku rambling about parallel universes. That is a problem because it misrepresents the nature of what is done by most people. Superstring Theory has also gotten a disproportionate amount of attention esp. in the US.  I'll give you this, at the quantum gravity end of things, there is a problematic level of speculation going on because of lack of good data, which is kind of unavoidable given the subject. But still the people working in Superstring theory are mostly not of the waving with your arms and blathering about parallel universe types. Many of them try to advance the mathematical structure behind it, hoping to obtain a clearer picture of the possible consequences of the theory framework. One could call that philosophy with some math, but since the "some math" is among most advanced stuff that has ever been devised, I'd say that the intellectual rigour of that work is much above the "bad philosophy" we are talking about here. Where some of the public voices working in this field go off the rails is when they hype the natural-scientific significance of their results.

I think in this case, where you have a lack of good information, but problems which people have a deep desire to solve, and you have speculation of varying degrees, you have exactly philosophy.  That it's philosophy about the material universe is immaterial (lol).  What you have is a higher-order philosophical process which benefits greatly from existing knowledge to produce more interesting ideas.  I doubt that Plato, for example, could have come up with string theory.

But even the early philosophers considered, in their way, math, arts, and all the limited learning which was available to them to arrive at new and more interesting ideas and conclusions.  To see the process as 3000 years of bullshit, then the glorious truth of Science, makes it look like a scientific revolution, when in fact Science represents the height of philosophical evolution.

I agree completely

[bennyboy]

In subjective philosophy there may be no "wrong" answers, but science always helps you become more informed so you don't accidentally reach what you would later describe as a "wrong" answer.

Right and wrong themselves are somewhat subjective terms.  However, it's clear that when people communicate ideas, some are brilliant and some are shitty.   So while some ideas may not be objectively wrong, they will lose their audience really quickly.  That's why great philosophers are great-- not because they are right or wrong, but because they are sufficiently deep to allow others something to think, or even debate, about for a long time.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure.
Neither can reason.

Has anyone claimed otherwise?  Pure reason and scientific inquiry go hand in hand.  Each is relatively useless without the other.

"Someone" chose to make a distinction, yes.....the distinction to which I responded, and quoted.   

They don't go hand in hand, actually.  Science is the antithesis of pure reason.  I do understand what you're trying to get at though, and I agree.  Without rules of inference scientific observations would lack context and explanatory power.  We can collect data all day long but at some point, we have to decide the relationships between that data, we need to understand the inferences presented.  This is not, however, pure reason. The two "sides" in this thread are not having the same discussion.

Science -is- philosophy. OFC they're useless without each other...this was explicitly stated in the opinion that "philosophy is dead". That philosophers (conveniently separated as a matter of conversational shorthand from scientists) have failed to leverage science, diminishing their pursuits...because...as you've just stated, philosophy is relatively useless without science (vv ofc). That's how integral science has become...juxtapose that against the notion of pure reason..wherein the law of noncontradiction - for example- is seen to be a sufficient tool with which to judge all claims of knowledge.

Lets use an example near and dear to us..here at AF. The folks who burst in with the unmoved mover. Have they kept abreast of scientific development? Particularly, have they kept abreast of scientific development in physics? It is this sort of philosophy (not at all limited to the gigglesticks we get here) which Hawkins, for example...was explicitly criticizing with his remarks. It is this sort of philosophy which, in his opinion..is dead. How about you?

[Whateverist]

Philosophy is not a science.  The explanation is in the definition of the word.  

Philosophy is a never ending study that never reaches the end result that science accomplishes.

Philosophy is religion's weaker cousin.

While simultaneously being the parent of science.  Such incest!