Do Chairs Exist?

[vulcanlogician]

^^^
Agreed. Plato wasn't an empiricist. If Brian37 wanted to criticize someone for being a "shitty scientist," he might have a go at Aristotle.

@Brian37

I take issue with calling Plato's work "mental masturbation." Plato was incredibly thoughtful and insightful. Sure, he was wrong about some things. But, I don't think Plato ever said he was right about everything, nor did he think his errors shouldn't be corrected. He made a damn good attempt at the truth and hit the nail on the head quite regularly. That's not mental masturbation. That's good philosophizing.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

^^^
Agreed. Plato wasn't an empiricist. If Brian37 wanted to criticize someone for being a "shitty scientist," he might have a go at Aristotle.

@Brian37

I take issue with calling Plato's work "mental masturbation." Plato was incredibly thoughtful and insightful. Sure, he was wrong about some things. But, I don't think Plato ever said he was right about everything, nor did he think his errors shouldn't be corrected. He made a damn good attempt at the truth and hit the nail on the head quite regularly. That's not mental masturbation. That's good philosophizing.

Agreed on both. For example, Aristotle claimed that women have fewer teeth than men. Kind of bizarre that he never bothered to ask either of his wives to open her mouth so that he could, you know, count.

Boru

[Brian37]

Exactly my point. Back then, his mental masturbation was merely that. He got lucky with some of his good ideas and I give him credit for those.

But nobody today can, or should claim he had any modern understanding of science. And that is why I hate when I run into people who argue that philosophy is on par with modern science. 

I agree he was not an "experimentalist". And that is my point. But even today, just like arguing with Star Trek fans, I get blasted for telling people that Gene Roddenberry did not invent the cell phone.

Plato most certainly advanced western civilization. But his idea of "essence" still is causing problems in humanity in chasing the idea of perfection. If you want to call that philosophy, fine, but it was a bad postulation in any case.

No, that wasn’t your point. Since Plato didn’t muck about with science, his lack of things like control groups is immaterial. This is kind of like criticizing a 6th century farmer for not having access to an arc welder.

Boru

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.

[Angrboda]

Science and philosophy answer different questions. To measure philosophy by science, or science by philosophy, is fundamentally invalid. All you're doing is showing that you understand neither.

[vulcanlogician]

^^^
Agreed. Plato wasn't an empiricist. If Brian37 wanted to criticize someone for being a "shitty scientist," he might have a go at Aristotle.

@Brian37

I take issue with calling Plato's work "mental masturbation." Plato was incredibly thoughtful and insightful. Sure, he was wrong about some things. But, I don't think Plato ever said he was right about everything, nor did he think his errors shouldn't be corrected. He made a damn good attempt at the truth and hit the nail on the head quite regularly. That's not mental masturbation. That's good philosophizing.

Agreed on both. For example, Aristotle claimed that women have fewer teeth than men. Kind of bizarre that he never bothered to ask either of his wives to open her mouth so that he could, you know, count.

Boru

Yeah. That's a puzzle. By most estimates... it appears Aristotle could count, and yet... there are these simple counting errors in his works. 

There is the "flies have four legs" thing... and I've read the passage... Aristotle names the fly a "quadruped" (twice) and it makes you laugh. 

But some theories suggest that Aristotle may have considered the fly's front legs "arms." It's a sort of satisfying theory. After all, I have trouble believing Aristotle couldn't count to six. But then again, there is the women's teeth thing, and that's harder to excuse.

Here is one defense I found from the interwebs of it:

---

Of all the things Aristotle wrote, one of the things he is most often criticized for is the claim that males have more teeth than females. Aristotle writes in his History of Animals 509b (2.3.13):

“Ἔχουσι δὲ πλείους οἱ ἄρρενες τῶν θηλειῶν ὀδόντας καὶ ἐν ἀνθρώποις καὶ ἐπὶ προβάτων καὶ αἰγῶν καὶ ὑῶν· ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν ἄλλων οὐ τεθεώρηταί πω.”

This means, in my own translation:

“And the males have more teeth than the females in humans, in sheep, in goats, and in swine; and in the other species the observation has not been made yet.”

As most people already know, this claim is incorrect; men have exactly the same number of teeth as women.

Aristotle has been lambasted for reporting this false information. The British philosopher Bertrand Russell is particularly known for mocking Aristotle’s claim about women having fewer teeth than men. Russell wrote in his book The Impact of Science on Society, originally published in 1952:

“Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives’ mouths.”

The textbook Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History by Pomeroy et al. turns Russell’s comment about Aristotle and women’s teeth into a savage burn about Aristotle’s views on women:

“At times, Aristotle’s powers of observation deserted him when women were their subject. The twentieth-century philosopher Bertrand Russell quipped that Aristotle would not have claimed that women had fewer teeth than men if he had allowed his wife to open her mouth” (page 401 in the fourth edition).

Aristotle’s critics are certainly correct that he could have easily checked to verify whether women really had fewer teeth than men. Nonetheless, I think much of this criticism is rather unfair. Aristotle is routinely portrayed as an overconfident buffoon, but he was clearly relying on a report he had heard from someone else that he thought was based on observation. Aristotle evidently assumed that the report was correct and did not bother to verify it for himself.

Now, we might blame Aristotle for not bothering to verify the report himself, but, honestly, I don’t really blame him for not asking his wife to open her mouth so he could count how many teeth she had. After all, looking in someone else’s mouth and counting their teeth is really weird. I can only imagine how awkward that would be, both for Aristotle and for his wife.

Indeed, I seriously doubt that Bertrand Russell personally counted his own teeth and his wife’s teeth to make sure that they really had the same number of teeth. I strongly suspect Russell did exactly the same thing as Aristotle; he heard a report that men and women had the same number of teeth and he assumed that it was true.

The only real difference between Aristotle and Bertrand Russell in this regard is that the report Russell heard happened to be correct and the report Aristotle heard happened to be wrong.

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Aristotle-...h-than-men

---

[Brian37]

Science and philosophy answer different questions.  To measure philosophy by science, or science by philosophy, is fundamentally invalid.  All you're doing is showing that you understand neither.

Yes they are. Ancient philosophy was the precursor to science. 

"Philosophy" in antiquity was simply guessing. But because of the likes of Plato, and others that followed, philosophy got replaced by scientific method. 

I am sorry but even today, even Christian apologists have this bullshit argument of "Non Overlapping Magisteria"

It is the bullshit argument that science and religion are compatible. 

It is true in every religion that there are religious scientists that are ethical enough to leave their religion out of the lab. But there are assholes in every religion who have science degrees to stupidly attempt to use science to point to their book/god/club. 

Victor Stenger debunks this crap in two of his books, "God The Failed Hypothesis" and "The New Atheism".

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

No, that wasn’t your point. Since Plato didn’t muck about with science, his lack of things like control groups is immaterial. This is kind of like criticizing a 6th century farmer for not having access to an arc welder.

Boru

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

[vulcanlogician]

Yes they are. Ancient philosophy was the precursor to science. 

"Philosophy" in antiquity was simply guessing. But because of the likes of Plato, and others that followed, philosophy got replaced by scientific method. 

No. Socratic philosophy was not about making guesses. It was about rigorously analyzing certain claims about the world. Socratic philosophy developed into natural philosophy over a long period. At least, "natural philosophy" was created (over centuries) perhaps because of Socrates original questions... in which case, philosophy may count as proto-science in certain respects.

Natural philosophy was transformed by Francis Bacon in the 1600's with his Baconian method. A sort of proto-scientific method.

So, yes. In a way, philosophy birthed the sciences. Or (if you prefer) science is an elaboration of one aspect of philosophy's investigation into the world.

But what really distinguishes the two is that science uses the scientific method. Philosophy doesn't confine itself thusly. Philosophy is a broader discipline. Science is only concerned with what is observable.

[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.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

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.

Read your other posts in this thread. You’re clearly picking on poor old Plato for stuff that wasn’t his fault. Bully.

Boru