I think we are done.

-"It seems to me like you don't want scientists to bear any responsibility for being unwise and irresponsible."

The above statement of yours shows that you either have a hidden agenda or you are unable to understand that different methods of investigation produce frameworks with different qualities.
Scientific frameworks contain knowledge. If this knowledge is used wisely it can produce predictions and technical application.
Philosophical frameworks can produce wise claims on that same knowledge for other philosophical branches.(Aesthetics, Ethics, Politics...).

So just because science can not directly offer wise claims about human values and meanings in Ethics or aesthetics or politics etc ...THAT DOESN'T MEAN that SCIENTISTS DO THEIR JOBS WITHOUT UNWISELY OR IRRESPONSIBLE....lol
Do I really have to clarify this.......seriously??? Do you find your statement serious or wise?

I don't know, I think this is a waste of time and I think we are done..

that sounds like a common political excuse ! = )
Joking aside, In situational ethics it depends on ....the situation, I guess.
Your question could be a really good challenge..if only we can test it on a good example.
Do you think Chernobyl could be a good example?
The scenario is this. Young Ukranians lost their lives during their efforts to clean the area and contain the radio active core. Most of them were volunteers but they were not informed for the danger.
Let me know if you have a better example we can use.

Unfortunately your emojis weren't that helpful! Feel free to elaborate!

Its not an appeal....by default morality has an instrumental value in our society.

-"I don't think they constitute any kind of proof, and actually I didn't use the term 'absolute'. What I'm asking is, what could be the grounds for certain acts or attitudes to be considered good independently of your or my or society's evaluation of them as good - a 'true good' if you like"
-if you don't imply anything absolute so you should use the qualifier "true" for good.
As I already pointed out if we all agree that morality is an evaluation of which acts promote the well being of individual members and their society as a whole then of course this standard allow us to arrive to objective moral judgments.

timescale is not relevant.

oh boy.....
You sound really confused... Can I ask if English is your mother tongue, what is your level of education and your age before investing time in this conversation..?

-"You're not responding. Could be we are on different pages."
-responding to what?

By reading your last comment I am not so sure that we can have a meaningful or fruitful conversation. You are confusing the investigation the meaning and values some facts to us humans with institutions being lead...by wisdom (whatever that means).

Let me try one last time with the following example
-Science investigates the ontology of life (what processes allow this biological phenomenon to emerge and evolve.)
-Philosophy investigates what is the meaning and purpose of life and if we value our life the same under different conditions (being in pain or after loosing a dear one).

BOTH methods use the available facts wise to arrive to their conclusions.
is this helpful????

I think the question is, is there any true good? Is there anything which is unconditionally good, not a matter of either social convention or individual conviction? I don't know if that automatically entails absolutism - the requirement is simply for some good that is not simply a matter of individual or social judgement. And that seems a very hard thing to discern sans a religious doctrine. — Wayfarer

-I am not sure that the term "true good" or absolute moral judgments are useful in our quest for morality.
We understand that moral absolutes don't exist.
1.The act of killing is not immoral under all situations.
i.e killing a murdered who is ready to kill your family is objectively a moral act.
2. The act of killing is not an absolute immoral act.
i.e. by stilling the bomb from a terrorist before he manages to detonate it is an objective moral act.
3. Having sex is not an absolute immoral act.
i.e. having sex with your wife is has not moral value...having sex with a woman without her consent that is an immoral act.

So the above examples prove that absolute moral declarations are factually wrong statements and Situational ethics is the best way we have to make objective moral evaluations for every act.
By independently evaluating each act and realizing if it is in favor or against the well being of members and their society we can arrive to objective conclusions about the moral value of an act.

The universe was never designed to be a paradise. Ethics is, by and large, a pressing issue for what can suffer, the potential for pain immediately opens up a new dimesion to reality viz. ethics. How do we carve out a moral world, i.e. create jannat, from a universe that can also be converted into a jahanam? — Agent Smith

-first of we can not prove that the universe was designed. Teleology in nature needs to be demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt , not assumed.
Morality is the evaluation of human behavior not an intrinsic feature in the Universe. We as observers evaluate specific behavior as moral or immoral depending on the impact it has on the well being of the members of our society.
There is no need to introduce absolute concepts (truth, morality) in the discussion. Objective moral judgements can be produced by verifying specific metrics promoting our well being.

let me define Morality and why Objective moral judgments are possible.
Morality is the abstract concept that describes specific behavior capable to promote the well being of Society and its individual members
Specific metrics in behavior(altruism, truthfulness, respectful etc) is how we know that well being is reinforced among members of a society.
So if specific behavior undermines well being or the prospect of it then we can objectively make a judgment for its immoral nature.

After 426 posts on this thread there doesn't seem to be a consensus. It's certainly not the philosophy of nature of past ages, having been eclipsed by modern science. — jgill

Well the lack of consensus is because every single one of the authors present a version of philosophy designed to "include" their ideologies.
By referring to the philosophy of nature of the past you are just chronicling....you are not doing philosophy or science.

In fact, astrophysicists study the results of the BB and what they find may very well have implications on future space travel for humans. But I hear what you are saying — jgill

-again you fail to understand the difference in meaningfulness from efforts aiming to technical applications.
It's philosophy to try to understand what it means for our species to be able to travel in space and an other to solve the puzzle of how this can be done without affecting .
The colloquial use of the term"meaning" doesn't make objective and subjective matters of investigation the same ...

It isn't and this is why I quoted the clarification he provided in the OP. My question was if he is arguing about object moral judgements(Situational morality) or absolute morality(an act is moral or immoral independent from the situation).
The title and his post are a bit in conflict.

I think I found the issue.
What do you think philosophy is?

btw I didn't say science isn't full with meaning and value....science doesn't include meaning and value in its investigations. Science isn't interested in what Big Bang means for humans or what is the value of a life or a moral act. Science just describes the BIG BANG and identifies the metrics for morality.
Can you distinguish those two aspects of these concepts?

You are probably correct. Certainly science evolved in philosophical frameworks. But I think apart from logical structures science is no longer philosophical. Just the way I see it as a a non-philosopher. Once the technicalities of an idea require extensive specialized knowledge that idea becomes speculation by the scientists involved. I consider string theory to be speculative science as long as there is the faintest possibility it can be experimentally verified. If it were clearly shown to be non-verifiable, well, that's a different thing.

Now, there are concepts in science/mathematics that I do in fact believe are philosophical, metaphysical to be exact. Infinitesimals, conjectured by Leibniz and others, are objects of metaphysics. They can be considered foundational in analysis and support a mathematical structure that describes much of the physical world. But they cannot be proven to exist. — jgill

-To be accurate science didn't evolved in philosophical frameworks. Science was philosophy with bad empirical methods. As our methods advanced Natural Philosophy was forced to abandon the shrinking ship of Academic Philosophy.

-"But I think apart from logical structures science is no longer philosophical. "
-No it is a specialized Philosophical Category. It deals with ontology within nature since we figured out this is the only ontology that makes senses and has epistemic value.
Like philosophy, science uses the available facts and produce theoretical models in our effort to understand the world. The main difference is that Philosophy as a method expands in a larger number of fields.

-"Once the technicalities of an idea require extensive specialized knowledge that idea becomes speculation by the scientists involved."
-I don't know what that means. Science and Philosophy produce Hypotheses. Metaphysics are a common branch for both methods.

-"I consider string theory to be speculative science as long as there is the faintest possibility it can be experimentally verified. If it were clearly shown to be non-verifiable, well, that's a different thing."
-Yes sting theory is Metaphysics on the ontology of matter? We don't know if we can falsify Sting Theory....well the we have some ideas but nothing close to applicable. I don't understand what your point is? The metaphysical nature of STring Theory support my position, why did you use it?

-"Now, there are concepts in science/mathematics that I do in fact believe are philosophical, metaphysical to be exact."
-Again ALL scientific hypotheses are Metaphysics. Mathematics are NOT science. Its a tool based(that science uses) on an accurate language of logic that has the same role like human language in Philosophy.
So can we agree that Science is Philosophy that doesn't deal with meaning and value because those doesn't have objective metrics?

The point about Einstein is that his was an empirical theory about motion, distance measurements, etc. An apriori theory of time and space is very different. It tries to describe the conditions in place that make such observations even possible. A bit like checking out what a telescope does prior to processing the data it gives us. Experience is not a mirror of nature, to borrow a phrase. How could it be this? Have you seen a brain? — Constance

-You can never say that an objective set of observations can or cant mirror nature accurately!
You are using an argument from ignorance fallacy as an excuse to dismiss our only credible and objective source of knowledge and sneak in pseudo philosophical speculations as competitive ontological frameworks.
Again I am not saying that our observations are absolute true or the picture we receive is 100% accurate. I only pointing out that we can not evaluate the accuracy of our observation so we are forced to work with what we got (pragmatic necessity) either they agree with our metaphysical worldviews or not! On the other hand idealistic and supernatural claims fall outside our Cataleptic Impressions and our methods of observation so we have zero objective information about these speculations.

I caught that "whatever that means." You need to get out more, I mean, read something else other than what Neil Tyson DeGrasse tells you to read. Me, I've taken lots of science, and I do understand it quite well. But I have also read lots of phenomenology. The latter is philosophy. An entirely different order of analysis. — Constance

I don't read Tyson. He is too poetic for my taste and diluted in epistemology. Again phenomenology has many varieties. Some are philosophical but many are pseudo philosophical. This is the problem with Philosophy. Under the same umbrella term its possible to found good and bad Philosophy!
My statement "whatever it means" was my response to the claim "consciousness being fundamental".
ITs was not a cheep blow. I used that statement because consciousness in Neuroscience has a specific definition and pseudo philosophy/supernaturalism definitions are pretty vague.
What verify in science is in direct conflict with the proclaimed "role" of consciousness by pseudo philosophical views.

You jest, no? Seriously, is this what you think? If a child is drowning and the event produces ripples in the water, then by an examination of the ripples, I know what the child's drowning is all about?? What do you think an MRI is? — Constance

-What I personally think is irrelevant. In science we establish Sufficiency and Necessity between a causal mechanism and the effect by verifying Strong Correlations between a process and a phenomenon. So to explain this process in terms of your example.....an Environmental or organic stimuli (a drowning child or a pebble or a fish breaking the surface of the water etc) produces connections in the brain (surface ripples ) that in turn enables the emergence of mental conscious state with a specific conscious content( wave, bubbles, foam, distorted reflections etc).

Again you are making an argument from ignorance (because we can not disprove that there is an addition level of reality responsible for mental states we can dismiss or ignore Neuroscience's epistemology without evidence against it and without any evidence for the suggested idea)!
This is NOT how the burden of proof works. This is not how we identify a Default position(Null Hypothesis) .
This is fallacious reasoning! We can not throw out of the window our objective observations and frameworks that make testable predictions (diagnose pathology) and real life technical applications (accurately read complex thoughts, surgery and medicinal protocols)...just because some believe a fallacious claim!
By definition the truth value of a fallacious claim is unknown so we are forced to dismiss it as pseudo metaphysics.

But when I say one cannot observe empirically the act of believing or knowing I mean to say that even in one's interior observations, where the belief arises and one can step back and one can step back and acknowledge this in an act of reflection, the knowing the belief is there is still bound to the indeterminacy of belief itself. — Constance

-I think I understand what you want to say. You are misusing the term "observation" and that creates a miscommunication. To set things straight , of course we can observe the act of believing and knowing by many methods. We can either compare brain scans in relation to specific stimuli, check blood profile , behavior etc.
What we can't observe is how others individuals subjectively experience those states. This is because it is a subjective experience!
Our goal is not to experience other peoples experiences!!!!! Its nonsensical to even suggest it! What w can do is to verify the processes responsible for the experience. We can do that with objective methods of investigation.

The question goes to what the knowing of anything is. You would have to show how anything out there gets in here (pointing to my head). Do this, and I will convert instantly to your side of this matter. — Constance

-The "knowing of anythings" is the process of interacting with the world and composing objective descriptions about it. Knowledge is any claim that's objectively in agreement with current facts and carries Instrumental value. Everything gets in our brain by empirical interactions. If you have ever observed babies growing up, you will see that in their early years they know nothing about the world. By interacting with it and testing their assumptions (this is why they are prone to accidents lol) their small brains construct a mental model. This process is called Learning. We can see the changes in the brain and how learning things affect size and function.

Well, there is a lot of language in this, and it is all from science. You need, if you want to understand philosophy, to look elsewhere, other than a body of thinking that is self confirming. This would bring in questions. A physiologist reads about, witnesses the digestive system, say, microscopically as well, and with all the detail. Ask this scientist, how do you separate what you witness from the phenomena produced in your brain such that your thinking and intuitive impressions are not REALLY just about the hard wired problem solving mechanisms that deal with the affairs in general? How do you separate your knowing about what is before you from the conditions of knowing? — Constance

The think is we are talking about the knowledge on a phenomenon that is studied by a Scientific discipline so "understanding philosophy" or better listening to pseudo philosophical ideas on the mind or consciousness is irrelevant.
When we need to learn things about the causal mechanisms of a biological phenomenon....we study science.
When we want to understand the implications in real life of this knowledge, its value and meaning for our lives...then we use philosophy.
WE NEVER use philosophy to assume magical ontologies that are Unnecessary, Insufficient and Unfalsifiable.
Its not like they are the products and conclusions of our observations!! Someone made up an magical realm and placed his idea in a safe place away from falsification without any epistemic foundations!

Philosophy observes the world of observations.Look at it like Dewey or Rorty do: There is a volcano. An event. And my perception of the volcano is an event. I am "here" and the volcano is "there". Do I know there is a volcano? Of course. What does it mean to know, that is this relation that exists between me and that over there? Now wait....that is a different kind of question entirely. I have to remove my geologist's smock. This is an epistemic relation, not a causal one.
You should be able to see that this is a problem. For philosophy, it was THE problem for more than a hundred years, until many just decided to forget it. It will NEVER be resolved is empirical science. You can think as you please, ignore it as you please, but every philosopher knows this. — Constance

-Yes some fields of philosophy deals and analyzes how we make observations...but it doesn't have the tools to test whether those observations are capable to be accurate or not of reality.

-" It does not go beyond this, but into it."
-When speculations about the accuracy of them are adopted as worldviews....then no they do go beyond this.


-" It is not that there are no reasonable knowledge claims in science, but rather that such claims themselves bear analysis."
-All theoretical frameworks in science are reasonable BY DEFINITION. They describe Objective facts. This is all we have to work with and our theories provide a narrative without making up realms, substances or entities that we can not falsify.

-"This is an epistemic relation, not a causal one."
-Correct....observing doesn't cause the event you observe....where exactly do you see a problem???
I don't get what problem do you see in an event (volcano) and an observer observing the event (which is a different event on its own).
Could you point out where the problem is????

The issue I take has to do with your "same naturalistic principles". Philosophy is not naturalistic, if I take your meaning. This is philosophy. But then, I do see that ALL inquiry in science is like this, and this is perhaps what you are saying. It is one thing to accept the "normal science", which is the same as my accepting my cat, all expectations confirmed over and over. It is another to ask questions about this: the question is common to all desire to know.
I obviously don't take issue with logic. That would be impossible. It is the thematic nature of the inquiry. Philosophy has a different mission, one that looks to presuppositional foundations of knowledge claims AS knowledge claims. Science is not interested in this; only in the specific knowledge claims of its field of interests. — Constance

- I can see why you have an issue with that statement, since I didn't provide any clarification.
By Naturalistic Principles I am referring to Methodological Naturalism not to a metaphysical worldview (Philosophical Naturalism). Unfortunately our only verified epistemology is provided by Empirical Means. Those Empirical means can only detect an investigate a Naturalistic Realm so we are limited in our descriptions and methods of verification.
Its like being in a room and the only exit to the rest of the world is a door(Naturalism). Sure, we can not exclude the existence of hidden trapdoors and passages(Idealism, Superanturalism) but as long as we are unable to locate them we are limited to that single door.

So by choosing those principles we are not encouraging some kind of arbitrary bias but its a Pragmatic Necessity that we can not really avoid if we care having Objective foundations.
You see "empirical methodologies" are not essential but Objectivity is and as far as we can tell, the only approach able to produce objective epistemology is the Empirical (at least for now).

Philosophy is indeed not naturalistic. Philosophy is the quest for wise claims about our world and only Naturalistic frameworks can be evaluated for their epistemic value.
Without knowledge we can not have wise claims.

the method? Well, I can only think of two. The most general is the scientific method, and this is in the nature of thought and experience itself.
The other method is that of pursuing presuppositions in accepted ideas. — Constance

-Aristotle left behind a philosophical work which is questionable at best, but what he is famous of is his work on Systematizing and organizing Logic and Philosophy. Aristotle first understood the essential steps for every philosophical inquire that can allow us to reach wise conclusions.
You can see the steps of the philosophical method in my avatar pic but I will list them here too.
1. Epistemology(what we know and how we know )
2. Physika (investigation of the world...science)
3. Metaphysics (Hypothesizing on the founding of the two previous steps.)
4. Aesthetic
5. Ethics
6. Politics


-" It is one thing to accept the "normal science", which is the same as my accepting my cat, all expectations confirmed over and over. It is another to ask questions about this: the question is common to all desire to know."
-Yes Philosophy includes science as a step in the whole process and it does go some steps beyond the gathering of knowledge by tackling matters of meaning and value. The problem rises when we include in our premises concepts that aren't justified by our epistemology or science (begging the question, poisoning the well).
The Philosophical Method is an exercise in frustration, not the pursuit of comforting ourselves by assuming the concepts we need to prove.


-"Philosophy has a different mission, one that looks to presuppositional foundations of knowledge claims AS knowledge claims. Science is not interested in this; only in the specific knowledge claims of its field of interests."
-As I said the main mission of Philosophy is to arrive to Wise Questions or Conclusions. We strive to expand our understanding by reflecting on the facts that are available. The presuppositions used in our knowledge are analyzed by Philosophy of Science, but the fact is that we don't have a say in those presuppositions. As I already explained we are limited by our tools of investigation and the observable aspects of nature.

Ah, but here you go astray. Take a second (or, a first?) look at idealism, or, as it is later taken up, phenomenology. Science has a wide readership and it produces great cell phones, but as a foundation for philosophy, it has little to say, and what it does have to say amounts to speculative science, merely. You are never going to get this tart to your dessert plate:all one can ever witness is the phenomenon. Wittgenstein knew this. Dennett knows this, they all know this. — Constance

-Again you are confusing Technical applications with science. Science offers knowledge on the observable ontology of matter in order for businesses to make cell phones.
You can not remove science from the philosophical method because you will be unable to distinguish wise from non wise statements. Scientific observations has updated our cosmological stories, our place in our solar system and our universe, our stories of how we came to evolve instead of created.etc etc
Now Idealism is not Philosophy but a worldview. It is considered to be philosophy because its historical record. This is huge problem with philosophy that we don't see in science. When a framework doesn't carry any epistemic value it is rejected and it isn't recycled.
Idealism doesn't carry any wisdom and its principles have zero contributions to our epistemology. It is by definition a failed pseudo philosophical view with assumptions that aren't EVEN wrong.
The same is true for any transcendental or non naturalistic variety of phenomenology.

First of all the OP clarifies that refers to objective moral judgments not Absolute morality. (I quote " On a given subject, is one particular moral view objectively right and the others are wrong, regardless of what people believe? ")
Absolute morality in a theistic frameworks refers to absolute moral declarations.( killing is bad, stealing is bad etc).
If you refer to that type of morality then we agree that only those who don't have a good understanding of reality believe in absolute moral declarations. As a Methodological Naturalist I believe that any systematic approach that takes in to account the goal of morality in human societies and every situation as a distinctive case is capable to arrive to Objective Moral judgements (Situationalism).

So what you really ask, and correct me if I am wrong, is whether we can make Objective moral judgments.....because the title of the thread is a bit vague.

If that is indeed what you ask, the answer is yes. Objective judgments can be achieved if we agree on what morality is and what it servers in human society.

IMHO your disagreement is not sufficiently informed.
First of all not all speculations are Philosophical We are only referring to structured hypothetical frameworks.
Now science , before leaving the Philosophical Academia was identified as Natural Philosophy. ALL hypotheses formed within science are by default Metaphysics(philosophy), as long as they obey the principles of Methodological Naturalism's, the rules of logic and the established epistemology.

I have nothing against what you said. And you are correct, there are mysteries in science too. But I do think that many of the classical philosophical questions are so hard, we don't even know how to go about even giving a good answer. Free will, for instance, or how can matter think? We know it can, but have zero clue as to how it does this.
. — Manuel

You are correct some to the classical philosophical questions are unanswerable for many reasons.
First of all since Philosophy deals with value and means, most of their answers are mostly subjective.
(meaning of life,of existence,what we value etc).
The big problem is with those questions which are the product of begging the question of fallacious assumptions or factually wrong presuppositions.
Two great example for all three is Free Will and consciousness.
We know that Humans have will and we also know from science that is not free 99% of the time.
We have a good idea(we don't know all the story) on what mechanisms are Necessary and Sufficient for a conscious state with a specific content to emerge but "philosophers" insist in bringing in the supernatural as if it has the same number of good evidence to qualify as competitive explanation.

With this, you will get a philosophy of science, but nothing more. — Constance

-No you are confusing Philosophy of science(the study of how the methods of systematized epistemology work and the quality of the end product), with the rules of logic and principles science and philosophy must follow in order to achieve their goals, credible knowledge and valuable wisdom.
Those are two completely different things.

. True, all things start with inquiry, but then, philosophy asks very different questions — Constance

That doesn't let her of the hook. Philosophers still need to take in to account the established knowledge and use it as their starting point, they also need to avoid unfounded principles (supernaturalism, idealism etc) in their interpretations and they need to check and include need data and feedbacks.
Their questions are different because their goals are different. Both ask questions about how the world works but Philosophy have an additional set of questions that include meaning and value.
Science stops before meaning and value because its job to produce knowledge. Philosophy has to take that knowledge from science and inform its frameworks on value and meaning.
This is how Philosophy can ensure that their frameworks convey wisdom.

Einstein talked about time and space, e.g., but not as foundational conditions for consciousness. — Constance

-Why he should ever have done that? The first are phenomena studied by physics while the later is a biological phenomenon studied by Neuroscience. I didn't know Einstein had a second degree in Neuroscience!
If you are referring to Modern Philosophy talking about consciousness being fundamental(whatever that means), well some philosophers do talk about it, but that doesn't make a Philosophical idea.
That is pseudo philosophy because Cosmology and Neuroscience haven't been epistemically unified....yet at least.
We don't have observations that point to any links between those different phenomena.

As to epistemology, science cannot touch this: one cannot observe empirically an act believing or knowing. — Constance

Of course it can.I empirically can observe your thoughts, knowledge and beliefs.
We even have a technology that we can read complex conscious thoughts without the need from an individual to communicate them!...By just reading fMRI scans (2017).
https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news-stories/2017/june/brain-decoding-complex-thoughts.html
Maybe you meant something else?

But even if were we unable to empirically investigate subjective states and we couldn't produce medicinal solutions for states like pain and depression and anxieties and child disorders, or diagnostics linked to pathology and physiology of brains, surgery protocols etc etc etc, the question would be,if a systematic,objective approach and method cannot touch this phenomenon..what can and how can we be sure for the objective takes of that "unknown" alternative method?

The best one can do is analyze features of knowledge relationships, you know, S knows P, is justified in this, and P is true; but the rub is in this justification, for P can't be affirmed as true unless there is a line of justification that leads from P to S. Impossible to "observe" this line because P is entangled IN S's relationship to it. — Constance

-Well this is what we do in all aspects of our investigation. We make objective observations and we try to demonstrate Strong correlations between Causal mechanism and Effect by Describing and Verifying the Sufficient and Necessity role of that Link.
Of course all this is achieved by Objective Observations. All those observations are behind the thousands of papers found in Neurosciencenews.com describing how the brain achieve every different state and function.
I don't really understand where did you hear about the "impossibility" to observe and describe the causal role of brain functions to our Mind properties and how they allow us to have testable predictions and technical applications.
Do you also think the same for the "unobservable" process of Digestion, or Mitosis or Photosynthesis??

Science simply has nothing to say about this. — Constance

Again the thousands of books and publications of Cognitive Science would disagree, the Techniques and medical applications will find your claim strange. Our theories and medical/surgery protocols render your claim factually wrong. There are many things that Science can say and mountains of knowledge that can offer to Philosophy.

nor about ethics or aesthetics or reality or being and existence, and so on. — Constance

-OF course science has an essential role in all of them. Why do you think our morality has involved?
Where did Philosophy got its feedback? How do we know our place on the world(Common Ancestry, DNA, No biological Human races, not the center of the universe etc).
Science has informed us how to tell which of our superstitious beliefs are real and which existential claims are irrational to be believed because we don't have objective evidence.
You seem to ignore the role of science in Philosophy.
You can not have the one without the other.
Sure philosophy might help us define concepts and evaluate meaning and value, but without knowledge those would be empty evaluations. Philosophy is the intellectual endeavor of coming up with wise claims about our world. AGAIN without knowledge NO CLAIM can be considered as wise.

What distinguishes philosophy is that the questions it addresses are structurally open, that is, even if you did have an answer, that answer would be contingent. But then, this is true for all knowledge claims whatsoever. All roads lead to philosophy. — Constance

-That is a common misconception. BiG Bang cosmology was metaphysics before it was verified objectively and become science.
Continental drifting was metaphysic before it became a scientific theory.
EVERY single scientific hypothesis is philosophy before it is verified or rejected.
String theory is metaphysics.
Again Science is the second most important step in any philosophical inquiry.
Philosophy goes some steps further and tries to address Ethical and aesthetic and political questions, but that is impossible task without Epistemology and Knowledge.

So we should stop trying to separate those two and we should acknowledge as pseudo philosophy the inquiries that ignore scientific knowledge and Naturalistic principles...period.

The important distinction to be done is only between Epistemology and Metaphysics.
We should never mix those two and we should all be informed on what frameworks are in one group and what in the other.

So the claim is "this house is haunted".
If we were to test this statement scientifcially we would identify the Null(0)default position, which is "this house isn't haunted" and we would go from there.
First of all we wouldn't accept an impossible task to prove a universal negative.
Then we need to investigate and build a case through objective evidence and data in our effort to establish a link between the state of being haunted and the specific House.
Its the same principle we found in the burden of proof , in our judiciary system etc.
We presume everyone to be "not guilty" and we try to build a case that would link the defendant to the punishable act. In every case the standard is "beyond reasonable doubt", not an absolute proof.

Now imagine the process backwards. All the houses would have to be proven not haunted (to avoid special pleading) and all defendants should be considered guilty and they would have the burden to provide the evidence!
Gods,haunted houses,being guilty etc are significant statements and they demand significant indications , meaning that we can not accept them as our default position without any evidence giving a significant edge for their case.

The Null Hypothesis is, as I told you, on the whole about causality and requires an experimental or other kind of study. To establish a causal link between cancer and smoking would require us to use H0 (Smoking doesn't cause cancer). The Alternative Hypothesis (H1). — Agent Smith

Why are you returning to this attempt to limit the applicability of a universal logical rule?
Did I send you a video that explains the Logical principle outside statistical applications?
Did you watch it?

The Null hypothesis isn't limited to causality!!!! Causality happens to be the quality we mainly investigate in medical statistics, because this is what interests us, but the principles has applications everywhere there is a need for establishing a default position.

You need to understand that Null Hypothesis job is to needs to keep our explanations in line with our current established data/facts. This is what we identify as the Default Position.
If our additional studies and foundings link our data to a new explanation only then we are justified to adopt the new one as our default position!
The same is true in statistics. The default position is the average number based on the available data which means the rejection from the start any statistical significance linking the tested cause and the effect.
If our additional studies provide a statistical significance then we link the cause to the effect.

This isn't difficult. Logic isn't affected by our applications.

3. Metaphysics: Here we try to ask and answer questions about things science takes for granted: What is causality? What are space & time? What is existence? Etc. — Agent Smith

Science doesn't take anything from granted. Indeed those are philosophical question on the ontology of a phenomenon, but not all of them are metaphysical.
For example causality is a phenomenon that is observed and verified and described by science. Philosophy takes this information and try to understand what it means for our world, what are the implications, the importance and how can we use it to produce further knowledge. Our philosophical conclusions are passed back to science and that allows us to make predictions based on the observed qualities of causality.
There is nothing beyond our knowledge in the phenomenon of causality except of a "why" it exists question....which is not a serious philosophical question since it introduces teleology and purpose in a natural phenomenon.

In the case of time and space, since the phenomena being described by those concepts are far more vast and complex, Philosophy is needed to piece together all our observations,data and frameworks.
On there own they are not really "metaphysical" questions, since both describe observable natural phenomena.
Time : the quantifiable phenomenon of processes not happening all at once and with with different pace
Space: the phenomenon where physical structures with different sizes that do not occupying the same point at once allow the emergence of an area with spatial quantifiable properties.
Metaphysics can go on and try to ask questions about the ontology of the medium (matter) that is responsible for both phenomena.
BUt we need to understand that the same questions are shared by Science and Philosophy, the difference between them is that when we don't have the data and answers,we are just doing science. When we do have data and answers....that is Science.

But I have read few of the works of 20th century philosophers. of the 174 list in the link below, only Daniel Dennett and Thomas Nagel books are in my library. The others, I have either never heard of the others, or only from Wikipedia articles. I took basic college courses in the major divisions of Science, and have subscribed to Scientific American & Discovery & Skeptic & Skeptical Inquiry magazines for over 40 years. I suppose that pitiful summary pales beside your own curriculum vitae. — Gnomon

-Not really, you are good.
My approach on the topic of Science,Philosophy, bad science bad philosophy and Magic/religion is mainly through Moocs. I must say I have taken more than 120 Moocs back from the day when "Universtity Tunes" was a thing on the Apple OS and Universities had some courses only on their main sites. Before that I was lucky enough to have access to books (mum,grandma) so I got in to science really early. My first ever book was on the theory of evolution lol.
The other advantage I had was, we moved in Greece when I was really young. In Greek schools, philosophy has a special position in the curriculum. So I was exposed to basic ideas really small and learned about Aristotle and Plato and the battle of their views.
Then I learned that Aristotle was the "cause" behind the European renaissance and I though how that can be the case...have you read his Physika lol??? IT turns out that his work in systematizing and organizing Logic and Philosophy was what fueled the Revolution of human thought.
I was sold. Logic became my priority (having an pretty irrational father also played a huge role lol).
You can imagine my surprise when I started interacting with other people in my circle and online forums and finding out that almost everyone ignores Aristotle works on Logic, the systematization of the Philosophical Method, how easily they ignore or avoid to use our epistemology as our starting point and how irrelevant most of them view the Basic Rules of logic in their thinking!
This guy gave us pretty lousy Philosophy but he provided a master key that allow us to unlock our ability to do really good Philosophy and lock up our subjective biases and everything that can derail our syllogisms.

And my personal interests are primarily in leading-edge 21st century science, including philosophical investigations into Information & Consciousness & Metaphysical questions, that are still on the margins of establishment scientific concern. — Gnomon

So here is a question. You are interested in Information in Consciousness, but you say that you are sill on the margins of establishment scientific concern.
How do you think you are going to be familiar with our current epistemology on Consciousness without a scientific concern? I mean have you took any Neuroscience or cognitive science courses on the topic? if not...Where are your philosophical positions based on? Where do you get your material that guide your philosophical thought?
Are you sure that the philosophers you read have full access on the latest epistemology and they are in agreement with the Philosophy within Cognitive Science?
This would make a really interesting discussion since we all form a belief based on what we choose to study.

For the record, I will gladly acknowledge that you and ↪180 Proof
are more knowledgeable than me on 20th century science and philosophy — Gnomon

-I cannot really accept that because I know all the "holes" in my knowledge, especially in philosophical chronicling. To be honest my field of interest is Logic and logic without knowing our current knowledge is impossible to be applied...well it is possible but the result is questionable.
So my main point is that all philosophers need to respect Logic , its rules, criteria and principles.
With that as their foundation they can look up establish epistemology and guide their philosophy by using new data (science) and checking for logical fallacies, unfounded assumptions and invalid arguments.

And perhaps smarter than me in general, as you seem to assume. — Gnomon

-Well we all know how stupid we are...don't worry. Our differences, probably are not in our mental abilities but in the methods and in our auxiliary principles we use which force our syllogisms to drift apart.
I guess you are willing to use principles based on Metaphysical worldviews. I don't , my principles do not pressupose any ontology but they accept the ontology we can describe. They are based on the acknowledgement of the limitations we find in our Observations and our methods of investigations. The rules of logic force me not remain within the real I can examine (naturaristic) and reject all explanations from hypothetical realms, not because they are wrong, but because we don't have a way to evaluate them.(yet).

That is the whole difference in our approach.

Can you point to a post in this thread where someone justifies his premise with the appeal to authority of "its philosophy". — Gnomon

-You just did by pointing out that we should accept as a legit philosophical statement that QM and Information theory point to "the mind-of-the-observer", when none of our facts support such a claim.
This is a supernatural claim(pseudo philosophical) and you suggest that we should accept it because some in Academic Philosophy reproduce this speculation.

Almost all the threads in this philosophical forum present concepts like ,gods, transcended egos and minds, souls etc etc as if they are supported by adequate, credible and objective epistemology so a philosophical discussion is justified.
How about Nessy and Big foot and smurfs...while we are there?
The epistemic surface is as thin as the one supporting the evil eye, goblins and the tooth fairy,
The difference between supernatural claims is the volume of anecdotal stories and the number of believers. There is no real material for a discussion to take place, expand our understand and produce a wise claim on the ontology of those entities.

I assume that's how it appears to you, since you seem to hold a dim view of traditional Philosophy as senseless wrangling about nonsense. — Gnomon

-By using the term " traditional" you in essence "demand"(in a good way) respect as if it is an authority.
That in fact is a logical fallacy (argument from tradition).
Tradition is not a demarcation mark for what qualifies as philosophy or not.

That is the self-defeating view of the philosophical position known as Scientism, which was a response to a perceived "crisis" in philosophy. — Gnomon

-That is not true because Philosophy is accepted as the main tool in science and I it isn't assumed that science is the only tool of epistemology and without limits in what it can achieve.
The problem with "traditional'' philosophy is that it doesn't demarcate pseudo philosophy from philosophy. "Why" questions are mixed with how/what questions, meaning that teleology pollutes explanations about nature(intention and purpose projected in to nature).
In short things that need to be demonstrated are presumed. Unfalsifiable realms are used an answers, subjective interpretations are accepted on face value due to chronicling and rules of logic (null hypothesis,demarcation, burden, parsimony, fallacies) are ignored..
Scientism has nothing to do with those really bad practices and really low standards of evaluation!

Since that minor branch of philosophy probably began with the Vienna School of the 20th century, it's hardly a current crisis. — Gnomon

-The crisis expands through ages....this is why Natural Philosophy was forced to split from the academy. Some Philosophers saw that things were going nowhere, anyone could presume anything he wanted, they constantly ignored the guidlines provided by established epistemology and objectivity didn't play a role in their evaluations. This is what we still can observe by Idealists and super-naturalists.

By contrast, on this forum, those defending a position aligned with Scientism often refer to the concept of capital "s" Science as the centralized & universal authority on all pertinent questions, including philosophical conundra. — Gnomon

-Again Science and scientism have nothing to do with the issue in hand. We are talking about Objective and Verifiable auxiliary principles in our philosophical interpretations VS Subjective and Unverifiable principles. We are talking about high standards of evidence and evaluation VS no standards at all and we are referring to epistemic foundations vs faith based foundations in Metaphysics.
(wow this is only the second paragraph....that will end up long. sorry for that).

Pardon me, but I only see an opportunity for Philosophy to crawl out from under the domination of Empirical Science, as Quantum Physics and Information Theory have elevated the importance of the mind-of-the-observer in both analytical (reductive) and synthetic (holistic) scrutiny of reality. I've heard that the Chinese word for "crisis" means "danger + opportunity". — Gnomon

- First of all "Empirical Science" isn't a philosophical caprice but a Pragmatic Necessity and no "crawling out" is talking place.
Science is based on the philosophical principles of Methodological Naturalism and Objectivism.
Empiricism is only a side effect since, currently, is the only method we have that can provide objective results(observations and methodologies available for everyone to check and reproduce).
So by saying that Philosophy has an opportunity to crawl out from an methodology that can provide objective evidence and independently verifiable conclusions...that doesn't sound like an opportunity, but like time travel back to the dark ages where subjective human superstitions and biases were guiding our intellectual inquiries.
To be honest supernaturalists and idealist still exist and we are aware of the epistemic failure of those philosophical principles (because there are zero verified epistemology based on those assumptions).

Now you stated that "Quantum Physics and Information Theory have elevated the importance of the mind-of-the-observer".
Again no elevation has occurred.The scientific theory Quantum Physics (quantum fields theory) and information theory say nothing about "the mind of the observer". That is the input by bad philosophy . Those are pseudo philosophical interpretations that are not justified by our current observations.
Its an interpretation based on pseudo philosophical supernatural principles (assuming mind properties as agents). Its an unjustifiable one, they must first be demonstrated and then assumed as auxiliary principles.

Your claim is a text book example of Bad Philosophy taking advantage of our current limited understanding and observations on a phenomenon.
Every time humans have reached their epistemic and observational limitations they never hesitated to make up a magical answer.(Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, fathers of early QM etc etc).
I know its only the first paragraph of your post but it is important to see that you need to be alerted and not allow unfounded Presumptions to seek in our auxiliary principles and let them affect our interpretation. More importantly you shouldn't be satisfied and accept interpretations, but you should strive for Descriptions.
There is a good reason why in QM we have more than 10 Quantum interpretations but none of them is identified as a Descriptive theory. That is because we, currently, are unable to observe and verify any of those interpretations.

Likewise, if I wanted to know if there's an ultimate truth, a ToE, wouldn't I have to look for it "everywhere" to come to the conclusion that there is one (I discover it) or that there isn't one (Your search - ToE - did not match any documents). — Agent Smith

btw Ultimate truth has nothing to do with my objection or your example. The goal of the example is to point out how rational or irrational a belief is and what default position should inform our actions.

Remember the Null Hypothesis and the "statistical significance"?
"there is a house" is a pretty common statement. I can accept that since I know as an objective fact that houses exist.
In there case we usually want to see how well kept and clean, or what color the walls are or how spacious, how tall the ceilings are etc etc. There is nothing significant about these properties.

Now you say "I want to know if it's haunted", a property that has NEVER been objectively verified to be a possibility, so we can not even calculate a probability..not to mention a significant one!
The problem is that you accept a claim that has never been verified as possible.
You are poisoning the well (fallacy) by assuming a possible value to an unfounded claim.
You are also assuming that by going in you WILL be able to check whether it is hunted...as if the claim is similar to mold or spider webs.
You have NOT defined the concept, its ontology,how it manifest or the methods you will use so that you can objectively prove that the house is haunted.
You see , your example is great because you are addressing an irrational belief that is powerful enough to inform your actions!(waste time looking for whatever you think you should).
This is why rational evaluation is important before accept a claim which isn't objectively verified.
I am not saying that "haunted houses" is an impossibility, but the Null Hypothesis informs us that a claim must be accepted only after its objective demonstration.

Again, its like me meeting you for the first time and telling you "I must come at your place and check if you have indeed stopped beating your wife".
I assume that you once beat your wife and I assume that if I came at your place I will be able to observe facts that will verify or falsify your claim!
And in the case of wife beating...we do know that its is not only possible but we have numbers to arrive to a statistical possibility.
Haunted houses have never been proven to be a possible state, so probability is off the discussion and no one can suggest objective ways to detect and verify such a phenomenon.

Both science and philosophy try to explain the "mysteries" of our world through the use of theoretical frameworks.
Anything we don't know qualifies as a mystery to us.
So this is not where our intellectual tools differ.
The things are far more simple than most people believe.
When we have limited access to data but we are able to produce wise questions or metaphysical conclusions, then we are doing Philosophy
When we are able to produce additional data and we arrive to conclusions with epistemic and instrumental value, we are doing science.
The early stage of the theoretical process that include the applied principles and epistemology SHOULD be the same. So both methodologies should start from current epistemology, use the same naturalistic principles and through logic they should arrive to functional and meaningful frameworks.

If the early stage in of both processes drifts away from those basic steps then we are dealing with pseudo philosophy.
I am sorry but most of the members in this forum are guilty of reproducing pseudo philosophical ideas which are designed to provide comfort...not wisdom.

stop talking about yourself...and make some proper arguments! Why are you a science denier?

Sorry, I don’t interact seriously with liars. — Xtrix

-so how do you live with yourself????
Again, educate yourself! Objectivity is not dismissed just because you come up with some outdated critique of the past century that you don't quite understand.
I can give you homework if you like....
Try not to mix pseudo philosophy with Philosophy mate.
cheers.

what work have you read of Hoyningen and Hakob Barseghyan

I will reestablish radio silence on chronicling and enjoy your ignorance on what Science is...

lol as I thought...I just tossed you some crumbles and you behaved as expected. Imagine losing my time explaining why he isn't against objectivity in science or why he isn't again falsifiability or why his objection on non fitting facts are part of the quasi dogmatic paradigm of science ......bla bla bal.
its like interacting with a 7yo...
Apochavnosism in all its glory.

"First of all" I followed the replies and got back to the above post. You do not think that statement is a concern with technological correctness? — Athena

-Well to answer that you will need to define what you mean by that term.
Now the author
-"Does our soul come from an eternal source of power such as "Wille zum Leben"? Is there a connection between Aristotle's idea of the "soul" and Schopenhauer's "will to live"?
What do you think Darwin would have to say about people living in the 21st century and still believing in a "soul"? Is it possible that Aristotle was right, and that Darwin was wrong?"
Now I will ignore the pseudo philosophical nature of the options he provides and focus on error he makes.
Obviously he has never read the theory of evolution so he doesn't know that evolution doesn't address theories of Abiogenesis .


-"

And that is very close to "political correctness" and I have some concerns about how all this correctness is manifested. Perhaps I should not make an issue out of this but it seems a little dangerous. — Athena

-You keep making no sense in relation to my point...

maybe you are replying to the wrong member...

assuming what you need to prove is not reasonable and it isn't what philosophy is about. "NOT even Wrong" arguments are not enough to demonstrate the existence of made up entity. Logic can only take you up to validity. For soundness you will need evidence.

can you prove our ability to produce concepts validates the existence of "originals". — Nickolasgaspar

well if your argument is that through logic you can prove the existence of "originals" in the world..then it doesn't take special mental skills or hard work for someone to be intellectually superior to you.

Existence has empirical qualities....you need to demonstrate them.
logic alone doesn't meet the standards. This is why we struggle with discredited substances and religious entities and spiritual forces...because others had the same idea with you....