I think that one of the hardest difficulties that both philosophy and science have met in their history is when they said “Of course!” about anything. “Of course!” means “There's no need to inquire!”. This kills research, progress, dialectic, debate. So, I would say that, with your message, you have given your contribution to prevent both philosophy and science from progressing.
Please, don’t take this personally: I have just used a method that is extremely frequently used in philosophy, that is, applying statements to themselves and seeing what happens. Frequently the result is a paradox, like “I am lying”, or it can be an instrument for progress like Descartes doubting about his doubts and taking the result as a positive resource.

Science is advancing. This is very obvious. But is philosophy? — Alkis Piskas

That's a tough question. I think there are at least three forum members who post here who have doctoral degrees in philosophy (perhaps more), so one might assume the ball is in their court.

Science is advancing. This is very obvious. But is philosophy? — Alkis Piskas

Philosophy is not science.

Advances in philosophy do not look like advances in science. But if you care to look at the discussion in the thread you mentioned, you will see that they are not the same as the discussions between, say, Aristotelians and Platonists, or between supporters of Hume and Kant, while making reference back to those discussion, and building from them. It would be a misunderstanding to think that because much the same questions are bing addressed, progress has not ben made.

Nor is what you see in this forum much more than a shadow of philosophy amongst those who practice it for a living.

Science is advancing. This is very obvious. But is philosophy? — Alkis Piskas

Remember that the discipline we now call "Science" is what Aristotle called "Natural Philosophy" or "physis" (growth or nature). As as the name implies, the subject of natural science evolves & progresses in an obvious manner, that we know via our physical senses. But, his second volume, under the same title, was actually concerned with what we now call "Culture" : opinions, activities & effects of the human Mind. Which we know only via our sixth sense of Reason (inference). So, we can't expect Metaphysical Cultural Science to make progress in the same sense as Physical Natural Science. Physics is about what is constantly changing, while Philosophy (Metaphysics) is all about eternal unchanging principles (digging for potatoes vs digging for gold).

Today, the cultural sciences -- Psychology (philosophy of mind), Anthropology, Sociology, History, etc -- are usually classified separately from the physical sciences, for obvious reasons. They definitely make progress, but lacking mathematical tools for measurement, it's not easy to evaluate & enumerate. Besides, most of their advances are built upon the physical evidence of Physics. For example, perhaps the most advanced philosophy of Mind/Consciousness is Integrated Information Theory, which is based on our experience with the mechanical minds we call computers.

One way to measure the "advancement" of human Culture (e.g. civilization), is to see how much of the modern world has been cultivated by homo sapiens, and how much remains unaffected by the expansive imagination of human minds. Philosophical Cynics tend view the effects of Culture on Nature as mostly negative & digressive. But, more sanguine philosophers see cultural progress as evolving incrementally, with two steps forward & one step back. And optimistic technological philosophers, like Ray Kurtzweil, seem to think that cultural technology will eventually supersede natural evolution (Mind over Matter).

As a species, our perspective & understanding evolves, but the underlying Truth doesn't change. Anyway, to compare the "advance" of Metaphysical Philosophy to the progress of Physical Science, is like weighing apples & oranges, or adding 2 + X = ?. :nerd:

1. Nature, according to Aristotle, is an inner principle of change and being at rest

Philosophical Progress :
the mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead reportedly summed up the Greek thinker's accomplishments with the remark, “All of Western philosophy is but a footnote to Plato.”
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/contributors/plato

Philosophical Science vs Natural Science :
The main difference is in the way they work and treat knowledge. 2. Science is concerned with natural phenomena, while philosophy attempts to understand the nature of man, existence, and the relationship that exists between the two concepts.
http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/career-education/difference-between-science-and-philosophy/

CYNICAL COMPARISON OF PHILOSOPHY & SCIENCE

For me philosophy is about developing your own perspective and getting better at discourse, not arriving at any particular ideology. Of course philosophy is also commonly a pretext to screw with someone, plenty of that goes around lol

Folk might enjoy Why Isn’t There More Progress in Philosophy?.

Working out how Chalmers is wrong is always amusing.

Note the discussion on disagreement, based on the evidence of the PhilPapers survey. Amusingly, the topic on which there was most agreement is the very on that inspired this thread - "non-skeptical realism about the external world... attracts over 80% support". So to som extent is being misled by the eccentricity of posters hereabouts who defend views that are quite uncommon amongst philosophers.

A joke in the department in which I worked briefly was that skepticism was presented in Philosophy 101 to weed out the weaklings. Those who could not successfully defend reality could go off and do the easy topics like linguistics or English Lit.

I do rather like the argument implicit at the top of p.15 that progress in philosophy might be measured not in agreement but in disagreement. That strikes me as about right.

There appears to be progress in the philosophy of mathematics, but I try to avoid it. :cool:

Science is advancing. This is very obvious. But is philosophy? — Alkis Piskas

Progress in philosophy? An excerpt from an old post:

To the degree, at any moment, a philosophical discursive practice has filtered-out pseudo-questions & pseudo-problems as well as marginalized the irrelevant/trivial, this [reflective-critical process of elimination] counts as "progress" of an evanescent kind, achieving topic-specific clarity. — 180 Proof

And furthermore ... https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/532685

That's a tough question. — jgill

Tough is good. :smile: Glad that I posted it. And thanks for responding.
I hope that interesting things will pop up, esp. from the more knowledgeable in the subject people in here, as you mentioned.

OK. Thanks for responding to the topic.

Thank you for your long and productive response to the topic.

Yes, certainly I remember that science and philosophy were once one thing. I have talked about that in many discussions. Some believe that they are still one thing, calling science as "natural philosophy". But let's be pragmatic. Science started to be a separate subject a long time ago, even before the term "science" was formulated in the 19th century, acquiring such names as "epistemology" in early 16th century, etc. So, today they are two different fields of knowledge.

Today, the cultural sciences -- Psychology (philosophy of mind), — Gnomon

Just a note about Psychology (which I have studied and "watched" its progress) : I cannnot call psychology a philosophy. And, although it maybe started as a science, using experiments and so on, today it can be hardly called a science. BTW, philosophy of mind has nothing to do with psychology. I have studied Psycology. The "mind "for Psychology is the "brain". For those who have studied and know what mind is --I am among them-- "laugh" with this idea. But one does not even have to study it; one has only to look what the "philosophy of mind" is.

Philosophical Progress :
the mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead reportedly summed up the Greek thinker's accomplishments with the remark, “All of Western philosophy is but a footnote to Plato.” — Gnomon

Great quote! Thanks for bring it :up:

Philosophical Science vs Natural Science :
The main difference is in the way they work and treat knowledge. 2. Science is concerned with natural phenomena, while philosophy attempts to understand the nature of man, existence, and the relationship that exists between the two concepts. — Gnomon

Excellent description! :up:

Thanks for your contribution to the topic.

Thank you for your response to the topic.

Interesting quote and older post.

Here's a theory:

The 'big questions' (can we know there is an external world? etc) are based on misconceptions and false analogies. To ask how we know whether there is an external world sounds like the question 'How do we know the Earth's distance from the Sun?' But the questions are only superficially alike. Their deep grammar is different. The second question is clear and answerable. The first is mystified and mystifying. Philosophy's job is not to answer the 'big questions' and progress is not to be measured by any answers given. Philosophy's job is to provide the tools to innoculate us against the mystification caused by deep grammatical trickery.

Naturally people are still flocking to PF to wonder about the existence of the external world. They have not had their vaccination or their booster. To ask why we are still stuck on these big questions and to think that means lack of progress is like asking why we still need measles jabs after so many decades. "Why hasn't vaccination worked?" It has worked. But here comes a whole new generation of people needing the jab. To send students away because they are wrestling with generalised scepticism is like refusing to let sick people into your clinic. These are the people who need the treatment. The ones who shrug and say 'whatever' don't need philosophy. Further down the line, when they get embroiled in arguments about driverless cars and trans rights and the truthiness of politics or of science, they might find that they needed it after all.

Philosophy's job is to provide the tools to innoculate us against the mystification caused by deep grammatical trickery. — Cuthbert

Well written, Sir.
:clap: :100:

Curious what @Fooloso4 and @Manuel have to say. :chin:

In other words, (Western?) philosophy progressively eliminates conceptual confusions, discursive nonsense and logical fallacies – sophistry – from formations of reflective / speculative inquiries (i.e. aporias, problematics, conceptual interpretations).

Philosophy's job is not to answer the 'big questions' and progress is not to be measured by any answers given. Philosophy's job is to provide the tools to innoculate us against the mystification caused by deep grammatical trickery. — Cuthbert

:fire:

The endpoint of philosophy is confusion aka aporia. We could call that progress if we consider the alternative which is pseudo-knowledge.

There are things the existence of which one can doubt --and sometimes one should-- and things one cannot be certain about or even answer at all. But not things that have been answered eons ago and their existence is beyond reasonable doubt. And the existence of an external world is one them! — Alkis Piskas

The existence of an external world may be without doubt but its nature can and should be doubted by all philosophers. Just because common sense makes it obvious, patting itself on the back, that we know the external world to be of objects exactly as we say doesn't make it so.

In the Sophist Plato makes this simple case for a world of objects about which truth and falsity can be told. But he doesn't tell us that these external entities are in fact identical to their appearance. To tell the truth about what seems to me does not prove that what seems to me is objectively the same for everyone else, and further that what seems is exactly as it appears to be. Modern philosophy still insists on this stretched presumption. This is where progress ends.

I think there has been progress in philosophy.

Not too much, and the steps of progress are hindered by counter-arguments, but the hindering is done mainly by lay philosophers, not by professional ones.

Steps I know of:
1. rejection of deities' ruling the world and supernatural forces exerting influence on the natural world.
2. rejection of our perception of reality as a reliable thing to depend on to know what's out there. (Plato.)
3. "Cogito Ergo Sum" -- the only thing that is empirical knowledge yet it is proven to be necessarily true.
4. recognition of causation being a potentially mistaken effect, due to recurring coincidences. (Hume.)
5. recognition of empirical methods being useful. I can't tie it to one single philosopher.
6. Darwin's and the newer scientific neo-Darwinist evolution-theory. Evolution is a mechanism, in principle, and it's applied to living things, in practice.
7. recognition of illogical events in the real world, that defy the law of non-contradiction, and the law of the excluded middle. (Quantum theory.) This has given rise to the thought that the a priori truths we all accept as infallible are a product of our evolutionary minds. Our evolutionary minds never had to deal with things, because they never observed them, like going from place A to place B without traversing the distance between A and B.

I am not a professional philosopher. The professionals mainly deal (in my imagination, and I need to be corrected if necessary) with micro-issues in philosophy, such as "if the Earth was a breast, where would its nipple be?" (originally asked by my teacher and master, Paul. A. S.)

The existence of an external world may be without doubt but its nature can and should be doubted by all philosophers. — magritte

Thank you for your response to the topic.

Right. But you are almost repeating my words! :smile: I don't know if this is your way of agreeing or you didn't read my whole description of the topic or you just missed these points ...

...what seems is exactly as it appears to be. Modern philosophy still insists on this stretched presumption. This is where progress ends. — magritte

Good point.

That's a tough question. — jgill

:fire:

I think that one of the hardest difficulties that both philosophy and science have met in their history is when they said “Of course!” about anything. “Of course!” means “There's no need to inquire!” — Angelo Cannata

Thank you for your response to the topic.

You are right as far as philosophical quests are concerned. Doubts should always exist, but they should serve as a path in establishing truths and knowledge. Isn't this the purpose of philosophy and the philosophers?
But my "Of course!" was not a philosophical reply. It is a response from an individual who is very certain about something and his certitude concerns his reality. If he were always and constantly in doubt about everything, he would be a mentally ill person.

There's also something else: if I live in a constant doubt, it means that I would also doubt that I doubt. Which leads to vicious circle. And then of course to an asylum.

I think this is what Descartes meant by saying "We cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt".
Yet, the same philosopher also maintained that doubting one's own existence served as a proof of the existence of one's own mind and therefore of himself. But whis was meant as a mental "experiment". It didn't mean that we must always doubt our existence!

A persons's reality may include doubts but it cannot be built on doubting evertyting. It is mainly build on knowledge and certitudes. That is, on "Of course!"'es. :smile:

For me philosophy is about developing your own perspective and getting better at discourse, not arriving at any particular ideology. — Enrique

Thank you for your response to the topic.

I agree. Only that I consider it as a result or product of getting involved in the field of philosophy, not philosophy itself..

Science is advancing. This is very obvious. But is philosophy? — Alkis Piskas

If science is advancing, then so is philosophy. There is no way to categorically distinguish between what science is and does, and what philosophy is and does. The history of science and philosophy is completely entangled and interdependent.

The endpoint of philosophy is confusion aka aporia. W — Agent Smith

Since when?

Philosophy's job is not to answer the 'big questions' and progress is not to be measured by any answers given. Philosophy's job is to provide the tools to innoculate us against the mystification caused by deep grammatical trickery. — Cuthbert

I assume you’re paraphrasing Wittgenstein. That was not always the way that philosophy understood its job. And Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy did not originate with him. He was part of a movement in philosophy that goes back at least as far as Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer. Is philosophy’s job as Witt understands it compatible with science’s job as it understands it? That depends. Wittgensteinian philosophy is critical both of traditional views of science and of philosophy. But what of postmodern science( yes, there is such a thing)?
I suggest these newer approaches to science, coming both from philosophers of science and scientists themselves, internalize your description of the job of philosophy as Witt sees it.

There appears to be progress in the philosophy of mathematics, — jgill

Even if "philosophy of mathematics" is considred by some a branch of philosophy, I personally don't consider it a philosophy per se. Because we also talk about "philosophy of life", "philosophy of marriage", "philosopy of education", "philosophy of music" and so on. These actually refer to a general attitude towards or philosophical view of life, marriage, education, music etc.

The 'big questions' (can we know there is an external world? etc) are based on misconceptions and false analogies. — Cuthbert

Thank you for your response to the topic.

These too. The may be based in a lot of things --even nonsese-- but not a real interest or quest for truth and knowledge. Nor a way to exercise critical thinking and other processes involved in philosophy.

Philosophy's job is to provide the tools to innoculate us against the mystification caused by deep grammatical trickery. — Cuthbert

I would also say "semantical". A large part of the mystification is inability to grasp concepts nor even lacking them. There are a lot of people, even in here, whod don't care about defining the terms they use and if one insists they do, they come up with none. I you cannot define a term, don't use it, man!

To ask why we are still stuck on these big questions and to think that means lack of progress... — Cuthbert

I know what you mean. But this was just an example and a sparking for my launching of this topic. I gave a few more exapmles and one can meet dozens of them in philosophical forums and communities. They just make you wonder, "Aren't there more substantial, meaningful, productive questions to ask?" and that kind of things. This, as well as the so meny repetitive questions (variations), or questions that keep coming back each now and then, maybe dressed in a different cloak, as well as non-philosophical questions treated as philosophical ones, and so on, makes you wondering whether there's actually a progress in philosophy. And I am sure that in some more official philosophical forum --e.g. consisting of professional/certificated philosophers-- and various places holding philosophical lectures and official papers in philosophical magazies, end son on, such kind of questions won't exist at all. And that is also another thing I wanted to know by launching this topic, that is I trieds to atract more knowledgeable in the field. Maybe not in the best way, though! :smile:

If science is advancing, then so is philosophy. There is no way to categorically distinguish between what science is and does, and what philosophy is and does. The history of science and philosophy is completely entangled and interdependent. — Joshs

Thank you for your response to the topic.

I think you are talking about the past, and in fact quite far back. I will quote myself from an earlier post: "Science started to be a separate subject a long time ago, even before the term "science" was formulated in the 19th century, acquiring such names as "epistemology" in early 16th century, etc. So, today they are two different fields of knowledge."

Doubts should always exist, but they should serve as a path in establishing truths and knowledge. Isn't this the purpose of philosophy and the philosophers? — Alkis Piskas

I don’t think so. Establishing that the purpose of philosophy is establishing truths and knowledge means that these reference points will be treated as beyond dispute. But the history of philosophy gives evidence that the very existence of truth has been questioned since the beginning: think, for example, about the sophists, who tried to show how tricky our language and our thinking is; think about Heraclitus: if everything is becoming, then an established truth cannot exist, it will be becoming as well; think of Nietsche, who said that we don’t know where to go, there is no up, no down, no orientation. You might object that all these positions can be considered as efforts to establish truth: the truth that truth is becoming, or even the truth that truth does not exist. But this objection works like a closed system: closed systems works always, independently from their content. For example, it is impossible to question that everything is number, because such a system will be always able to answer that any objection can be traced back to a structure of numbers. This way, even saying that the essence of reality is, let’s say, tomatoes, or horses, is able to be an invulnerable system. For this reason, any invulnerable system is meaningless, because it is able to maintain anything and the opposite of anything. This means that the idea of truth itself is meaningless.

If he were always and constantly in doubt about everything, he would be a mentally ill person — Alkis Piskas

I don’t think so. I have adopted the perspective of doubting about everything for dozens of years now and I don’t think I am mentally ill: currently I work at a hospital and I don’t think they would allow a mentally ill person to work in my position.

if I live in a constant doubt, it means that I would also doubt that I doubt. Which leads to vicious circle — Alkis Piskas

Doubting of doubting is not a vicious, but a virtuous circle: it is a circle that reinforces itself, similar to certain phisical phenomenons, like the audio feedback effect in microphones. Doubting of doubting just confirms that I cannot trust anything, I cannot even trust my doubting. Not trusting my doubting means just that I cannot rest firmly and comfortably in a simple methodology of doubting: I need to always question my questioning as well. Where is the problem in this?

And then of course to an asylum — Alkis Piskas

I agree that we need some kind of asylum, but not because of any philosophical principle. We need some kind of asylum because we are humans, we are not machines, we get tired, our emotions need to find some kind of rest on something. But, since this is not a philosophical, but a human need, the solution is not any philosophical thought, but some practical instruments, like periodically going to bed, having experiences of love and friendship, having a home, or a tent, having periods of rest.

A persons's reality may include doubts but it cannot be built on doubting evertyting. It is mainly build on knowledge and certitudes — Alkis Piskas

I think here again you confuse philosophical with human needs. If I go shopping, I cannot answer the teller “You don’t know if the things in my bag exists, you don’t know if my money exists”. I just need to pay. But this is a human and practical need, not a philosophical one. Practically I need just to pay and not to create problems to the teller, but all the doubts I expressed are true (I know I used the word “true” now, but this is needed by language, not by philosophy).
There is a solution that is better than certitudes and knowledge, that actually are very misleading concepts. The solution is trust. Although everything is exposed to doubt, my being human forces me to trust a lot of things and people. So, I pay my money to the teller not because I have any certainty that my money or the teller exist, but because my human condition forces me to trust some practical assumptions and treat them as if they were something “true”. I don’t “know” if fire would burn my hand, but my human condition forces me to treat it as if it was something true.

This is (pace those people here who want me to be severe, exact and giving strict evidence of my statements :grin: ) Heidegger: being does not exist; being is our human condition of being immersed in time, in our needs, in our mental limits.