I think the great divide between metaphysics and natural philosophy was the result of Descartes' dualism. This separation of mind from body, rationality from empiricism, physical and non-physical, was the greatest blunder in philosophy.But then science broke away from metaphysics, from philosophy, as a result of natural philosophers adopting a profound misconception about the nature of science. As a result, natural philosophy died, the great divide between science and philosophy was born, and the decline of philosophy began.
It was Newton who inadvertently killed off natural philosophy with his claim, in the third edition of his Principia, to have derived his law of gravitation from the phenomena by induction. — Nicholas Maxwell
Maybe you can say a bit more about the paper and what your take on it is? — StreetlightX
I found it an interesting read — Pattern-chaser
Philosophy having birthed science should let it develop itself on its own instead of trying to bring it back into its fold. — TheMadFool
The conclusion is inescapable: science cannot proceed without making, implicitly or explicitly, a persistent metaphysical assumption of unity – ‘metaphysical’ because it is too imprecise to be verified or falsified by evidence. The current orthodox conception of science, inherited from Newton, and still taken for granted by scientists today, that science must appeal only to evidence, and must not make metaphysical assumptions about the nature of the universe independently of evidence, is untenable, and must be rejected.
Academia needs to be transformed so that its basic task becomes to help humanity resolve those conflicts and problems of living that need to be solved if we are to make progress towards a genuinely civilised world.
I no longer think we need to reconcile or unite the two, rather, those who propagate metaphysics need to adhere to logic instead of fuelling fancies and gross mysticism. Subjects like mind and consciousness can be investigated logically and, to some degree, practically without abandoning the field of metaphysics or natural philosophy. — BrianW
Philosophy also has great subversion power-the whole point of the modern education system is to prepare children to enter the working economy and function productively. Not to ask questions that don't necessarily have answers and stir up trouble... — Grre
What about schools of philosophy that no longer consider themselves metaphysical in the sense of going beyond the natural? — Joshs
"it sounds like you're saying there is a real realm of physical nature and a real realm of human subjective experience, or what we colloquially call 'phenomenological', and that the two are different in their contents and methods of study but equally primordial. We can study the nature of human experience naturalistically, using objective empirical methods of the social sciences, or phenomenologically, via non-empirical philosophical modes of inquiry. — Joshs
On the assumption you're correct (I think you're dead wrong), where and how do you draw the boundary between them? Depending on that, we may find grounds for agreement! Of course it will help if you offer a sentence or two or three on what you take science and metaphysics to be.And I think scientists should keep with their vocation and ignore the metaphysics which is clearly not a part of it. — BrianW
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