Yes, he is. His writings are not restricted to the history of science. — Xtrix
It appears "intuitively fairly clear," yes. — Xtrix
By the way, this is not a good distinction. Most contemporary philosophy does not deal with Being as Being, but with particular branches: philosophy of science, anthropology, philosophy of history, ethics, etc. You have an archaic concept of philosophy as the old metaphysics.Science is "ontical" in that it studies various domains of beings: nature, matter, life, humans, etc
Philosophy, or metaphysics, is ontological in that it thinks being. — Xtrix
Experimentation is often involved in the natural sciences, but a great deal isn't. Controlled, careful observation is also important. I'd say the peer review process is also a very important one. Falsiability, predictive power, duplicability, the use of mathematics, and so on...all very important. — Xtrix
. It's only a vaguely defined word, — Xtrix
Philosophy, or metaphysics, is ontological in that it thinks being.
— Xtrix
By the way, this is not a good distinction. Most contemporary philosophy does not deal with Being as Being, but with particular branches: philosophy of science, anthropology, philosophy of history, ethics, etc. You have an archaic concept of philosophy as the old metaphysics. — David Mo
Experimentation is often involved in the natural sciences, but a great deal isn't. Controlled, careful observation is also important. I'd say the peer review process is also a very important one. Falsiability, predictive power, duplicability, the use of mathematics, and so on...all very important. — Xtrix
You're falling into an absolute contradiction. — David Mo
A clear distinction cannot be vague. Clear and vague are antonyms. — David Mo
There is no science of the Being qua Being, but many philosophers (in the past) dealt with it. — David Mo
There is no philosopher (qua philosopher) who supports his philosophy with experimentation, who expresses his theories in a mathematical way or who makes precise predictions. If you know of a book on philosophy written in this way I would like to know about it. — David Mo
The fact that some connection can be established between philosophy and the natural sciences (in the field of theoretical physics, or the interpretation of scientific theories, for example), that there is an undefinition in some special cases does not support your theory that science and philosophy are not clearly differentiated activities. — David Mo
They are, and the obsession to erase all distinction lies in the hidden attempt to grant philosophy powers that it does not have. — David Mo
A clear distinction cannot be vague. Clear and vague are antonyms. — David Mo
Try 'The Pattern Paradigm'. — A Seagull
I doubt that anyone here is claiming science and philosophy to be mutually exclusive in any particular respect. — bongo fury
You've chosen the worst example of all for your interests. Descartes was fully aware of the difference between his metaphysics and his treatise on optics. In the former his reasoning was philosophical-metaphysical, in the latter he boasted of having done a hundred experiments before affirming a thesis. According to your own definition you will not find in the Metaphysical Meditations -or the Principles of Philosophy if you like- any trace of falsiability, predictive power, duplicability, use of mathematics, and so on... which according to yourself are properly scientific activities. When Descartes proposes a universal method is not thinking in pure science, but a philosophy similar to science in rigor. Of course, he failed because he was thinking in deductive forms. He was not for nothing the clearest example of 17th century rationalism.Principles of Philosophy, by Descartes. — Xtrix
Just because France and Spain have relations does not mean that they are the same state. Ditto for philosophy and science.Because if they are so clearly distinct, why the confusion about which is which? — Xtrix
Because of the mistakes you make, I don't see that you know so much about the history of philosophy in general and of that of the last centuries in particular to give lessons to others. This is a forum for philosophy amateurs and we all have our limits. To discuss it in depth, go to a postgraduate master's degree. You will see that things are quite different.You have to know something about these subjects beforehand, and this means not only knowing the questions and problems about which they're concerned, but their history as well. — Xtrix
And this is not a good argument. — Xtrix
You simply want to confine philosophy to speculations — Xtrix
You've chosen the worst example of all for your interests. Descartes was fully aware of the difference between his metaphysics and his treatise on optics. — David Mo
Because if they are so clearly distinct, why the confusion about which is which?
— Xtrix
Just because France and Spain have relations does not mean that they are the same state. Ditto for philosophy and science. — David Mo
The term intuitive in philosophy does not mean apparent as opposite to essential. Intuitive is immediate, without the need for supporting reasoning. — David Mo
In any case you yourself contributed some characteristics which do not intuitively point out the difference between philosophy and science. Let's stick to them. I'm doing it and it seems like I'm creating some problems for you that you don't know how to solve. — David Mo
You have to know something about these subjects beforehand, and this means not only knowing the questions and problems about which they're concerned, but their history as well.
— Xtrix
Because of the mistakes you make, I don't see that you know so much about the history of philosophy in general and of that of the last centuries in particular to give lessons to others. — David Mo
Philosophy, or metaphysics, is ontological in that it thinks being.
— Xtrix
By the way, this is not a good distinction. Most contemporary philosophy does not deal with Being as Being, but with particular branches: philosophy of science, anthropology, philosophy of history, ethics, etc. You have an archaic concept of philosophy as the old metaphysics.
— David Mo
And this is not a good argument. — Xtrix
It's a very good argument that you only solve by getting rid of most of the contemporary philosophers. If you give a definition of philosophy that does not correspond to what philosophers do, you eliminate the philosophers and the definition fits you. — David Mo
The dog is an animal that flies low when it rains.
Hey, dogs don't fly.
I'm not interested in dogs that don't fly.
That way it's easy to make "natural philosophy" dictionaries. — David Mo
Speculative philosophy happens when philosophy tries to cross over into the domain of science, without “doing as the scientists do” when there. If your philosophy is making claims of the kind that science could possibly prove wrong, your philosophy is overstepping its bounds. — Pfhorrest
The relationship between philosophy and science is not one of two different approaches to the same questions. Rather, philosophy is (in part) about the questions that underlie science’s approach to its questions. Philosophy is (in part) meta-science: the study of how to do the things science is trying to do and why to do them that way instead of some other way. — Pfhorrest
If "speculative philosophy" is making claims about the world that can be proven wrong, it's natural philosophy. — Xtrix
Science engages in speculations all the time -- in hypothesizing, in explanatory theories, etc. Sometimes it takes years to test these ideas. Is this all "speculative philosophy" until an experiment is conducted? — Xtrix
on this hand, fact, on the other, soaring speculation — Xtrix
No, that’s just science, presuming they aim for the things they speculate about to be testable and eventually tested, and aren’t just armchair positing things to be so without respect for whether observation agrees or not. — Pfhorrest
on this hand, fact, on the other, soaring speculation
— Xtrix
I think you missed my entire point, which is that philosophy done properly isn’t at all about speculating on the same subject matters that science investigates. — Pfhorrest
Such speculation is either philosophy overstepping its bounds, or badly done attempts at science. That kind of baseless speculation is neither proper philosophy nor proper science. Science investigates the same subject matter in a better way. Philosophy investigates a different subject matter entirely: higher-order question about conducting such investigations. — Pfhorrest
And the latter is what philosophers supposedly do? — Xtrix
Speculating about an indivisible unit which constitutes the world was what Democritus was doing — Xtrix
OR -- philosophy is ontological while science is ontical. That's not the same thing, no, but you can't do one without the other. — Xtrix
Speculating about an indivisible unit which constitutes the world was what Democritus was doing
— Xtrix
Democritus lived in a time before philosophy and science were clearly differentiated. — Pfhorrest
Pythagoras did mathematics under the name of “philosophy” too. That doesn’t mean that, today, math is just a kind of philosophy. — Pfhorrest
True, but this is completely irrelevant. — Xtrix
Well that's debatable too. Is logic a kind of philosophy? Many have tried to reduce mathematics, at least arithmetic, to logic. — Xtrix
In general, that kind of baseless speculation is seen as fitting of neither science nor philosophy today. — Pfhorrest
Well that's debatable too. Is logic a kind of philosophy? Many have tried to reduce mathematics, at least arithmetic, to logic.
— Xtrix
Logic is a tool of both mathematics and philosophy. That bit of overlap doesn’t mean the two are the same though. — Pfhorrest
Likewise Newton’s Principia is not a work of philosophy as we now use the word, even though it has “Natural Philosophy” in the title, because what was once called “natural philosophy” is now considered a different field outside of philosophy in today’s sense of the word: something we call “science” instead. — Pfhorrest
I don't know why you say "baseless" -- it was speculation on what the world is made of based on at least some observation, experience, deduction. And however we classify it, it turned out to be very close to what we currently believe about matter. — Xtrix
“Baseless” is maybe a bit too harsh, but the point is that Democritus wasn’t presenting something that we today would call a scientific theory, with proposed observable consequences that could (dis)prove it. Nor was he engaging in a priori reasoning about abstract concepts. He was just saying “hey I think the world is like this”. That’s fine for his time, I don’t knock the guy, it’s just neither good science nor good philosophy by today standards. — Pfhorrest
Philosophy isn't a subject so much as an activity, in which muddled ways of saying things are exposed and analysed. — Banno
tween science and philosophy, and I don’t agree at all that philosophy is just about speculation. Speculative philosophy happens when philosophy tries to cross over into the domain of science, without “doing as the scientists do” when there. — Pfhorrest
I'm not saying philosophy and science are the same. — Xtrix
You can define them any way you like, without evidence, and be satisfied with that. If you want them to be completely separate, that's fine. — Xtrix
So we're now appealing to intuition and common sense? Come on. I prefer a historical perspective, with plenty of evidence. — Xtrix
Maybe this is all a matter of common sense. Don't be so dismissive of common sense, because even philosophers use it. Sometimes quite badly. But the intuition of which the text I quoted spoke was not that of common sense, but the old philosophical intuition, that of Kant or Descartes: the immediate grasp of something as evident in itself. Or do you have many reasons for distinguishing white from black? Do you not distinguish them immediately? It would be surprising.The point stands exactly as it was at the beginning of this digression: philosophy and science do appear very different, but there's no rule or method to determine which is which - — Xtrix
I could point out a few things you've written that an expert in philosophy would not have said. You haven't studied philosophy in a faculty and it shows. It's not serious. I'm not a philosopher by profession either, and this is not a forum for professionals. But I'm not trying to belittle amateurs like me. It's not humility. It's common sense. Because sometimes they can show me that I'm arguing about things that I don't master and if I've pretended before that I'm the wisest I'd be very embarrassed. It's a matter of self-esteem.If I've made mistakes, you've certainly not demonstrated them in this discussion — Xtrix
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