You've just repeated more historical facts, none of which have any bearing on the matter of whether science is necessarily dependant on philosophy. The question is not whether it just so happened to have emerged from it. — Isaac
Also, you are clearly a believer in God (or something like that), so when you attack secular thinkers it's all too tempting to read it as religious bias. Here's my bias: when believers barge in so aggressively, pejoratively labeling otherness in little bins, I find them less convincing. If I really and deeply believed in God, I expect that I'd be at peace. I'd be magnanimous, an insider with nothing to prove. — norm
The question remains: is Dharmi an evangelist? If someone is content with their god, why enter the realm of reason? Isn't philosophy essentially critical? So I'm guilty of using Dharmi as a foil just as he wants to cast me as a nihilist or obscurantist. — norm
But maybe old-fashioned believers should ignore more recent philosophy. Who needs philosophy if they have God? I do understand that theology can bleed into philosophy, since I made that transition myself, wrestling with religious absurdities many years ago. — norm
The irony here is that you suggest that I'm a philosophical suicide because I'm serving as your gadfly. Socrates stung people by making it clear to them that they were unclear, that they didn't know what they were talking about, not really, despite their pride. His wisdom was knowing that he didn't know. Meanwhile you are eager to argue that there is a god, and that anyone doubting that and your method is corrupt, craven, or indolent. I really don't hold it against you. This place only works because/when people get fired up. — norm
I don't know why theists think "God" will guarantee the validity of science. All he might do is interfere with scientific studies in any ways he wishes in order to produce "faith". All they are left with is the subjective, just as they say is the case with materialists — Gregory
That's linking one controversial word to an even more controversial word, — norm
There's no question that we can use both words in practical life with no problem ... — norm
... but when we play the game of metaphysics and try to make some concept (whatever those are exactly supposed to be) absolute, [fizzle, endless confusion].
you need laws of nature at the very least, otherwise you're just a pragmatist/instrumentalist. When you start asking for justification of those laws themselves, then God comes into it. — Dharmi
That was never the question, to my knowledge. The question was: do philosophers influence scientists. — Olivier5
By sophistication, I mean the idea that what we see is roughly what exists. That's a huge lack of sophistication.
If you can show some general progress that philosophy has made you'd be in a very small minority. Even among its advocates, it's generally accepted that philosophy doesn't actually 'progress' in that way. — Isaac
Anyone can do what Kant did. I could write something similar tomorrow. His insights were gained entirely by introspection using his mind, and we all have one of those. Even the authors he may or may not have read (Wittgenstein had famously read very little philosophy) he has simply chosen to agree or disagree with using nothing but introspection.
Even the most trivial scientific theory, by contrast, is based on a set of empirical findings which a non-scientists would be usually prevented from replicating or testing, simply for pragmatic reasons - the sample size is too large or the equipment too technical. There is a body of such empirical knowledge which, if you haven't read it, you will be unable, no matter how hard you try, to replicate it. — Isaac
It's just personal bias to suggest that there's a direction of thought that they should be moving toward but aren't (or are doing so too slowly). It's not as if all the philosophers in the philosophy of science have all agreed on anything, there's no "Yep, we nailed that one - let's tell the scientists" on any issue at all. — Isaac
That we're not not programmed with the means to do so? Why would assume we are? We're just animals evolved to behave in a certain way. Why would you assume our programming just maps 1-to-1 onto the way the world "is"?
Who spoke of anything absolute, or of any game? I repeat: To ask what sort of entity is a number is not any more pernicious than to ask what sort of entity is a chair. Let's not get confused by numbers. Or by chairs. These are the simple stuff. — Olivier5
Obviously. Everyone has a bias, that's part of the contingency of knowledge. You can't escape your culture, history, etc. when you are making claims or having views or positions. — Dharmi
The problem or comedy is that philosophical realizations (breakthroughs, revolutions) don't necessarily provide wonder-working technical power.
— norm
The philosophical realisation that underlies our world began with Descartes’ algebraic geometry combined with Newton’s and Galileo’s science. That philosophical revolution certainly provided wonder-working technical power. You’re looking at it. — Wayfarer
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.