Modern science emerged in the seventeenth century with two fundamental ideas: planned experiments (Francis Bacon) and the mathematical representation of relations among phenomena (Galileo). This basic experimental-mathematical epistemology evolved until, in the first half of the twentieth century, it took a stringent form involving (1) a mathematical theory constituting scientific knowledge, (2) a formal operational correspondence between the theory and quantitative empirical measurements, and (3) predictions of future measurements based on the theory. The “truth” (validity) of the theory is judged based on the concordance between the predictions and the observations. While the epistemological details are subtle and require expertise relating to experimental protocol, mathematical modeling, and statistical analysis, the general notion of scientific knowledge is expressed in these three requirements.
Science is neither rationalism nor empiricism. It includes both in a particular way. In demanding quantitative predictions of future experience, science requires formulation of mathematical models whose relations can be tested against future observations. Prediction is a product of reason, but reason grounded in the empirical. Hans Reichenbach summarizes the connection: “Observation informs us about the past and the present, reason foretells the future.”
Oh my yes!Is there a discussion among other people in the methodology of philosophy? — kris22
Hello
I have some questions:
1. Is philosophy as a science having some basic principles or some undeniable truth about the things that it examines?
2. Is there a discussion among other people in the methodology of philosophy?
3. Are there strict rules in philosophy such as in mathematics, or can anyone create his own philosophy and worldview?
Thanks — kris22
1. Is philosophy as a science having some basic principles or some undeniable truth about the things that it examines? — kris22
2. Is there a discussion among other people in the methodology of philosophy?
3. Are there strict rules in philosophy such as in mathematics, or can anyone create his own philosophy and worldview?
Your third point resonates with me, but I wonder then about the way a philosopher speaks for a certain culture or generation. It's not a private perspective is it? — Mongrel
1. Does philosophy have basic principles? Yes. Are there some undeniable truths about the things that it examines? Yes. — Mariner
So, just as physics has its undeniable principles, so in philosophy there are rules by which I can not say, for example, my views on the various aspects of human existence, because they will be in conflict with these undeniable principles?
What are these rules? — kris22
People have mentioned logic. Logic is an important part of it. For example, you cannot state "your views" if the views are not yours. If "your views" are the views of your family, group, race, country, religion, class, then they are not "yours"; they are "received wisdom" (not that there is anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld would say).
In other words, there is an immense matter of responsibility when one raises his voice to say "these are my views". One should really examine his views very closely, and separate what was developed in his individual experience and what was received from antecedents. — Mariner
When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. It is the same as the pupil, in learning to write, following with his pen the lines that have been pencilled by the teacher. Accordingly, in reading, the work of thinking is, for the greater part, done for us. This is why we are consciously relieved when we turn to reading after being occupied with our own thoughts. But, in reading, our head is, however, really only the arena of some one else’s thoughts. And so it happens that the person who reads a great deal — that is to say, almost the whole day, and recreates himself by spending the intervals in thoughtless diversion, gradually loses the ability to think for himself; just as a man who is always riding at last forgets how to walk. Such, however, is the case with many men of learning: they have read themselves stupid. For to read in every spare moment, and to read constantly, is more paralysing to the mind than constant manual work, which, at any rate, allows one to follow one’s own thoughts. Just as a spring, through the continual pressure of a foreign body, at last loses its elasticity, so does the mind if it has another person’s thoughts continually forced upon it. And just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read if one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost. Indeed, it is the same with mental as with bodily food: scarcely the fifth part of what a man takes is assimilated; the remainder passes off in evaporation, respiration, and the like.
From all this it may be concluded that thoughts put down on paper are nothing more than footprints in the sand: one sees the road the man has taken, but in order to know what he saw on the way, one requires his eyes.
So there is no general and undeniable truth, views and rules about, for example, what is the meaning of life, how the world came into being, what is true? The principles concern only technical things like logic etc? — kris22
No, it's not private, but it is certainly individual. An individual does not exist in a vacuum, and there is no objective viewpoint from which he can pronounce as if from on high, but any philosophical utterance will come from the individual viewpoint, warts and all, or not be philosophical.
This links with the first point. This intrinsic limitation of the philosopher's activity is a big part of the reason why it's not a science, but a search. We are always striving to divest ourselves from the accretion from external authorities and to refer to the immediate experience. — Mariner
What's been your experience, if you don't mind? — Mongrel
1. Is philosophy as a science having some basic principles or some undeniable truth about the things that it examines? — kris22
2. Is there a discussion among other people in the methodology of philosophy? — kris22
3. Are there strict rules in philosophy such as in mathematics, or can anyone create his own philosophy and worldview? — kris22
This examination (which is the core of the Socratic "know thyself"), on the other hand, also follows rules. Closeness to the experiential basis. Sincerity with self. And reason, which is often taken as the core but which is mostly a method. — Mariner
Question that which you don't understand. Let yourself think freely. Try to make sense of things.1. Is philosophy as a science having some basic principles or some undeniable truth about the things that it examines? — kris22
We're having one right now.2. Is there a discussion among other people in the methodology of philosophy? — kris22
No shitposting, flaming or trolling, it seems.3. Are there strict rules in philosophy such as in mathematics, or can anyone create his own philosophy and worldview? — kris22
So a reasoning method - which gives an articulate basis to the self examination - is indeed the core. We step back in a formalised manner, one taught as Socratic method, so that we can return to the thing in itself, our own experience, with some clear hypothesis about what that experience should actually be (or how it should function pragmatically as a sign relating our formal constructs to the measureables we articulate - the factual results we then claim as what is the case). — apokrisis
it is much more like the attention of a lover to the object of his love. — Mariner
If I understand what you are saying, you think that philosophy involves the development of hypotheses from an abstract viewpoint and then a testing of those hypotheses against the concrete experience. I strongly disagree with that. I never read the work of any philosopher who worked like that. — Mariner
Hadot’s founding meta-philosophical claim is that since the time of Socrates, in ancient philosophy “the choice of a way of life [was] not . . . located at the end of the process of philosophical activity, like a kind of accessory or appendix. On the contrary, its stands at the beginning, in a complex interrelationship with critical reaction to other existential attitudes . . .” (WAP 3). All the schools agreed that philosophy involves the individual’s love of and search for wisdom. All also agreed, although in different terms, that this wisdom involved “first and foremost . . . a state of perfect peace of mind,” as well as a comprehensive view of the nature of the whole and humanity’s place within it. They concurred that attaining to such Sophia, or wisdom, was the highest Good for human beings.
So how is philosophical method meant to distinguish between the use of argumentation as a sophistical prop vs as a true means of inquiry? — apokrisis
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