I am in general agreement, but would not characterize the statis as "disguised". — Fooloso4
Has science taken over completely from philosophy?
To be sure, even those who would agree with Hawking would allow that philosophy remains relevant for certain necessarily subjective areas of inquiry: ethics, aesthetics, perhaps even the philosophy of language. But what about the questions:
How do we know what we know?
What actually exists?
What is fundamental?
What is subjective experience?
To my mind, these seem like inherently philosophical questions. They are questions whose answers must be informed by the natural sciences, but not the sort of questions that can be answered by the empirical sciences.
Yet it is also clear that scientists often do tend to try to answer these questions. Indeed, in the world of popular science books, I would argue that perhaps most of what is addressed are questions of philosophy— i.e., questions that are not empirically falsifiable or verifiable, questions whose answers make metaphysical claims.
The modern philosophers gave themselves a task not entertained by the ancients, to master nature. Philosophy was no longer about the problem of how to live but to solve problems by changing the conditions of life. — Fooloso4
The modern philosophers gave themselves a task not entertained by the ancients, to master nature. — Fooloso4
Certainly there had been scientific and technological advances, but nothing on the scope of the scientific revolution. — Fooloso4
Very nice presentation. Metaphysics in the sciences goes on all the time, although most come from actual scientists. — jgill
But if man is the end of creation, he is also the true cause of creation, for the end is the principle of action. The distinction between man as the end of creation, and man as its cause, is only that the cause is the latent, inner man, the essential man, whereas the end is the self-evident, empirical, individual man, – that man recognizes himself as the end of creation, but not as the cause, because he distinguishes the cause, the essence from himself as another personal being.
But this other being, this creative principle, is in fact nothing else than his subjective nature separated from the limits of individuality and materiality, i.e., of objectivity, unlimited will, personality posited out of all connection with the world, – which by creation, i.e., the positing of the world, of objectivity, of another, as a dependent, finite, non-essential existence, gives itself the certainty of its exclusive reality. The point in question in the Creation is not the truth and reality of the world, but the truth and reality of personality, of subjectivity in distinction from the world. The point in question is the personality of God; but the personality of God is the personality of man freed from all the conditions and limitations of Nature. Hence the fervent interest in the Creation, the horror of all pantheistic cosmogonies. The Creation, like the idea of a personal God in general, is not a scientific, but a personal matter; not an object of the free intelligence, but of the feelings; for the point on which it hinges is only the Guarantee, the last conceivable proof and demonstration of personality or subjectivity as an essence quite apart, having nothing in common with Nature, a supra- and extra-mundane entity.
Man distinguishes himself from Nature. This distinction of his is his God: the distinguishing of God from Nature is nothing else than the distinguishing of man from Nature.
Is that the task of the philosopher, or of the engineer, technologist and scientist? — Quixodian
Aristotle sums up the ancient position on knowledge when he says that all men naturally desire knowledge. Bacon marks the position of modern philosophy when he declares that knowledge is power. — Fooloso4
I think the scientific revolution was fueled by advances in mathematics. — Fooloso4
It seems to me that if the becoming has no end then there can be no ultimate convergence. — Leontiskos
Possibly advances in mathematics were catalyzed by the discovery of fossil fuels — Janus
but I do agree that mathematics played a part, particularly in physics and chemistry. — Janus
I still believe that the development of science would have been much slower without fossil fuels, but of course I wasn't wishing to deny the importance of mathematics and geometry in science. — Janus
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