Well hey there, it's been about a month since I've been on, mainly because of school and work craziness (errgggggg).
Anywho, when last I was on there was quite a bit of bashing of philosophy, which actually got me to study up some on quite of few philosophical works and critiques over the last month.
And I'm not sure many here who refer to it as completely useless have really read much, if any, philosophical works or treatises, namely because they assume the primacy of science to answer questions of practically any sort, even those which science does not [currently] deal with (metaphysics comes to mind, and *potentially* moral/ethical concerns).
It also is haphazardly forgotten that more or less all scientific fields were pioneered and developed by philosophers.
Hell, even logic (including mathematics), which are invaluable to science, was formalized and developed by philosophers (namely Aristotle and Bertrand Russell).
Cosmogeny is another area that appears to be more yielding to philosophical investigations (if anything).
Atomism as well was thought of by and reflected on originally by philosophers (Democritus, Epicurus, etc).
It is my view that philosophy is of great importance and to dismiss it as plain useless because of science is to vindicate the usage of the pejorative form of "scientism" and to forget about the in-built assumptions built into the scientific method(s) and forget about the philosophy of science and not know about the history of philosophy. I understand why science is held so highly (look how it transforms our world), but some here take it too far in my view.
What are your thoughts on philosophy, and do you think some unbelievers are a bit too infatuated with science? (sorry if I come off as a bit whiny here, it's been my hobby-horse lately :P)
Philosophy is useful. Strictly in my case, the problem comes when people get into all the more esoteric areas of discussion and start quoting from people I've never heard of. I don't have the interest or the time for that.
Quote from: "stromboli"esoteric
I find esoteric to be a pretentious and arrogant word used by stodgy and uppity.....er...never mind.
Quote from: "aitm"Quote from: "stromboli"esoteric
I find esoteric to be a pretentious and arrogant word used by stodgy and uppity.....er...never mind.
And I use it every chance i get just to sound uppity. :P
Quote from: "GurrenLagann"Well hey there, it's been about a month since I've been on, mainly because of school and work craziness (errgggggg).
Anywho, when last I was on there was quite a bit of bashing of philosophy, which actually got me to study up some on quite of few philosophical works and critiques over the last month.
And I'm not sure many here who refer to it as completely useless have really read much, if any, philosophical works or treatises, namely because they assume the primacy of science to answer questions of practically any sort, even those which science does not [currently] deal with (metaphysics comes to mind, and *potentially* moral/ethical concerns).
It also is haphazardly forgotten that more or less all scientific fields were pioneered and developed by philosophers.
Hell, even logic (including mathematics), which are invaluable to science, was formalized and developed by philosophers (namely Aristotle and Bertrand Russell).
Cosmogeny is another area that appears to be more yielding to philosophical investigations (if anything).
Atomism as well was thought of by and reflected on originally by philosophers (Democritus, Epicurus, etc).
It is my view that philosophy is of great importance and to dismiss it as plain useless because of science is to vindicate the usage of the pejorative form of "scientism" and to forget about the in-built assumptions built into the scientific method(s) and forget about the philosophy of science and not know about the history of philosophy. I understand why science is held so highly (look how it transforms our world), but some here take it too far in my view.
What are your thoughts on philosophy, and do you think some unbelievers are a bit too infatuated with science? (sorry if I come off as a bit whiny here, it's been my hobby-horse lately :P)
Dat sentence sucks.
lol
In general, I believe philosophy to be useful in a number of ways. I've always kind of looked at philosophy as allowing us to broaden things a bit past scope; be a bit more out of the box if you will. However, any willy-nilly personal thought should not be given credit as philosophy. Sometimes we just have Ideas. They're not particularly lofty nor useful. That's cool. But I think we (people in general) should steer clear of throwing every possible thought or idea under the bus of philosophy. Lately that's become Oh So fashionable a thing to do. Hey.........sometimes it's better to say "Yo I had a thought." followed harmlessly with "what do you think?"
I worry sometimes that people try too hard to give their *stuff* weight by paraphrasing everything as "here's a little philosophy" - because sorry - sometimes it's just pure rubbish.
Does ALL philosophy Have to have a strict purpose? Well no. But a little distinction between what might be an idea/thought someone wants to share and "hey....this is philosophy" doesn't need to be so labor intensive for every conversation.
my two cents worth
and I'm completely in Dejavu in that I'm pretty sure I typed this exact thing one week ago. :shock:
Where would we be without it?
Philosophy is moral, beautiful, and rational. I sometimes like it.
Sometimes I like it, and like discussing it.
Other times it's just plain fucking annoying.
There's nothing wrong with formalized inquiry into human concepts. But like any discipline, it has limits to its utility, and like any abstract process, it doesn't always address the concrete in a meaningful manner.
I think there's a huge difference between philosophy and metaphysics. Philosophy is useful, metaphysics is not.
Philosophy is like the pet no one wants, when science is at the vet you might as well play with it to kill time.
I'm sure it's useful, but nearly all of the Philosophy majors I've had talks with are douchenozzles that look down on the rest of us mortals from their imaginary ivory towers.
I don't much care about it. I'd rather be in the lab.
Quote from: "ThePilgrim101"I don't much care about it. I'd rather be in the lab.
QFT.
I'm a huge fan of philosophy, but see some significant problems with it. Epistemology and ethics should be the most important fields any human could possibly study and master - I mean, is there anything more important than figuring out how we can know things and how to live a good life? But unfortunately the paths both fields are significantly flawed. The good news is that some have diagnosed some of the problems well (JD Trout and Michael Bishop in epistemology, the modern virtue ethicists starting with Elizabeth Anscombe, and the bewitchment by language in general starting with the later Wittgenstein) so that hopefully these disciplines will get back on their feet.
"It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the device of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics."
-Sorry, i kinda just fell in love with dat intro (Karl Marx's critique of Hegel's philosophy of the right.)
Philosophy is definitely interesting, and I like reading it. That being said you have to be highly arrogant to be a philosopher.
philosophy teaches us and unsettles us by confronting us with what we already know. There's an irony; the difficulty of this course consists in the fact that it teaches what you already know. It works by taking what we know from familiar unquestioned settings, and making it strange. Thats how those examples worked, the hypotheticals with which we began, with their mix of playfulness and sobriety. Its also how these philosophical books work. Philosophy estranges us from the familiar, not by supplying new information, but by inviting and provoking a new way of seeing, but, and here's the risk: once the familiar turns strange, its never quite the same again. Self-knowledge is like lost innocence; however unsettling you find it, it can never be unthought, or unknown. What makes this enterprise difficult, but also riveting, is that moral and political philosophy is a story, and you don't know where the story will lead, but what you do know is that the story is about you.
Those are the presonal risks. Now what of the political risks? One way of introducing a course like this would be to promise you that by reading these books and debating these issues you will become a better more responsible citizen. You will examine the presuppositions of public poilicy, you will hone your political judgement, you will become a more effective participant in public affairs. But this would be a partial and misleading promise. Political philosophy for the most part hasn't worked that way. You have to allow for the possibility, that political philosophy may make you a worse citizen rather than a better one, or at least a worse citizen before it makes you a better one. And thats because philosophy is a distancing, even debilitating activity, and you see this going back to Socratesm theres a dialogue, the Gorgias in which one of Socrates' friends Calicles tries to talk him out of philosophising. Calicles tells Socrates "philosophy is a pretty toy, if one indulges in it with moderation at the right time of life, but if one pursues it further than one should it is absolute ruin. Take my advice," Calicles says "abandon argument. Learn the accomplishments of active life. Take for your models not those people who spend their time on these petty quibbles, but those who have a good livelihood and reputation and many other blessings." So Calicles is really saying to Socrates, "Quit philosophising. Get real. Go to business school."And Calicles did have a point. He had a point because philosophy distances us from conventions, from established assumptions, and from settled beliefs.
Those are the risks; personal and political. And in the face of these risks there is a characteristic evasion. The name of the evasion is scepticism, its the idea... well it goes something like this: we didn't resolve once and for all, either the cases of the principles we were arguing when we began, and if Aristotle and Locke and Kant and Mill haven't solved these questions after all of these years, who are we to think that we here in Sanders Theatre over the course of a semester can resolve them. And so maybe its just a matter of each person having his or her own principles and theres nothing more to be said about it, no way of reasoning. Thats the evasion, the evasion of scepticism. To which I would offer the following reply: Its true, these questions have been debated for a very long time, but the very fact that they have recurred and persisted, may suggest that though they're impossible in one sense, they're unavoidable in another. And the reason they're unavoidable, the reason they're inescapable is that we live some answer to these questions everyday.
So scepticism, just throwing up your hands and giving up on moral reflection is no solution. Immanuel Kant described very well the problem with scepticism when he wrote "scepticism is a resting place for human reason, where it can reflect upon its dogmatic wanderings. But it is no dwelling place for permanent settlement. Simply to acquiesce in scepticism," Kant wrote, "can never suffice to overcome the restlessness of reason." I've tried to suggest through these stories and these arguments, some sense of the risks and temptations, of the perils and the possibilites. I would simply conclude by saying that the aim of this course is to awaken the restlessness of reason, and to see where is might lead. Thank you very much."
- Michael Sandel
Transcribed from introductory lecture from Michael Sandel's undergraduate course in Political Philosophy at Harvard University broadcast on BBC4 as: Justice 1.The Moral Side of Murder. Tuesday 25 Jan 2011 at 8.30pm
"When we first came together some thirteen weeks ago, I spoke of the exhilaration of political philosophy, and also of its dangers. About how philosophy works, and had always worked, by estranging us from the familiar; by unsettling, our settled assumptions. I tried to warn you, that once the familiar turns strange, once we begin to reflect on our circumstance, it's never quite the same again. I hope you have by now experienced at least a little of this unease. Because this is the tension that animates critical reflection, and political improvement, and maybe even the moral life as well."
Michael Sandel. Justice: 8.The Good Life. Broadcast on BBC4 8.30pm Tuesday 15 March 2011.
Thanks for the input you all. :) There were some great/interesting responses here and there. Although sadly, no one seems to have responded to the final question in my OP. :(
I think Manley P Hall put it best in his book, "The Secret Teachings of All Ages," when he said quite simply...
"Philosophy is the science of assigning values."
Important to keep that in mind for perspective as philosophy is not intended to determine truth, but rather to determine what's useful to know.
And yes, of course religion is overly concerned with science. It's the primary threat to their flawed thinking and the most capable of disproving their beliefs.
When their entire thing hinges on people being ignorant in order to accept their pitch, the last thing they want is a methodical, systematic approach to determining fact seeming like a viable option to the poor suckers who bought into their BS.
Quote from: "GurrenLagann"Thanks for the input you all. :) There were some great/interesting responses here and there. Although sadly, no one seems to have responded to the final question in my OP. :(
Okay, I'll try.
I think some non-scientists are too infatuated with famous scientists as figures of authority. They see scientists as village elders-- essentially, a secular replacement for the wisdom of clerics. Don't believe me? How many times have we seen "Science hasn't solved problem X
yet." This is a statement of faith, unless the only limitation to a solution is known to be brute force calculation (like sequencing DNA for example).
^^^
What I was trying to say, only much better put.
Quote from: "GurrenLagann"Thanks for the input you all. :) There were some great/interesting responses here and there. Although sadly, no one seems to have responded to the final question in my OP. :(
You mean this part?
QuoteWhat are your thoughts on philosophy, and do you think some unbelievers are a bit too infatuated with science?
Some unbelievers? Yes, I suppose it would be possible for some unbeliever somewhere, but not generally speaking, not by a long shot. None that I've ever met. There is no reason to be infatuated with reality or the scientific exploration of it. Your question becomes loaded with the inclusion of the word "infatuation."
Infatuation is about fantasy. It takes a part of reality or something imagined, and projects all manner of unwarranted attributes onto it until one adulates and glorifies it beyond reason. No, this is not what unbelievers do with science. It's what mindless flibbertigibbets do with fantasy.
Quote from: "GurrenLagann", and do you think some unbelievers are a bit too infatuated with science?
NO, quite the opposite, not enough are infatuated enough.
I get thrashed on this topic. I hate the word "philosophy". The reason is people get married to them like religion. I like to think of things as ideas, not philosophies. That way you can take the good of what someone presents without having to get married to the entire theme of what the "philosophy" is.
We would not have modern science if it were not for the prior ideas of others before. We should know what "philosophies" are in a historical manor. But now that we have the most accurate idea in scientific method, we don't need to dwell in the past, even if we should be aware of it's contributions.
The only way to improve on something is to be willing to scrap the bad and take the good and be willing to change when better data comes in.
Quote from: "SGOS"Some unbelievers? Yes, I suppose it would be possible for some unbeliever somewhere, but not generally speaking, not by a long shot. None that I've ever met. There is no reason to be infatuated with reality or the scientific exploration of it. Your question becomes loaded with the inclusion of the word "infatuation."
I seem to have been unclear in my question. I don't find my question loaded. I was asking if anyone else felt that some unbelievers put too much stock into science's ability to answer all manner of questions, even those it has not traditionally (or currently much) dealt with, like say ethics/morality and the origins of existence itself (cosmogony doesn't seem like a topic easily, if at all graspable in scientific terms, if it can be grasped at all). Mt question had nothing to do with infatuation with reality or with scientific explanations, but with the purview and ability of the enterprise of science itself.
Sam Harris once made a case for a possible science of ethics, which softened me up to it being potentially possible for a science of ethics one day.
QuoteInfatuation is about fantasy. It takes a part of reality or something imagined, and projects all manner of unwarranted attributes onto it until one adulates and glorifies it beyond reason. No, this is not what unbelievers do with science. It's what mindless flibbertigibbets do with fantasy.
Woah, do not agree. As I hinted above, some unbelievers (and not merely a non-mention worthy amount) certainly glorify science to a somewhat unreasonable degree. And I would say that such is indeed a fantasy.
Not that I'm saying most unbelievers do that, simply that it is common enough to warrant a mention and question. :)
Quote from: "GurrenLagann"Quote from: "SGOS"Infatuation is about fantasy. It takes a part of reality or something imagined, and projects all manner of unwarranted attributes onto it until one adulates and glorifies it beyond reason. No, this is not what unbelievers do with science. It's what mindless flibbertigibbets do with fantasy.
Woah, do not agree. As I hinted above, some unbelievers (and not merely a non-mention worthy amount) certainly glorify science to a somewhat unreasonable degree. And I would say that such is indeed a fantasy.
Not that I'm saying most unbelievers do that, simply that it is common enough to warrant a mention and question. :)
A few hours after I posted that, while driving my car down the road, I reconsidered my statement. I would agree with you to a degree. Yes obviously, some unbelievers probably give science undo credit. In other words (your words), "to a somewhat unreasonable degree," although not to the extent of an infatuation for the vast majority of us, I think. Infatuation is a very strong word that represents an extreme of unreasonable glorification.
I've often seen unbelievers point out the limitations of science in forums like these. It's usually done when theists accuse us of having the same sort of "infatuation" with science as they do with their faith, so my post was partly a reaction based on the unfair comparison often posed by theists.
Ah, I see. Fair point. :)
Over in Holland we call philosophy "giroblauw".
[youtube:buo5d83w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV5fHruaOyM[/youtube:buo5d83w]
QuoteI seem to have been unclear in my question. I don't find my question loaded. I was asking if anyone else felt that some unbelievers put too much stock into science's ability to answer all manner of questions, even those it has not traditionally (or currently much) dealt with, like say ethics/morality and the origins of existence itself (cosmogony doesn't seem like a topic easily, if at all graspable in scientific terms, if it can be grasped at all). Mt question had nothing to do with infatuation with reality or with scientific explanations, but with the purview and ability of the enterprise of science itself.
Sam Harris once made a case for a possible science of ethics, which softened me up to it being potentially possible for a science of ethics one day.
People need to be flexible on values-- otherwise those values cannot adapt to new circumstances, making the memes they embody mostly impotent.
That's why morality MUST be arbitrary, and why Sam Harris is kind of full of baloney on this subject, IMO. What he's saying is that science can study things like the amount of suffering in a brain, etc. But what he's implying is that scientists are the right people to establish the criteria with which we evaluate goodness in life. I don't accept that idea at all. Nor should quotes from Dawkins or Dennett, or Einstein, or anyone else be used to validate the opinions of anyone else. If one's ideas are just references to the ideas of famous people, then one might as well be quoting the Bible for all the intellectual participation one's engaging in.
Quote from: "bennyboy"That's why morality MUST be arbitrary, and why Sam Harris is kind of full of baloney on this subject, IMO. What he's saying is that science can study things like the amount of suffering in a brain, etc. But what he's implying is that scientists are the right people to establish the criteria with which we evaluate goodness in life.
Guess I'll have to go read Harris now to see how well he defends that idea. Like you, it does strike me as a grand claim, so we might be missing an important context found in his book (which book, however)? In my third year of college, I was taking yet another psychology course, and was noticing a common pattern throughout the texts.
Psychology is categorized as a science, and almost every claim in the texts is documented with references to scientific studies. OK, this is expected in the sciences. But sometimes, I had to make unscientific inferences between the claim and the supporting studies. One example that comes to mind was in a chapter that dealt with reasons for human aggression. It referenced a well done experiment where rats were introduced into an identical environment with the control group, but with the added variable of crowding. Wah-La! Rats tended to act more aggressively when crowded. The somewhat unscientific inference we draw is that this also accounts for higher aggression when crowding humans. Strictly speaking, that's probably a stretch, even if we have studies that humans act more aggressively when crowded (I have no idea if we have such studies, although I would guess such studies have been done).
At one point, the professor, who I rather admired, pointed out that since psychology was a science, the researchers approached the subject scientifically with controlled experiments. He added that he personally thought that was a mistake, and the researchers should have approached the subject philosophically. How that could be done and still be credible is still a bit of a mystery to me.
Hold on. I'm getting to my point. Fact is, in my later graduate studies, we studied some of the great clinical psychologists of the time, Albert Ellis, Carl Rogers, Fritz Pearls, etc, and these guys all approached the subject philosophically. Of course, their writings were somewhat just salesmanship of their own methods, as books often are. They were each widely acclaimed by others in the field, and apparently each had impressive track records in helping clients. The one thing their writings had in common is that they all made intuitively sound cases for their individual methods. "Intuitively", being the operative word here, as opposed to "scientific."
But philosophy can often be more like political gibber jabber. There isn't much science in politics. It's salesmanship, ideology, and lets face it... about 80% pure bullshit used to advance ulterior motives of special interests. Yet if an intuitive idea is advanced with some care and thought, it can often make a reasonable case, but a lot of it is in the salesmanship that must make a somewhat logical impression on educated peers, at least with some caution.
OK, that was bit off your particular rant, but it seemed kind of relevant.
Quote from: "GurrenLagann"It is my view that philosophy is of great importance and to dismiss it as plain useless because of science is to vindicate the usage of the pejorative form of "scientism" and to forget about the in-built assumptions built into the scientific method(s) and forget about the philosophy of science and not know about the history of philosophy. I understand why science is held so highly (look how it transforms our world), but some here take it too far in my view.
I find it funny the way some atheists worship science. They pretend it has all the answers. Science doesn't answer many--if not most--of the really important questions.
What is morally good?
What is the nature of knowledge?
Are there universals?
Does God exists?
Is there an external world?
What's the nature of the mind
.
.
.
.
.
I could go on and on. Actually science--like philosophy--only ever gives tentative answers.
Also, there is progress in philosophy. Tons of progress. Progress is made on old problems. New distinctions are made, concepts clarified, etc. Philosophy is just as respectable--if not more respectable--than science. In my view :)
I think this critique can be traced back to a few intellectuals. First that comes to mind is Peter Atkins and his bashing of philosophy in TSN's Beyond Belief 2.0 (//http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-enlightenment-2-0)
Peter Atkins' segment:
http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/b ... ter-atkins (http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-enlightenment-2-0/peter-atkins)
Also, there has been some blogging on the subject:
http://openparachute.wordpress.com/2011 ... t-science/ (http://openparachute.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/on-being-philosophical-about-science/)
---
Anyways, I was swayed by his presentation for a while, until I realized he used words rooted in philosophy.
The way I view it, philosophy answers questions about the limits of what we can know, whereas science seeks and discovers knowledge in that framework.