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Is Philosophy dead?

Started by stromboli, July 27, 2014, 09:52:19 AM

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stromboli

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/camelswithhammers/2014/03/on-antitheism-science-vs-god-and-whether-philosophy-is-dead/

QuoteIn one of the rare moments of cleverness, Wheaton quickly rubs in Radisson’s face Hawking’s misguided dig that “philosophy is dead”. God’s not dead, philosophy is dead. Nice bumper sticker. This is one of many reasons it is ignorant, anti-intellectual, and counter-productive to the cause of critical thinking and atheism when scientists mouth off in anti-philosophy ways. In doing this scientists like Hawking and Krauss give undeserved ammunition to people who want to attack reason in generalâ€"since so much reasoning in general is more philosophical than quantifiably scientific in character.
Philosophy is unavoidable. Science does not answer every question, because some questions are not amenable to strictly scientific analyses. Or other questions that are capable of scientific analysis still require time and scientific progress and new discoveries before they can be scientific. This does not mean that theology is the answer. Theological answers are just ancient guesses with no magic plausibility just because better scientific ones don’t yet exist. There are philosophical ways to deal with a huge range of issues that people think about. Applying tests of logic, consistency, coherence, conceptual clarification, thought experiments, extrapolations from scientific findings to philosophical implications, and using common sense reasoning, we can rationally approach the huge panoply of questions that right now don’t have specifically scientific answers. The limits of science are not the door to intellectual anarchy and theology. We must grapple with other questions than scientific ones some times and when doing so we must do so as rigorously as possible, rather than as carelessly. Saying philosophy is dead is only an invitation to ignore crucial questions and, so, answer them thoughtlessly, with who knows what consequences for our lives. Our culture suffers from a failure to do good philosophy.

I may be the least philosophical person on the forum. I took exactly one (1) philosophy class in college, because it was required by my major. The instructor, a man with a doctorate, was a walking bad hair day that didn't know how to dress himself properly. And he drank some obscure brand of tea that was supposed to have mystical properties, that smelled like dog piss. Not impressed. I've also read the a Philosophy degree is considered one of the most useless for finding a job.

I got an A largely becase I mentioned that I had read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" and could quote from the book. I read the book in the first place because my Mormon High Priest brother recommended it to me. Whatever.

In the time I have been on the forum there seems to have been a paradigm shift away from solid philosophical topics (read murky bullshit) to more simple, logic/rhetoric/argumentation methods. Yes, I know that is philosophy, but nobody recently has quoted Schopenhauer or Wittgenstein, which is fine with me. I think of it from a god of the gaps standpoint- the more you know, the less sense obscure argumentism makes and the more discussions can be solved by science or knowledge.

Anyway, my two cents.

SGOS

Well, science is an outgrowth of logic, and logic is an outgrowth of philosophy, so let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater.  Just throw out the bathwater to get rid of the Schopenhauer.

I remember thinking during some of the more esoteric elements of my college philosophy that brilliant minds can spend a Hell of a lot of time spinning their wheels.

PickelledEggs

Philosophy isn't dead. It's just taking different forms.

I would argue that comedians are some of the best philosophers of our time and of all time. Philosophy is looking at things a different way.... asking why is it like that.... etc. That's what comedians do (some of them at least)

There is a shit ton of philosophy in a lot of these threads. Even this thread about "Is philosophy dead" is kind of philosophy :lol:

Solitary

Philosophy is asking questions about the unknown that we are curious about, and most of these are rhetorical questions that can't be answered philosophically, so what good is it?  :pidu: :angel: "How many angels can stand on a pin head?" None, dumb ass!  :pai: :madu: Solitary
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

Solitary

Schopenhauer's philosophy is almost identical to Buddha's. Solitary 
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

Hijiri Byakuren

The only philosophy topics that I think have any merit in the modern day are scientific philosophy, epistemology, and ethics. They're the only ones that can actually be used to accomplish something.
Speak when you have something to say, not when you have to say something.

Sargon The Grape - My Youtube Channel


josephpalazzo

Philosophy is not dead - there are too many questions that science can't answer. And there is such a thing as a philosophy of science. Of course, one of problems with philosophy is that - unlike science - virtually nothing within the discipline is ever definitively resolved. And so the view is that philosophy is often futile, with a lot of BS attached to it. But the greatest danger is that religionists and apologists have hijacked the discipline, and this is often reflected in many universities, where a good part of philosophy is really dedicated to the philosophy of religion, in which the starting point is: God exists, and now how can we do philosophy from that point. And so one of the unresolved issues is to make philosophy as secular as possible.

the_antithesis


aitm

I lost my interest when it seemed that philosophers started to elevate the possibility of man being more than a successful animal. Once they climbed that rock and tried to place man above everything else, it became another version of religion..that man is man and man is all.
A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

Mr.Obvious

I'm fond of philosophy (though I could spend much more time on it than I currently do) as long as it doesn't try to answer scientific questions.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

Berati

Philosophy is an outgrowth of our sentience. It is our never ending quest to question everything and try to answer everything, and that includes questions that can't be addressed by the scientific method.
Philosophy dies with the last sentient being in this universe. So not for quite awhile I suppose.
Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

DunkleSeele


SGOS

#13
Quote from: Berati on July 27, 2014, 05:21:14 PM
Philosophy is an outgrowth of our sentience. It is our never ending quest to question everything and try to answer everything, and that includes questions that can't be addressed by the scientific method.
It also attempts to answer questions that can't be answered.  As soon as philosophy crosses that line and starts giving answers to questions that can't be answered, it becomes nonsense, and discredits the whole of philosophy.

Edit:  last word was originally psychology, which makes no sense.

stromboli