Since the days of significant scientific achievement, is there even really a point to philosophy? Even the more abstract, meta-physical philosophies can be quantified and adequately and more appropriately explained by science. Of course, my philosophy knowledge stops after the intro course I had to take as a required course in my first year of college, and as I'm a physics major I will admit to both ignorance and bias, which is why I'm asking you guys, in case someone more learned than me can explain it. I'm not going to argue with anyone, I'm not trying to troll or make any one angry, I'm posing a serious question.
As far as I understand it, the ancient Greek philosophers were something like modern scientists, in that their philosophies were meant to explain the universe and they even conducted experiments, I mean a lot of their math and formulas are still used, today, as a foundation of it all, but ever since scientific discovery took off a few centuries ago, philosophy has drifted to more and more abstract things, as science caught up and changed every single idea and understanding of life and the universe.
Parts of philosophy can't be answered by science. For example, for some philosophers, philosophy was about how you should live a good life.
Oh boy, it's this thread again.
Just saying something like "philosophy is dead" or "science can explain everything" is to do philosophy. Philosophy is the bedrock of all human inquiry, so you can't escape it.
>>435298
I think even something like a "good life" could be objectively explained. There are things that are objectively harmful for you, so for good health you avoid them, and there are things that are objectively harmful to other people and to society, so for a good life you avoid them. To live a "good life", you just have to stay in good health and not kill or screw over your fellow man (although that can get all dicey and relative and whatnot, I think it's because we don't have a clear scientific understanding of some things yet).
>>435310
I mean in the sense of philosophers writing out their theories and essaying and debating and whatnot, not "philosophy" in a general sense.
>>435327
>I think even something like a "good life" could be objectively explained. There are things that are objectively harmful for you, so for good health you avoid them, and there are things that are objectively harmful to other people and to society, so for a good life you avoid them. To live a "good life", you just have to stay in good health and not kill or screw over your fellow man (although that can get all dicey and relative and whatnot, I think it's because we don't have a clear scientific understanding of some things yet).
You are basically following one form of philosophy by stating this, that is hedonism.
>>435327
Philosophers have broken off from being scientists or what they used to be called, natural philosophers. It all depends on your philosophical stances what science even means. Are scientific theories "true"? In what way? Do they allow us to reach objective reality? Are they only pragmatic theories that help us do things? How should we even do science?
>>435343
Isn't hedonism the one where you don't care about anything and as a result, just party and fuck all the time and don't care about anyone? I'm sure that's the anti-thesis of what I just said.
>>435356
Science provides an objective explanation of reality, using extensive observation, experimentation, surveying and other forms of data collection on a constant basis, to such an extent that these theories are always changing, but I think "change" brings up a connotation of chaos, that we don't really know anything, when really it's more that our knowledge is constantly progressing to the actual truth of it all.
>>435369
>Isn't hedonism the one where you don't care about anything and as a result, just party and fuck all the time and don't care about anyone? I'm sure that's the anti-thesis of what I just said.
No. Hedonism = Happiness is pleasure.
>>435374
"Happiness" being a result of chemical reactions, and can be artificially induced, via drugs, sex, overeating, gambling, etc. Not really a "good" life, since all of those things can cause health, familial, financial, and societal problems.
>>435369
That right there is your philosophical view of science.
And that is what hedonism means in common usage. In philosophy, hedonism is the stance that pleasure is the only good, or at least an intrinsic good. Many hedonists would object to a lifestyle of partying, sex, and drug use because that would decrease your overall pleasure in the long term. Epicureans and the utilitarians are famous sorts of hedonists.
>>435387
So, then, if hedonism is like that, could it be said that there's no point in further exploration of morality and such, that the Greeks basically said all there needs to be said? I try to read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and guys like that, and it all just sounds like new aged nonsense (I recognize that those guys died over a hundred years ago).
>>435408
There are philosophies that are opposed to hedonism.
>>435417
But since hedonism can be explained through objective measures, does that opposition hold up?
>>435408
If that's your philosophical stance. Most people would regard the goal of life to be pleasure, or more specifically happiness. Some may disagree with you.
Nothing of what Nietzsche or Schopenhauer said is new-agey, though they may not appeal to your philosophical ideas or style. Philosophers differ greatly in what they believe and write about.
Plato deals with very abstract things. As does Heraclitus, Parmenides...
>>435281
Science is what, philosophy is why.
>>435439
What is good is not necessarily that which can be objectively measured. And philosophers still debate how objective, measurable occurrences relate to a subject's experience.
>>435439
Yeah.
Hedonism can't be explained through objective measures. Otherwise, the work of economists would be much easier.
>>435440
Utilitarianism is the go-to theory of ethics of most people uneducated in ethics, I think.
>>435451
That's not how economics works. Value is subjective in economics.
>>435467
Sort of.
>>435450
>>435451
Most things that are good can be objectively measured. You can objectively put together a "good" diet, you can objectively say that killing an innocent, in cold blood, is bad, and the things that haven't been quantified yet (like, is killing in general always bad?), well the key word is "yet".
>>435467
I guess that holds true.
>>435468
If utility could be measured, they would have an easy time.
>>435490
>if utility could be measured
Build one birdhouse with nothing but hand tools, measure how long it takes, and then build another with power tools, measure that length of time, and then build another with the top of the line, super heavy duty professional shit, measure that length of time. If utility can't be measured, then there is no utility, and that's just patently false.
>>435488
I think what you're trying to say is that humans have a common understanding of what good is.
>>435510
OK, which birdhouse will make a human happier?
>>435564
Presumably the one that took the least amount of time and effort for that person to make.
>>435488
You are just following hedonism.
>>435281
Is there even really a point to life?
When will you sad-criticizers realize that every atom in every particle of reality is necessary.
That the grand finale of the universe will depend and be necessitated by all those shapes of atoms interacting.
That you can trace existence backwards and forwards along a linear time line; as perceived by consciousness.
And when the grand finale or "singularity" occurs, then existence will cease-- being devoid of contrast and relativity.
Of course from the singularity, devoid of time, duality is the only recourse.
If the singularity maintains, then manifestation is rendered impotent and change (the backbone of dimension) cannot occur.
Then the argument is nullified entirely and made redundant.
>>435281
Despite the seeming consensus narrative on this question, mostly due to widespread ignorance of the role science (particularly physics) plays in understanding the universe. As Niels Bohr summed up so succinctly, the aim of physics is to uncover what can be said about nature, not how nature actually is. Fundamental physics has not resolved a single longstanding metaphysical question and its own intellectual output concerns itself more with reproducing experimental results than clearing up the philosophical ambiguities of their theories. Taking recourse in scientific realism as a default meta theory of science is as naive as it is presumptuous, and even if one did, it says nothing of any philosophical consequences of a particular ontological framework a scientific theory provides. So yes, there is a point to philosophy, and its role is as important within science as it is standing on its own.
>>435281
>Even the more abstract, meta-physical philosophies can be quantified and adequately and more appropriately explained by science
This just isn't true at all. Science doesn't touch those questions. Science's success is not due to it answering philosophical questions, it is about scientists asking new questions and carving out their own niche.
Newton and motion is a great example. For pretty much all of the history of philosophy people questioned what the general metaphysics that accounted for motion were- what grounds the possibility of motion. Newton came in, and rather than giving an explanation of why motion existed and what features of reality motion arose from, instead gave a mathematical formula that described certain facts about motion itself ( that a mobile will continue until stopped). This never explained what ontologically gave rise to motion, rather it just explained what exactly was happening with motion itself through mathematical language. But a mathematical abstraction does nothing to actually explain the phenomena it is abstracted from, because it is that phenomena that gives credence to the mathematical abstraction- not the other way around. Newton never solved the problem of motion, he asked a new question instead and got some great results.
Science doesn't answer what it means to be an individual thing, it presupposes that there are individual things. Science doesn't answer how we can account for attribute agreement and general terms( whether one is a realist or a nominalist about "universals") they simply use general terms. Scientists don't answer the question of what causality is, they either use it to describe regularities or they don't.
Metaphysics and epistemology are also important for when you have stalemates in science and there is no more evidence to suggest one theory over another. Philosopher's of science can come and look logically at the data and determine what kind of theory qua it being a theory is the better one.
Science is simply a series of testable observations that allows us to discover and understand the physical workings of the universe. It doesn't make any actual judgments as to what to do with that knowledge, however. Good science CANNOT make judgments; it states facts.
For instance science told us how to make the atomic bomb. What it could not do was tell us what to do with it once we had it. The decision to use atom bombs on Japan to scare Russia was based upon a philosophy; that of a show of force intimidating a powerful enemy preventing more violence in the long run by stopping WWIII. The later philosophy of mutually assured destruction was based on the scientific knowledge of the damage the bomb could cause but science merely supported that idea, it didn't make it.
In my view good philosophy is heavily informed by the facts that good science teaches us. Science itself isn't informed by anything other than observation. Science exists to tell us how the universe works and why. Philosophy is us trying to frame that knowledge in a way that lets us live a better life.
In many ways that's why I think philosophy is such bullshit today. You can't use the work of men from thousands of years ago with faulty scientific backgrounds as a basis for your philosophy even if they had some good ideas.
Instead we need great modern philosophers who are able to use scientific data gathered from scientific experimentation to form new philosophies grounded in fact. Not new age crystal worshiping bullshit, but philosophy based upon our observations of the universe. We know more about how and why the human body, life, society and the universe work than ever before. We should use that knowledge to inform us how to live better lives and devote ourselves to better pursuits.
>>435467
>Utilitarianism is the go-to theory of ethics of most people uneducated in ethics, I think.
And it's also what the "science solved ethics" crowd espouses.
Which is really funny considering utilitarianism is about as evil as it gets.
---------------
Philosophy is the foudnation of science. As a result asking for a "scinetifcally approved philosophy" is nonsense. It's like asking to prove psychology with math, philosophy is the most pure field, it is the field that proves the other fields. Rather you should for "philophically approved science", since philosophy is at the top of the academic food chain
.
Science cannot exist without the scientific method which is just applied Emperisism and Emperismism cannot exist without Rationalism. Emperisism cannot prove itself. There for the scientific method cannot prove itself therefor science cannot prove itself. Logical Postivism is based entirly on Emperisism. There for logical postivism cannot prove itself. Logical postivism also denies the use of rationalism. which is the source of Emperisism, there for logical postivism is self-refuting.
------------------
Also OP's understanding the philosophy shows he has never read a philosophy book in his life philosophy nor does he understand what science can and cannot do (science for instance cannot handle metaphysics). I bet you think the pre-socratics were 'early scientists'
>>436501
See, this is why I think classical philosophy is stupid. Science itself may have been initially created by philosophers but the scientific method is pretty much self contained. You don't need to understand the history or finer workings of Empirical thought to conduct a scientific experiment. You don't need to understand the back-and-forth process required to create it. It's a tool for gathering factual information about the universe.
Philosophy should ABSOLUTELY be informed by that information. When science tells us about the broken window phenomenon making cruddy neighborhoods worse we don't need to hear nonsense from ancient Greeks that thought eels were born straight from mud itself and bloodletting was great medicine. We need philosophies that take the data we have into account and fix the goddamn windows.
>>436573
> We need philosophies that take the data we have into account and fix the goddamn windows
And this is what philosophy has been doing since the pre-socratics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2dyP-OtruM
Philosophy looks at the universe and looks for natural laws about how things work (many questions which cannot be directly addressed by science) and than figures out society or the individual can use these laws to it's advantage...or what the consequences of using the laws in such and such a way. It's basically the field that creates the theories all the other fields use.
Maybe you should actually read philosophy instead of basing stuff off a first year class, and btw most philosophy classes suck; they teach the book. Introduction classes are especially bad because the professor knows 90% of the students are just there to fulfill their humanity requirements and don't see any reason to put in any real effort.
>>436791
The foundations of philosophy are made of sand. Simply put, yes, Philosophy does try to figure out the natural laws of the universe and it absolutely, positively fails at it. Philosophy without science is simply speculation and therefore bullshit.
The scientific method is based in empiricism but it is not reliant upon any philosophy to function.
One need look no further than Aristotle to see where philosophy leads when it comes before good science rather than science being based on philosophy. You end up with batshit stupid stuff about humors you could easily disprove with observations and testing.
Philosophy is important but it should come AFTER science, not before it. It should be based upon the results of scientific research. It should not be trying to fill in the gaps with speculation grounded in absofuckingloutely nothing but "muh feels".
It's literally "muh feelings"
This is why feminists and retards study social "sciences".
>>436985
>The scientific method is based in empiricism but it is not reliant upon any philosophy to function.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
>>436996
>I have no idea what I'm talking about.
>>436999
I'm well aware of it. I think it's retarded, personally. It stems back to the master dimwit Aristotle and asks really silly questions like, "does science even work at all?"
My computer that I'm typing this fucking message on right now says yes.
This is why I say we should discard all old philosophy and build new philosophy with a basis in the sciences. Let philosophy tell us what to do with what we know. "Now that we have atomic energy how do we use it?" Not retarded bullshit like, "Is atomic energy even real? Are atoms real? What is aaaair?"
Discard everything that's nothing more than speculation without a basis in reality.
>>436985
Aristotle provided the philophical foundtion for virtue ethics which was was the social force that lasted for over a thousand years.
He literally invented logic. Only an absolute fool would deny he was one of the pillars of western civilization.
And you want to nit-pick on him for getting humors wrong....oh wait he never came up with the theory of humors retard. That was Hippocrates who literally invented medical ethics. So your entire point just shows that you do not even know the absolute basics about philosophy.
What you are doing is pure anti-intellectualism, you took an introductions class and now think you understood a 2,500 year old tradition when you can't even name the basic beliefs of the most famous people in it.
>>437027
>I'm well aware of it. I think it's retarded, personally. It stems back to the master dimwit Aristotle and asks really silly questions like, "does science even work at all?"
>My computer that I'm typing this fucking message on right now says yes.
So, you mean science works as in it allows us to do things? That would fall within the pragmatic philosophy of science.
>This is why I say we should discard all old philosophy and build new philosophy with a basis in the sciences. Let philosophy tell us what to do with what we know. "Now that we have atomic energy how do we use it?" Not retarded bullshit like, "Is atomic energy even real? Are atoms real? What is aaaair?"
>Discard everything that's nothing more than speculation without a basis in reality.
We tried this, it was called positivism. It has been totally discarded by everyone including its creators last century.
>>437009
>philosphy: the post
>>435369
>Science provides an objective explanation of reality
Absolute bullshit.
>tfw the positivism meme wont die
>>437027
You are guilty of the same "baseless speculation" you accuse the philosophers of doing. In all your posts have any your statements been scientifically validated? What is the scientific basis for ANYTHING you said have said you whiny little hypocrite? Can any of your ideas be validated by the scientific method? Aren't you yourself just ranting "mai feelings?"
No? Than shut-up, by your own methodology you have no right to speak.
>>437042
Aristotle also thought that eels were born out of mud as a natural process. He was fucking retarded. And no, I did not say he came up with humors, I said blindly following ancient philosophers like Aristotle led to beliefs like the humors. His ideas on physics were retarded enough by themselves.
>>437046
I reject positivism and post-positivism because they both immediately fall into the great philosophical trap of navel gazing. "Is there anything outside the facts and data we've got?" Well fucking duh. To assume there isn't is to assume you're omniscient. You should assume you don't know everything, however what you do know in concrete terms should influence your decisions. We don't know definitively that unicorns don't exist. We do know rhinos exist. When on a trip to Africa you should prepare in case you encounter a rhino, not a unicorn, because we know there are Rhinos where you're going and there's no reason to think there's a unicorn.
Science couldn't advance if we knew everything and past experience indicates we really, REALLY do not know everything. But we should absolutely base our philosophies off of what we do know. Science and engineering tells us how to build a sturdy building. Philosophy should tell us what to do with it. It shouldn't be stuck asking if the building exists in the first place or whether we can objectively measure the experience of buildings. No. Look at sociological studies; look a psychological experiments like Calhoun's overpopulation studies and draw conclusions based upon that. Remain open to future changes based upon the assumption that science won't always give us perfect data. But don't waste fucking time speculating about bullshit science disproved long ago or wondering if what is, is.
>>437111
You cannot say Aristotle was a retard based on the fact that he said things we now know to be false. He was one of the first people to do any of that shit. Give him a break.
You're saying science gives us objective information that serves as a foundation for everything else? And that includes ontological facts? What is your basis for this?
>>437111
Do you also reject the teachings of Newton because he had ideas equally as ridiculous as Aristotle (most of his work actually dealt with the occult)?
You are basically saying if you can find one retarded thing a guy says it invalidiates everything else they said which is a terrible logical fallacy. As I explained Aristotle is important because of his work in logic and virtue both which have collosial influence in society whether you study him or not.
I'm not even sure what the hell you are complaining about this point, what philosopher is telling you that buildings do not exist? Are you hearing that they do not physically exist or that they only exist as a linguistic construct?
>>437111
>But don't waste fucking time speculating about bullshit science disproved long ago or wondering if what is, is.
Please explain how science has disproved these things.
>Realism about universals
>Nominalism
>Constant Conjunction theories of causation
> Haecceity
> The existence of minds
> Diachronic modality
> Synchronic modality
> Libertarian free will
> Substance dualism
> Neutral monism
> Entia rationis
> Modal realism
Also, how do you "prove" something through induction.
Please explain to me how science has overcome the problem of induction while we are at this.
>>437120
I do respect that Aristotle was working from basically nothing. His work in several of his books was quite impressive for the time, and actually has something like the feel of modern scientific work. What he contributed is irrelevant on the whole, however. We should discard everything he did that doesn't hold up to modern standards (basically everything) and more or less not give a fuck about his overall contributions to history. He's important in a historical context, impressive in some ways for what he did, but he should in no way be important to modern science or scientific theory.
As for whether or not science is the basis for everything else, I have a relatively simple argument. I have a car. I have a computer. I have food created from genetic modification. These things exist because science WORKS. I do not assume science knows everything and I certainly don't assume science holds any absolutes. Quite frankly I'm against the idea of jumping to absolutes period, something I feel philosophy seems to desperately crave. It wants absolute answers to everything, certainty in all things. My stance is that we should assume that we don't know everything and that we should base our current operations off of our scientific observations. Those things should be subject to change as the observations change.
Ontology itself strikes me as a silly thing to get lost in. It doesn't matter how much you think about whether or not you can actually prove a fact. Thinking about the nature of existence will never produce a cell phone. Does it matter if we know whether we can truly know if the self is what is, if the self is formed by the world or if the self is the "muh feels" of god on society? No. It does nothing practical.
>>437127
I accept the stuff that works and discard the stuff that didn't, along with the man. The data is what matters.
>>437159
So you're a pragmatist of some sort?
>>437159
Why should we base our own intellectual activity off of what gives us material benefits ? Do you have anything to support this position with ? Why does it matter that ontology won't produce a cell phone ?
>>437148
You cannot prove with certainty unicorns don't exist. You cannot prove with certainty that tomorrow we won't all wake up with squid arms and praise Cthulhu. There is however no reason to go to sleep prepared for the day when we're all squids on horned horses.
Hell, some of those things you've posted have strong scientific support. The existence of minds is pretty well supported by science - we know the brain exists, we see neural activity, we see how our thoughts move our bodies and shape the environment. We can even decode some of that information and let us see a movie someone is watching from their brain alone.
My point was never that science has disproved all of philosophy, it's that philsophy has no business going off without science as a kind of grounded backing. And it should not get lost in absolutes. Otherwise you may as well be wondering about unicorns.
>>437167
Of a sort. I won't adhere to any specific school of thought because they all get lost in bullshit-unicorn speculation past a certain point. Including pragmatism. I'm simply unwilling to move to those points. I feel that philosophy in general, including, ironcally, the philosophies based most strongly on reality inevitably just lose the plot the further in you go. They simply explore paths that are too extreme and inevitably collapse into navel-gazing.
>>437190
We are alive, we are animals. Life itself is simply a sustained chemical process that wants to spread and grow. All life seeks to replicate itself, to adapt to its environment and spread out. We're no different - when we encounter uninhabited landmasses we inevitably colonize them. We're different only in that we possess the capacity for collective learning.
Knowledge helps us in the pursuit of life's own goal. Science and the scientific method will put us on Mars and allow us to colonize it. Science lets people live in Antarctica. The practical developments we create help to fulfill our purpose as living beings.
And before you get started on it, no, sheer numbers isn't the goal. Happy and fulfilling lives are happy for a reason - our brains are designed to make positive stimulus positive. Good lives give us good health. Mental stimulation and a solid education aid in our collective learning potential. This means there's a natural equilibrium between numbers and living comfort. We should live good lives and there should be a lot of us. We should spread out to the stars and colonize every rock around every world orbiting every star in every galaxy in the universe. And if it is possible when this universe is old and cold we should leave it to find another.
Wondering whether or not you can prove the nature of a fact doesn't assist us in this goal. Philosophy should inform us of how to accomplish this goal the best. I feel that almost every school based on ancient philosophy would rather create societies of stagnation where there is no growth or change.
>>437196
Could you give an example of where exactly science could pull on philosophy's leash?
>>437222
You're giving a teleological account of life and you don't know it.
>Wondering whether or not you can prove the nature of a fact doesn't assist us in this goal.
But how do you go about proving you have reached the goal?
>>437231
you are just promoting positivism which we have already explained to you is a dead position.
>every school based on ancient philosophy
Literally all philosophy schools trace themself back to the ancient schools. Literally all of them. Because all philosophy is built on the ideas of previous philosophers you can trace their geneology back to Greece. Standing on the shoulders of giants and all that.
Even positivists will trace them-self back to Aristotle and his logic and theory of language.
Even the science you circle jerk is based on philosophy that trace itself back to ancient naturalism and skepticism.
>>437247
I'll certainly admit to being influenced by certain philosophies, including Teleology. I don't buy it in terms of natural Teleology, certainly, but I do get the underlying ideas behind it. I don't think it provides enough flexibility; it feels a bit too much like everything gets one purpose. Spreading is what life does but it has no real inherent purpose ascribed by any higher power. We determine that. Getting too deep into that line of reasoning leads to navel gazing, however, and I won't go there. I simply choose to promote humanity as a whole and our health, diversity, and prosperity as a species. The teleological reason I gave for it was really just an excuse. I suppose the truth is I don't care why as long as it supports the prosperity of mankind. Science supports that in concrete terms, hence my backing of it.
As for proving whether the goal has been completed? I don't WANT the goal to be completed. I want it to be an open-ended never ending pursuit to give mankind purpose and drive. We spread out until there is no more space, we learn all there is to learn. Then, if possible, we go elsewhere and repeat the process. Endlessly.
>>437262
I am well aware that everything traces its roots back in history to them. I simply believe that with the knowledge we have now we could go back, tear down all concrete philosophies and build new philosophy with a more stable foundation. Science produces useful things; the knowledge it has brought us should serve as that foundation. We should remake all of their arguments and frame them in a modern context. Far too much of what they did was faulty. How do we know the underpinnings of philosophy were not themselves faulty?
>>437272
>Science supports that in concrete terms, hence my backing of it.
Explain?
>>435369
>Science provides an objective explanation of reality
You have to be aware that this is very much a minority position, even among scientists.
Most of scientific academia is positivist, i.e. they consider that empirical match is the best and only measure of the quality of scientific theory, and that matters of "truth" are not really in the purview of science.
By the way, what is scientific progress, to you? How do you establish that a theory is a progress over an other one?
>>437196
> it's that philsophy has no business going off without science as a kind of grounded backing
That is a weaker proposition than the one you put forward before, but fine I won't try to grill you on semantics.
The problem is that you are putting forward allot of philosophical statements, particularly prescriptions about what we as a whole species "should" be doing. But you aren't really putting forward any arguments for why we should be doing it.
> Life itself is simply a sustained chemical process that wants to spread and grow.
Life is a property that many things have, "it" doesn't want to do anything. You are making allot of teleological statements. When you say that all life "seeks x" how do we make sense of that through science?. Science doesn't ascribe ends to things it gives us facts and mathematical abstractions.
Not only that you haven't shown why I should care about following the dictates of the teleological theory you've put forward. Even if life tends to certain ends why should I personally care about it?
>The practical developments we create help to fulfill our purpose as living beings.
Please show me the science experiments by which we can quantify "purpose". You are so deep into a metaphysical concept that has no scientific backing, and is well known to be one of the things that modern science has rejected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology
>Wondering whether or not you can prove the nature of a fact doesn't assist us in this goal
I could easily replace your teleological end goal with my own and say that since we are rational creatures with the ability to go into bold ontological questions and make sense of complex metaphysical ideas that that is our purpose as human beings to do that, rather than focusing on mere expansion- something that cancer cells are much more proficient at than we are.
This is just bizarre, I'm an Aristotelian and I think that you are the one who is too deep into teleology here.
>>437272
>I simply believe that with the knowledge we have now we could go back, tear down all concrete philosophies and build new philosophy with a more stable foundation
And this is what the non-ancient philosophers do. No one who has Aristotle as their root philosopher actually beleives in his ideas about Eels being generate by mud. And for his faulty metaphysics they either re-work to make it workable or they ignore it.
>How do we know the underpinnings of philosophy were not themselves faulty
We have had literally thousand of reworking, debating, and improving the basics of philosopher. Every once in a while a new philosopher will actually show up and obliterate a ton of old concepts. Nietzsche for instance destroyed all the old ideas about morality with his genealogy. Spinoza took a fucking hatchet job to 99% of the metaphysics before him and created a new metaphysics which is respected by people like Einstein and Steven Hawking.
The point is you need to understand all the old philosophers in order to understand the newer ones because all their ideas will be built on the old ideas. You can't understand Hegel without Plato and you can't understand Spinoza without a basic knowledge of Aristotle metaphysics. In order to understand a philosopher you need at least an entry level understanding of every other philosophy that is part of his genealogy. 20th and 21st century philosophy is highly advanced but it's even harder to understand because they have even longer geologies that you need to be familiar with.
>>437247
If you accept modern cosmology then telogy in its simplest sense is true. The universe began in a state of extreme orderliness and has wound down into increasing complexity ever since. Ofc, there is no "guiding principle" involved, no god is needed, just the interactions of purely material laws.
>>437283
>How do you establish that a theory is a progress over an other one?
Not that fag but, in order for one theory to oust another it must simultaneously explain EVERYTHING the former theory did, AND further explain some previously mysterious phenomena that the current theory does not address.
>>437272
>I simply choose to promote humanity as a whole and our health, diversity, and prosperity as a species. The teleological reason I gave for it was really just an excuse. I suppose the truth is I don't care why as long as it supports the prosperity of mankind. Science supports that in concrete terms, hence my backing of it.
I don't even need this post then.
>>437291
Listen, by all means. If all you personally care about is is the "prosperity of humanity" that is your own business. Some of us have different goals and interests. Just respect that and move on. Let philosophers do their own thing and you can do yours.
>>437279
My end goal is having us know everything there is to know and spreading everywhere there is to go. Science developed the rockets that lets us go to other worlds; it develops the machines that can extract water from Martian soil, and so on. It doesn't really matter what school of philosophy you belong to, if you're dropped off on the surface of Mars without the proper tools for survival you will die very, very quickly.
In that regard it's science that enables my end goal in a concrete manner.
>>437283
I believe there is an objective, absolute, though perhaps not fixed reality underlying everything. The universe that IS, regardless of whatever we ourselves believe or know. You can believe water will flow uphill under normal conditions on Earth all you want but the laws of physics will ensure otherwise. Science and the scientific method may or may not be able to take to that absolute truth but whatever gets us closer to it is an advancement.
>>437272
>Science supports that in concrete terms, hence my backing of it.
Aren't the rule of law, the ban of slavery and the spread of democracy not concrete enough for you? They were all advanced using philosophical and/or theological arguments. Would you really say it would make no difference to your well-being if you were born a slave under a tyrannical and arbitrary government?
>>437305
But you need philosophy in order to articulate a goal.
>>437302
>it must simultaneously explain EVERYTHING the former theory did
But how do you establish that it does, since the consequences of a theory are in infinite number?
Or do you mean only those consequences that have been already observed to be accurate?
>>437291
Well, I'll admit that early on I was heavily influenced by the concept of Eudaimonia. Fulfilling work. To me the goal I seek is kind of like giving a goal to all of mankind. It gives a reason for the scientists, the carpenters the soldiers and the bakers to exist. An end goal they're all promoting. It gives mankind a purpose that expands it and makes it more in the future than it was in the past. A future that is fulfilling to the people participating in it and also prevents and opposes stagnation.
>>437292
I would honestly like to see what would be built out of a group of non-philosophers from the modern day given a mission to make philosophy from the ground up. No outside records or research. I think it would produce something interesting; like telling a group that hasn't discovered the wheel what a wheel does and then giving them a mission to make one.
>>437304
I accept those different positions. I don't have the slightest clue why someone wouldn't have that as a goal, though. And those that would oppose that goal are people I'm actively against.
>>437307
Sorta. Those also partially depended on technology. Slavery was a moral choice for societies before machine labor. "Do my people prosper by the suffering of others?" After machine labor when most slavery was outlawed it just became, "Am I too cheap of a bastard to stop abusing others for my own prosperity?"
>>437312
I agree. In fact I feel like that's pretty much entirely what philosophy should do. Help find firm goals.
>>437332
>Slavery was a moral choice for societies before machine labor. "Do my people prosper by the suffering of others?" After machine labor when most slavery was outlawed
That is highly inaccurate, slavery was banned in Europe long before machine labour.
>>437336
I'm not saying Slavery was a universal state before machine labor. It was a choice between two possibilities. Either you enslave people and get free labor in hard, backbreaking fields or you don't and your own people do them. It was a decision between being highly cruel to certain people for your own gain or not. Many civilizations did not practice slavery.
After machines took most of the grunt work away it was no longer the same moral question. Machines provided the same benefits without the downsides, making it far less forgivable for people to take slaves. While slavery was always evil there was always the argument of, "There is no better way." You either took slaves and got the extra prosperity they brought or you didn't. After industrialization changed things this was not the case. There was a better way, so now there was now no real excuse to do it.
>>437321
When a new theory is put forward, its advocates will use it to devise possible experiments, the results of which will either support or refute the new theory. So for example, Galileo disproved the Greeks by rolling cannonballs down slopes, demonstrating that the weight of the ball does not in any way determine the speed it falls at. When Newton came up with his own fuller theory, his mathematics fully explained Gallileo's results, and also accurately modelled the motion of the planets, previously considered an unrelated topic to the idea of gravity. In turn, Einstein's mathematics perfectly explain Newton's results, while simultaneously providing an accurate model of light, previously considered an unrelated question to planetary motion. In each case, the empirical evidence used to support the former theory is not rejected, it forms part of the core "inheritance" the new theory MUST explain, before it can replace an older theory. Before then, the two will coexist and attract bands of followers,who will eagerly set out to prove the other side wrong, until one of them either does or accidentally proves himself wrong, whereupon a paradigm shift will occur and future work will base itself on the new theory and not the old one.
>>435281
There's a utility in philosophy influencing the direction of discourse, policies, values, etc.
A shift in the philosophical landscape causes different policies to be pursued towards different goals, allowing for courses of action that don't necessarily have hard evidence to support them to come about and effect things, for better or worse.
Without philosophy, how we organize ourselves would be inert. It wouldn't necessarily get worse, although stagnation in a human organization is rarely a good thing, but it wouldn't get better. We're not necessarily at any kind of end point in human organization, and we may never reach it, but the shifting in policies and values causes changeups that invigorate people.
>>437336
Something being banned has nothing to do with whether its a moral or social choice. Lots of things are banned that are not morally objectionable, while many wicked things are permitted. Europe's ban on slavery was largely hypocritical anyway, since for much of the middle ages serf were treated little better than slaves.
>>437332
>I would honestly like to see what would be built out of a group of non-philosophers from the modern day given a mission to make philosophy from the ground up. No outside records or research. I think it would produce something interesting; like telling a group that hasn't discovered the wheel what a wheel does and then giving them a mission to make one.
That's what analytics tried to do. There have been several attempts to start philosopher over from scratch. Nothing ever comes out of it, eventually they realize that they were just rediscovering ideas that were already put forth centuries ago. They took the exact route you wanted, where they wanted everything to have a basis in empiricism and science. The result was that they took decades to come to the conclusion that it's a self-refuting position. Than the 'analytic' school was dissolved.
You should actually study philosophy before you say the whole system needs to re-thought. Because it HAS been re-thought we have had countless revolutions. Some of them moved the field forward and others were dead-ends that resulted in people wasting their entire career on something stupid like positivism.
>>437352
Then how come everyone abandoned Cartesian physics in favour of Newton physics when Newton's model was unable to explain why all the planets were rotating in the same plane, and in the same direction, while Descartes model could?
Of course, you can explain the alignment of planets in a Newtonian framework, but this was done a century after Newton, long after everyone had adopted his physics.
>>437365
>Then how come everyone abandoned Cartesian physics in favour of Newton physics when Newton's model was unable to explain why all the planets were rotating in the same plane, and in the same direction, while Descartes model could?
I don't know about this particular incident, Newton was ofc a superstar AND an Anglo, so his ideas spread much further and faster than Decartes, Newton also has better math than Descartes, if you're doing sums for a living as "computers" did before the invention of the electronic computer then you're going to use the simplest set of equations you can.
Also there is nothing stopping two theories coexisting, it generally means that NEITHER is right and it takes yet another theory to resolve the disagreement. But science is self-correcting so this isn't as big a problem as it is for theology or even politics.
>>437360
>Something being banned has nothing to do with whether its a moral or social choice.
Oh right, so Jean Bodin had nothing to do with the end of slavery, and the revolutions had nothing to do with the Enlightenment?
>>437376
>Newton was ofc a superstar
So was Descartes, his system was in wide use before Newton superseded him.
>Newton also has better math than Descartes
Better in what way?
>Also there is nothing stopping two theories coexisting
They did not coexist. Newton's theory won, even though it didn't result in a strict increase of explanatory power.
>>435448
Science can describe phenomena, while philosophy can make the mode of inquiry which is scientific method better and less error free. Philosophy really is about being critical and about questioning everything, which in turn can make our thinking about particular subject better.
>>437380
>Jean Bodin had nothing to do with the end of slavery
Not really no, since slavery persisted long after his death. People can turn anything into a moral issue, this is not proof that the thing they are crusading to ban is immoral.
>>437387
Okay you're obviously butthurt about Descartes for some reason but this is all pretty irrelevant stuff. Personally I think he was a self-satisfied idiot who was wrong about nearly everything he claimed outside his math.
>Newton's theory won, even though it didn't result in a strict increase of explanatory power.
Both theories were BTFO at the same time when Einstein published. Two theories can coexist for centuries before being resolved, and when it happens it is almost always because an entirely new theory turns up seemingly out of the blue that explains both the previous theories plus a bunch of new stuff.
>>437395
>Not really no, since slavery persisted long after his death.
You know of those things called books? You can read what dead people thought in it.
>People can turn anything into a moral issue, this is not proof that the thing they are crusading to ban is immoral.
What does this have to do with anything? The bans on slavery in medieval Europe weren't enacted for economical reasons. Also, even serfs were emancipated early in some regions like Britanny and Normandy.
>>437412
>The bans on slavery in medieval Europe weren't enacted for economical reasons.
Agreed. And? This doesn't mean slavery is not an economic system,only that medieval Europeans considered it immoral and so banned it. And yes a serf's life varied according to where he lived, but so did a slaves. Serfs were slaves in all but name, given the cruel illusion of freedom with none of the usual freedoms that would suggest.
Also slavery was outlawed in Britain in 1215, your French friend had little to nothing to do with that.
>>437409
>Okay you're obviously butthurt about Descartes for some reason
Oh woaw, and I thought this was going to be civil. I don't think you understand the argument here. I'm asking you why this theory replaced the old one when it doesn't fit the criterium you gave me, which is that the new theory should explain EVERYTHING (in all caps) the old one did.
And you throw at me a bunch of things that have nothing to do with that, like the quality of Newton's math.
Man, it's like you're admitting that the only criterium of progress is actually a language-game between academics, and whoever wins is crowned "progress".
>this is all pretty irrelevant stuff
What the fuck are you talking about? The most important epistemological revolution of the modern era is "irrelevant stuff"? You funny guy.
>Two theories can coexist for centuries before being resolved
Again, this is not what happened.
>Both theories were BTFO at the same time when Einstein published.
So your definition of scientific progress only works for one theory replacement? Boy, what a totally valid and not myopic definition.
>>437422
>Agreed. And?
And moral considerations matter, which is the point.
>>437429
>I'm asking you why this theory replaced the old one when it doesn't fit the criterium you gave me, which is that the new theory should explain EVERYTHING (in all caps) the old one did.
And I told you, it didn't. People preferred one or the other according to where they were educated and what they where doing, but until Einstein came along both were viable theories.
>So your definition of scientific progress only works for one theory replacement?
No, sometimes a theory will BTFO of multiple fields simultaneously, as when QED supplanted the theories of both Electromagnetism and Thermodynamics. These sciences were treated quite separately before then, it is part of the beauty of science that progress is so often a simplification as much as it a complication. Also
>being rustled by the term butthurt
Wow, wecome to 4chan I guess.
>>437435
You are saying that slavery was not a moral choice because European morality outlawed it. This isn't even cicular, it's just vacuous.
>>437453
>And I told you, it didn't.
This is blatant revisionism. Nobody upheld the Cartesian system in the early XXth century.
>QED supplanted the theories of both Electromagnetism and Thermodynamics
Yes, I am well aware that Relativity and QED are the two big claims to fame of positivism. The problem is there really aren't that many other examples that fit the bill.
So either you admit that the positivist criteria for progress might be a little too strong, or you admit that no scientific progress ever took place other than in the first half of the XXth century.
>>437463
>You are saying that slavery was not a moral choice
I'm not saying anything of the sort. Are you by any chance defending the idea that moral argumentation isn't philosophy?
>>437475
There are two kinds of progress. A paradigm shift like QED or Darwin comes along every now and again, the rest of the time scientists are busy exploring the ramifications of their theories, gathering data and building the empirical basis of evidence upon which the next big leap will be based.
As to why mathematicians preferred Newton to Descartes, I neither know nor care. Until Einstein came along, both theories were "correct".
>>437483
You claimed that slavery was not a moral choice before mechanization because it was outlawed. Why was it outlawed? You agree it wasn't for economic reasons, but rather for moral ones. Ergo, slavery WAS a moral option before the machine age, and Europeans took the option of "no".
>>437490
>both theories were "correct".
And so under your definition the scientific community was in the wrong for rejecting the Cartesian system and widely considering the Newtonian one to be a progress?
>>437498
>You claimed that slavery was not a moral choice before mechanization because it was outlawed
No, I am arguing that mechanization in no way changed its nature as a moral choice. It is still a moral option, think of prostitution slavery.
>>437501
http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
It's not an either / or, if two theories explain the same data and neither can fully explain the other, then both are "right" until we can settle the matter, which generally means going and getting better data. Science does not claim to provide Truth, only a series of models that get closer and closer to an objective reality that is forever outside the event horizons of our own subjectivity.
>>437514
>It's not an either / or, if two theories explain the same data and neither can fully explain the other, then both are "right" until we can settle the matter
You're avoiding the question. The scientific community very much settled the matter, long before Einstein showed up.
>>437527
I don't know how many more times I can be bothered to give you same answer. Oh wait, it's zero more times.
>>437483
Not him, but slavery being a moral choice depends upon your premises. If your premises are not demonstrably true, then your conclusions are probably wrong. Their premise was that the people enslaved were less than themselves and thus why should they be afforded the same rights. To them that statement was objectively true.
But as time advanced new knowledge started overturning that premise and eventually it became an untrue statement.
>>437538
"I don't care" isn't an answer to an example that doesn't fit your worldview lad.
The scientific community entirely abandoned Cartesian physics, while according to you they should have kept it as a concurrent theory. Are you trying that the history of science is entirely irrational?
>>436403
quality underrated post
>>437562
>example that doesn't fit your worldview
Except this exemplifies my worldview. This is exactly how science progresses, two competing approaches gathering data to support their case until a new theory arises, based on the new data the rival camps generated.
>The scientific community entirely abandoned Cartesian physics
As I made clear, I don't know or care about this particular dispute. There are any number of reasons why this happened, the fact that Newton was a towering genius with a whole slewof brilliant empirical work as well as groundbreaking new mathematics while Descartes was a smug rationalist too Toad-fatuous to botherwith such crude stuff as £facts" may have had something to do with it, as may the fact that Newton's work was widely disseminated throughout the English speaking world while Decartes largely remained a Continental influence may also have contributed, as indeed may the fact that the people who used the mathematics on a daily basis preferred Newton's methods to those of Descartes.Short answer is: I don't know or care. Before Einstein, Cartesian ideas could and did have followers, after Einstein, no-one champions it.
>the history of science is entirely irrational?
Science is not a thing, it's an undertaking. People do science, people are not infallable, ergo science is not always right (or rather, it'snot EVER right, only an ever-closer approximation). Mistakes are made, egos get overblown, sometimes politics holds progress back as with the disputes between Newton and Hooke. But it doesn't matter because science is self-correcting. Whatever the current paradigm is, there are countless scientists who devote their lives to disproving it. By doing this they amass data and test existing theories at the same time. This is an ongoing historical process so ofc there is a lot of "noise", pointing this out is just tedious. You're like those creationists who cherry-pick a handful of ambiguous fossils and then weasel on about "kinds".
>>437608
The problem isn't about there being noise or not, the problem is about your idea that a new theory should account for EVERYTHING the previous one accounted for is simply too strict. You just looked at two examples, and went, "YUP THIS WORKS" instead of actually questioning your assumptions.
>I don't know or care
In what world do you live where this is an adequate reply?
>>437514
>get closer and closer to an objective reality
lel no.
all you have is models and you have no justification to say that your predictions, which are more or less verified, tells you something about a reality.
predictions of events are predictions of events, nothing else.
and you do not even know why you want to predict in the first place.
>>437608
And if you want another example, take Poisseuile's law. It works, it's empirical, and yet it can't be reproduced by quantum theory, it's not part of it, it's independant. Of course we just keep it around, because it's useful, but this is a case where switching to quantum theory led to a loss in explanatory power. Of course you can say "maybe eventually we'll manage to explain it with quantum physics", but this is an article of faith. In the meantime it makes no doubt to you or me that quantum theory was a progress.
And since it's probably time for me to explain what I consider to be progress: a successful theory is a theory that resolves conceptual issues of the previous ones while minimizing empirical anomalies. In that way it can even be less empirical and still be a progress.
Also, it should be noted that in the beginning you replied in the name of another poster who's a realist and you're in complete disagreement with him about the relation between science and truth.
>>437699
>all you have is models and you have no justification to say that your predictions, which are more or less verified, tells you something about a reality
Reality has claws. For billions of years of natural selection, organisms with representations of the world inconsistent with the real world died and left behind fewer offspring than organisms with representations consistent with reality. Whether that "reality" is truly real seems like semantic games. It will disembowl you without a thought if you don't deal with it correctly.
>>437710
That's fine and all but you're just talking about empirical consequences here, not Truth with a capital T.
If you have a regular understanding of truth, like this poster there >>437305 then you can't pretend that old scientific theories were "partially true" or anything of the sort. Phlogiston is WRONG, aristotelian distinction between natural movement and brutal movement is WRONG. And yet old theories all had a lot of correct empirical consequences, which is why they were adopted in the first place. Even phlogiston theory.
You don't need to have the truth to make a number of accurate prediction.
All you can say is you were wrong before and your current theory has not yet been shown wrong. This does not guarantee that you are getting "closer" to the truth, whatever that means.
>>437718
>accurate prediction.
there a no accurate prediction. predictions are more or less quantified, and even quantified, it remains a choice to say that they are accurate.
there a several methods wherein people have faith to quantify your faith in such or such model [through its predictions] but you never reach 100%.
you do not even know what accurate means anyway.
>>437710
this is what the hedonist believes.
>>437305
>>I believe there is an objective, absolute, though perhaps not fixed reality underlying everything.
yes sure, embrace your fantasies. in the meantime, do not hesitate to offer an experiment to disprove one of the simple thesis there is: solipsism.
>>437740
he cannot read the posts he quotes
>>435281
Science is for finding answers that we can, and until we figure out absolutely everything, assuming that is possible, philosophy will do just fine. We are allowed to have opinions, afterall
>>437962
thank you sir rationalist.
>>437962
I have just finished an introductory course in the philosophy of science, so this question gives me an opportunity to see if I understood the course material.
The problem of underdetermination of theory by data means that philosophy plays a critical role in scientific theory choice. Scientific theories are chosen primarily according to our notion of rational theory choice and Bayesean considerations. Rational theory choice considers issues such as accuracy, consistency, broad scope, simplicity, and fruitfulness. Bayesean arguments use probabilistic methods resulting from the application of Bayes' Theorem
>>437514
>>435327
>>435369
>>435439
>>437305
can you guys tell us a bit about the objective reality ? how is it in objective reality ?
what did you learn about objective reality ?
>>437222
Is this how autists view the world? What might be the endgoal for your life and in your opinion the human race may not be the endgoal for everyone else, and to not question wether current developments are inherently good will lead us on to paths we might not want to take. In science morals are important, but morals is in itself a very philosophical term thar preexists the scientific method.
>>435281
Science is "so how the fuck does this work anyway"
Philosophy is "so why the fuck are we here anyway"
Those might have overlapped in ancient times, more than now, but it doesn't mean one can replace the other.
