I often view philosophy as complete rubbish. Mindless mental musing with no goal, direction, or pragmatic capacity.
However, upon expressing these views, I'm often immediately attacked with the claims that science cannot exist without philosophy. That we can know nothing without philosophy. The terms epistemology and solipsism are oft thrown around.
As someone who understands the power of the scientific method but knows little about "proper philosophy", I may be a tad biased and uninformed in my opinion. So I'd like to ask everyone on /lit/: What are your views on the field of philosophy?
It's very big and I shall not generalise.
To philosophize is to learn how to die
>>7418273
>no pragmatic capacity
Pragmatism is literally a branch of philosophy.
Anyway, science is fantastic at using inductive claims to find how probable statements are, but its weakness is just that; it can only claim things are probable. We can use it for a lot of thungs, but its progress is limited to certain feilds and limited uses. True progress comes not from changing the data we analyze, but from changing the way we analyze altogether. This is the biggest reason philosophy is important in my opinion.
>>7418273
Philosophy is used to reason out abstract concepts that science has difficulty explaining, like death or whatever, but where philosophy runs into a wall is that it is basically a guy (usually a very smart guy) just connecting dots that may or may not be there and drawing conclusions from that. So essentially philosophy is all just persuasive writing, whether you agree with or believe what's being said is up to you.
>>7418314
very well put
>>7418273
>no pragmatic capacity
sup
>>7418317
Science is essentially persuasive writing, just relating to the physical world.
The more we analyze truth the more we reasalize it finds its roots in its persuasiveness.
>>7418315
Science and the scientific method are good for explaining things we experience with our senses. Everything else, it should stay away from.
>>7418291
ayyyyyy my nigger
>>7418320
Right behind you my nigga
>>7418320
what is the sense in posting this?
>>7418315
He was referencing Phaedo. He should have said Philosophy is preparation for death, but I'm in no mood for an autism-off
>>7418273
To put it simply, friend, science is based upon philosophical assumptions, possibly the biggest one being the assumption that an objective reality even exists. Now, science is very, very good at what it does, but since science can only explain objective phenomenon, there are many concepts that it cannot explain, which is why philosophy is still useful and relevant.
If you're interested,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ_hUxuumk0&list=PL6676C3E8A487FEE6&index=1
>>7418315
regarding the 'learning how to die' comment, I would argue that this is because Philosophy necessarily deals with the Human Condition. Be it epistemology, aesthetics, politics, metaphysics--each branch of philosophy either explicitly or implicitly deals with an aspect of our situation. Be it how we understand; how we find what we are attracted to attractive; how to govern ourselves; what we are made of, etc.--each branch of philosophy concerns itself with that which is necessarily integral to human existence. Thus, in light of this, all philosophy concerns Man--and that which concerns him most, and that which is the least knowable, the most frustrating, is death. Once you see it, it cannot be unseen; to feel is to mourn a moment's passing. The more I study science, mathematics, and philosophy, the more I see how all the pieces fit together. The more I see the puzzle come together, the more I see our insignificance in it all, and consequently the more I appreciate and fear the one thing that is able to remove from me that perspective. To philosophize is to question existence; and to do so properly, one must necessarily question one's end.
>>7418342
No I was referencing Montaigne who in turn was referencing Plato.
>>7418364
Well isn't that a twist, what's the quotes context in Montaigne? Socrates uses it (IIRC) relating to Pythagorean and Orphic views on the purification of the soul.
>>7418370
It's the title of one of his essays in his first book of essays.
He means it in the sense as the above poster, but also that philosophizing separates the mind and body (while thinking your body is pretty much dead) so it's like practicing being dead.
He reference pheado and many Latin authors like in most of his essays. It's one of his longer essays.
>>7418273
Fuck off, faggot.
>>7418379
Also his thesis is to understand and accept death, then forget about it.
