Philosophy Now Forum

It may not make much difference when it comes to the cosmos but human endeavor on earth has done much to reverse and combat entropy. That is the aim of human labour, to renew and replace those things consumed, worn out or depleted by entropy. The point is that it is through this struggle that humans...

coberst: "I suspect that the way to judge how well a domain of knowledge is like science is to discover if it does or does not have a paradigm." Doesn't a domain of knowledge always have a paradigm, some kind of paradigm? Otherwise, it could not be known. "Like Kuhn notes in his book ...

Thank you.

Those are good questions asked of physics.

It is important that professions question their actions. And who best to do that, philosophers.

Rortabend,

How might one philosophize about physics? What kind of questions might a philosopher ask of physics?

I ask in all sincerity.

bus2,

I bet Weinberg also disdains political scientists because they are dealing mainly in abstractions and loose concepts. Weinberg probably prides himself with working with tangibles and the 'real' world. And he probably doesn't believe in metaphysics or phenomenon.

Rortabend, Perhaps you can expand on the problem Steven Weinberg has with philosophers of science. Is it that he doesn't like them asking ethical questions about what science is up to? Maybe Weinberg doesn't like to be questioned or second guessed. I think there are two kinds of scientists, ones lik...

"To be sure, we still have philosophical congresses. The philosophers meet but, unfortunately, not the philosophies. The philosophies lack the unity of a mental space in which they might exist for and act on one another." That quote is imposing something on philosophers they are not. They ...

Great!

Great cover also!

I just got my print addition of issue 70 and feel better for it. I find it much more interesting than the last one.

I understand the print edition of issue 70 is out. Where is the Internet edition????

Great!

Thank you Rick.

I'm waiting for issue 70. The last issue left me wanting.

This looks interesting, that it may be relevant to the subject: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/lee_ ... cracy.html

Brazil is still a developing country economically. Only recently has it become a major economic powerhouse. Thus economic development is only now having an impact in curtailing the population growth. Also, Brazil is still quite a religious country where the Church still has a lot of influence, an in...

"....there’s no discernable validity to the hypothesis that economic development will tackle population growth." However, economic development has deterred population growth, albeit inadvertently. Industrial societies, as opposed to agrarian societies, have fewer children because not so ma...