Philosophy’s Roots and Branches

Discussion of articles that appear in the magazine.

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uwot
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Re: Philosophy’s Roots and Branches

Post by uwot »

spike wrote:Well, how many ways are there in making a shoe?
You'd be surprised; I was when I dragged into the shoe museum in Toronto. http://www.batashoemuseum.ca/
spike wrote:Basically shoes are made the same way all over the world. The way of making shoes has come from experience and the most efficient way to make them.
Not down Bond Street, they're not.
spike wrote:Someone said the day has come when shoes can be made by the method of 3D printing. Now that could change the conventional utilitarian way of making shoes.
Not just shoes: http://www.shapeways.com/n12_bikini
Ansiktsburk
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Re: Philosophy’s Roots and Branches

Post by Ansiktsburk »

spike wrote:As this article points out science doesn't really need philosophy. But philosophy needs science. Otherwise, where would philosophy get its grist from.

Well, there is always history for philosophy to draw on. But history is not progressive like science. Nevertheless, we can continue to argue about things like what caused WW1 or what caused the financial crisis of 2008. Philosophizing about history can help us avoid future catastrophes. However, it is science that ultimately keeps history going.

Philosophy is more than about storytelling and putting things into context. It facilitates other disciplines. It facilitates science. It gave birth to the sciences. Today it helps keep differing factions of believers, e.g. progressives and traditionalists, from going to war with each other. For that purpose philosophy invented pragmatism, which facilitates and brokers, in education and law, a common ground for coexistence.

Perhaps it is not so visible that the 'hard' sciences need philosophy. But the 'soft' sciences do. The soft sciences are those of human governance. By philosophizing in these sciences we can formulate methods of how to improve and govern better. I would say the philosophizing about hard science serves the same purpose.
Didn´t have time to read the article until now. To comment on your post, you say that science does not need philosophy. That depends on how you look at it. Science is not just about randomly look at everything, measure everything and do some mathematic. It begins in, if not hypotheses, at least in a establishing a direction for research and ends in conclusions. And in those phases the thinking is pretty much like philosophy. So you could argue that philosophy actually is a part of science. Problems arises, as they sometimes do, when you take philosophy and rational thinking for "truth". That´s really the problem with philosophy sometimes. It searches for truths, instead of knowledge and wisdom. Science is more humble, paradigms are good enough. But people want nice little truths. No wonder it got all wrong when people of the renaissance took Aristoteles and Platon for truthtellers. The old guys were marvellous in trying to get the best possible with what they had. And my belief is that a good brain working free will always be of good value.

Above the portal to the ceremonial university house of Uppsala there is a writing:

[img]http://media.womengineer.org/2013/12/tänkafritt.jpg[/img]


"Tänka fritt är stort men tänka rätt är större" which translates to "To think freely is high but to think right is higher". And that is a little of the spirit that science has brought in. An anxiety against rational thinking, since the rational might not turn out correct. But you cannot have one without the other. You have to think freely first and then correct after.

(didnt get that picture visible, anyone who knows how to do that in this forum?)
spike
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Re: Philosophy’s Roots and Branches

Post by spike »

With this discussion about truth and whether science needs philosophy I am thinking of Ebola.

There should be no doubt of the truth that Ebola is a serious, deadly disease. And to determine the science behind it and the need to combat it there is a lot of discussion and debate involved, which, as Ansiktsburk points out, sounds pretty much like philosophy.
spike
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Re: Philosophy’s Roots and Branches

Post by spike »

In a way the roots and branches of our philosophy come from storylines and narratives. I tend to think they come more from our experiences. It's like Bertrand Russell wrote, "There is here a reciprocal causation; the circumstances of men's lives do much to determine their philosophy, but, conversely, their philosophy does much to determine their circumstances."

I get the sense that some believe that the wrong stories have been told about life and thus we have constructed a world that's false or all wrong. For instance, take the narrative about climate change. Many think it is all wrong and thus people are doing things in the present that will cause untold damage to our economies and our way of life. Others think that there is a variety of ways to tell and live the narrative, and all are valid. Others invent conspiracy narratives, believing that we have been hoodwinked by those in charge of the storytelling. And others just don't want to believe anything because that's their nature.

The interesting part is that no matter how differently one may see the storyline or the world, we all live on the same planet and have to abide by certain criteria and principles, which I call truths.

I think one thing we can all agree on is the idea of human cleanliness; we all have to wash to keep clean and from smelling. So there is a truth there. Nobody likes smelly, dirty people, unless one is blind and has no sense of smell. (Admittedly, not having those senses can deliver a different storyline, like being in a different paradigm.) But the storyline can differ about human hygiene, which comes in the form of advertising. The manufacture of hygiene products have done a serve to the world through their advertising/storylines. They have helped make the world a more bearable place by making us more attractive. But the advertising and selling of products can be over the top, when they tell us we need this or that, when we really don't. So that's a narrative I am ready to question or ignore.
uwot
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Re: Philosophy’s Roots and Branches

Post by uwot »

Ansiktsburk wrote:Science is not just about randomly look at everything, measure everything and do some mathematic. It begins in, if not hypotheses, at least in a establishing a direction for research and ends in conclusions.
Science, like every other human endeavour, starts with what people are interested in. All sorts of people are interested in how the world works; a very crude way to distinguish is to say that philosophers want to know, and if they must have a reason, it is to guide how we live. Similarly, scientists want to know, and again, if they must have a reason, it is to manipulate the environment, but any individuals motivation to do what they do is as individual as they are.
Having said that, there are sciences which if the practitioners are not measuring and doing maths, they are not doing that particular science.
Ansiktsburk wrote:And in those phases the thinking is pretty much like philosophy.
Well, yes. I do think that philosophy is essentially story telling; putting things into a context. Science also tells stories, paradigms, to use Kuhn's term. The story is 'scientific' and will be subject to revision in the light of new evidence.
Ansiktsburk wrote:So you could argue that philosophy actually is a part of science.
No argument from me.
Ansiktsburk wrote:Problems arises, as they sometimes do, when you take philosophy and rational thinking for "truth".
Every field of study is subject to that same pitfall; even science, it's down to the fact that human beings are fallible.
Ansiktsburk wrote:That´s really the problem with philosophy sometimes. It searches for truths, instead of knowledge and wisdom. Science is more humble, paradigms are good enough.
Science, like philosophy, is only as humble as the people doing it.
Ansiktsburk wrote:But people want nice little truths. No wonder it got all wrong when people of the renaissance took Aristoteles and Platon for truthtellers.
Well, they thought the same of Ptolemy, not to mention Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Ansiktsburk wrote:The old guys were marvellous in trying to get the best possible with what they had. And my belief is that a good brain working free will always be of good value.
I suppose so, but in order to determine how the world works, there is no substitute for evidence.
spike
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Re: Philosophy’s Roots and Branches

Post by spike »

In my last entry I mention advertising. And perhaps advertising is a form of philosophy and philosophizing; one of the branches of philosophy. Philosophy is a promoting of ideas like advertising is a promoting of products, and ideas. Some will see the purpose of advertising as brainwashing. Some say the same thing about philosophy. Now I am thinking that advertising is a melding of science and philosophy.

Social cohesion is import to the modern world. For social cohesion to be in abundance a lot of people have to believe in the same things and be on the same page. Philosophy and advertising have worked to build up that abundance or mass of similar thinking, so that Civilization can achieve the social cohesion needed for it to survive and continues.
uwot
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Re: Philosophy’s Roots and Branches

Post by uwot »

spike wrote:In my last entry I mention advertising. And perhaps advertising is a form of philosophy and philosophizing; one of the branches of philosophy. Philosophy is a promoting of ideas like advertising is a promoting of products, and ideas.
Well, there's advertising, proselytizing and propaganda; they are all forms of persuasion and promotion.
spike wrote:Some will see the purpose of advertising as brainwashing. Some say the same thing about philosophy. Now I am thinking that advertising is a melding of science and philosophy.
I think you could make a plausible case, but it would take some defending.
spike wrote:Social cohesion is import to the modern world. For social cohesion to be in abundance a lot of people have to believe in the same things and be on the same page.
I think the only thing we have to agree on is that any idea or ideology that isn't explicitly divisive is tolerable. I really don't like the idea that we all have to "believe in the same things".
spike wrote:Philosophy and advertising have worked to build up that abundance or mass of similar thinking, so that Civilization can achieve the social cohesion needed for it to survive and continues.
I'm not convinced that advertising has had that effect, but I do think that a bit of philosophy can teach you an appreciation of ideas which are markedly different to your own. I think this forum demonstrates that: as a general rule, the people who have made an effort to acquaint themselves with philosophers works are less inclined to lose the plot when challenged.
spike
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Re: Philosophy’s Roots and Branches

Post by spike »

uwot:
I think the only thing we have to agree on is that any idea or ideology that isn't explicitly divisive is tolerable. I really don't like the idea that we all have to "believe in the same things".
I appreciate that. But social cohesion doesn't mean we all have to "believe in the same thing". That's the great thing about living in a pluralistic society, which we've learned to do through philosophizing. But we have developed core values in order to coexist. Some of us have learned better than others. Culture has had something to do with it.

I am thinking about the Roots of philosophy. We basically have two roots, idealism and materialism. And it is often argued which one prevails. But they are sort of a tag team, like science and philosophy are, using each other in a form of catechism.

It is difficult to distinguish which root has the most influence, idealism or materialism. I tend to think that dialectic materialism - a Branch, has had a more direct influence in shaping our lives and the world. Materialism is the wedge behind which idealism grows and takes hold. It sounds backwards and perverse. Materialism seems so grubby.

I don't think that democracy (idealism) is possible without capitalism. Conversely, I don't think that capitalism is possible without democracy, in the long run. They both feed off and keep each other alive.
spike
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Re: Philosophy’s Roots and Branches

Post by spike »

The 12th Annual World Philosophy Day Celebration is coming up this month.

Some wonder if philosophers have anything to celebrate considering the mess the world is in. But is that their fault? They can't control or cure everything, as some seem to think. After all, they are dealing with a wobbly, shifting subject.

One thing they can celebrate is the Roots and Branches of philosophy. Not only did philosophers teach us how to think but also how to apply that thinking. The Roots, you could say, represent the beginning of serious thinking and the Branches, the accomplishments that have emerged from that thinking.
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attofishpi
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Re: Philosophy’s Roots and Branches

Post by attofishpi »

uwot wrote: Sun Oct 26, 2014 9:29 am https://philosophynow.org/issues/104/Ph ... d_Branches

Physics can describe the measureable qualities of fundamental particles with breathtaking accuracy. However, it cannot tell you what they are made of.
I find that statement intriguing in many ways..

Once things get broken down to that level, are 'things' 'made' of 'anything'?

Made? - context is important - since we are not talking of something actually being made, such as by a human, perhaps we are talking about the resulting observation result of some 'cause and effect'.

So if a particle cannot be broken down beyond simply its observable existence, need its existence be required to have a property in the - cause and effect principle of the term 'made'. Perhaps, when that particle does something - goes somewhere - that is fundamental to the larger picture of 'matter' and cause and effect.

uwot wrote: Sun Oct 26, 2014 9:29 amAs with the conclusions of Pythagoras, Parmenides’ conclusions aren’t so very compelling with hindsight:

“[Being] is universal, unique, immovable and complete;
Neither was it ever nor will it be, since it now is, all together,
One, continuous. For what birth would you seek of it?
From what and how did it grow?
I will not allow you to say or think that it came from nothing;
For it cannot be said, nor even perceived by the intellect
That not-being exists. And what would have stirred it into action
Later rather than earlier to arise from nothing?
So it must be absolutely or not at all.”

What makes Parmenides’ treatment so strange to us is that he appears to have had no concept of ‘being’ as anything other than material, in the way that the elements or the apeiron were supposed to be. To Parmenides, ‘being’ is some sort of ‘stuff’.
It also seem Parmenides is touching on consciousness itself. It would be great to go back in time and ask something like, 'so when you are dead, is there 'being'?'

I guess the answer would be, the fact that one was alive is testament to his belief that 'things' exist, always have and always will (unless I am misunderstanding) - it appears he is talking of 'being' this stuff we tend to call matter as eternal, since his opinion, nothing can come from nothing.

uwot wrote: Sun Oct 26, 2014 9:29 amA key point in his argument is that there can be no such thing as ‘not-being’; that the very idea of ‘not-being being’ is contradictory. Given the materialistic sense that Parmenides has of ‘being’, this means there is no such thing as empty space. As a result, change is impossible, because for any change to happen one bit of being would have to move into an unoccupied space, that is, somewhere there is ‘not-being’, but this is impossible, as there exists no ‘not-being’. Accordingly, ‘being’ is unified (‘one’), flawless, infinite, and eternal; hence reality is very different to most men’s opinions, and certainly to their experiences.
He is accurate though, no? - no contradiction if materialism includes particles? (sorry for my lack of philosophical terminology, and its defining boundaries.)

uwot wrote:As Thales’ followers discovered, different stories can account for the same facts. In the intervening centuries, there have been any number of theories about what it’s all about. Some are demonstrably untrue – the Earth isn’t the centre of the Solar System – but others are harder to dispel. One response is to accept that there are things that science alone simply cannot tell us, and if we wish to make sense of all the phenomena we experience, we have no option but to gather the most accurate data and try to create a narrative that fits with this data.

Purely empirical science doesn’t need such stories – it doesn’t need philosophy. But we are storytellers, and what are facts without a context?
I've gone through the thread and see this last line has pretty much been the most debated statement. I have read your replies and it makes sense to me, in as you state, purely EMPIRICAL science.

Can we observe it? No? Then let me get on with the math of what I can observe and stop jibber-jabbing!!

Of course and see that you have clarified, philosophy is still a worthy pursuit for the sciences if not to the degree it was in antiquity - where it certainly was the ground base to start that thing we tend to do, fink!

I may be wrong, but to me philosophy includes imagination for setting goals\targets, perhaps even reading science-fiction where a goal can be conceived. Teleportation for example. Ok, so someone thought of it - that's the goal, how do we achieve it?
To me philosophy at this point of time is like designing a computer program. It is lunacy to just start writing the code (science - doing the maths etc..).
Logical steps need to planned out first ensuring nothing is overlooked, things need to be looked at philosophically - especially with something as wacky as teleportation for example.

Anyway, as already discussed with you, the history of man's pursuit for knowledge is fascinating, I hope you keep knocking out more of this type of literature.
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Re: Philosophy’s Roots and Branches

Post by uwot »

attofishpi wrote: Sat Oct 23, 2021 7:44 am
uwot wrote: Sun Oct 26, 2014 9:29 am https://philosophynow.org/issues/104/Ph ... d_Branches
Physics can describe the measureable qualities of fundamental particles with breathtaking accuracy. However, it cannot tell you what they are made of.
I find that statement intriguing in many ways..
Once things get broken down to that level, are 'things' 'made' of 'anything'?
Well, in my view, science is primarily about what happens, rather than why. If there is nothing to see, there is no science. What scientists do is measure observations, repeatedly and accurately, to see if there is a pattern, and if so to describe it mathematically. So, the question of whether things are made of anything is philosophical one. For example, the idea that everything is just ideas in the mind of some god is entirely consistent with the observations. Whether it is true or not makes no difference to how we build rockets.
attofishpi wrote: Sat Oct 23, 2021 7:44 amIt also seem Parmenides is touching on consciousness itself. It would be great to go back in time and ask something like, 'so when you are dead, is there 'being'?'
I guess the answer would be, the fact that one was alive is testament to his belief that 'things' exist, always have and always will (unless I am misunderstanding) - it appears he is talking of 'being' this stuff we tend to call matter as eternal, since his opinion, nothing can come from nothing.
Parmenides cocked up his logic. He went from 'Nothing doesn't exist' to 'There is no nothing', but his theory has a lot in common with contemporary 'block universe' models which claim that the entire history of the universe is present and that our experience is just a small thread in a huge tapestry. In some versions the block is eternal, so that thread is eternal; in effect, you are immortal. Don't buy it myself, but you never know.
attofishpi wrote: Sat Oct 23, 2021 7:44 amI may be wrong, but to me philosophy includes imagination for setting goals\targets...
I completely agree.
attofishpi wrote: Sat Oct 23, 2021 7:44 am...perhaps even reading science-fiction...
Ah well, if yer into science fiction, check out XX by my mate Rian Hughes. https://www.amazon.co.uk/XX-Novel-Graph ... 1906863288
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Re: Philosophy’s Roots and Branches

Post by Dubious »

Sometimes it seems that something are simply variations on the theme of nothing creating the fundamentals which allow it to emerge into everything else.

Or put another way, essentially the same way, sometimes it seems the most fundamental particles, whether quarks or strings or something yet unknown, are simply variations on the theme of Nothing which may be the most fundamental particle of all - when speaking of particles - from which a few fundamentals derive vastly multiplying the variations possible due to their properties and processes creating the kind of emergence described in classical physics. I'd call existence between strings and galaxies the physics of illusion creating the reality. Weird stuff!

Just me rambling! I admit in advance this could simply be an idiot hypothesis upgraded to a moron theory.
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attofishpi
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Re: Philosophy’s Roots and Branches

Post by attofishpi »

uwot wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 10:22 pmAh well, if yer into science fiction, check out XX by my mate Rian Hughes. https://www.amazon.co.uk/XX-Novel-Graph ... 1906863288
Will have a look.
uwot
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Re: Philosophy’s Roots and Branches

Post by uwot »

Dubious wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 11:07 pmSometimes it seems that something are simply variations on the theme of nothing creating the fundamentals which allow it to emerge into everything else.
Do you mean something like this? "What we observe as material bodies and forces are nothing but shapes and variations in the structure of space." Erwin Schrödinger
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Re: Philosophy’s Roots and Branches

Post by Impenitent »

did the cat know when the box was opened?

-Imp
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