Philosophy, from the Greek words philos and sophia meaning "love of wisdom".
If our definition of philosophy is following the path to wisdom, where ever it may lead, we can make a case that path leads outside of thought, a state where philosophy might be said to be dead.
Within the divisive arena of thought, the great minds will spend thousands of years arguing about whose discipline is dead, with each camp struggling to achieve final victory over the others. Somehow this doesn't smell like wisdom.
Wisdom would seem to be something more like standing outside of all the arguments, observing the debate unfold carefully with objectivity, which implies a detachment from conclusions.
Why do they muddle the questions "Does science make religion obsolete?" and "Does science make philosophy obsolete?"
My answer to both questions would be "no." Reason makes religion obsolete and science is a branch of philosophy. Science itself does not discuss ethical questions for instance.
Why do they muddle the questions "Does science make religion obsolete?" and "Does science make philosophy obsolete?"
My answer to both questions would be "no." Reason makes religion obsolete and science is a branch of philosophy. Science itself does not discuss ethical questions for instance.
Yes, science is descriptive. You can argue that philosophy is a branch of science. It is used to provide science with an underlying basis and and examination of its methodologies. There is much in science that can demonstrate the obsolescence of many branches of philosophy, but this leaves many unanswered or unaddressed questions that despite their having no possible answer have need of discussion.
Religion ought to be long gone, however. At this point in the development of science it seems pointless to ground the answers to important question on a fictional being.
chaz wyman wrote:
Yes, science is descriptive. You can argue that philosophy is a branch of science. It is used to provide science with an underlying basis and and examination of its methodologies. There is much in science that can demonstrate the obsolescence of many branches of philosophy, but this leaves many unanswered or unaddressed questions that despite their having no possible answer have need of discussion.
Perhaps. I was thinkin in Eurocentric terms and by "science" I meant natural science. Ancient Greek physics is a branch of philosophy.
chaz wyman wrote:Religion ought to be long gone, however. At this point in the development of science it seems pointless to ground the answers to important question on a fictional being.
I argue that at the time of Thales, reasonable people could have done away with theistic concepts. Several philosophers in the 6th century BC did. There were also atheist elements in some Indian philosophies like jainism and buddhism.
chaz wyman wrote:
Yes, science is descriptive. You can argue that philosophy is a branch of science. It is used to provide science with an underlying basis and and examination of its methodologies. There is much in science that can demonstrate the obsolescence of many branches of philosophy, but this leaves many unanswered or unaddressed questions that despite their having no possible answer have need of discussion.
Perhaps. I was thinkin in Eurocentric terms and by "science" I meant natural science. Ancient Greek physics is a branch of philosophy.
I was thinking of the moves made by the Vienna school of logical positivism and the analytical philosophy of Wittgenstein and Russell whose work led to the idea that philosophy was sort of relegated to a second level position of serving the needs of science.
I think that this was somewhat premature as the scinetification of the social and historical sciences has not been as successful as they had hoped.
chaz wyman wrote:Religion ought to be long gone, however. At this point in the development of science it seems pointless to ground the answers to important question on a fictional being.
I argue that at the time of Thales, reasonable people could have done away with theistic concepts. Several philosophers in the 6th century BC did. There were also atheist elements in some Indian philosophies like jainism and buddhism.
It is curious to me that anti-theistic philosophy has been with us from the start, and even Ockham formally presented all the rebuttals necessary to squash the so-called proofs of god's existence from way back when. Despite reasonable dis-proofs theism has thrived, until the 19thC.
lancek4 wrote:The boundaries of a paradigm can be defined by the periodic culmination of positive assertions.
The name of dialectics says no more, to begin with, than that objects do not go into their concepts without leaving a remainder, that they come to contradict the traditional norm of adequacy. In this way the boundaries you talk of are restrictions to the true aims and goals of the dialectic process in that the remainders are thrown off by the wayside and left out of the equations. So all positive assertions are bound to be measured by the inadequacy by which their negation is found. All dialectic thus formed in the way you suggest do nothing more than to assert the pressing need for the negation of the negation.
Thus your childish conception of the dialectic, and upon which you hold so much store indicates "the untruth of identity, the fact that the concept does not exhaust the thing conceived" as Adorno would put it. ANd shows beyond a doubt that you do not understand the dialectic as you are so fond of accusing others of.
Last edited by chaz wyman on Sun Dec 05, 2010 7:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
lancek4 wrote:The boundaries of a paradigm can be defined by the periodic culmination of positive assertions.
The name of dialectics says no more, to begin with, than that objects do not go into their concepts without leaving a remainder, that they come to contradict the traditional norm of adequacy. In this way the boundaries you talk of are restrictions to the true aims and goals of the dialectic process in that the remainders are thrown off by the wayside and left out of the equations. So all positive assertions are bound to be measured by the inadequacy by which their negation is found. All dialectic thus formed in the way you suggest do nothing more than to assert the pressing need for the negation of the negation.
Thus your childish conception of the dialectic, and upon which you hold so much store indicates "the untruth of identity, the fact that the concept does not exhaust the thing conceived" as Adorno would put it. ANd shows beyond a doubt that you do not understand the dialectic as you are so fond of accusing others of.
I admit you are much more informed of definition than I. And yes, I agree with you here. It makes sense.
I guess I am pointing to the illusion of progress, and the apparency of progress.
It seems like we are progressing in understanding of our reality; but then again, it seems like we get nowhere but reiterating the same things others have already said but we are putting it in different terms for our day thinking we are stating something new.
lancek4 wrote:The boundaries of a paradigm can be defined by the periodic culmination of positive assertions.
The name of dialectics says no more, to begin with, than that objects do not go into their concepts without leaving a remainder, that they come to contradict the traditional norm of adequacy. In this way the boundaries you talk of are restrictions to the true aims and goals of the dialectic process in that the remainders are thrown off by the wayside and left out of the equations. So all positive assertions are bound to be measured by the inadequacy by which their negation is found. All dialectic thus formed in the way you suggest do nothing more than to assert the pressing need for the negation of the negation.
Thus your childish conception of the dialectic, and upon which you hold so much store indicates "the untruth of identity, the fact that the concept does not exhaust the thing conceived" as Adorno would put it. ANd shows beyond a doubt that you do not understand the dialectic as you are so fond of accusing others of.
I admit you are much more informed of definition than I. And yes, I agree with you here. It makes sense.
I guess I am pointing to the illusion of progress, and the apparency of progress.
It seems like we are progressing in understanding of our reality; but then again, it seems like we get nowhere but reiterating the same things others have already said but we are putting it in different terms for our day thinking we are stating something new.
Which do you see?
Dialectical progress is always a recourse as well, to that which fell victim to the progressing concept; the concept’s progressive concretion is its self-correction. And yet of the while we have the certainty of the analytic philosophy that taunts us, with the inevitability of Euclid. We might try to cast our triangles on the curves surfaces of eggs to prove his axioms wrong but we all know that He is still applicable, and the casting of the non-euclidian form of maths asserts the value of Euclid by negation. And what then is the progress in the understanding is not by the precision of logic and the passage of time. The transition of logic to time would like, as far as consciousness is able, to make up to time for the wrongs done to it by logic—by the logic without which, on the other hand, time would not be. You might say that this is the realm of dominion to which men progressively submit. With the strength of these means science proclaims the death of philosophy by assuming its own ontological security. Some initiates of science expect it to be decisively supplemented by ontology without their having to touch the scientific procedures. The scientist produces the 'just so' story without the need to consult his preconceptions; preconceptions based upon an assumed objectivity - a place from which his standing may permit no recognition of the ultimate subjection of EVERY position. And thus with a hubristic sweep he denies all before him and declares the death of philosophy, with less irony than Nietzsche declared the death of god. Yet is it not true that all scientists have done this since the beginning of time? Since the sciences’ irrevocable farewell to idealistic philosophy, the successful sciences are no longer seeking to legitimize themselves otherwise than by a statement of their method, and thus by this new method the negation of the need for philosophy is re-born. The question is when will the machinations of philosophy once again render the surety of science void, so that the subsequent death of philosophy will one day have to be re-cast. The dialectic between philosophy and science must continue ad nauseum.
What are the differences between times when philosophy and science resided more indistinguishably from each other and our own?
Perhaps philosophy has detached from science altogether in some way that Hawking senses as death. Science has gone into immense detail and taxonomy, like a man who has developed a huge business empire and has no time left for his twin sister - even to the point of declaring her dead - and whose life is to travel poorly in obscure lands.
One thing is for sure: if philosophy is dead, so is science.
Dialectical progress is always a recourse as well, to that which fell victim to the progressing concept; the concept’s progressive concretion is its self-correction. And yet of the while we have the certainty of the analytic philosophy that taunts us, with the inevitability of Euclid. We might try to cast our triangles on the curves surfaces of eggs to prove his axioms wrong but we all know that He is still applicable, and the casting of the non-euclidian form of maths asserts the value of Euclid by negation. And what then is the progress in the understanding is not by the precision of logic and the passage of time. The transition of logic to time would like, as far as consciousness is able, to make up to time for the wrongs done to it by logic—by the logic without which, on the other hand, time would not be. You might say that this is the realm of dominion to which men progressively submit. With the strength of these means science proclaims the death of philosophy by assuming its own ontological security. Some initiates of science expect it to be decisively supplemented by ontology without their having to touch the scientific procedures. The scientist produces the 'just so' story without the need to consult his preconceptions; preconceptions based upon an assumed objectivity - a place from which his standing may permit no recognition of the ultimate subjection of EVERY position. And thus with a hubristic sweep he denies all before him and declares the death of philosophy, with less irony than Nietzsche declared the death of god. Yet is it not true that all scientists have done this since the beginning of time? Since the sciences’ irrevocable farewell to idealistic philosophy, the successful sciences are no longer seeking to legitimize themselves otherwise than by a statement of their method, and thus by this new method the negation of the need for philosophy is re-born. The question is when will the machinations of philosophy once again render the surety of science void, so that the subsequent death of philosophy will one day have to be re-cast. The dialectic between philosophy and science must continue ad nauseum.[/quote] This has got to be the best thing Ive heard from you so far. Though I do not agree with some of it, as it spells out some of the reasons behind your past assertions, indeed, it has a 'meditative' tambre to it.
And, it reminds me of a thesis I wrote that proposes that science speaks of and describes "the way itself (science) speaks", and not of any 'objective' universe -- similar (but not easily seen) to the point you (I think) are making here
Bernard wrote:What are the differences between times when philosophy and science resided more indistinguishably from each other and our own?
Perhaps philosophy has detached from science altogether in some way that Hawking senses as death. Science has gone into immense detail and taxonomy, like a man who has developed a huge business empire and has no time left for his twin sister - even to the point of declaring her dead - and whose life is to travel poorly in obscure lands.
One thing is for sure: if philosophy is dead, so is science.
and scientists.