Philosophy is a hobby. No. It is a way of life.

Post Reply New Topic

Hi MarcusTulliusCicero,

A current philosopher that is making a substantial contribution to human knowledge of the world is Quentin Meillassoux. He follows much of the school of Alain Badiou. A recent book of his is "After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency" (2010). His work may greatly help to avoid the pitfalls in other philosophies that fog the notion between facts and "knowing" facts. The confusing fog often gets careless philosophers lost in being overly all facted up, at the expense of weighing the perceptions as contigencies of both observing and knowing these "facts". Older simplistic and deceptive, loop-hole ridden, arguments would follow the line of "the fact of a crater on the opposite side of the Moon" is a "fact that rules", but in actuality, is just a "Human Knowing" of a conjecture based on observations and applied hypotheticals.

A better founded concept of a "continency" may help more individuals realize the value, and continuing great useful functionality, of Skinnerian Behaviourism, both as the philosophy of human behaviour, and as a solid basis for valid and objective principles of a science of human behaviour, as is widely used currently in most training and educational programs. "Operant Conditioning" often is so successful, that animals display "human qualities" in their behaviours, which ruveyn's "facting" requirement for his picking and choosing of standards of "facts", demonstrates an example of the "what is", over any "flow" across space-time, being prone to stuck on the present only conceptualization of "fact":


Cutting the continued "flawed use" of the "Big Bag of Biased Facts Through Usages", and instead doing what is most useful and contingent on the "necessarily contingently loaded facts" as observed and known through perceptions, would avoid being lost, or drowning in, useless facts obscuring those relevant and useful ones within techniques of perception, and more likely escaping the crude limits of realms of needless, and frustrating, bias.

Tadzio

Hi Marcus. Hm. I thought you were warning me about the 'I think its a badger' posts. I actually laughed at that one btw.

But Ruveyn is actually providing real criticism. And I actually started this thread hoping for this kind of conversation. Although I didn't know that there were poeple that hated philosophy. I just thought this thread would be about understanding what philosophy is and its purpose. I had no idea that I would be defending it from people who bash it. Either way, this works fine.

I don't hate philosophy. analytic philosophy deals with the meta theory surrounding our epistemological procedures and principles. It is a tool for finding inconsistencies and weaknesses in the way we think. Analytic philosophy also relates our ways of knowing with our linguistic habits. After all almost all our thought has to be framed in some language or another. So as a critical tool, as a testing device it has a use. The grand metaphysical monstrosities of the past however of of no positive use, and have actually impeded real science. Look at the effect of Aristotle's nonsense on getting to real physics. Aristotle's physics and metaphysics held up real science for over one thousand years.

I see philosophy of the analytical variety as being a tool of limited use. Within its domain it can do real service by pointing our errors and weaknesses, but it cannot make any positive contribution.

Philosophy has a limited role as a regulatory and test mechanism for our thinking.

ruveyn

Well said.

I see what you mean about holding science up. But can you blame Aristotle? Do you think you or I, put in that era, would have been *smarter* and would have steered away from those mistakes? I don't think so because they did not have the knowledge that we have. They were bullshitting with nothing to disapprove the BS. Now we have a lot of scientific background knowledge that steers us away from asking the some of the stupid questions that Aristotle asked. My point is that we would have asked the same stupid questions had we not already learned all this scientific background knowledge.

But I disagree that philosophy has a limited role for our thinking. What philosophy does is attempt to keep fallacy out of thinking. And it helps us determine fallacy in other's arguments.

If people learned how to identify fallacy in arguments, then they would not be tricked by politicians. Do you realize how many people worldwide are tricked like this on a constant basis? Bringing back philosophy into education and to society in general, would serve to let people see through the fog of propaganda. Without this, politicians will continue to manipulate and ignore us. And in a democracy where my neighbors' votes affect me, I maintain that they have the responsibility of trying to make sense of politics. Without the ability to think effectively and recognize fallacy, this task is futile.

This is precisely the regulatory function I was getting at. Philosophy properly done is a workable error detector. In that sense, it has a use.

ruveyn

Hi JakobVirgil and John_Browning,

Do you realize that science was born from philosophy? And that if not for philosophical inquiry, we would not have had scientific inquiry?

--If yes, then why are you angry?

--If no, how else do you think that Isaac Newton created Classical Mechanics?

I definitely agree with you on this one.

I am generally going to have to side with the anti-philosophers.

That's nice, but actually it doesn't matter. One can say that "a philosophy" adds value, without valuing the entire subject area meant by the term "philosophy". After all, scientific method works in a manner different than the method used by what we tend to label "philosophy" and because of that, one can still say that they think science is successful, while perceiving "philosophy" as not successful. Especially given that for all practical purposes, "science" has a different label than "philosophy", signifying that in our practice we can make a separation.


No, "Continental Philosophy" is the label for a set of philosophies that came into existence around the 19th century and is on-going, that is labeled such because of how it is associated with the mainland of Europe. It isn't "the old philosophy" as it doesn't refer to Greek philosophy, or Medieval philosophy or Enlightenment philosophy. In fact, it really doesn't even refer to a philosophical movement at all, only a set of interwoven philosophies with some similarities. However, yes, existentialism is considered a continental philosophy, it just isn't the only continental philosophy and other philosophies in that group don't necessarily talk about "To be or not to be".

As for "the new philosophy", honestly.... I don't actually know what you are talking about. Efforts to interweave philosophy and science are not new, and the issue is how well this interweaving is done. I also don't know of any philosophy called "scientific philosophy". At minimum, the label doesn't have a wikipedia article, and many movements(even relatively minor ones) in philosophy have that.


Most philosophical efforts ARE academic, and never applicable to real life. The issues we can apply to real life we often call "Critical thinking" and we have no practical reason to call that "philosophy" unless we want to conflate basic critical thinking with deep metaphysical pondering, even though there is a practical difference.


Not sure... Some of it, yes. Some of it does look very informed though. For example, Chris Hallquist both had his academic degree in philosophy, but also has a masters in the subject, but he doesn't think highly of it. http://www.uncrediblehallq.net/2011/07/ ... unctional/

http://www.uncrediblehallq.net/2011/07/ ... beneficia/

In general, I would agree with that kind of criticism. Some people are very very inflationary on this subject area, but... I get the feeling that this is a mood and intuition, more than this is an intellectually coercive concern. After all, the problem is still that philosophy is dysfunctional and this undermines any possible value from even attempting to get involved in philosophy, especially the more abstract it gets.

I think he probably means "analytic philosophy" or maybe even "late 20th - early 21st analytic philosophy" when referring to "scientific philosophy", given he contrasted it with "continental philosophy", Analytic philosophy's traditionally conceived of as the branch of philosophy more open and synergistic with scientific insights, I've even met a philosophy undergrad who once told me that he thought analytic philosophy was wrong because it didn't realize that "science needs a first philosophy to get off the ground".



Err.... while there's a lot of bunk and BS that gets into the more "metaphysical" elements of philosophy, I think that solving philosophical puzzles (or, rather, using linguistic analysis and scientific insight to dissolve them) can still be a fun thing to do with one's intellect that more generally improves one's abstract verbal reasoning skills.



I find the correlation-causation problem with philosophical study and critical thinking skills interesting. I think it'd be an interesting experiment to measure how well a philosophy major's critical thinking skills, after taking the course, compare to those who've completed other majors via some standardized critical thinking test.

Most of "modern" science involves initial crude experiments that are changed by trial-and-error, and when "good" results are obtained, if the experiment can be easily repeated for the good results, the experiment becomes more of a standard practice for the desired good results.

Steam engines are an example. The "theory" and "laws" for the science of steam engines followed the development and first usages of the steam engines. The "philosophy" of the science of steam engines developed much later.

Trying to develop "unknown steam engines" from philosophy didn't work (despite simple spinning toys powered by steam in Ancient Rome), and schools of philosophy were more of an obstacle for nearly 2,000 years in developing industrial technology ( Aristophanes' comedy 'The Clouds' was a presage of philosophy often being more of a drawback than benefit). The history of "concrete" is another example of the "Christian" philosophies destroying concrete progress ( Some have stated that the secret of concrete was lost for 13 centuries until 1756: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete ). There's that banned Gibbon too!! !

The design of high quality steam engines led to the extensive development of the science of thermodynamics, which led to many modern philosophies.

With the philosophy of the techniques used in education, B. F. Skinner's opening in his book "About Behaviorism" named the resultant philosophy, after developing the most useful practices and concepts: "Behaviorism is not the science of human behavior; it is the philosophy of that science".

Trying discovery backwards (from firstly, the philosophy of the science, to secondly, the science), mostly useless theories and murky concepts are developed, instead of any useful science. Whether if any more abstract and more remote forms of epistemology, including the ontological technicalities, workable with radical Skinnerian Behaviorism, will be a further useful benefit to more advancement, or a major roadblock of useless mumbo-jumbo, is difficult to foresee. But, at least, in nuclear physics, very abstract mathematical models have guided the way to fruitful discoveries.

Tadzio

The problem is that analytic philosophy is not really that science oriented. I mean, yes, the logical positivists were science-oriented, and it is more open to science, but most of the rest of it is pretty much not "scientific" and is not immune to the common criticisms people have on philosophy.


Well, ok, but that's a different thing than just critical thinking. Critical thinking is just the kind of thinking used to handle basic logic and basic inferences. While it's continuous with philosophy, we can still in practice draw the distinction between the mere application of this, and reasoning abstractly about metaphysics or something else of that nature.


Eh, I can see that point. I would even imagine that philosophers do better on a purely critical thinking test. The issue is just that what is ignored is where a focus on philosophy stands in terms of cost/benefit. While average critical thinking improvements may be higher, sphere-specific improvement may be lower, and certain elements of general knowledge may also fail to increase as much, depending on the circumstance.

I disagree. Consider the Scientific Method, which is part of Science, and the Socratic Method, which is part of Philosophy:
--A method is more complex than its derivation, i.e. a method is higher order than its derivation.
--The Scientific Method was born from of the Socratic Method.
--The Scientific Method is a derivation of the Socratic Method.
--The Socratic Method is more complex than the Scientific Method.
--What does all of this mean?
--Consider the number of situations that each method can be applied in.
--The Socratic Method can be applied to literally all situations that humans can think of while the Scientific Method can only be applied to a subset of that, i.e. things that are measurable by our current technology.

Do you agree? If not, which statement specifically do you disagree with and why?


That sounds right.

Scientific Philosophy is NOT an interweave of philosophy with science. Scientific philosophy believes that philosophy is one more science and that it should apply the hypothetical-deductive method like any other science.

So if a field is new. And if wikipedia has not caught on yet. Does that make the field invalid?

--If so, why?

--If not, why did you mention it? Are you suggesting that the popularity of something determines its value? If yes, then you're proving my point. My point was that Scientific Philosophy, and philosophy in general, is not popular enough and that we need to make it more popular.


"Critical Thinking" is not philosophizing unless it is systematized. Critical Thinking using the Socratic Method is considered philosophizing.

You are confusing philosophy with a subset of philosophy. I agree that metaphysical talk is horses**t. But with the proper use of philosophy, we can easily deduce a question that explains away all the metaphysical talk.

Can metaphysical questions help me in my life? Can the answers even be known? My stance is that they can not. Therefore, I do not ask metaphysical questions.

Last edited by rombomb2 on 15 Dec 2011, 3:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

Your right. Scientific Philosophy disagrees with Analytic Philosophy because it is not scientific, i.e. it does not employ the hypothetical-deductive method.


Yes there is a very simple distinction. If the Critical Thinking is systematized, then it is Philosophizing.


I agree. I will add one more comment. I claim that mastering the Socratic Method *dramatically* increases intelligence.

These questions are for everyone.

Do you disagree? If so, how do you know? You haven't mastered it, so how would you know?

Do you think that a concept that could dramatically increase intelligence is worthy of being learned?

in ancient Greece, only 2 types of beings were thought to have wisdom. Gods and Sages: because they did have wisdom. Foolish people: because they thought they had wisdom. and Philosophers were in between Foolish people and Sages because they were aware they didn't have wisdom and strived to gain it

I think that I am going go ahead and venture something that may seem obvious, but considering how many times the assertion was maintained, that the Socratic and scientific method were not only compatible but are synonyms, it should fall to someone to correct the record, and I might as well be the one who does so; I find that fallacies, even bizarre ones such as repetition ad absurda (done so as to back up the more recognizable fallacies also employed, most important to this matter being the posters' appeals to his/her authority) mustn't be pandered to, or havoc may ensue.

This thread, however, went above and beyond, almost to the extent that by the time my chub fingers started to type, everything had an air of reducio ad absurdum, which might explain why I saw a chipmunk during this sentence. At least, I hope it does...

But I digress. Look, though, I don't bring up fallacies and the fact that things have gone all so wrong in the reasoning displayed by the poster's corpus in order to be insulting... indeed, that would by my own reasoning be fallacy ridden ad hominem drivel, so please try to understand that before you bother responding, and, if you have time, it'd be Aces if you knew there was no ill intent in this refutation. Enough digression, though, onto the heart of the matter:

The scientific method is in place for one purpose and one purpose only: that data can go through the process of falsification, so that null data can be, well, nullified. If my hypothesis is as follows: "when x approaches the limit of y, x approaches negative zero" then my hypothesis would have a mean time of this, and I'd have to concede, although, I have to say, I almost got limits right in that bad example. Peer review + scientific method = progress.

I'm not appealing to my own authority here, it must be said. That would defeat the purpose and would indeed do little to help my case. No, I appeal only to the faculties present when the final part of the problem is considered, and that is no small matter in itself so let's get right to it: If I present a hypothesis in philosophy, even if it is a matter that is obviously laughable, like, say, perhaps, solipsism (that I am creating the entire universe and responsible for all human understanding), there is no possible way for you to nullify my haphazard thinking. You can attempt to reason your way out of my self-sided thinking, like Plato and oh so many caves, but then you would be stuck with the prospect of using Plato (who liked to use Socrates visage to overcome his own solipsism) to refute this principle, and as most people know, that would effectively nullify your whole argument (everything attributed to Plato Plato attributed to Socrates, as you probably know, and these Platonic ideas and ideals did nothing to stop either hemlock or the assertion that all art was useless... and I know these parentheticals and ellipses are causing me to make little sense, but that last bit, Plato attributing to another Form [Socrates] his Essence, is really the nail in the coffin. Or at least until my next paragraph, where I finalize my demonstration of the thesis.)

(Seriously, parentheticals are like caves, Socrates, ISN'T IT)

Ok, ok... enough with the parentheticals. I didn't want to respond by merely approaching your so-called Socratic questions on their own merits; namely, because they didn't seem to follow any rule/narrative structure other than that of non sequitur. My main point, and my problem with the false equivalence between Socratic questioning (Philosophy as a whole, actually) and the scientific method, is that I could necessarily prove your oft-cited demonstrations Absolutely False merely by doing so in a manner that guaranteed you would not only object to, but call it buffoonish and a straw man to boot. If you don't absolutely agree with both, the horrible incomprehensible mess that is this and the assertion that it proved you wrong, then you would HAVE to concede that you were wrong in the first case. If you disagree with me, however, you can feel free to show it by trying to refute me. The problem, however, is that even if there was a chance in Nero you could be right, I certainly wouldn't say so... again, not scientific, not in the slightest.



Oh well, to all that aren't up to seeing me having fun with fallacies-via-autofellatio, then I would suggest you check out a man named Cicero. Didn't say much, not about Socrates anyway, but he's considered to be the founding father of logic (a branch of philosophy). He used his logical prowess, his knowledge of syllogism (AEO), all the highest ideals that make people know how to say fallacy, he did all of it to call Mark Antony a pederast and steal the Republic. Again, not the Scientific Method, or scientist would be in the pockets of Big Brother.

Finally drawing out some real criticism. Yes I have used fallacies. Some unintentionally. Some intentionally. But I don't mind using them if it draws more people into the conversation.

But I still disagree with you on the relationship between the Socratic Method and Scientific Method. You've claimed that I said they are synonyms. But I have not. I claimed that the Scientific Method is a derivation of the Socratic Method. Consider the steps involved in the two methods. Note how they are different, or rather how similar they are.

1. Wonder.
--Pose a question.

2. Suggest Hypothesis.
--Suggest a plausible answer (a *definition/theory*) from which some *conceptually/empirically* testable hypothetical propositions can be deduced.

3. Peer-reviewed Testing it.
--(Socratic) *Construct and perform a thought experiment by imagining a case which conforms to the hypothesis but clearly fails to exemplify the hypothesis. Such cases, if successful, are called counterexamples. (Scientific) Construct and perform an experiment which makes it possible to observe whether the consequences specified in one of more of those hypothetical propositions actually follow when the conditions specified in the same proposition(s) pertain.*
--If the experiment fails, return to step 2, else go to step 4.

4. Accept the hypothesis as provisionally true.
--(Socratic) Return to step 3 if you can conceive any other case which may show the answer to be defective.
--(Scientific) Return to step 3 if there are other predictable consequences of the theory which have not been experimentally confirmed.

5. Act accordingly.

How is the Scientific Method different than the Socratic Method? It only works for situations that can be empirically tested with our current technology.

Before you answer this, ask yourself this question. Who created the two methods? We know who made the Socratic Method. So who added the *empirical* requirement? It was Aristotle. And who did he learn the Socratic Method from? Plato, who learned it from Socrates. And more requirements were added later. The new method came to be known as the Scientific Method. Therefore, it was a derivation of its parent method.

Last edited by rombomb2 on 15 Dec 2011, 9:36 am, edited 1 time in total.