Why philosophy sucks

[ZenRaiden]

Everytime philosophy addresses a practical problem it quickly gets snatched up by some other branch of human intellectual pursuits so eventually its like always moving boundry between philosophy and doing something useful. Each time something useful gets done its called either math or physics, or chemistry or whatever.

In the old days philosopher was everything. He simply could do math and hed be called a philosopher. He could do alchemy and hed be called a philosopher. He could construct a huge ship and hed still be philosopher.

 

[JansenDowel]

Everytime philosophy addresses a practical problem it quickly gets snatched up by some other branch of human intellectual pursuits so eventually its like always moving boundry between philosophy and doing something useful. Each time something useful gets done its called either math or physics, or chemistry or whatever.

In the old days philosopher was everything. He simply could do math and hed be called a philosopher. He could do alchemy and hed be called a philosopher. He could construct a huge ship and hed still be philosopher.

But why does philosophy suck? Epistemology has not been sucked up by mathematics or science. Neither has moral philosophy..

 

[ZenRaiden]

But why does philosophy suck? Epistemology has not been sucked up by mathematics or science. Neither has moral philosophy..

Both morality and epistemology will have same kind of fate. Its just matter of time till the frontiers are devalued from the branch of philosophy it was originating in.

 

[JansenDowel]

But why does philosophy suck? Epistemology has not been sucked up by mathematics or science. Neither has moral philosophy..

Both morality and epistemology will have same kind of fate. Its just matter of time till the frontiers are devalued from the branch of philosophy it was originating in.

I doubt it... Epistemology is about reason, not science. Science is merely a branch of reason, a species of reason if you will. Epistemology is so much bigger than science will ever be.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

Well in the early Enlightenment days, things were simply less specialized – everything related to systematic reasoning was philosophy, like Newton's Principia was "natural philosophy" and people like Descrates were doing mathematics, anatomy, natural science and philosophy (in the modern sense of the word) all at once. Naturally as we have become more sophisticated in all these various fields, people have become forced to specialize in order to achieve anything of value. So to me, philosophy is no different than math or science – it's all systematic reasoning applied in different subjects.

 

[Pizzabeak]

Some assumption that philosophy was a priori the best, or something?

 

[onesteptwostep]

Like Serac said, philosophy is just a fancy way of saying 'reasoning' or 'argumentation'. First philosophy, the "philosophy" of the pre-Socratics, was basically a mash up of ontology and chemistry. Everything.. is water... or air.. or fire, and so on.

Any meta-scientific debate, any political debate, is pretty much in the arena of philosophy, whether they realize it or not.

 

[lolzcry]

philosophy is no different than math or science – it's all systematic reasoning applied in different subjects.

Yep, totally agree with you on this one. All of them are essentially looking at the same thing in different ways, at some point they will probably all be connected we just have'nt found it yet. Kinda like how physics has two major fields of study- classical physics and quantum mechanics with both being study of the same things just at different scales.

 

[JansenDowel]

philosophy is no different than math or science – it's all systematic reasoning applied in different subjects.

Yep, totally agree with you on this one. All of them are essentially looking at the same thing in different ways, at some point they will probably all be connected we just have'nt found it yet. Kinda like how physics has two major fields of study- classical physics and quantum mechanics with both being study of the same things just at different scales.

We do know how they are connected though... They all require creative conjecture and criticism.

You cant generate mathematical axioms without a bit of creative speculation and a lot of criticism. Likewise you can't generate philosophical and scientific theories without a bit of creative speculation and criticism.

The interesting question here, I think, is what other species of reason this process might apply to. What other realms of human knowledge might we discover in the future. I think it's nieve to think there will only ever be science, mathematics and philosophy.

Anyway, Serac will tell you the conjecture and criticism only applies to science. But that just isn't true.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Add a hypothesis and experiments to philosophy and you get science. Psychology is literally just this. Descartes philosophized that the mind and body were separate (dualism). That is he used his reasoning, supplied with the knowledge of the time, to come to his conclusion. That is he was speculating. Of course philosophy has lost it's wings because we want to know the actual nature of the universe not have arguments that have been festering for hundreds of years. Psychology will be had by neuroscience, but it will provide a great lens to examine it. Philosophy now only serves as a way to orient yourself in the world in general if you ask me, that is at least the way most people use it.

The interesting question here, I think, is what other species of reason this process might apply to. What other realms of human knowledge might we discover in the future. I think it's nieve to think there will only ever be science, mathematics and philosophy.

Anyway, Serac will tell you the conjecture and criticism only applies to science. But that just isn't true.

I'm sorry am I missing something here? Science/philosophy/math are the studies of natural world/knowledge/math. Two of them are tools and the other is quantity+abstraction. We apply them to make sense of the world but the way you wrote about them made it seem as if they were on the level of physics -> quantum physics. Are you saying that we will discover different tools for reasoning or something else?

 

[JansenDowel]

I'm sorry am I missing something here? Science/philosophy/math are the studies of natural world/knowledge/math. Two of them are tools and the other is quantity+abstraction. We apply them to make sense of the world but the way you wrote about them made it seem as if they were on the level of physics -> quantum physics. Are you saying that we will discover different tools for reasoning or something else?

I don't know what you mean by "on the level of physics -> quantum physics".

What I said is all 3 require a process of conjecture and criticism to discover truth. A mathematician must go through a process conjecture and criticism to discover axiomatic truths. Scientists and philosophers must go through conjecture and criticism to discover true explanations. That's all.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Ah my mistake I misread what you wrote. I thought you were conflating critical thinking (creativity and conjecture) with a field of study (like physics), and then going on to imply we would discover something else outside of critical thinking. Like, bitch what? Looking at it now that is clearly not what you wrote.

 

[JansenDowel]

Ah my mistake I misread what you wrote. I thought you were conflating critical thinking (creativity and conjecture) with a field of study (like physics), and then going on to imply we would discover something else outside of critical thinking. Like, bitch what? Looking at it now that is clearly not what you wrote.

Oh no. Absolutely not.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

@JansenDowel Discover axiomatic “truths” in math? As usual I would say you seem to have a very inconsistent view on what math is. How do you refute an axiom?

 

[JansenDowel]

@JansenDowel Discover axiomatic “truths” in math? As usual I would say you seem to have a very inconsistent view on what math is. How do you refute an axiom?

Lol easy. Show why it doesn't make sense. Do you have any idea how many revisions the axioms within geometry and number theory went through? What about the controversies within Set theory? Clearly not.

 

[gilliatt]

Three questions I ask: Where am I? How do I know it? What should I do? I am in Guernsey, that is self-evident. How do I know it. It is self-evident. What should I do? Whatever everybody else does. Well, I do not see a lot of happy people in the world, not very confident, they fear, undefined guilt etc. The point is there is only one science that can answer these questions, that is philosophy. Philosophy studies the fundamental nature of existence, of man, man's relationship to existence. Cognition, the special science of the trees, but philosophy is the soil which makes the forest possible.
Philosophy does not tell me I am in Guernsey. but it gives me the means to find out. Here is what it would tell me: Are you in a universe which is ruled by natural laws, is stable, firm, absolute and knowable? Or are you in a incomprehensible chaos, inexplicable miracles, unpredictable, which I can never understand. Are the things you see around you real? or illusion, are they created by the observer , by man's consciousness? Are they what they are or can they be changed by a simple wish, etc.

 

[ANAXEL]

Three questions I ask: Where am I? How do I know it? What should I do? I am in Guernsey, that is self-evident. How do I know it. It is self-evident. What should I do? Whatever everybody else does. Well, I do not see a lot of happy people in the world, not very confident, they fear, undefined guilt etc. The point is there is only one science that can answer these questions, that is philosophy. Philosophy studies the fundamental nature of existence, of man, man's relationship to existence. Cognition, the special science of the trees, but philosophy is the soil which makes the forest possible.
Philosophy does not tell me I am in Guernsey. but it gives me the means to find out. Here is what it would tell me: Are you in a universe which is ruled by natural laws, is stable, firm, absolute and knowable? Or are you in a incomprehensible chaos, inexplicable miracles, unpredictable, which I can never understand. Are the things you see around you real? or illusion, are they created by the observer , by man's consciousness? Are they what they are or can they be changed by a simple wish, etc.

Beautiful.
You would think this was an inherent aspect of human beings, thinking about all the circumstances we find ourselves under and consider them deeply until we are moved to change.

I think what was meant originally with this thread was to turn down the undue praise to certain biased philosophies. I totally get that.
However, as different philosophies will fade away with the acquisition of more accurate knowledge, to philosophy (the action) will never go away. It’s too much a basic need: a philosopher finds himself occupied in scrutinizing the conjectures of life. Whatever study and model is sustained to analogously make sense of a more abstract concept may be refined and thus disappear but, again, not philosophy itself.
We’ll always need it.

 

[Rebis]

That is the function of philsophy in the modern world, to consider the natural of reality and postulate new systems we can use to percieve that reality. It is a creative hub, and since the last effective philosopher is wittgenstein, we can arbitrarily say our information is becoming more categorical, and thus needs an entry-level requirement for abstractions (as such with the physical sciences), so philosophy, in it's essence, rarely serves a functional purpose in a world that's increasingly dominanted by complex, man-made systems.

Consider philosophy the progeny of subjects which rationale and logic are used to predict an outcome.