What advancments has philosophy made in the past 40 years?

Science kicks philosophy’s ass. judo chop

Surely in order to concieve of great scientific concepts we must also think of things in a philisophical way?

@Barbs20 I find math concepts work best.

They are indeed the language of the universe.

@Barbs20
I would agree to this, but why do many philosophers try so hard in answering questions like do we have free will? Surely they should work along the science on what they are debating.

I cant answer that. They are just using their ability to think in a less progressive way maybe. I dont know why though.

I think they have to validate and rationalise their place at Universities. Not saying that they shouldn’t be pointed in the other direction, though. Social work and humanities is where they belong.

They are not interchangeable. Without philosophy, there is no science.

I agree with Josie. In order to be a scientist you must also be able to think in a philisophical way.

I don’t think philosophy will ever the prominence that it once did before the rise of science. There are, however, some important questions regarding ethics and values that arise from our use of technology. Someone I find of interest is Michael Sandel

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=13737

Here’s a great blog and if your too lazy to read here’s a great text to speech site.

http://www.ivona.com/online/editor.php

I think you may be reading the wrong philosophers, then. Many do incorporate science. For example, one of the changes in philosophy over the last 40 years is consideration of the rights of nonhuman animals, which is in large part due to increased knowledge of how similar they are to us, neurologically, psychologically, etc.

There’s the simulation hypothesis.

I can understand most of the science I read, at least in a superficial way. But the philosophy – even the millennia old stuff – takes much more time to understand. Perhaps we ordinary folks don’t get to see the new and exciting philosophy “discoveries”. It’s not like USA today is going to cover them.

Philosophy makes progress all the time; but the problems of philosophy are more difficult than the problems of science, so the progress made is often slower. Moreover, anyone who values science cannot rationally reject the value of philosophy, as science is a product of philosophy. Nor is it merely a product that has spun off and separated completely. Einstein and Minkowski engaged in philosophical debates about the proper way to formulate relativity, for example, and the entire program of cognitive science has been shaped by philosophical debates about artificial intelligence and philosophy of mind. There is simply no such thing as science without philosophical baggage.

As for the role of empirical data in philosophy, I think you’ll find that we philosophers have been incorporating such information since Thales (c. 624 BCE – c. 546 BCE). Indeed, Thales is considered the first philosopher precisely because he rejected mythological explanations in favor of what could be broadly labeled “naturalistic” explanations. The Greek notion of what is natural is different than ours today, but that’s progress for you.

Finally, philosophy is perhaps most fundamentally about a question science cannot answer: how shall we live our lives? Questions of ethics, politics, and value can be partially informed by empirical data—and again, such data has played a role since the advent of philosophy—but the questions must be decided on other grounds. No one can escape these questions. Even suicide is a form of answering them. Philosophy, then, is quite literally a matter of life and death.

Having had at least a little experience in the study of phisophy, and science, while in college…
I am still curious about this assumption that science and philosophy are somehow interchangeable or in competition.

One of the three major branches of philosophy is epistemology.

Science occurs within the realm of epistemology.

Without epistemology, there is no science.

Without philosophy, there is no epistemology.

Philosophy is the pathway TO science, not something in competition with science.

@SavoirFaire wrote: ‘but the problems of philosophy are more difficult than the problems of philosophy,’ That is philosophy in a nutshell.

I do not deny the role philosophy has in the development of science. Never ever would I do that. It’s all about asking those wonderful questions…‘Why’... and ‘Why not.’......

My only problem is when some people philosophy when they should be using science. So, I have no problem with philosophy, only the misuse of it, I guess you could say.

@josie Exactly correct.

@cazzie I think if you look you’ll see that I wrote “but the problems of philosophy are more difficult than the problems of science.” Subtle difference, but important.

@cazzie: Are you sure that that is the quote?

OH.. you fixed it.. aint editing grand.

I cut and pasted, so you can’t tell me that what I wrote was mistaken. Just… pre-taken perhaps.

@cazzie I edited it within four seconds of the original post, which is nine minutes before your response. As for having a problem with the misuse of philosophy, that is an empty thing to say. I assume you also have a problem with the misuse of forks in various circumstances, but it’s probably not worth bringing up out of the blue.

Well, see…. I’m in a different time zone…..lol Seriously.. forget that part… I knew it was a typo when I grabbed it.. it had to be. but focus on the rest of my post. I don’t deny the importance of the field. Not at all.

Philosophy often leads the way for science. Logic did that in Aristotle’s time, and was advanced again more recently by Frege – without whom, we might have fallen far behind from where we are, as a species, in the field of computer science. Psychology, probably the most useful social science, grew out of philosophy. I suspect the very contemporary field of philosophy of the mind is going to have a huge impacts in coming years, on perhaps biology, engineering, computing, and psychology, as true artificial intelligences may become possible – or are shown to perhaps be impossible.

@bolwerk do you feel then that philosophy teaches logic and logical thinking… even critical thinking?

@cazzie: logic is generally regarded as a branch of philosophy. I suppose you could say it’s a science too, though I see it more as foundational for science. But I don’t see how you could have critical thinking without logic, if that’s what you’re asking.

Or if you’re asking if learning philosophy critically sharpens people, sure, I’d agree with that. I don’t see how an educated person can lack some acquaintance with it, in any case.

@bolwerk ehhh? I was more looking for a recommendation on a book or a name of a philosophical doctrine that will point me in the direction of critical thinking and logic.

Some of the greatest scientists were also philosophers.

@cazzie: I’m not one for doctrinal stuff, but if you’re looking for a basic book on logic, I haven’t read one in ten years myself. I would think any well-written text for an undergraduate “Introduction to Logic” class would at least have the right material in it. At the intro level, it’s not a very hard subject and IMHO is one that should be taught in early high school. Such texts will usually cover informal logic (this includes common fallacies like red herrings, ad hominems, straw men, etc. – the things pedantic Internet tards are always accusing each other of), deductive logic (Aristotle’s categorical logic, Fregian truth sentences), and inductive logic (empirical arguments, strength, weakness, etc.).

(Made a typo above – corrected “branch of critical thinking” to “branch of philosophy.” Apologies!)

When a philosophical theory is proven then it becomes a scientific fact. Without philosophy there would be no science, and in a way science is a philosophy.

@lemming

Theories are never proven in science (though they can be disproved), and never “graduate” to facts. Theories are systems of thought that attempt to explain observable phenomena- or facts- in our world.

@crisw you must know more about it than me, but I thought that was what the scientific method was, first comes the theory or the hypothises and after it is proven time and time again it becomes a scientific fact.

False dichotomy. Philosophy helps us understand how to order inquiries, science gives a system through which to carry them out.

@lemming

No, not quite. Here’s an explanation of the differences.

From that page-
“One often hears the naive critic of science say “it’s only a theory”, meaning that it is “unproven” and once “proven” will become a law or a fact. This is not surprising, because such a notion is consistent with what is sometimes erroneously taught in Junior High General Science classes. The statement is, nonetheless, completely false and demonstrates two common misunderstandings about science.

The first misunderstanding is that science “proves” theories. Theories are never “proven” in the absolute sense of mathematics. (Indeed, often mathematical theorems are not proven absolutely, but that’s another discussion.) Theories are only confirmed by observation; but such confirmation is always tentative. No matter how well or how long a scientific theory has been confirmed, it is always subject to falsification or correction by new observations.”

I suspect that the work of Edward de Bono has influenced many to advance.

@lemming: to try to clarify/summarize what @crisw said a little, a hypothesis in science is what is more akin to the word “theory” in day-to-day communication. A theory in science is more like a framework drawn from empirical data, laws, and even other theories to explain observable phenomena. Saying the theory of natural selection explains biological evolution is not the same thing as I have a theory that dick stole my ham sandwich.

That’s why, when you hear people dismiss evolution as “just a theory,” you can bet the person doesn’t know what s/he’s talking about.

I think I should stick to interpreting dreams and relationship advice… but thanks guys :)

This question deserves a lot more lurve.

I’d say in the philosophy of science. Karl Popper comes to mind.

@mattbrowne Thanks for that!

Some specific examples:

-Paul Grice’s work on conversational implicature, which helped us overcome the limitations of Austin and the ordinary language philosophers.

-The whole of John Rawls’ vastly influential political philosophy, which defends the liberal tradition (in the broad sense) from various contenders; and if you don’t like that, Robert Nozick’s libertarian response.

-The moral philosophies of John Mackie and Richard Joyce have pushed us away from attempting to ground ethics in metaphysics (a fruitless pursuit), allowing the focus to shift toward virtue ethics and a renewed interest in a well-being model of value (Derek Parfit, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Wayne Sumner are just a few of the major figures involved here).

-Since free will was mentioned, we could also point to Dan Dennett’s Freedom Evolves—an excellent defense of compatibilism which draws on evolutionary considerations for its arguments.

I don’t think @lemming‘s response was all that off the mark. You guys are referring to how scientific theories don’t graduate to scientific law (which is true of course) in your criticism of his statement, but @lemming was quite accurate in his original statement. Basically, philosophy seeks to understand the world using reason, the mind and thought experiments to answer questions of our universe. When better tools become available through science to give definitive answers on those questions, then they “graduate” from being philosophical theories to scientific fact. In other words, philosophy can “move up” to science, but scientific theories don’t change into scientific laws—they are two separate issues.

One example is the nature of matter. For many centuries, philosophers debated the nature of what things were made of, but as tools like magnifying lenses, microscopes, microspectrometers and atom-smashers were invented, those questions have “graduated” into the realms of chemistry microbiology and physics.

As noted by others above, there are philosophy of mind questions that have informed and shaped the research into Neurology, and Psychology. As hard science begins to answer them through observation and experimentation, then those questions will gradually leave the realm of Philosophy.

@cazzie Philosophy IS logic and critical thinking. Those are the fundamental toolset of a philosopher, just as paints and canvas are to a painter. Some people have this mistaken mental picture of philosophers sitting in a room on a mat smoking pot and “philosophizing” on stuff that’s “way deep.” Philosophy is nothing like this in practice and is quite possibly the most mentally rigorous of any discipline of study (it’s like being cross-examined by Good Will Hunting).

@gorillapaws I disagree that anything proven is thereby science. The Liar paradox is a philosophical problem, but my solution to it—assuming it is correct and proven to be so—is not a scientific one. What I think causes this confusion is that many problems are not purely philosophical or purely scientific. They have elements of each discipline, but the philosophical problems often have to be solved before the scientific ones can be. So we see a sort of progression where philosophers work on one part of the problem followed by scientists working on another part of the problem and conclude—erroneously—that the problem stopped being philosophical and became scientific. As a full explanation of the problem’s solution would still require both elements, however, it seems fair to me that we say the problem remains interdisciplinary.

Moreover, I would suggest that the progression we seem to see is not quite accurate. Questions arise out of both disciplines (science is not merely reacting to philosophy in all cases), and those questions “cross the border” in both directions (questions that begin as philosophical ones become scientific ones in addition, and questions that begin as scientific ones become philosophical ones in addition). Nor does the philosophical work on a question end once science gets involved (and similarly, the scientific work on a question does not end once philosophy gets involved). Such questions become and remain interdisciplinary, though sometimes even those working on them can lose sight of this fact.

@SavoirFaire I think those are fair points. I’m thinking of philosophy mostly in the historical context, where philosophers were really trying to do the work of scientists before they had the tools of science (biology, geology, physics, astronomy, etc.). Wouldn’t you agree that the evolution of the various scientific disciplines were spun off from their philosophical roots?

I do agree that I painted an overly simplistic picture of the various interrelationships.

I think I’d rather sit at the knee of a ‘scientist philosopher’ than a ‘philosopher scientist’ if you get my meaning. But I repeat, so that my real meaning here isn’t lost:
I do not deny the role philosophy has in the development of science. Never, ever would I do that. It’s all about asking those wonderful questions…‘Why’... and ‘Why not.’......
My only problem is when some people philosophy when they should be using science. So, I have no problem with philosophy, only the misuse of it, I guess you could say.

Here’s an interesting tidbit for everyone. When Norway stuck oil in the 70’s… the government didn’t hire an economist to help them figure out what to do, they consulted a philosopher. Damn straight. So, I would NEVER seriously minimise the study or field of philosophy. It’s important. It’s reflective and it has an uncanny ability, when used properly, to see the future unfold. I praise the wisdom and insight it took to take this wonderful resource we have and put it in public hands and kick the greedy corporate interest out when the time came.

@cazzie I’m still confused by the ‘scientist philosopher’ vs. ‘philosopher scientist’ statement. Either a philosopher is rigorous with logic, and critical thinking, or he is a bad philosopher. Likewise, either a scientist is rigorous with measurements, observation, procedure, analysis and critical thinking, or she is a bad scientist.

Have you ever taken a philosophy course before @cazzie? They have a lot more in common with math classes than they do liberal-arts classes.

@gorillapaws Yes, I do agree that the various branches of science were spun off from their philosophical roots. I’m not sure that proof has anything to do with the split, however, so much as what you mention in your more recent response: the availability of certain tools. But given that clarification, I think you are quite correct.

@cazzie Not sure I get your meaning either.

Both Science and Philosophy sit at a very important table. They measure each other.
@gorillapaws Not all those who have taken a class or two in philosophy are qualified to direct the reach of science. That is all I’m saying…. Too many times, I see philosophy students, as well intended as they are, reach beyond logic, trying to impose a set of principals that are personal and grenset… what is the English for that…. Bordered…fenced.. by their own prejudice and feelings. That’s all I’m saying. A well trained scientist will out-produce a philosopher, when it comes to useful stuff.

@cazzie “Too many times, I see philosophy students… reach beyond logic, trying to impose a set of principals that are personal and grenset… Bordered…fenced.. by their own prejudice and feelings”

Could you give some examples. I’m still having a hard time understanding what the issues may be. I also suspect you may not fully understand what philosophy is and how it works.