Hugo Holbling

Ah, the delicious irony! I wholly agree with you, per Feyerabend's methodological critique, and am decidedly sympathetic to the notion that philosophy has no business acting as an autistic meta-narrative concerning itself with scientific praxis. This is why I’m always critical of philosophies of science without feeling the need to infect the world with my own ideas, nor to constrain a creative process devoid of common method; a circumstance that appears to have escaped your notice. Unfortunately it's necessary to be conversant in the philosophy of science to be critical of it.

However, when the talk turns to religion you seem to adopt emotional language and a naive realism that is asking to be hammered, and i'm happy to oblige, just as surely as i'd go after any pronouncements from the Popperian Gospels. If you've studied the scientists you say you have (and i've no reason to doubt you) it makes it all the more inexplicable.

Please indulge me, then: didn't you come across instrumentalism and the strong distaste for realism in Bohr and Einstein, perhaps the most famous for these? It hardly requires a deep reading as both were very active in the philosophy of science.

I think you have my number.

Starboy

Hugo, I am not a realist. I am not sure how a philosopher would classify my thoughts on science and reality. I only put one limit on any scientific work, that it be tested by observation and experimentation on nature. I make no attempt to provide a precise definition of observables or measurements. All that I require is that whatever I come up with can be communicated to others and that they are capable of taking that communication and reproducing my results. It is perfectly fine to reuse or build upon previous work and to agree upon common standards. I make no claims that science is the “truth” of reality. The only claim I make is that it provides working explanations of reality. By working what I mean is that if a person can follow a recipe they can expect to get the claimed results. The explanations are not reality itself but merely devices we use to understand it the best we can. The experimental method cannot absolutely distinguish between “true” or “false” explanations. To think that it does would be to presume that we already knew everything about reality. Philosophers that create philosophies about science are making claims about reality. Unfortunately they do not have the methods that scientists have to support such claims. They think that if they use logic and presumed “truths” that their results will be valid. What they don’t get is that they would first have to show that their approach has any validity in reality by experimentation. But if they did that they would not be doing the philosophy of science, they would be doing the science of science.

Starboy

Pyrrho

When you say, "philosophy as it exists today is having a hard time explaining why it is important", I cannot help but think that you are misunderstanding me. You might be interested in what I have had to say about recent philosophy in another thread. You might particularly enjoy the book by Stove recommended in my second post in that thread. Even if we agree that most "philosophers" today are not very worthwhile, that does not mean that the subject as a whole is equally worthless. Yet that is what you appear to be saying.

It seems rather odd that you apparently have a disparaging attitude toward mathematics, and yet you praise science. Surely you know that science would be in a very poor state without mathematics? And you must know that we use mathematics in very many day-to-day activities. So why do have a disparaging attitude toward mathematics? Or am I simply misunderstanding you?

It also seems odd that you would regard philosophy as worthless, for surely you regard the study of logic, with an interest in informal fallacies, as something that would be of benefit for many people? If not, then please explain why you don't regard such studies as useful?


Regarding another post of yours:

I was merely enquiring about your reading, since you stated that you were "none the wiser" for having read it. I meant to imply nothing by my question; it was only a question. I did not mean to imply anything about your background; I simply wished to find out something about it, since you stated that whatever it was that you had read was not very helpful. My apologies if I expressed myself unclearly.

However, I do mean to say that I disagree with you if you believe that philosophy is completely useless, which is what you appear to have been saying. I am convinced that studying informal fallacies, for example, is something that is very useful, as people are too apt to commit them. Naturally, such a study does not make one immune from committing such fallacies in the future, though it often seems to lessen the number of fallacies that people commit. That, in my opinion, is valuable. Do you disagree with me on this?

I meant to point out that (what I state in the previous paragraph) with one of my other questions; I did not mean to imply anything about your background with any of my questions.


I believe you may find the writings of David Hume to be of interest, though I doubt that you will read anything based upon my recommendation. I believe you may find many things in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding to be interesting, and some of it you may even regard as valuable. Of course, I expect that you would not enjoy it in its entirety, but that does not mean that it would not be worthwhile taking a look at it. To give you just one example that I think you would find interesting, his Section X, "Of Miracles", explains why people should never believe stories that they hear about miracles. Naturally, most people either simply ignore what he had to say, or misrepresent it and then "refute" their misrepresentation of it, rather than accept what he says (or actually refute what he says, which I believe would be impossible, though I am willing to take a look at something that purports to be a refutation). So, in a way, his writing is "useless" for most people, as they do not benefit from it. That, however, does not mean that he was incorrect, or that what he says is unimportant to think about.

Starboy

Pyrrho, please do not get me wrong. I think that mathematics is a great intellectual pursuit and despite the wishes of most mathematicians has shown to be very useful. You see Pyrrho, pure mathematicians generally look down on reality. From their point of view nothing can compare to the universes of association they can create. My hat is off to them, but my passion is reality.

Worthless is a harsh word and is too extreme. As Mark Twain once said “No man is completely worthless. He can at least be used as a bad example!” Yes, logic and fallacies are philosophy. Yes they can be useful. I wish more philosophers would use them. However in this day and age philosophy doesn’t have a corner on teaching critical thinking. If philosophy went away it would not be the end of logic, I am sure the mathematicians could fill in quite nicely. Then students could get a double whammy of useful knowledge, logic and mathematics. As for critical thinking I would defer to the scientists not the philosophers. Especially when you consider some of the stuff they are still trying to pass off as critical thinking such as Okham’s razor or Descartes. And please no dissembling. That crap is still being taught this very moment.

But lastly I think philosophy is just plain off the mark. There was a revolution in thinking and they never got the memo. “Truth” is not reality. Science is the new way of knowing about reality that understands this. I would like you to try an experiment. I would like you to spend some time wrapping you head around the idea that philosophy confuses “truth” with reality. That it doesn’t make sense to mark a bit of knowledge as “true” when you can’t even remotely claim that you know reality. Once you have this idea firmly in hand read some philosophy. It will grate on you like fingernails on a chalkboard.

Starboy