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Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#291

Post by brownbat »

13415 wrote: post #226
brownbat wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he cites a consensus in personal belief in atheism and agnostics among philosophers... as a good reason for philosophy not accepting the existence of God... It seems incredibly unlikely someone would cite the popularity of agnosticism to establish the certainty of atheism, so I am fairly confident that was not the move he was making. Looking back at the prompt: > "Your colleague David Chalmers has fretted that “the…

The two are not mutually exclusive, you can be an atheist or theist agnostic, but also a positive or negative atheist. You probably mean the colloquial use of agnostic for negative atheist - the position of someone who does not believe that a god/supernatural being exists -, in contrast to positive atheism, the position of someone who believes that there is no god/supernatural being. There is no problem with this col…

> You probably mean...

I was just quoting someone else's use, I didn't really mean anything by it.

I've read about Anthony Flew's framework, but it still seems like unnecessary architecture to me, since I still haven't encountered situations where lay terms fail to describe someone's position in a reasonable way.

But you know, come to think, if there's one thing religion has taught me-- people can self describe however they like, and there's no sense fighting them on it. If people want to be called just plain atheists, or negative atheists, or double plus agnostics, or pastafarians, that's fine, I can go with whatever everybody's preference is.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#292

Post by civility »

FabHK wrote: post #281
civility wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to sound too snarky, but "moved on" sounds like we're talking about fashion... Has modus tollens moved on too? I haven't studied modern philosophy (or Popper), but if there is a concise explanation I'd like to hear it.

Yeah, sorry for the very short comment, and "moving on" was the wrong word. So, first, Popper's Logic of Scientific Discovery is actually from 1934 (!), not the 60s. As an introduction, Alan F. Chalmers' What Is This Thing Called Science? is good. It covers Popper in chapters 5 to 7 (Introduction & Naive Falsificationism, Sophisticated Falsificationism, Limitations). Then it moves on (as it were) to Thomas Kuhn's The…

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. You've added some things to my reading list. :-)

Not to contradict anything you've said, but my original message above was in response to something very different than I think you're talking about. I see a lot of comments where people seem to treat Science as some unquestionable list of facts and treat Scientists reverently. It's like they've made a religion out of it and don't dare question the priests - which is ironic/silly when they're refuting conventional religions.

Anyways, maybe my current view is a little too hard line on good science relying on falsification, but I still reject the notion that any scientific belief is verifiable / provable. A given theory may be the best we have, but a new piece of information could change it radically.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#293

Post by civility »

drostie wrote: post #187
civility wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to sound too snarky, but "moved on" sounds like we're talking about fashion... Has modus tollens moved on too? I haven't studied modern philosophy (or Popper), but if there is a concise explanation I'd like to hear it.

I mean the biggest thing was Kuhn coming along and saying "experimentally, it doesn't work that way." What I mean is, people don't find an experiment about nanostructures that doesn't work and start going "hey I think I have disproved quantum mechanics!". Even when the OPERA faster-than-light neutrino debacle was going on, physicists were largely saying "We are pretty sure that there is some mistake in either the mod…

Thank you too for the detailed and thoughtful reply!

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#294

Post by kenny87 »

ripsawridge wrote: post #222

The only thing our world needs now is a reorientation away from growth at all costs into a mode of life that values the simple, the close by, the cheap. I don't see this guy giving a damn about that problem. Instead he tosses off bon mots about Popper and Gödel, and intones comfortably that in his view his peers have the right idea because they converge on atheism/agnosticism. Wow. The world is saved. There is a clas…

well said.

“Knowledge is as wings to man's life, and a ladder for his ascent. Its acquisition is incumbent upon everyone. The knowledge of such sciences, however, should be acquired as can profit the peoples of the earth, and not those which begin with words and end with words.”

- The Baha'i Writings

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#295

Post by 8bitsrule »

ripsawridge wrote: post #222

The only thing our world needs now is a reorientation away from growth at all costs into a mode of life that values the simple, the close by, the cheap. I don't see this guy giving a damn about that problem. Instead he tosses off bon mots about Popper and Gödel, and intones comfortably that in his view his peers have the right idea because they converge on atheism/agnosticism. Wow. The world is saved. There is a clas…

Yes, yes, and yes.

Although I'd point out that: Zen has no God or gods or beliefs.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#296

Post by yesenadam »

garmaine wrote: post #282
yesenadam wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take your point. But actually, not so. 'Scientists' from the ancient Greeks until the 19th C were called natural philosophers , studying natural philosophy. The Greek philosophers all give their theories of the universe, they were the scientists of the day - maybe Socrates was the first to concern himself with just the human world. The word 'scientist' was coined only in 1834. "Modern meanings of the terms science…

Yes. But by the 19th century the scientific process was already doing quite well at advancing our understanding of the universe. The philosophers of science of that era mostly wrote down and formalized what was already happening. It’s not like scientists suddenly started doing their experiments differently because of the advent of a formal philosophy of science. There were some improvements, but they were incremental…

Sure. I was merely pedantically trying to say that, although, yes, it's ridiculous to claim that Popper had any kind of role in creating the scientific method, strictly speaking it was philosophers that created it - natural philosophers. The separation of science and philosophy came later.

I guess I bother making the point, because that history was surprising to me when I first learnt about it.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#297

Post by reeves23423 »

camelNotation wrote: post #235
ripsawridge wrote: post #222

The only thing our world needs now is a reorientation away from growth at all costs into a mode of life that values the simple, the close by, the cheap. I don't see this guy giving a damn about that problem. Instead he tosses off bon mots about Popper and Gödel, and intones comfortably that in his view his peers have the right idea because they converge on atheism/agnosticism. Wow. The world is saved. There is a clas…

I like you. There's been a total over-correction away from religion and we've lost sight of why it evolved in the first place. Social scientists have long known that there is nothing rational about the decisions we make, and certainly not in groups. Religion may have led us to quite a bit of violence in the past and might not have given us self-driving cars, but simply understanding the universe is not going to be en…

> I think a lot of people dislike that idea because religion, unlike science, doesn't offer us any certainty.

Nope. The real problem is it is being misused by evil people always in every culture and moreover no one can question to correct it because based on belief with no evidence.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#298

Post by reeves23423 »

jawns wrote: post #113
mapcars wrote: post #27

Philosophy to me is a kind of fanciful thinking. Article mentions something about being "purely theoretical", but is your life theoretical or real? If it's real you can't approach it by pure theory. As well as there is much more to life than just thinking.

> Philosophy to me is a kind of fanciful thinking. Then you don't properly understand philosophy. One thing philosophy does is help you construct valid arguments and to recognize fallacies, which are very useful, practical skills. I took a course on logic as part of my undergrad degree, and it was there that I learned about De Morgan's laws -- which I use frequently when I'm programming. Moral philosophers confront s…

I am quite competent software engineer and good at math too. But never really understand what Philosophy meant and what does it tries to study. To me sometimes it sounds like too much of a fake stuff like religion. Any resources or books that you can point to get a clear understanding of what philosophy really tries to study about ?

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#299

Post by reeves23423 »

mbrock wrote: post #106
AstralStorm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mathematics and logic are more of a study of concepts than philosophy, highly contaminated by language and imprecision, could ever warrant to be. (These are earliest branches out of philosophy by the way.) Use of natural language makes most of the ideas entertained by philosophy highly ambiguous until they get formalized. Even ethics can be strictly formalized in a more advanced logic system, making the ideas and app…

Shouldn't you be making your own argument within a formal logic, to avoid this awful ambiguity that makes it impossible to understand what you're saying or argue with you?

Exactly. I really think Philosophy is like religious gurus confusing the listeners with confidence and as though only they can understand but not put in clear words.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#300

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

ripsawridge wrote: post #222

The only thing our world needs now is a reorientation away from growth at all costs into a mode of life that values the simple, the close by, the cheap. I don't see this guy giving a damn about that problem. Instead he tosses off bon mots about Popper and Gödel, and intones comfortably that in his view his peers have the right idea because they converge on atheism/agnosticism. Wow. The world is saved. There is a clas…

>> The only thing our world needs now is a reorientation away from growth at all costs into a mode of life that values the simple, the close by, the cheap.

Well, populism and xenophobia are simple, as simple as it gets, they appeal to base urges that demand no thinking (indeed require to not think at all). The whole world is nowadays "close by", thanks to cheap flights everywhere. And the labour that produces all the consumerist crap we, well, consume, is dirt cheap.

You should rejoice.

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