A similar question could be asked -- is mathematics a science?
No. Mathematics is an elaborate game with surprising ability to model universe.
Is Philosophy an Art?
111–120 of 149 posts
Re: Is Philosophy an Art?
#112Classically, philosophy is not about establishing truth. It is about better living.
I disagree. Classically, philosophy was about establishing truth (which is why it is called philosophy - literally love of knowledge). But establishing truth was seen as a subset of better living.
Re: Is Philosophy an Art?
#113Anything mediated by a mind is an artifice: art.
It may be art from an artisan or craft used in a trade. It may be intellectual such as a mathematical proof. It may arguably be non-human art or bad art--but it is art.
Re: Is Philosophy an Art?
#114I think of philosophy of the art of words and ideas, just like literature is generally the art of words and stories. But, for historical reasons, many people and most philosophers claim philosophy is much more than this. Spinoza was convinced he was "engaged in the pursuit of truth", as the article writes, and he probably thought he had built a logical proof of the existence of god. But his concepts are fuzzy, so his…
> No one would claim to be an expert of a philosopher without reading and studying his book and articles. But, if the substance was more important than the form, it should not matter. One can master Gauss' mathematics or Einstein's physics without reading the original works. I don't think that's fair. I'd generally expect an expert (a professor, say) to be familiar with the original work regardless of whether it's ph…
I doubt there are many professors of mathematics who have read the original Gauss! Certainly in my field of mathematics, nobody ever talked about reading older work in its original. It feels like something only of interest for historians. Mathematical notation has improved immensely and the important ideas have been clarified and refined.
Re: Is Philosophy an Art?
#115Philosophy used to be a systematic attempt to answer just one question - What Is? (or what is real?)
Science emerged as a standard methodology much later.
Abstract bullshitting, which is mistakenly called philosophy too, may be considered as an art, like storytelling.
To clarify - fancy philosophical systems have nothing to do with philosophy. They are just piles of abstractions.
Re: Is Philosophy an Art?
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Language vs. meta-language. I do not understand what this is supposed to mean or demonstrate. > because concepts expressed in natural language are so massively overloaded, it's very hard to make precise statements. That's why philosophers clarify meanings and ask for clarification for terms when they think are vague. That something is "overloaded" (amphiboly) doesn't mean you can't determine which meaning is used o…
> I do not understand what this is supposed to mean or demonstrate. Parent said 'Stating "there is no way to refute or evaluate philosophy" while then going on to do the same seems incongruent'. I was just refuting this. It's essentially the same argument as "everything is philosophy" or "everything is politics", technically true but only in a vacuous sense. > That something is "overloaded" (amphiboly) I don't mean t…
Science uses imprecise terms too, like "space", "probability", "entropy", "black hole".
Re: Is Philosophy an Art?
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand where you got the idea that people who tell others how to live have legal liability: if that were the case your local preacher would be in serious trouble.
There's a thin line between cult and religion, and a lot of it has to do with institutional age. Although, yeah, there are a lot of christian, and buddhist for that matter, cults. Often these do end up breaching legal boundaries, as I've described, but more often they merely offend common morality or decency, which also reveals the problem of trying to tell people how to live, outside of accepted avenues (i.e. health…
“The only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own”
-- Frank Zappa
Re: Is Philosophy an Art?
#118Since it seems everyone is giving their opinion, I'll leave mine before reading the article: The concept of philosophy predates the concept of art, it also predates science. So, if one is more fundamental than the other(and fundamental TO the other emergence), doesn't this make the question pointless?
Re: Is Philosophy an Art?
#119Working on some inforgraphics tackling gender bias a while back, I was'accused' of producing data visualization art. I defended the intellectual rigor of my work, yet lost the argument - my 'accuser' turned out to be the curator of data visualization art at the Tate Modern. He won the argument by pointing out that the work, though based on hard data, was designed to evoke an emotional rather than an intellectual resp…
There's something to be said for the notion that, in the modern world, anyone who is a "professional philosopher" is just incapable of doing the kind of "here's how you should live" work that dominates early Western and Asian philosophy. Among modern professions, the only ones that can bear the legal liability of such a line of inquiry are in the health sciences. In this sense, philosophy professors cannot be doing w…
But that's really a problem with academia, not philosophy per se? I'm not sure e.g. academic engineers working in materials science are ready to just take the place of an engineer in a construction site.
(Then, people like Norvig are a counter-example to this claim. But positions created in MAGFA for top academics like Norvig, Varian, etc. will always have a tailor-made character and defer to celebrity status.)
Re: Is Philosophy an Art?
#120Woah, philosophy and art are two massive subjects. Historically, both have been treated as separate subjects for good reasons.
However there is some overlap, such as something which is beautiful to the senses.
But the distinction between the two is that philosophy is usually a set of distinct thought-experiment(s) and art is an observer's perspective into the mind of an artist(s).
Largely, scientists scoff at philosophy due to the intrinsic nature that most of it relies in the realm of "thought experiments." Which may be hard for some people, but I've never had an issue with wild imaginations.
Yet, I would argue the Philosopher's Stone is one of the most mythological thing known to human history. And I'm sure 99.999% of people couldn't distinguish the Philosopher's Stone from a generic looking lake rock. Right?