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A good friend of mine is a student of philosophy, and I often argue with him about the importance and usefulness of the discipline. His favorite metaphor on the
by pierrec 11y ago
A good friend of mine is a student of philosophy, and I often argue with him about the importance and usefulness of the discipline. His favorite metaphor on the matter goes like this: If each domain of science was a finger, philosophy would be the thumb. It's the one that the others should rest upon when being used.
Of course, I always dismiss his metaphor as pie-in-the-sky ridiculous. But I must concede that this phenomenon occurring on Wikipedia gives a lot of weight to his argument.
- mannykannot 11y agoAsk him for contemporary examples of philosophy's usefulness to science. While on the subject, you might want to argue that philosophy has become too self-referential to be relevant. I don't think the Wikipedia phenomenon means a whole lot. Here's an alternative metaphor: philosophy is the pot we put all the loose ends in, until some advance in science allows us to work on them some more. That doesn't mean philosophy is making progress on them.
- shabda 11y agoHere is a contemporary example: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/542626/why-self-driving-cars-must-be-programmed-to-kill/ http://www.technologyreview.com/view/542626/why-self-driving...
- mannykannot 11y agoPhilosophy is something of a grab-bag of disparate disciplines, and I agree that ethics can often (and should) inform public policy.
- foldr 11y ago> Philosophy is something of a grab bag of disparate disciplines So is science. Please don't tell me we're going to play that tedious game where we give you lots of examples of philosophy's relevance and your response is just "oh but I didn't mean that kind of philosophy".
- mannykannot 11y agoNo, I am actually agreeing that this is a valid example, though it is not really a matter of science. As for all the other examples that you allude to, I will consider them case-by-case.
- olavk 11y agoHow do you decide what is "science" in the first place? How do you distinguish science from pseudoscience or religion?
- mannykannot 11y agoScience manages to figure that out without having to ask a philosopher. The philosophy of science did not precede the development of science; in fact, it was the other way around.
- mf_tomb 11y agoThere are still plenty of open questions. No one has just "figured out" confirmation and dealing with evidence. In fact, the way a lot science is done is incorrect and journals could learn a lot from Bayesian Epistemologists.
- mannykannot 11y agoThese issues were raised from within the scientific community, which is well-equipped to deal with them.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- olavk 11y ago"without having to ask a philosopher"? What does that even mean? The distinction between scientist and philosophers is pretty recent. Clearly Aristotle was also a scientist even though we call him a philosopher, and clearly Bohr was also a philosopher even though we know him best as a scientist. Science and the philosophy of science have developed together, and often by the same people.
- mannykannot 11y ago>"without having to ask a philosopher"? What does that even mean? I am at a loss as to how to be any clearer, but perhaps that's because I am looking at the whole sentence in the context of the thread. Could you be more specific about what problem you are having with it? There was a time when people doing science were considered philosophers; at the same time, some of them were considered astrologers or alchemists - Newton was active in both of these fields, and that was not, as it seems to some people now, an aberration or contradiction. These philosophers / astrologers / alchemists synthesized the scientific method, but the modern philosophy of science is descriptive, not prescriptive: philosophers like Popper and Kuhn were describing the scientific method as it had already been developed by practicing scientists, without being led there by academic philosophy. The historical role of people, who now are or were then regarded as philosophers, in the early development of science does not imply that current science is behoven to current academic philosophy. Your attempt to conflate philosophy and science raises the question of why a university would need an independent philosophy department, and I think you would find its members to be the ones most strongly defending its existence. If you were to go to the top of this thread, you would find that the distinction between science and philosophy is being made by pierrec’s philosopher-student friend. If you want to argue that there is no meaningful difference, perhaps you should first persuade the people who identify themselves as philosophers.
- littletimmy 11y ago"Science" is not one enterprise. Read Thomas Kuhn in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." He divides science into two categories. The first is normal science, which is a period where the basic assumptions have been set, and scientists work within defined parameters to understand nature. In this period philosophy of not very relevant. Kuhn says that this works well for a while, until there builds up a collection of anomalies that result in the second type of science: revolutionary science. For a short while, people start to question fundamental assumptions about their world and this results in a "paradigm shift". In this mode of science, philosophy has always been relevant. The philosopher Ernst Mach was relevant to Einstein, for example. In our present age, we are at the stage of normal science started by Einstein and the quantum physicists. But anomalies have started building up. And when we enter into the new phase of revolutionary science, as happens every few hundred years, we'll see philosophy be relevant once more.
- mannykannot 11y agoMost of the time it is the scientists themselves who are questioning the current paradigms (Mach himself was a physicist). You might argue that they are working in philosopher-mode at that time, but they didn't usually get to be in a position to constructively question the paradigms through a study of academic philosophy.
- colordrops 11y agoTo believe that associating philosophy with science is pie-in-the-sky ridiculous is to profess ignorance of the foundations and history of science. Science is a descendant of philosophy and the decisions made on how we practice it and interpret its results are guided by different philosophies throughout the centuries. A book or course on the philosophy of science, which is offered by most major universities, is recommended.
- pierrec 11y agoYou make a good point, but where did I say that I believe that associating philosophy with science is pie-in-the-sky ridiculous? What I did say is that the metaphor is weak without bringing precision to how it should be interpreted, and your particular interpretation is sensible but a bit forced. Does being the progenitor of science make philosophy the thumb of the hand? No, there may have once been a time when that metaphor was applicable, but I wouldn't say that it's the case today. As for the idea that philosophy guides decisions on how we practice science, well... a book or course on the forces of economy, which is offered by most major universities, is recommended.
- vezzy-fnord 11y agoWhich is funny because economics is to a large extent a branch of philosophy.
- mannykannot 11y agoPhilosophy was, of course, the progenitor of science, but it is harder to find current relevance. For example, was science in a state of confusion until Popper corrected the errors of the logical positivists? Did the development of plate tectonics have to wait until Kuhn explained the structure of scientific revolutions?
- igravious 11y agoIt is popularly said that those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. I wish there was a similar cautionary expression for those who are ignorant of or dismissive of philosophy. Why is there such a vocal minority nowadays who claim that philosophy has had its day? Can you explain your reasoning please?
- tunesmith 11y agoI don't think you can get far in determining what people "should" do with various facts without diving into normative ethics and in turn philosophy. The question of what should be done can hinge entirely on what kind of philosophy people adopt.
- tedks 11y ago>But I must concede that this phenomenon occurring on Wikipedia gives a lot of weight to his argument. It should give no weight at all to this argument. Arguing from metaphor is flawed to begin with, because the correctness metric is not correspondence with reality, but the degree a human mind will readily pattern-match on the metaphor. The empirical reason for this effect is that Wikipedia policy mandates that articles begin with a denotational definition of the subject, which moves up the hierarchy of abstraction. Were Wikipedia policy to begin pages with connotational definitions that move down the hierarchy of abstraction, we would not see this effect.
- n0us 11y agoI think it was more of a semantic than an argument and likely OP's friend would tell you this as well.
- pierrec 11y agoI'll make sure to ask him next week. I'll throw this whole thread at him and see how he reacts! (And next time I'll think twice before introducing a classic flamewar topic once again...)
- ttctciyf 11y agoIf you don't regard the question as important, you should probably stop arguing about it. But if you do then the argument is over, of course, since it is a philosophical one :)