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I like philosophy but, the "debater's paradise" really gets to the problems with it. Arguments can never be settled, just dragged on. I like this quote about th

I like philosophy but, the "debater's paradise" really gets to the problems with it. Arguments can never be settled, just dragged on. I like this quote about the history of science, before the scientific method. >...The scholastics saying that matter was this, or that, and justifying themselves by long treatises about how based on A, B, C, the word of the Bible, Aristotle, self-evident first principles, and the Great Chain of Being all clearly proved their point. Then other scholastics would write different long treatises on how D, E, and F, Plato, St. Augustine, and the proper ordering of angels all indicated that clearly matter was something different. Both groups were pretty sure that the other had make a subtle error of reasoning somewhere, and both groups were perfectly happy to spend centuries debating exactly which one of them it was.... People are terrible. If you let people debate things, they will do it forever, come up with horrible ideas, get them entrenched, play politics with them, and finally reach the point where they’re coming up with theories why people who disagree with them are probably secretly in the pay of the Devil... Imagine having to conduct the global warming debate, except that you couldn’t appeal to scientific consensus and statistics because scientific consensus and statistics hadn’t been invented yet. In a world without science, everything would be like that. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-out-of-control/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-ou...

ktRolster 10y ago
There is selection bias there, problems that do get settled stop being dragged on.
- tome 10y ago
  Yes. A lot of this discussion hasn't grasped your point. Philosophy did settle a lot of questions. They became natural history, physics, chemistry, even mathematics. The ones that are taught in Philosophy courses are the ones that haven't been settled.
  - Houshalter 10y ago
    Mathematics existed for a long time before philosophy, although the two do seem closely related. Science does have origins in philosophy, but I don't think it was philosophical arguments that settled scientific issues, but the invention of the scientific method, which abandoned the need for them. Anyway the main point of that quote is that without developing a consensus or the ability to experimentally test theories, debates have a tendency to drag on for centuries without going anywhere. Of course philosophy can't settle issues experimentally. The main criticism I've heard of philosophy, is that they don't try to form consensus and encourage the dragging on. Philosophy students spend their time reading through the history of philosophy and studying old arguments and issues. Whereas in math or science, there isn't really an emphasis on history or even that much about ongoing debates. Mathematicians don't have a way to experimentally test ideas either. Certain ideas, like the validity of infinite sets, or of Cantor's diagonal theorem, are arguably philosophical in nature as much as mathematical. And were extremely controversial at one time, with many notable mathematicians taking the side against them. But mathematicians did come to consensus on them, eventually.
    - ktRolster 10y ago
      Which philosopher discovered the scientific method?

ktRolster 10y ago

There is selection bias there, problems that do get settled stop being dragged on.

tome 10y ago
Yes. A lot of this discussion hasn't grasped your point. Philosophy did settle a lot of questions. They became natural history, physics, chemistry, even mathematics. The ones that are taught in Philosophy courses are the ones that haven't been settled.
- Houshalter 10y ago
  Mathematics existed for a long time before philosophy, although the two do seem closely related. Science does have origins in philosophy, but I don't think it was philosophical arguments that settled scientific issues, but the invention of the scientific method, which abandoned the need for them. Anyway the main point of that quote is that without developing a consensus or the ability to experimentally test theories, debates have a tendency to drag on for centuries without going anywhere. Of course philosophy can't settle issues experimentally. The main criticism I've heard of philosophy, is that they don't try to form consensus and encourage the dragging on. Philosophy students spend their time reading through the history of philosophy and studying old arguments and issues. Whereas in math or science, there isn't really an emphasis on history or even that much about ongoing debates. Mathematicians don't have a way to experimentally test ideas either. Certain ideas, like the validity of infinite sets, or of Cantor's diagonal theorem, are arguably philosophical in nature as much as mathematical. And were extremely controversial at one time, with many notable mathematicians taking the side against them. But mathematicians did come to consensus on them, eventually.
  - ktRolster 10y ago
    Which philosopher discovered the scientific method?