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No, philosophy as a academic field has failed. It's common knowledge for those in the field to know that none of the primary problems of philosophy has been sol

by cleong 8y ago

No, philosophy as a academic field has failed. It's common knowledge for those in the field to know that none of the primary problems of philosophy has been solved despite being worked on for 2000 years. What every academic tries to do now is work on the secondary problems.

woodruffw 8y ago
> It's common knowledge for those in the field to know that none of the primary problems of philosophy has been solved despite being worked on for 2000 years. We have different definitions of "failure." Without the last 2000 years of philosophy, we wouldn't have formal logic, liberal democracy, the existential outlook, or any number of fundamental conceits that you and I use on a daily basis. Whether or not any single fundamental question has been "solved" is irrelevant to progress in a field like philosophy.
stepvhen 8y ago
could you clairify the following: what is an example of a primary problem? what is an example of a secondary problem? what is failure by your definition? what state would a problem be in if it were "solved"? is a problem solved when everybody agrees on a solution? what, then, happens when a contrarian states otherwise? e.g. parmenides was one of the first monists, and that was more or less not acknowledged for a long time after plato, but has since come back into vogue somewhat; was the problem of "is our universe one" solved, and then unsolved?
- cleong 8y ago
  Look into every sub field of philosophy and the debates that have gone on about certain topics for thousands of years. For example, the mind-body problem in epistemology. To clarify, no the field is not based on social consensus but logic. How do we explain certain things? For example, Kant believed that logic as a field had been "solved" in the sense there needs no more progress in the field as the techniques developed were sufficient to solve logic problems. Until Godel came along and improved on logic in the 20th century. Solving in this sense is a technical definition not the social one.

by cleong 8y ago

woodruffw 8y ago

> It's common knowledge for those in the field to know that none of the primary problems of philosophy has been solved despite being worked on for 2000 years. We have different definitions of "failure." Without the last 2000 years of philosophy, we wouldn't have formal logic, liberal democracy, the existential outlook, or any number of fundamental conceits that you and I use on a daily basis. Whether or not any single fundamental question has been "solved" is irrelevant to progress in a field like philosophy.

stepvhen 8y ago

could you clairify the following: what is an example of a primary problem? what is an example of a secondary problem? what is failure by your definition? what state would a problem be in if it were "solved"? is a problem solved when everybody agrees on a solution? what, then, happens when a contrarian states otherwise? e.g. parmenides was one of the first monists, and that was more or less not acknowledged for a long time after plato, but has since come back into vogue somewhat; was the problem of "is our universe one" solved, and then unsolved?

cleong 8y ago
Look into every sub field of philosophy and the debates that have gone on about certain topics for thousands of years. For example, the mind-body problem in epistemology. To clarify, no the field is not based on social consensus but logic. How do we explain certain things? For example, Kant believed that logic as a field had been "solved" in the sense there needs no more progress in the field as the techniques developed were sufficient to solve logic problems. Until Godel came along and improved on logic in the 20th century. Solving in this sense is a technical definition not the social one.