6 ms·

Im a grad student in philosophy, and this one unfortunately risks perpetuating the annoying myth that philosophers are somehow in competition with the natural s

by quus 3y ago

Im a grad student in philosophy, and this one unfortunately risks perpetuating the annoying myth that philosophers are somehow in competition with the natural sciences — usually believed by people who have literally never taken any courses in philosophy. Quine said that philosophical inquiry is continuous with empirical inquiry, but I think it’d be fine to say that it’s just complementary.

mananaysiempre 3y ago
My philosophy professor had a multi-volume (non-English-language) textbook called “Introduction to the science of philosophy”, so, uh, I dunno. Claiming it’s complementary is also not benign—it brings along the burden of pointing out some holes in the scientific enterprise, a general conception of how to fill them, and at least some practical success in doing so. I don’t believe that to be impossible and have some things I could suggest there, but I also carry the common scepticism caused by philosophers not getting literally anything right about the 20th-century-physics picture of the world right ahead of time, so I don’t believe it trivial either. (Yeah, quantum computing and microscopic, low-energy quantum physics in general is kind of an exception to my provocative assertion above, though one could argue that the people who started that were from a counterculture of physics first and philosophers only as a consequence of that. I don’t really want to throw shade on philosophers here, only to express my bewilderment that people who made it their life’s work to speculate what the stuff of the world could be got it so wrong so many times. People in other fields also got it all wrong, of course, but then they didn’t claim to be particularly serious about their speculation.)
- quus 3y ago
  I’m not sure what your professor writing some book with a vague title is meant to show. Am I supposed to google this to find the thesis? Yes, there is a sub area called philosophy of science, and many people in that area are trained in philosophy and science. But I’m unsure why you think philosophers are supposed to be getting empirical facts about physics right ahead of the physicists. That’s not their job.
  - Balgair 3y ago
    I mean, I gotta ask now, right? What is their job then?
    - quus 3y ago
      sounds like you don’t know what philosophy is and why it’s dope, so rather than me try to explain in a comment on hackernews, I would say try reading Plato
      - Balgair 3y ago
        Believe it or not, I'm going through my third read-through of his entire works right now (yes, even Cratylus). But the question still stands: What is the job?
- kuhewa 3y ago
  > My philosophy professor had a multi-volume (non-English-language) textbook called “Introduction to the science of philosophy”, so, uh, I dunno. I too am not sure what you are implying there. The enterprise, assuming it had some merit, sounds like evidence of complementarity? > it brings along the burden of pointing out some holes in the scientific enterprise, a general conception of how to fill them, and at least some practical success in doing so. Well, yeah, all of those are a given. The rest of your comment goes more toward philosophers speculating on aspects of the material world (i.e. the realm of scientific inquiry), but there is a lot more to philosophy. The holes in the scientific enterprise have long been well delineated, which isn't a criticism, but for example we can't derive human values solely from science [1]. Also, philosophy underpins science. Whenever a hypothesis is tested, there is are philosophically-grounded assumptions being made. The epistemological implications for any given scientific finding depend on the underlying philosophical framework being assumed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
  - skybrian 3y ago
    I'm not sure "underpins" is the right word here. A theory of ants wouldn't "underpin" the behavior of ants. If the ants behave differently than the theory, then the theory is wrong and should be changed. The ant theory is something in the minds of outside observers, not the ants, and ant behavior doesn't rely on it. The dependency goes the other way: the observers modify their theory to better describe the ants. The ants would exist without the theory, but theory would be pointless if there were no ants. Is a philosophy of science similar? Or does it have a practical effect on scientific work? Unlike ants, scientists can learn a philosophy of science, and perhaps believe it. Does this affect their work? One reason it might not affect their work in practice is that they didn't learn that particular philosophy. Also, perhaps different scientists might learn different philosophies without practical effect.
    - kuhewa 3y ago
      Underpins is the correct word. There is no comparison of observations of any behaviour to a theory or hypothesis about any behaviour outside of an epistemological framework that makes certain assumptions, even if it is unwittingly. Neither those assumptions nor the framework itself can be derived from science itself. > Is a philosophy of science similar? Or does it have a practical effect on scientific work? Absolutely, what a p value is depends on your philosophy of science. Whether your statistical analysis even involves p values also depends on it. > Also, perhaps different scientists might learn different philosophies without practical effect. Yes, if you stumble upon some simple causal relationship of such massive effect size it is undeniably present beyond a reasonable doubt, it may not matter if a Bayesian or frequentist practitioner came across it. However it certainly can matter what framework evidence gets analysed, considered and aggregated when the observable data themselves are essentially the same.
- dTal 3y ago
  > I also carry the common scepticism caused by philosophers not getting literally anything right about the 20th-century-physics picture of the world right ahead of time Well, Democritus did. But nobody paid much attention. Which is the fundamental problem with philosophy - absent objective criteria of validity, it becomes a popularity contest.
scotty79 3y ago
[flagged]
- quus 3y ago
  [flagged]
scns 3y ago
The translation of Philosophy is: The Love Of Wisdom. Our natural sciences build on the foundation those greeks laid. Pythagoras? Math and Music Science. Aristotle? > His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology and the arts. (Wikipedia) Plato? Religion, science, human nature, love, sexuality, ethics, the idea of the soul, ethics, politics, aesthetics poetry and art. (Wikipedia combining two articles in two languages) And many more. Luckily the muslims preserved their writings, when the christians tried to destroy those "pagan" scribbles.
- Hithredin 3y ago
  That's quite a big stretch saying that. Christians did keep old greek writing during middle age. And muslim did Destroy as rich Persian knowledge.

by quus 3y ago

mananaysiempre 3y ago

My philosophy professor had a multi-volume (non-English-language) textbook called “Introduction to the science of philosophy”, so, uh, I dunno. Claiming it’s complementary is also not benign—it brings along the burden of pointing out some holes in the scientific enterprise, a general conception of how to fill them, and at least some practical success in doing so. I don’t believe that to be impossible and have some things I could suggest there, but I also carry the common scepticism caused by philosophers not getting literally anything right about the 20th-century-physics picture of the world right ahead of time, so I don’t believe it trivial either. (Yeah, quantum computing and microscopic, low-energy quantum physics in general is kind of an exception to my provocative assertion above, though one could argue that the people who started that were from a counterculture of physics first and philosophers only as a consequence of that. I don’t really want to throw shade on philosophers here, only to express my bewilderment that people who made it their life’s work to speculate what the stuff of the world could be got it so wrong so many times. People in other fields also got it all wrong, of course, but then they didn’t claim to be particularly serious about their speculation.)

quus 3y ago
I’m not sure what your professor writing some book with a vague title is meant to show. Am I supposed to google this to find the thesis? Yes, there is a sub area called philosophy of science, and many people in that area are trained in philosophy and science. But I’m unsure why you think philosophers are supposed to be getting empirical facts about physics right ahead of the physicists. That’s not their job.
- Balgair 3y ago
  I mean, I gotta ask now, right? What is their job then?
  - quus 3y ago
    sounds like you don’t know what philosophy is and why it’s dope, so rather than me try to explain in a comment on hackernews, I would say try reading Plato
    - Balgair 3y ago
      Believe it or not, I'm going through my third read-through of his entire works right now (yes, even Cratylus). But the question still stands: What is the job?
kuhewa 3y ago
> My philosophy professor had a multi-volume (non-English-language) textbook called “Introduction to the science of philosophy”, so, uh, I dunno. I too am not sure what you are implying there. The enterprise, assuming it had some merit, sounds like evidence of complementarity? > it brings along the burden of pointing out some holes in the scientific enterprise, a general conception of how to fill them, and at least some practical success in doing so. Well, yeah, all of those are a given. The rest of your comment goes more toward philosophers speculating on aspects of the material world (i.e. the realm of scientific inquiry), but there is a lot more to philosophy. The holes in the scientific enterprise have long been well delineated, which isn't a criticism, but for example we can't derive human values solely from science [1]. Also, philosophy underpins science. Whenever a hypothesis is tested, there is are philosophically-grounded assumptions being made. The epistemological implications for any given scientific finding depend on the underlying philosophical framework being assumed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
- skybrian 3y ago
  I'm not sure "underpins" is the right word here. A theory of ants wouldn't "underpin" the behavior of ants. If the ants behave differently than the theory, then the theory is wrong and should be changed. The ant theory is something in the minds of outside observers, not the ants, and ant behavior doesn't rely on it. The dependency goes the other way: the observers modify their theory to better describe the ants. The ants would exist without the theory, but theory would be pointless if there were no ants. Is a philosophy of science similar? Or does it have a practical effect on scientific work? Unlike ants, scientists can learn a philosophy of science, and perhaps believe it. Does this affect their work? One reason it might not affect their work in practice is that they didn't learn that particular philosophy. Also, perhaps different scientists might learn different philosophies without practical effect.
  - kuhewa 3y ago
    Underpins is the correct word. There is no comparison of observations of any behaviour to a theory or hypothesis about any behaviour outside of an epistemological framework that makes certain assumptions, even if it is unwittingly. Neither those assumptions nor the framework itself can be derived from science itself. > Is a philosophy of science similar? Or does it have a practical effect on scientific work? Absolutely, what a p value is depends on your philosophy of science. Whether your statistical analysis even involves p values also depends on it. > Also, perhaps different scientists might learn different philosophies without practical effect. Yes, if you stumble upon some simple causal relationship of such massive effect size it is undeniably present beyond a reasonable doubt, it may not matter if a Bayesian or frequentist practitioner came across it. However it certainly can matter what framework evidence gets analysed, considered and aggregated when the observable data themselves are essentially the same.
dTal 3y ago
> I also carry the common scepticism caused by philosophers not getting literally anything right about the 20th-century-physics picture of the world right ahead of time Well, Democritus did. But nobody paid much attention. Which is the fundamental problem with philosophy - absent objective criteria of validity, it becomes a popularity contest.

scotty79 3y ago

[flagged]

quus 3y ago
[flagged]

scns 3y ago

The translation of Philosophy is: The Love Of Wisdom. Our natural sciences build on the foundation those greeks laid. Pythagoras? Math and Music Science. Aristotle? > His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology and the arts. (Wikipedia) Plato? Religion, science, human nature, love, sexuality, ethics, the idea of the soul, ethics, politics, aesthetics poetry and art. (Wikipedia combining two articles in two languages) And many more. Luckily the muslims preserved their writings, when the christians tried to destroy those "pagan" scribbles.

Hithredin 3y ago
That's quite a big stretch saying that. Christians did keep old greek writing during middle age. And muslim did Destroy as rich Persian knowledge.