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Yet today the branch of physics that bears his name and still embodies his ideas and methods is typically taught within the physics department but not the philo

Yet today the branch of physics that bears his name and still embodies his ideas and methods is typically taught within the physics department but not the philosophy department.

defrost 3y ago
Which in no way negates the claim that physics answers the question of What's an example of a philosophical notion that did pay off? FWiW modern physicists that have been short listed as replacements to Hawking for the Lucasian Chair have studied philosophy as part of their education and found it useful in advancing their ability to reason. eg: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/j.gauntlett https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/j.gauntlett
- dventimi 3y ago
  > which in no way negates the claim [about physics and philosophy] Whether that claim is true or not depends on the meanings people assign to the terms "physics" and "philosophy." Newton may have called himself a philosopher but we're not obliged to follow suit. If the fruits of his labor today are taught as physics but not as philosophy, that supports the argument that today we should regard him as a physicist by today's standards and not a philosopher.
  - defrost 3y ago
    Are you claiming that modern physics is not a branch of past philosophy? Myself and a number of others who have studied and work in physics|mathematics regard it as such and thus regard physics as an example of something worthwhile that arose from philosophy. Similarly one can regard modern 20th century logical philosophy in the same light and embarce the work of Russell, Godel, Turing, Church, et al as worthwhile developments of philosophy.
    - dventimi 3y ago
      No. Among other things I'm claiming Newton, for instance, would typically be classified by modern standards not as a philosopher but as a physicist. I further claim that regardless of their historical provenance, modern physics is very distinct from modern philosophy. This claim is supported if we accept that a training in philosophy alone does not equip a person at all to work as a professional physicist. Moreover, I make these claims and arguments without reference to our personal biographies, yours or mine, which I regard as irrelevant. After all, you don't know what my experience with physics is anymore than I know what yours is. As for Godel, Turing, and Church, if they were philosophers they were also mathematicians, which means we can't rule out the possibility that their contributions owe more to the latter than the former. It doesn't help us evaluate philosophy in isolation, as distinct from math, physics, or computing. To do that, we would be helped by examples of laudable contributions from people who were ONLY philosophers.
      - defrost 3y ago
        The argument I advanced was that physics is an offshoot, a product, of philosophy. You haven't negated that claim in any form that I recognise. > As for Godel, Turing, and Church, ... Interestinglly I have a degree in mathematics, I was present when Tao met Erdős in Australia, and while I studied Group Theory, Functional Analysis, and other such things as part of the mathematics curriculum I had to go to the Philosophy department to study 20th Century Logical Philosophy under Graham Priest alongside fellow students one who now heads a Physics Department, another who heads a Philosophy Department (and, incidently also studied undergraduate mathematics alongside myself and the physicist). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Priest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Priest > Moreover, I make these claims and arguments without reference to our personal biographies, yours or mine Sadly I only have my own personal experience of the world, informed to a degree by the thoughts of those I've met and worked with. > It doesn't help us evaluate philosophy in isolation, as distinct from math, physics, or computing. Why on earth would you want to do that, these things are all intertwined. > To do that, we would be helped by examples of laudable contributions from people who were ONLY philosophers. We should then also reject papers on black holes by physicists that also studied philosophy? I fear you're advancing your own private Idaho by means of a True Scotsman Philosopher whom I've not personally met.
GoblinSlayer 3y ago
Previously laws of motion were proposed by Aristotle, Newton only did better quantitative analysis of observation and proposed more precise laws.
- dventimi 3y ago
  You forgot about Galileo, whose laws of motion superseded Aristotle's and did more to inform Newton. You also forgot about Copernicus and Kepler. Meanwhile, Newton formulated laws of motion that are still used today, a law of gravitation that is still used today, a theory of optics that is still used today, and a branch of mathematics that is still used today. Naturally, he had help in these triumphs, as all giants do. Nevertheless, I consider your use of the diminishing word "only" to be grossly unfair to Newton and his accomplishments.
  - GoblinSlayer 3y ago
    I mean work done on it was steady evolution of knowledge started as philosophy. Newton himself called it philosophy.
    - dventimi 3y ago
      > I mean work done on it was steady evolution of knowledge started as philosophy. Newton himself called it philosophy. I addressed this already when I wrote above, "Newton may have called himself a philosopher but we're not obliged to follow suit." I don't care what Newton called it. By today's standards, it would be called "physics" and if he was teaching at a university today Newton would be in that department, not the philosophy department. As for a "steady evolution of knowledge", however steady it was (I don't think it was steady at all), surely it was less steady than it would have been had there not been an eclipsing of classical antiquity and a thousand years of stunted progress in Western Europe. If it was more steady than it was, we would need more than two hands to count the important individuals punctuating scientific advancement. No, Isaac Newton was a towering giant. His Wikipedia page has this to say on the subject: "It is held by European philosophers of the Enlightenment and by historians of the Enlightenment that Newton's publication of the Principia was a turning point in the Scientific Revolution and started the Enlightenment. It was Newton's conception of the universe based upon natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology" Evidently the philosophers THEMSELVES have spoken and assigned Newton an outsized role in history. As for "Whither philosophy?" itself? However important it was in history and in the progress of civilization, I think now it's a museum piece that's outlived its usefulness. We've long since moved on from any need for philosophy. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” If you want to continue the matter, you can find me here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCitvgwzEn5__bR6qIeMSZ0g https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCitvgwzEn5__bR6qIeMSZ0g comment on any video, I'll reply, and we can take it from there

Yet today the branch of physics that bears his name and still embodies his ideas and methods is typically taught within the physics department but not the philosophy department.

defrost 3y ago

Which in no way negates the claim that physics answers the question of What's an example of a philosophical notion that did pay off? FWiW modern physicists that have been short listed as replacements to Hawking for the Lucasian Chair have studied philosophy as part of their education and found it useful in advancing their ability to reason. eg: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/j.gauntlett https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/j.gauntlett

dventimi 3y ago
> which in no way negates the claim [about physics and philosophy] Whether that claim is true or not depends on the meanings people assign to the terms "physics" and "philosophy." Newton may have called himself a philosopher but we're not obliged to follow suit. If the fruits of his labor today are taught as physics but not as philosophy, that supports the argument that today we should regard him as a physicist by today's standards and not a philosopher.
- defrost 3y ago
  Are you claiming that modern physics is not a branch of past philosophy? Myself and a number of others who have studied and work in physics|mathematics regard it as such and thus regard physics as an example of something worthwhile that arose from philosophy. Similarly one can regard modern 20th century logical philosophy in the same light and embarce the work of Russell, Godel, Turing, Church, et al as worthwhile developments of philosophy.
  - dventimi 3y ago
    No. Among other things I'm claiming Newton, for instance, would typically be classified by modern standards not as a philosopher but as a physicist. I further claim that regardless of their historical provenance, modern physics is very distinct from modern philosophy. This claim is supported if we accept that a training in philosophy alone does not equip a person at all to work as a professional physicist. Moreover, I make these claims and arguments without reference to our personal biographies, yours or mine, which I regard as irrelevant. After all, you don't know what my experience with physics is anymore than I know what yours is. As for Godel, Turing, and Church, if they were philosophers they were also mathematicians, which means we can't rule out the possibility that their contributions owe more to the latter than the former. It doesn't help us evaluate philosophy in isolation, as distinct from math, physics, or computing. To do that, we would be helped by examples of laudable contributions from people who were ONLY philosophers.
    - defrost 3y ago
      The argument I advanced was that physics is an offshoot, a product, of philosophy. You haven't negated that claim in any form that I recognise. > As for Godel, Turing, and Church, ... Interestinglly I have a degree in mathematics, I was present when Tao met Erdős in Australia, and while I studied Group Theory, Functional Analysis, and other such things as part of the mathematics curriculum I had to go to the Philosophy department to study 20th Century Logical Philosophy under Graham Priest alongside fellow students one who now heads a Physics Department, another who heads a Philosophy Department (and, incidently also studied undergraduate mathematics alongside myself and the physicist). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Priest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Priest > Moreover, I make these claims and arguments without reference to our personal biographies, yours or mine Sadly I only have my own personal experience of the world, informed to a degree by the thoughts of those I've met and worked with. > It doesn't help us evaluate philosophy in isolation, as distinct from math, physics, or computing. Why on earth would you want to do that, these things are all intertwined. > To do that, we would be helped by examples of laudable contributions from people who were ONLY philosophers. We should then also reject papers on black holes by physicists that also studied philosophy? I fear you're advancing your own private Idaho by means of a True Scotsman Philosopher whom I've not personally met.

GoblinSlayer 3y ago

Previously laws of motion were proposed by Aristotle, Newton only did better quantitative analysis of observation and proposed more precise laws.

dventimi 3y ago
You forgot about Galileo, whose laws of motion superseded Aristotle's and did more to inform Newton. You also forgot about Copernicus and Kepler. Meanwhile, Newton formulated laws of motion that are still used today, a law of gravitation that is still used today, a theory of optics that is still used today, and a branch of mathematics that is still used today. Naturally, he had help in these triumphs, as all giants do. Nevertheless, I consider your use of the diminishing word "only" to be grossly unfair to Newton and his accomplishments.
- GoblinSlayer 3y ago
  I mean work done on it was steady evolution of knowledge started as philosophy. Newton himself called it philosophy.
  - dventimi 3y ago
    > I mean work done on it was steady evolution of knowledge started as philosophy. Newton himself called it philosophy. I addressed this already when I wrote above, "Newton may have called himself a philosopher but we're not obliged to follow suit." I don't care what Newton called it. By today's standards, it would be called "physics" and if he was teaching at a university today Newton would be in that department, not the philosophy department. As for a "steady evolution of knowledge", however steady it was (I don't think it was steady at all), surely it was less steady than it would have been had there not been an eclipsing of classical antiquity and a thousand years of stunted progress in Western Europe. If it was more steady than it was, we would need more than two hands to count the important individuals punctuating scientific advancement. No, Isaac Newton was a towering giant. His Wikipedia page has this to say on the subject: "It is held by European philosophers of the Enlightenment and by historians of the Enlightenment that Newton's publication of the Principia was a turning point in the Scientific Revolution and started the Enlightenment. It was Newton's conception of the universe based upon natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology" Evidently the philosophers THEMSELVES have spoken and assigned Newton an outsized role in history. As for "Whither philosophy?" itself? However important it was in history and in the progress of civilization, I think now it's a museum piece that's outlived its usefulness. We've long since moved on from any need for philosophy. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” If you want to continue the matter, you can find me here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCitvgwzEn5__bR6qIeMSZ0g https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCitvgwzEn5__bR6qIeMSZ0g comment on any video, I'll reply, and we can take it from there