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I'm not a professional philosopher but I did study the subject at one time. The main point about philisophy isn't its concepts or theories as these can and do

I'm not a professional philosopher but I did study the subject at one time. The main point about philisophy isn't its concepts or theories as these can and do change over time and through circumstance. For instance the question about what is consciousness has changed as we've become more knowledgeable about neurology and even of quantum mechanics. What philosophy does is to teach one to think and reason in ways that one otherwise would not have done. It enlarges one's worldview which makes it easier for one to grasp new ideas and concepts, and to be open to fields of knowledge that one may have otherwise bypassed. Add to that reading the works of great philosophers is a mind-opening experience. Many of these works have stood the test of time because the ideas they contain have widened the minds of those who've studied them.

mykowebhn 3y ago
YES! And if it enlarges one's worldview, it's because Philosophy stands as the root, the superset if you will, of all other areas of knowledge, art, science, etc. For example, if Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem explores the boundaries of what Mathematics can know and we want to seriously understand what this means, then we are entering Philosophy.
- hilbert42 3y ago
  Exactly, Philosophy does stand at the root. I often wonder why some—perhaps all too many—scientists (especially physicists) dismiss Philosophy as being irrelevant and pooh-pooh its ideas. For me, Philosophy and Science are and have always been complementary, after all Science was once called Natural Philosophy. I say that as someone whose main profession is electronics (it pays the bills). Re Gödel: I'd like to have been in the same room as Russell and Whitehead when they were reading Gödel's Incompleteness papers of 1930/'31 for the first time. In the light of Principia Mathematica one wonders what they must have thought. There are some references† but it's a pity they aren't more enlightening. Perhaps the answer is here in the words of the man himself (it's very hard not to think so): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihaB8AFOhZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihaB8AFOhZo. For those who doubt the value of Philosophy then these few words of inspirational wisdom ought to put their minds at rest. ___ † https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/29288/what-sources-discuss-russells-response-to-g%C3%B6dels-incompleteness-theorems https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/29288/what-so..., https://www.jstor.org/stable/44083314 https://www.jstor.org/stable/44083314
  - mistermann 3y ago
    > I often wonder why some—perhaps all too many—scientists (especially physicists) dismiss Philosophy as being irrelevant and pooh-pooh its ideas. Should this be surprising? What does one learn in Physics that could give one the ideas and methods to identify and escape the Naive Realism that default consciousness/reality is composed of? Is this not a bit like being surprised that philosophers can't do physics? That's one aspect. Another aspect is cognitive training: if you are a member of a community, you are subject to indoctrination of the beliefs of the ideology, and the beliefs of the ideology cannot be understood to be false/flawed without the right knowledge and methods. What we should wonder about imho is why things are like this, because this problem is fundamental, it is always and everywhere.
  - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
    As a Physicist, let me explain my own viewpoint, not necessarily shared by other physicists. Think of musicians. Most of the great musicians across never studied music theory, and never studied philosophy relevant to music in some way. But every good musician practices philosophy. They ask, what is good music, what does it mean to produce good music? What is relationship of my audience with my music? Why does this kind of music produce these kinds of emotions? And they discuss this with other musicians quite a lot. They are engaging with philosophy as it concerns their profession. Physicists/scientists also do this. Some more than others. What do the results of this experiment truly mean? Can we trust the results? What criteria should we use to judge a new theory? These discussions happen all the time. Physicists are obviously not opposed to any of this because it is part of their profession. What philosophers mean, when they say, why do Physicists not read the stuff we want you to read. And invariably that stuff is a hundred or five hundred years old. Physicists love and revere Einstein, so they take his words and rewrite it and improve it a thousand times, so that a century later we have a far far far more sophisticated philosophical understanding of general relativity and, say, entanglement, than he ever did. This is what Physicists are interested in. Improving the quality of the body of our knowledge and beliefs. If philosophers want Physicists to read philosophy, at minimum, they will have to rewrite and improve the stuff of dusty old men, and make strong connections with modern physics research. And ask people to read this new stuff.
resource_waste 3y ago
I read Plato's Gorgias, I believed Callicles over the Conventionalists. I got my mind opened. Philosophy is words by old people in control, Science is the reality of things. Thousands of years later Niztsche says something similar. 200 years later, we are back to teaching Stoicism. So what is going to happen, people who read philosophy learn a religion of virtue, find out another set of truths, and go through an existential crisis that causes anti-social behavior?
- hilbert42 3y ago
  "Philosophy is words by old people in control, Science is the reality of things." Why do you say 'old people'? I don't see that as being prerequisite, nor from history is there indication that philosophers have been in control. Science is the study of reality but why should that conflict with philosophical ideas? Perhaps you should read my reply to mykowebhn. Perhaps Gorgias is a bad example, perhaps Plato was making a point about rhetoric and problems with sophistry generally. In my opinion a much better example of the philosophical tradition is Book One of Republic, here Plato sets out a clear distinction between the shallowness of sophistry and solid philosophical reasoning. The dialogue between the sophist Thrasymachus and philosopher Socrates where Socrates systematically demolishes Thrasymachus's proposition that justice is every man for himself by reasoned argument is one of the most wonderful documents to be handed down from ancient times.
  - resource_waste 3y ago
    You didn't read Gorgias, you read a wikipedia/summary. I don't want to hear that "REPUBLIC is better". It isnt. "The Republic" was easier to get people's hands on. The logic isnt sound, the character in-favor of might based justice was a comedic relief. Callicles has genuine arguments in favor of reality. Anyway, that was funny how you didn't read Gorgias, but you read a summary, and told me that I was wrong with a point that is a mere blip in the dialog.
    - hilbert42 3y ago
      "You didn't read Gorgias, you read a wikipedia/summary." Sorry, it was part of our work dealing with logic, argument, and rhetoric in the Greek tradition in the late 1970s well before Wiki and the Web even existed. (I wish I'd had the Web back then, it would have made study much easier). Unfortunately, it's this kind of negative discussion that those who criticize Philosophy latch onto to discredit the subject. Of course you are entitled to your opinion. Why are you so upset that someone could actually disagree with you? Incidentally, why did you say that I said you were wrong when I never said any such thing? I could proceed to debate that you are deliberately taking the sophist's line to buy an argument but I've said enough already.
idoubtit 3y ago
A few centuries ago, philosophy was a knowledge. Its concepts and theories were central in most educations. Spinoza proved the existance of God. Charles Fourier defined new societies. Now that sciences and technology rule the knowledge field, philosophy's enthusiasts just claim that philosophy helps learning to think and widens one's spirit. These claims are dubious and unprecise. > What philosophy does is to teach one to think and reason in ways that one otherwise would not have done. It enlarges one's worldview which makes it easier for one to grasp new ideas and concepts, and to be open to fields of knowledge that one may have otherwise bypassed. If that were true, I think philosophy would be a mandatory study to anyone interested in advanced scientific theories, because it's hard to grasp concepts about higher dimensions, or the relativity of space-time, etc. Recent history shows that the modern flow is in the other direction: Einstein's theories influenced philosophers, not the other way around. I strongly doubt that people who read philosophy are significantly more receptive to foreign concepts and cultures. Many factors seem more important. It's like saying a religious belief makes people more open to others, while experiments tend to show the opposite is true. Even so, most arts can claim the same: "grasp new ideas" and "open to fields of knowledge". In my case, I could say that for literature. Like any art, the form is important: almost nobody studies Gauss' scientific concepts through original texts, while almost nobody reads a modern wording of classical novels or philosophy works. Like literature, philosophy is a peculiar form of artistic culture.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > Einstein's theories influenced philosophers, not the other way around. Untrue: "At thirteen, when his range of enthusiasms had broadened to include music and philosophy, Einstein was introduced to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Kant became his favorite philosopher" "In 1902, Einstein and some friends whom he had met in Bern formed a group that held regular meetings to discuss science and philosophy." "The thinkers whose works they reflected upon included Henri Poincaré, Ernst Mach and David Hume, all of whom significantly influenced Einstein's own subsequent ideas and beliefs." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein
  - programjames 3y ago

mykowebhn 3y ago

YES! And if it enlarges one's worldview, it's because Philosophy stands as the root, the superset if you will, of all other areas of knowledge, art, science, etc. For example, if Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem explores the boundaries of what Mathematics can know and we want to seriously understand what this means, then we are entering Philosophy.

hilbert42 3y ago
Exactly, Philosophy does stand at the root. I often wonder why some—perhaps all too many—scientists (especially physicists) dismiss Philosophy as being irrelevant and pooh-pooh its ideas. For me, Philosophy and Science are and have always been complementary, after all Science was once called Natural Philosophy. I say that as someone whose main profession is electronics (it pays the bills). Re Gödel: I'd like to have been in the same room as Russell and Whitehead when they were reading Gödel's Incompleteness papers of 1930/'31 for the first time. In the light of Principia Mathematica one wonders what they must have thought. There are some references† but it's a pity they aren't more enlightening. Perhaps the answer is here in the words of the man himself (it's very hard not to think so): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihaB8AFOhZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihaB8AFOhZo. For those who doubt the value of Philosophy then these few words of inspirational wisdom ought to put their minds at rest. ___ † https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/29288/what-sources-discuss-russells-response-to-g%C3%B6dels-incompleteness-theorems https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/29288/what-so..., https://www.jstor.org/stable/44083314 https://www.jstor.org/stable/44083314
- mistermann 3y ago
  > I often wonder why some—perhaps all too many—scientists (especially physicists) dismiss Philosophy as being irrelevant and pooh-pooh its ideas. Should this be surprising? What does one learn in Physics that could give one the ideas and methods to identify and escape the Naive Realism that default consciousness/reality is composed of? Is this not a bit like being surprised that philosophers can't do physics? That's one aspect. Another aspect is cognitive training: if you are a member of a community, you are subject to indoctrination of the beliefs of the ideology, and the beliefs of the ideology cannot be understood to be false/flawed without the right knowledge and methods. What we should wonder about imho is why things are like this, because this problem is fundamental, it is always and everywhere.
- abdullahkhalids 3y ago
  As a Physicist, let me explain my own viewpoint, not necessarily shared by other physicists. Think of musicians. Most of the great musicians across never studied music theory, and never studied philosophy relevant to music in some way. But every good musician practices philosophy. They ask, what is good music, what does it mean to produce good music? What is relationship of my audience with my music? Why does this kind of music produce these kinds of emotions? And they discuss this with other musicians quite a lot. They are engaging with philosophy as it concerns their profession. Physicists/scientists also do this. Some more than others. What do the results of this experiment truly mean? Can we trust the results? What criteria should we use to judge a new theory? These discussions happen all the time. Physicists are obviously not opposed to any of this because it is part of their profession. What philosophers mean, when they say, why do Physicists not read the stuff we want you to read. And invariably that stuff is a hundred or five hundred years old. Physicists love and revere Einstein, so they take his words and rewrite it and improve it a thousand times, so that a century later we have a far far far more sophisticated philosophical understanding of general relativity and, say, entanglement, than he ever did. This is what Physicists are interested in. Improving the quality of the body of our knowledge and beliefs. If philosophers want Physicists to read philosophy, at minimum, they will have to rewrite and improve the stuff of dusty old men, and make strong connections with modern physics research. And ask people to read this new stuff.

resource_waste 3y ago

I read Plato's Gorgias, I believed Callicles over the Conventionalists. I got my mind opened. Philosophy is words by old people in control, Science is the reality of things. Thousands of years later Niztsche says something similar. 200 years later, we are back to teaching Stoicism. So what is going to happen, people who read philosophy learn a religion of virtue, find out another set of truths, and go through an existential crisis that causes anti-social behavior?

hilbert42 3y ago
"Philosophy is words by old people in control, Science is the reality of things." Why do you say 'old people'? I don't see that as being prerequisite, nor from history is there indication that philosophers have been in control. Science is the study of reality but why should that conflict with philosophical ideas? Perhaps you should read my reply to mykowebhn. Perhaps Gorgias is a bad example, perhaps Plato was making a point about rhetoric and problems with sophistry generally. In my opinion a much better example of the philosophical tradition is Book One of Republic, here Plato sets out a clear distinction between the shallowness of sophistry and solid philosophical reasoning. The dialogue between the sophist Thrasymachus and philosopher Socrates where Socrates systematically demolishes Thrasymachus's proposition that justice is every man for himself by reasoned argument is one of the most wonderful documents to be handed down from ancient times.
- resource_waste 3y ago
  You didn't read Gorgias, you read a wikipedia/summary. I don't want to hear that "REPUBLIC is better". It isnt. "The Republic" was easier to get people's hands on. The logic isnt sound, the character in-favor of might based justice was a comedic relief. Callicles has genuine arguments in favor of reality. Anyway, that was funny how you didn't read Gorgias, but you read a summary, and told me that I was wrong with a point that is a mere blip in the dialog.
  - hilbert42 3y ago
    "You didn't read Gorgias, you read a wikipedia/summary." Sorry, it was part of our work dealing with logic, argument, and rhetoric in the Greek tradition in the late 1970s well before Wiki and the Web even existed. (I wish I'd had the Web back then, it would have made study much easier). Unfortunately, it's this kind of negative discussion that those who criticize Philosophy latch onto to discredit the subject. Of course you are entitled to your opinion. Why are you so upset that someone could actually disagree with you? Incidentally, why did you say that I said you were wrong when I never said any such thing? I could proceed to debate that you are deliberately taking the sophist's line to buy an argument but I've said enough already.

idoubtit 3y ago

A few centuries ago, philosophy was a knowledge. Its concepts and theories were central in most educations. Spinoza proved the existance of God. Charles Fourier defined new societies. Now that sciences and technology rule the knowledge field, philosophy's enthusiasts just claim that philosophy helps learning to think and widens one's spirit. These claims are dubious and unprecise. > What philosophy does is to teach one to think and reason in ways that one otherwise would not have done. It enlarges one's worldview which makes it easier for one to grasp new ideas and concepts, and to be open to fields of knowledge that one may have otherwise bypassed. If that were true, I think philosophy would be a mandatory study to anyone interested in advanced scientific theories, because it's hard to grasp concepts about higher dimensions, or the relativity of space-time, etc. Recent history shows that the modern flow is in the other direction: Einstein's theories influenced philosophers, not the other way around. I strongly doubt that people who read philosophy are significantly more receptive to foreign concepts and cultures. Many factors seem more important. It's like saying a religious belief makes people more open to others, while experiments tend to show the opposite is true. Even so, most arts can claim the same: "grasp new ideas" and "open to fields of knowledge". In my case, I could say that for literature. Like any art, the form is important: almost nobody studies Gauss' scientific concepts through original texts, while almost nobody reads a modern wording of classical novels or philosophy works. Like literature, philosophy is a peculiar form of artistic culture.

lapcat 3y ago
> Einstein's theories influenced philosophers, not the other way around. Untrue: "At thirteen, when his range of enthusiasms had broadened to include music and philosophy, Einstein was introduced to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Kant became his favorite philosopher" "In 1902, Einstein and some friends whom he had met in Bern formed a group that held regular meetings to discuss science and philosophy." "The thinkers whose works they reflected upon included Henri Poincaré, Ernst Mach and David Hume, all of whom significantly influenced Einstein's own subsequent ideas and beliefs." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein
- programjames 3y ago