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I find most scientists I know startlingly bad at philosophy, and startlingly arrogant about how much science actually tells us. If only more people read philoso

I find most scientists I know startlingly bad at philosophy, and startlingly arrogant about how much science actually tells us. If only more people read philosophy instead of Popular Science.

derleth 14y ago
It would be great if there were popular philosophy books not written by the lunatics of the philosophy world. Focus on a question the mainstream philosophers have answered and lay out the answer step-by-step, like a popular science book that goes through how we know what goes on inside the Sun, for example, and how we found out.
- why-el 14y ago
  I think you will appreciate Alain de Botton's work, that if you don't know him already.
- shasta 14y ago
  Can you give an example of one interesting question that philosophers have answered?
  - planetguy 14y ago
    Questions that can be answered aren't the domain of philosophy, and if these questions ever do get answered the question gets retrospectively moved out of the philosophers' domain. Often philosophers do answer questions -- e.g. Russell answered a whole bunch, but we call the bits where he actually got definite answers "mathematics". Philosophy, done right, isn't about answering questions but it is about refining them. Consider a difficult question, consider the logical consequences of a bunch of possible answers, and hopefully pop out at the other end with a better question. A question like "What is the right way to behave?" might not ever get answered definitively, but at least we can put labels on various possible schools of thought and distinguish between them in a bunch of rather contrived situations involving lifeboats and runaway trains.
    - derleth 14y ago
      I'd deny that mathematics is at all related to philosophy except to about the same level physics, for example, is. Mathematics is a wonderful intellectual game that occasionally (and unpredictably) has results useful for science and engineering.
      - jchrisa 14y ago
        In my Philosophy dept Frege was well read. So we spent a lot of time with the foundations of set theory and arithmetic. Looks like he has an article "What is a Function?" but I don't think I've read it.
      - planetguy 14y ago
        So where, in your opinion, is the boundary between philosophy and mathematics? On which side is logic?
        derleth 14y ago
        Philosophy discusses human problems. Mathematics is a symbol game. Logic is (at least) two concepts referred to with the same term and I won't answer until I know which one in specific you're talking about.
        rsanchez1 14y ago
        Philosophy does not discuss human problems. Philosophy discusses human thought.
  - msutherl 14y ago
    Philosophers, for the most part, don't answer questions, they ask them. Or so the cliché goes. More correctly, they propose theoretical approaches to certain questions. Modern science, for instance, may very well never have existed if it weren't for questions posed and theories established by Aristotle. During the Middle-Ages, the writings of Aristotle were taken as unquestionable truths, and so all modern Western thought, and by extension all scientific thought, is in some way rooted in reactions to Aristotle. Francis Bacon later formulated and popularized the idea of the society informed by a state-sponsored scientific institution. Bacon was read widely and directly inspired the founders of the Royal Society and equivalent scientific authorities in other countries as well as the European university system. Without their contributions, humanity very well may never had developed so explosively as it has the past 200 years.
- rpedroso 14y ago
  I'm not sure who you're referring to as "the lunatics of the philosophy world", but I'm skeptical of the idea that philosophers have "answered" any question in the way science answers questions. There is certainly a debate to be had about what constitutes science, but we can agree on at least a rough framework: testability, induction, the scientific method, etc. You can't say the same about philosophy. A debate between two neo-Aristotelians about final cause and teleology might be scoffed at by a Humean empiricist. In the larger sense, there are few if any things that the philosophical world would agree to. There is, however, an interesting popular philosophy book series that I (as a philosophy grad student) really appreciate: "X and Philosophy". There are dozens of these. "House and Philosophy", "Game of Thrones and Philosophy", "The Hunger Games and Philosophy", etc. They do a tremendous job of introducing the philosophical debates underpinning the themes of shows, books, movies, etc. They don't attempt to make some kind of grandiose conclusion, but they break down complex thought in a way ost people could understand and take something away from.
- rsanchez1 14y ago
  If only it were that easy, but in philosophy there are not equations holding your hands the entire way telling you how models are correct. Students have to spend years learning how to think before philosophers start making sense and stop sounding like "lunatics". There is no step-by-step checklist to being a philosopher.
MisterBastahrd 14y ago
That's not really as bad as philosophers who, when the reality disagrees with them, just make shit up and form a tautological argument for it.
- kaffiene 14y ago
  Since you obviously didn't just make that argument up... care to cite your sources?
kaffiene 14y ago
Yeah, I had a lecturer in Artificial Intelligence who was very pompous about how little Philosophy had to add to the debate about intelligence but what he didn't seem to realise is that his half-baked arguments against Philosophy were in themselves just philosophy done very badly by someone without the background to put together a decent argument. People ask what Philosphy has achieved: the very existence of science as a seperate field is the work of Philosophy. As is computer science, artificial inteligence, political philosophy much of economics. Philosophy works at the things we don't have frameworks for dealing with yet, and it asks questions about the applicability of those frameworks we do have. Not everything in Philosophy becomes something tangible in the world, but much of our intellectual framework for dealing with the world has its origins in Philiosophy. I mean, what do you think Schrodinger was doing with his cats in the box other than posing a Philosophical question to sharpen our thoughts about an existing field of (real world) research? So, back to the poster I was responding to: yes, I think much of the criticism of Philosophy comes from those who don't understand it. Ironically, you can't valuably criticise Philosophy without actually doing it.

I find most scientists I know startlingly bad at philosophy, and startlingly arrogant about how much science actually tells us. If only more people read philosophy instead of Popular Science.

derleth 14y ago

It would be great if there were popular philosophy books not written by the lunatics of the philosophy world. Focus on a question the mainstream philosophers have answered and lay out the answer step-by-step, like a popular science book that goes through how we know what goes on inside the Sun, for example, and how we found out.

why-el 14y ago
I think you will appreciate Alain de Botton's work, that if you don't know him already.
shasta 14y ago
Can you give an example of one interesting question that philosophers have answered?
- planetguy 14y ago
  Questions that can be answered aren't the domain of philosophy, and if these questions ever do get answered the question gets retrospectively moved out of the philosophers' domain. Often philosophers do answer questions -- e.g. Russell answered a whole bunch, but we call the bits where he actually got definite answers "mathematics". Philosophy, done right, isn't about answering questions but it is about refining them. Consider a difficult question, consider the logical consequences of a bunch of possible answers, and hopefully pop out at the other end with a better question. A question like "What is the right way to behave?" might not ever get answered definitively, but at least we can put labels on various possible schools of thought and distinguish between them in a bunch of rather contrived situations involving lifeboats and runaway trains.
  - derleth 14y ago
    I'd deny that mathematics is at all related to philosophy except to about the same level physics, for example, is. Mathematics is a wonderful intellectual game that occasionally (and unpredictably) has results useful for science and engineering.
    - jchrisa 14y ago
      In my Philosophy dept Frege was well read. So we spent a lot of time with the foundations of set theory and arithmetic. Looks like he has an article "What is a Function?" but I don't think I've read it.
    - planetguy 14y ago
      So where, in your opinion, is the boundary between philosophy and mathematics? On which side is logic?
      - derleth 14y ago
        Philosophy discusses human problems. Mathematics is a symbol game. Logic is (at least) two concepts referred to with the same term and I won't answer until I know which one in specific you're talking about.
        rsanchez1 14y ago
        Philosophy does not discuss human problems. Philosophy discusses human thought.
- msutherl 14y ago
  Philosophers, for the most part, don't answer questions, they ask them. Or so the cliché goes. More correctly, they propose theoretical approaches to certain questions. Modern science, for instance, may very well never have existed if it weren't for questions posed and theories established by Aristotle. During the Middle-Ages, the writings of Aristotle were taken as unquestionable truths, and so all modern Western thought, and by extension all scientific thought, is in some way rooted in reactions to Aristotle. Francis Bacon later formulated and popularized the idea of the society informed by a state-sponsored scientific institution. Bacon was read widely and directly inspired the founders of the Royal Society and equivalent scientific authorities in other countries as well as the European university system. Without their contributions, humanity very well may never had developed so explosively as it has the past 200 years.
rpedroso 14y ago
I'm not sure who you're referring to as "the lunatics of the philosophy world", but I'm skeptical of the idea that philosophers have "answered" any question in the way science answers questions. There is certainly a debate to be had about what constitutes science, but we can agree on at least a rough framework: testability, induction, the scientific method, etc. You can't say the same about philosophy. A debate between two neo-Aristotelians about final cause and teleology might be scoffed at by a Humean empiricist. In the larger sense, there are few if any things that the philosophical world would agree to. There is, however, an interesting popular philosophy book series that I (as a philosophy grad student) really appreciate: "X and Philosophy". There are dozens of these. "House and Philosophy", "Game of Thrones and Philosophy", "The Hunger Games and Philosophy", etc. They do a tremendous job of introducing the philosophical debates underpinning the themes of shows, books, movies, etc. They don't attempt to make some kind of grandiose conclusion, but they break down complex thought in a way ost people could understand and take something away from.
rsanchez1 14y ago
If only it were that easy, but in philosophy there are not equations holding your hands the entire way telling you how models are correct. Students have to spend years learning how to think before philosophers start making sense and stop sounding like "lunatics". There is no step-by-step checklist to being a philosopher.

MisterBastahrd 14y ago

That's not really as bad as philosophers who, when the reality disagrees with them, just make shit up and form a tautological argument for it.

kaffiene 14y ago
Since you obviously didn't just make that argument up... care to cite your sources?

kaffiene 14y ago

Yeah, I had a lecturer in Artificial Intelligence who was very pompous about how little Philosophy had to add to the debate about intelligence but what he didn't seem to realise is that his half-baked arguments against Philosophy were in themselves just philosophy done very badly by someone without the background to put together a decent argument. People ask what Philosphy has achieved: the very existence of science as a seperate field is the work of Philosophy. As is computer science, artificial inteligence, political philosophy much of economics. Philosophy works at the things we don't have frameworks for dealing with yet, and it asks questions about the applicability of those frameworks we do have. Not everything in Philosophy becomes something tangible in the world, but much of our intellectual framework for dealing with the world has its origins in Philiosophy. I mean, what do you think Schrodinger was doing with his cats in the box other than posing a Philosophical question to sharpen our thoughts about an existing field of (real world) research? So, back to the poster I was responding to: yes, I think much of the criticism of Philosophy comes from those who don't understand it. Ironically, you can't valuably criticise Philosophy without actually doing it.