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Yes, absolutely. The modern definition of "proof" and of "true". Logic was considered philosophy in the early 20th century. And the works of Russell, for exampl
by cpa 12y ago
Yes, absolutely. The modern definition of "proof" and of "true". Logic was considered philosophy in the early 20th century. And the works of Russell, for example, helped define what we see today as a convincing proof. Basically, 120 years ago, math was not as rigorous as it is now (Cauchy is a prime example).
Also, philosophy of science is not necessarily about producing useful stuff for the practice of science, but usually helps better understand the relationship between humans and knowledge. It allows scientists to take a step back and see the big picture before diving back into their practice. As such, it shapes the way we think of and do science, and allows for better questions to be asked, and gives better ways to frame those questions.
- AimHere 12y agoAren't those about the philosophy of mathematics, rather than that of science? At this level, mathematics is a discipline that's entirely unlike science, in that (at least if you believe it's philosophers) science doesn't prove anything true, it just has a bunch of competing theories some of which get disproved by experiments.
- cpa 12y agoIt's definitely not just about mathematics. What the scientific community considers acceptable (as in publishable in a good journal) proof has been shaped by the last 100 years of logic practice. Yes, we had rational reasoning before 1900, but it did not look anything like today's "rationality". We used to do piggy-back mathematical models to experiments; now we build from the ground up models and we try to make sure that they match our experiments. This is basically the mindset change that happened in the math community when logicians said that "it's not math if it doesn't start with axioms" (no, I'm not actually quoting anyone). Also, the second paragraph of my first comment is not about logic.