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Philosophy Of Science

What constitutes science?
That's an extremely interesting philosophical question.

It's nice to see you engaging in philosophy, though it baffles me that you seem to enjoy asking the same question over and over, and then giving the same answer, as though doing so somehow challenges the very philosophy that you are busy demonstrating.
 
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I don't don't see why observation and acquiring information in order to better understand the natural world is itself a matter of philosophy.

Other animals do that, albeit to a lesser degree, yet we don't classify them as being philosophers.
 
I don't don't see why observation and acquiring information in order to better understand the natural world is itself a matter of philosophy.

Other animals do that, albeit to a lesser degree, yet we don't classify them as being philosophers.
Maybe you don't.

I wouldn't hesitate to classify other great apes* as philosophers. Probably many other mammals are too. Likely some birds. Maybe some other animals. Of course, I can't know that they are.








* Including you. The only grest ape that I can know is a philosopher is @bilby. I think, therefore I think. The rest is supposition.
 
A New York Times opinion piece;

''For roughly 98 percent of the last 2,500 years of Western intellectual history, philosophy was considered the mother of all knowledge. It generated most of the fields of research still with us today. This is why we continue to call our highest degrees Ph.D.’s, namely, philosophy doctorates. At the same time, we live an age in which many seem no longer sure what philosophy is or is good for anymore. Most seem to see it as a highly abstracted discipline with little if any bearing on objective reality — something more akin to art, literature or religion. All have plenty to say about reality. But the overarching assumption is that none of it actually qualifies as knowledge until proven scientifically.''

''So what objective knowledge can philosophy bring that is not already determinable by science? This is a question that has become increasingly fashionable — even in philosophy — to answer with a defiant “none.” For numerous philosophers have come to believe, in concert with the prejudices of our age, that only science holds the potential to solve persistent philosophical mysteries as the nature of truth, life, mind, meaning, justice, the good and the beautiful.''

''So if we philosophers want to restore philosophy’s authority in the wider culture, we should not change its name but engage more often with issues of contemporary concern — not so much as scientists but as guardians of reason.''


 
People use the word philosophy and philosopher as Christians use god, not really defined but we are supposed to know what it means.

The first thing the teacher I had for Phil 101 covered was the meaning of the word philosophy.

the most general definition of philosophy is that it is the pursuit of wisdom, truth, and knowledge. indeed, the word itself means 'love of wisdom' in Greek.


The literal meaning of "philosophy" comes from two Greek words: philein (to love) and sophia (wisdom), making it "the love of wisdom". This etymology refers to a pursuit of understanding, the study of fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, reason, and values through logic and critical thinking, rather than simply a collection of fact

Philosophy was a catch all phrase for anyone pursing knowledge in any form.

First things first.

Philosophy is a category for people pursing knowledge. It is not philosophy that does something, it is individuals. Same with science, it is individuals doing work.

Categories are important, hard to communicate in general without them.

Engineers and scientist are also broad categories with many sub categories.

So when you say philosophy, maybe it is ore informative to say specifically what is meant for a specific case.

Popper wrote that with the decline of Natural Philosophy the field of philosophy was left with debate and maddening. Areas like physics, chemistry, linguistics became distinct disciplines.

Metaphysics were no longer adequate. Perception and meaning are in psychology.

Quality and mind are in psychology. Partly based in experiment. Before modern science all people had were abstractions tio describe experience.

It is political science not political philosophy.

Ethics and morality are as important as ever. I took an ethics class. Philosophers are not without meaning and relevance if philosophers can produce a new ethics for the culture. A changing difficult task. Science is not moral or immoral. That is for moral philosophy and religion, what to do with products of science,

Philosophy as it is today along with religion do not address physical reality, they deal with the spiritual side of humans. Spiritual not necessarily inferring supernatural.

From commentary in the Koran translation I read, religion and science are not in conflict, they are address different areas.

To me philosophers have become commentators. Outside observers.

You can look at the curriculum in a philosophy program.

When it comes to sconce the better word is paradigm not philosophy. Paradigm was heard word at work, not philosophy. Philosophy is a loaded contextual word.

What is a paradigm in simple words?
A paradigm is a standard, perspective, or set of ideas. A paradigm is a way of looking at something. The word paradigm comes up a lot in the academic, scientific, and business worlds. A new paradigm in business could mean a new way of reaching customers and making money.

Physical science is the modeling of physical reality.

So this is what philosophers do, nice work if you can get it.
 
People use the word philosophy and philosopher as Christians use god, not really defined but we are supposed to know what it means.

No, they do not.
The first thing the teacher I had for Phil 101 covered was the meaning of the word philosophy.

the most general definition of philosophy is that it is the pursuit of wisdom, truth, and knowledge. indeed, the word itself means 'love of wisdom' in Greek.


The literal meaning of "philosophy" comes from two Greek words: philein (to love) and sophia (wisdom), making it "the love of wisdom". This etymology refers to a pursuit of understanding, the study of fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, reason, and values through logic and critical thinking, rather than simply a collection of fact

And look! You just defined it!

But the definition in insufficient, for the same reason that attempts to unambiguously define science will always fall short — the demarcation problem. Popper offered falsification as a demarcation criterion for science but it falls short for reasons given in this thread.
 
Professor Norman Swartz on metaphysics:

There may, that is, be many metaphysical problems which bear little more in common than that they are regarded as metaphysical puzzles. To this extent, "metaphysical" may be like "interesting" or "popular" or "taboo", i.e. the term may describe something extrinsic, a way of our regarding the thing described, rather than any intrinsic feature of the thing itself. It may well be that there is no way other than by giving examples to explain what is to be regarded as a metaphysical puzzle.


If this is true, there should be no cause for alarm. For if this is true, metaphysics is no worse off in this regard than is, for example, mathematics. There is no single determinate feature, other than tradition, which makes some puzzle or some technique a mathematical one. When certain persons at the end of the sixteenth century set their minds to developing what has come to be known as algebra, many mathematicians did not know what to make of the newly developing techniques and body of knowledge ([112], 122-6). Was algebra, or was it not, mathematics? Or, again, at the turn of the twentieth century, as set theory was being developed at the hands of a few mathematicians, it was being roundly condemned by others ([112], 203-4). Was set theory a genuine part of mathematics or not? Mathematicians, without of course ever taking a vote on the question, but rather just by their accepting and using algebra and set theory, collectively decided (not discovered!) that these new techniques and their attendant concepts were to be regarded as mathematical. Similarly today there is a debate among physical anthropologists whether 'forensic archaeology' is a bona fide discipline alongside forensic anthropology.9 There is no court of appeal to address one's questions to, to settle such disciplinary {page 19} disputes. Nowhere is it authoritatively written what is, and what is not, to count as being mathematical; nowhere is it written what is, and what is not, to count as falling within the sphere of forensic anthropology. And – to make the point I am driving at – nowhere is it, nor could it be, authoritatively written what is, and what is not, to count as being a metaphysical problem.

This is not to say, however, that anything and everything is eligible for being regarded as being a metaphysical problem. No more so than is everything eligible for being regarded as being a mathematical or an anthropological problem.

To what extent, then, can we say what a metaphysical problem is, or put another way, what metaphysics itself is? There is no simple answer. The scope of metaphysics changes somewhat from generation to generation (remember the quotation [p. 6] from Collingwood, speaking of history); it may even change from philosopher to philosopher. I think it would be foolhardy to attempt to give anything like a definition or some formula whose application would give a verdict: "Yes, this is a metaphysical problem"; or, "No, this is not a metaphysical problem". To learn what metaphysics is, or better, what sorts of problems philosophers regard as being metaphysical problems, one should look into a variety of philosophical books. And in doing that, one will quickly discover that a great many, remarkably diverse, problems are regarded as being metaphysical ones.


This essential vagueness must be terribly unsatisfactory for the newcomer.
 
And look! You just defined it!
...using two rather undefined (or at least fuzzy) terms: "the love of wisdom"
Swartz said:
This essential vagueness must be terribly unsatisfactory for the newcomer.

I'd posit that for someone to actually derive satisfaction from "this essential vagueness", they must have lived a satisfaction-deprived existence.
 
And look! You just defined it!
...using two rather undefined (or at least fuzzy) terms: "the love of wisdom"
Swartz said:
This essential vagueness must be terribly unsatisfactory for the newcomer.

I'd posit that for someone to actually derive satisfaction from "this essential vagueness", they must have lived a satisfaction-deprived existence.

I assure you Swartz has not lived such an existence. ;)
 
And look! You just defined it!
...using two rather undefined (or at least fuzzy) terms: "the love of wisdom"

Not sure you think why these words are “rather undefined,” but we could posit a certain fuzziness to then, and their meanings would change with context. However, that is true pretty much of … everything.

Steve seems to want an unambiguous definition of philosophy, yet such a definition cannot be found for science, either.
 
More on metaphysics from Swartz:

Nonetheless, experiential knowledge, whether the product of passive, unaided human sensory perception or the result of the most highly imaginative and sophisticated scientific hypothesizing combined with controlled experimenting with technically refined instruments, still can take us only so far. Our desire for explanations forever transcends what experience, even when pushed to its limits in science, can possibly offer us. Experience cannot answer a question such as "What must a world be like in order that there should be able to exist within it such things as physical molecules?" Experience cannot tell us, for example, whether a human being, in the final stages of Alzheimer's disease, who has lost all ability to recognize and interact with other human beings, is still a person. Experience cannot tell us, for example, whether a (future) computer which perfectly imitates the behavior of a human being is conscious. Experience cannot tell us, for example, whether human beings have free will. And experience cannot tell us whether human beings have immortal, immaterial souls.

These questions, which go beyond the ability of experience, beyond the ability of science, to answer, are metaphysical questions. This, at the very least, is the one common thread in all metaphysical questions. Etymology is not always a good indicator of meaning, but in this instance "meta", meaning "beyond", is apt.11Metaphysical questions are questions whose answers lie "beyond" physics, i.e. beyond science, beyond experience.

Note that this was written decades ago, and we are now having the very debate about whether AI is or could be conscious, and if so, how could you tell?
 
And look! You just defined it!
...using two rather undefined (or at least fuzzy) terms: "the love of wisdom"

Not sure you think why these words are “rather undefined,” but we could posit a certain fuzziness to then, and their meanings would change with context. However, that is true pretty much of … everything.

Steve seems to want an unambiguous definition of philosophy, yet such a definition cannot be found for science, either.
I guess it's a matter of degrees then. How does mathematics fit the scale?
 
People use the word philosophy and philosopher as Christians use god, not really defined but we are supposed to know what it means.

No, they do not.
The first thing the teacher I had for Phil 101 covered was the meaning of the word philosophy.

the most general definition of philosophy is that it is the pursuit of wisdom, truth, and knowledge. indeed, the word itself means 'love of wisdom' in Greek.


The literal meaning of "philosophy" comes from two Greek words: philein (to love) and sophia (wisdom), making it "the love of wisdom". This etymology refers to a pursuit of understanding, the study of fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, reason, and values through logic and critical thinking, rather than simply a collection of fact

And look! You just defined it!

But the definition in insufficient, for the same reason that attempts to unambiguously define science will always fall short — the demarcation problem. Popper offered falsification as a demarcation criterion for science but it falls short for reasons given in this thread.
Taa Daaah!! That is it.

Regardless of how you define it, science works and moves on as it always has.

There are multiple moral philosophies that vary significantly. Which one should guide you?

There are multiple philosophies of science. After reading Popper I looked at Instrumentalism. It is a way of looking at things, but it did not guide or affect what I did.

Falsification is inherent in engineering. Something is demonstrated to work as predcted or it does not.

I read Mach.

that scientific theories should be based on observable phenomena and direct measurement. He opposed metaphysical concepts like absolute space and time and the existence of atoms, advocating for the economy and simplicity of scientific theories. Mach's work critiqued Newtonian physics, influenced logical positivism, and provided a philosophical framework for theories like relativity and Gestalt theory.

The opposite of metaphysics. He was a physicist.
 
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