What Is Philosophy?

[pood]

Oh, I forgot, though I mentioned this before. There is a contemporary debate over whether sex is binary or a spectrum. It pits PZ Myers vs. Jerry Coyne and Dawkins. Many others are involved. It is a philosophical debate. It will not be answered with a mathematical equation. The truth is it will never be answered. So it goes, as Vonnegut said. .

 

[pood]

FWIW I think PZ has the better argument, that sex is a spectrum. The point is that this part of the philosophy of biology.

 

[DBT]

Analysis is not philosophy. Logic, through used in both science and philosophy, is not philosophy.

Well yes. If you randomly define anything you don't like as "not philosophy", then "philosophy" will not describe anything you like. That is very trivially true. But why should anyone else accept your personal definition of philosophy as reasonable?

Just trying to sort out what may or may not be defined as philosophy.

For instance, people in prehistoric times were intelligent and had the ability to think and act logically, but can that ability be defined as philosophy?

Were they philosophers? Or is it just a matter of natural, practical logic?

That depends. Did they form a systematic, orderly approach to thought? If so, then yes, that is philosophy, and what century they did it in is irrelevant. If not, then no, and the century they did it in is still irrelevant.

Your terms "natural" and "practical" themselves need the deconstructive efforts of a philosopher, if I may say so. They are words often invoked, but are often found attached to very different referents, and both have their origins in classical philosophy.

I said prehistoric times because this period is not generally considered to be when philosophy was developed, that this was not a time for philosophy or philosophers. We tend to think of the Greeks and the progress they made in the field.

 

[Politesse]

Analysis is not philosophy. Logic, through used in both science and philosophy, is not philosophy.

Well yes. If you randomly define anything you don't like as "not philosophy", then "philosophy" will not describe anything you like. That is very trivially true. But why should anyone else accept your personal definition of philosophy as reasonable?

Just trying to sort out what may or may not be defined as philosophy.

For instance, people in prehistoric times were intelligent and had the ability to think and act logically, but can that ability be defined as philosophy?

Were they philosophers? Or is it just a matter of natural, practical logic?

That depends. Did they form a systematic, orderly approach to thought? If so, then yes, that is philosophy, and what century they did it in is irrelevant. If not, then no, and the century they did it in is still irrelevant.

Your terms "natural" and "practical" themselves need the deconstructive efforts of a philosopher, if I may say so. They are words often invoked, but are often found attached to very different referents, and both have their origins in classical philosophy.

I said prehistoric times because this period is not generally considered to be when philosophy was developed, that this was not a time for philosophy or philosophers. We tend to think of the Greeks and the progress they made in the field.

Well, if your measure of what philosophy is or isn't is "did the ancient Greeks call it philosophy?", then the question becomes exceedingly simple to resolve. The ancient Greeks did in fact consider science to be philosophy, and scientists to be philosophers.

So, that's the matter settled, kalimera!

 

[Elixir]

Philosophy has been around as long as humans. As soon as immediate needs and wants were met, philosophizing was next. That still seems to be the case.
There are no rigorous rules governing philosophies, and little experimental data advising us how to evaluate them.
But in science, there is no way to decide what to pursue, what questions to ask, what concerns to try to address without a passionate need for an answer. Native curiosity without certain devotion to the problem, doesn’t usually move the scientific needle.
So to some extent, philosophic choices underlie scientific direction, whether or not science and philosophy are to be considered parts of the same thing.

 

[pood]

To emphasize the point, PZ Myers (sex spectrum) and Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins (binary) are all highly reputable biologists who look at the same data and disagree over what those data mean. That’s philosophy!

 

[DBT]

Analysis is not philosophy. Logic, through used in both science and philosophy, is not philosophy.

Well yes. If you randomly define anything you don't like as "not philosophy", then "philosophy" will not describe anything you like. That is very trivially true. But why should anyone else accept your personal definition of philosophy as reasonable?

Just trying to sort out what may or may not be defined as philosophy.

For instance, people in prehistoric times were intelligent and had the ability to think and act logically, but can that ability be defined as philosophy?

Were they philosophers? Or is it just a matter of natural, practical logic?

That depends. Did they form a systematic, orderly approach to thought? If so, then yes, that is philosophy, and what century they did it in is irrelevant. If not, then no, and the century they did it in is still irrelevant.

Your terms "natural" and "practical" themselves need the deconstructive efforts of a philosopher, if I may say so. They are words often invoked, but are often found attached to very different referents, and both have their origins in classical philosophy.

I said prehistoric times because this period is not generally considered to be when philosophy was developed, that this was not a time for philosophy or philosophers. We tend to think of the Greeks and the progress they made in the field.

Well, if your measure of what philosophy is or isn't is "did the ancient Greeks call it philosophy?", then the question becomes exceedingly simple to resolve. The ancient Greeks did in fact consider science to be philosophy, and scientists to be philosophers.

So, that's the matter settled, kalimera!

The "love of wisdom/philosophy" alone doesn't design and build complex machinery, computers, satellites, rovers.....for that you need a method, and that method is called science.

The ancient Greeks did well enough with philosophy, but languished in science. Had social conditions been different, science may have flourished and we could had colonies on the moon and Mars by now.

 

[pood]

From this it follows that at least in part, the idea that science consists of objectively reproducible data is a fallacy. The data must be interpreted. And science is full of controversy over how to interpret data.

 

[pood]

Analysis is not philosophy. Logic, through used in both science and philosophy, is not philosophy.

Well yes. If you randomly define anything you don't like as "not philosophy", then "philosophy" will not describe anything you like. That is very trivially true. But why should anyone else accept your personal definition of philosophy as reasonable?

Just trying to sort out what may or may not be defined as philosophy.

For instance, people in prehistoric times were intelligent and had the ability to think and act logically, but can that ability be defined as philosophy?

Were they philosophers? Or is it just a matter of natural, practical logic?

That depends. Did they form a systematic, orderly approach to thought? If so, then yes, that is philosophy, and what century they did it in is irrelevant. If not, then no, and the century they did it in is still irrelevant.

Your terms "natural" and "practical" themselves need the deconstructive efforts of a philosopher, if I may say so. They are words often invoked, but are often found attached to very different referents, and both have their origins in classical philosophy.

I said prehistoric times because this period is not generally considered to be when philosophy was developed, that this was not a time for philosophy or philosophers. We tend to think of the Greeks and the progress they made in the field.

Well, if your measure of what philosophy is or isn't is "did the ancient Greeks call it philosophy?", then the question becomes exceedingly simple to resolve. The ancient Greeks did in fact consider science to be philosophy, and scientists to be philosophers.

So, that's the matter settled, kalimera!

The "love of wisdom/philosophy" alone doesn't design and build complex machinery, computers, satellites, rovers.....for that you need a method, and that method is called science.

The ancient Greeks did well enough with philosophy, but languished in science. Had social conditions been different, science may have flourished and we could had colonies on the moon and Mars by now.

And the methods to build those things is an outgrowth of philosophy — natural philosophy, or applied epistemology.

But also, you are confusing the remit of philosophy with that of science, should you choose to separate the two. Why would you think that the goal of philosophy is to build computers or satellites? What does that have to do with the love of wisdom?

Maybe it is even wise NOT to build those things?

But that is a philosophical question.

 

[pood]

The idea that at least a couple of people here seem to be advancing is called scientism — a philosophical stance.