Philosophy is Dead

1 - The problem is not with Philosophers but with Scientists...the method it was useful, and it has its merits in its context, a motivation to look for empirical justification...of course if one takes it beyond its scope critic is very well due !

Mind also that the problem of Truth is open to general Society and it not concerns only philosophers...says it all that so far no one was able to make a case for final Truth, or knowledge with certainty, to make it more clear...there´s no agenda on this !

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

1 - The problem is not with Philosophers but with Scientists...the method it was useful, and it has its merits in its context, a motivation to look for empirical justification...of course if one takes it beyond its scope critic is very well due !

You're drawing a very odd line between scientists and philosophers. How are they exclusive (speaking to the original post)? Further, what "problem" exists with scientists?

What is the value of philosophy unto itself? What of its value qualitatively to thinking? I think that thinking has been sidelined by an effort to institutionalize philosophy. This is what I mean when I roll my eyes. Philosophy become fashion; it's become sport. Thinking boxed in with brands, and measured in exchanges of egos. Very few people are left in the end to try and use philosophy. Perhaps it is dead.

It was once pointed out to me that in the US, our streets have names and the blocks are just the spaces between the streets. In Japan, the blocks have names/numbers and the streets are just the space between the blocks. We could tide back and forth about east and west, but perhaps we should simply explore what the product of both mentalities have had on things like the postal service, civic planning, or even how people relate to their own communities. Socrates, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Popper, and any other "great mind" can be sidelined, and we can simply have license to speak without them.

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Kuhn and Lakatos

Whereas Popper was concerned in the main with the logic of science, Thomas Kuhn’s influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions examined in detail the history of science. Kuhn argued that scientists work within a conceptual paradigm that strongly influences the way in which they see data. Scientists will go to great length to defend their paradigm against falsification, by the addition of ad hoc hypotheses to existing theories. Changing a 'paradigm' is difficult, as it requires an individual scientist to break with his or her peers and defend a heterodox theory.

Some falsificationists saw Kuhn’s work as a vindication, since it provided historical evidence that science progressed by rejecting inadequate theories, and that it is the decision, on the part of the scientist, to accept or reject a theory that is the crucial element of falsificationism. Foremost amongst these was Imre Lakatos.

Lakatos attempted to explain Kuhn’s work by arguing that science progresses by the falsification of research programs rather than the more specific universal statements of naïve falsification. In Lakatos' approach, a scientist works within a research program that corresponds roughly with Kuhn's 'paradigm'. Whereas Popper rejected the use of ad hoc hypotheses as unscientific, Lakatos accepted their place in the development of new theories.

Some philosophers of science, such as Paul Feyerabend, take Kuhn's work as showing that social factors, rather than adherence to a purely rational method, decide which scientific theories gain general acceptance. Many other philosophers of science dispute such a view, such as Alan Sokal and Kuhn himself.

Feyerabend

Paul Feyerabend examined the history of science with a more critical eye, and ultimately rejected any prescriptive methodology at all. He rejected Lakatos’ argument for ad hoc hypothesis, arguing that science would not have progressed without making use of any and all available methods to support new theories. He rejected any reliance on a scientific method, along with any special authority for science that might derive from such a method. Rather, he claimed that if one is keen to have a universally valid methodological rule, epistemological anarchism or anything goes would be the only candidate. For Feyerabend, any special status that science might have derives from the social and physical value of the results of science rather than its method.

Sokal and Bricmont

In their book Fashionable Nonsense (published in the UK as Intellectual Impostures) the physicists Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont criticized falsifiability on the grounds that it does not accurately describe the way science really works. They argue that theories are used because of their successes, not because of the failures of other theories. Their discussion of Popper, falsifiability and the philosophy of science comes in a chapter entitled "Intermezzo," which contains an attempt to make clear their own views of what constitutes truth, in contrast with the extreme epistemological relativism of postmodernism.

Sokal and Bricmont write, "When a theory successfully withstands an attempt at falsification, a scientist will, quite naturally, consider the theory to be partially confirmed and will accord it a greater likelihood or a higher subjective probability. ... But Popper will have none of this: throughout his life he was a stubborn opponent of any idea of 'confirmation' of a theory, or even of its 'probability'. ... [but] the history of science teaches us that scientific theories come to be accepted above all because of their successes." (Sokal and Bricmont 1997, 62f)

They further argue that falsifiability cannot distinguish between astrology and astronomy, as both make technical predictions that are sometimes incorrect.

1 - You must really distinguish Knowledge with certainty from a Truth existing whether or not we are ever going to get it...

2 - For instance in a very straight forward and not complicated manner to say that there is a Truth is to say that the world exists or that something is actual...

3 - The problem is with discourse and perception not the World...

4 - That something is out there, seams very reasonable, not just to answer but to even question anything...and this is independently if we are or will ever be able to tell with certainty, what is exactly...

Why is not this message getting across ???

I will give you an odd metaphor for the virtues of Philosophy as if I were an old country side peasant sitting in a rock...
(don´t ask...)

Philosophers are mostly weasel blowers while Scientists "cash in" cars and washing machines...
There is a difference there when it comes to the right motivation ! (nowadays thankfully things are getting a bit different)

Fil Albuquerque wrote:


4 - That something is out there, seams very reasonable, not just to answer but to even question anything...and this is independently if we are or will ever be able to tell with certainty, what is exactly...

failures art wrote:
I literally can't tell what you're trying to say here.