Philosophy is Dead

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Thankyou !
You wrote

Quote:
Physics is both understandable and teachable because it is logical...

and Niels Bohr once remarked (re: quantum theory)

Quote:
No, no, you're not thinking. You're just being logical

Which nicely illustrates Feynman's remarks about (most) philosophers.

I would be happy to agree that thought involves reacing new conclusions from a process that is not directly logical, and yet, what I said remains true: Before anything can be taught, the logic of it must be taught... Cause and effect are strictly logical, for example, but insight, or knowledge guided speculation is not necessarily logical, but to give proof to insight one must understand what occurs in terms of cause and effect..

1 Reply

@Ding an Sich,

Ding an Sich wrote:

talk72000 wrote:

Philosophy is a hard subject and the sciences are part of it as they were originally natural philosophy. As it grew it became science. Scientists are philosophers in a narrow sense i.e. extracting knowledge from the natural world. What you do with it is the philosophy. But for a philosopher to understand the process he needs to know science. This where the current batch of philosophers fail. They are skipping the sciences. There is no short cut to knowledge. Second class philosophers like Nietzsche, Wittgenstein led to Nazi philosophy as they could not understand that Sir Francis Galton was a second class scientist who came up with the ideas that IQ tests were directly related to genius and he came up with the horrible idea of eugenics. Wittgenstein came up with his "keep your mouth" philosophy and Nietzsche took up the eugenics cause under ubermensch, or superman, that Hitler exploited and got Aryan superiority and Nazi death camps.

Whoa... Whoa... Wait what? Can you show me specific passages that support any of this? Im going to have to call you out on this one.

All philosophers are scientists in the narrow sense, of scientific method, and not the other way around... All scientists are philosophers in the general sesne of loving knowledge... Because they do not seek the whole picture, but concentrate on a narrow range or particulars they are not philosophers in the specific sense of one who guages the whole of knowlege and writes a narative of human experience... Personally, I would rather describe myself as a moralist because it does not suggest the use of scientific method, and does not exclude one from being a philosopher...

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@talk72000,

I'll bet I got something you want: Cosima Wagner's diary... Got it for a couple of bucks...

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@Fido,

Not loving knowledge, but truth. Knowledge is a subjective term. There's a huge difference between knowledge and truth.

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I remember now I read something about this subject:

http://www.economist.com/node/16990802

Quote:

It is hard to evaluate their case against recent philosophy, because the only subsequent mention of it, after the announcement of its death, is, rather oddly, an approving reference to a philosopher’s analysis of the concept of a law of nature, which, they say, “is a more subtle question than one may at first think.” There are actually rather a lot of questions that are more subtle than the authors think. It soon becomes evident that Professor Hawking and Mr Mlodinow regard a philosophical problem as something you knock off over a quick cup of tea after you have run out of Sudoku puzzles.

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@mister kitten,

Philosophy is dead
God is dead
hell, we're dead

or will be

While looking at pics of the universe, one showed another galaxy heading our way. It will collide with our Milky Way in a few billion years. What's the point?

Question, is God aware of this? Is this part of his plan?

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@IRFRANK,

IRH, I'm more fascinated by other "intelligent" life forms on other planets in and out of our galaxy. Can't do much about the reverse of the big bang, can we?

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@Fido,

http://www.thenietzschechannel.com/bio/cosima.htm

I guess your's contain all the lurid details. Wink

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Not loving knowledge, but truth. Knowledge is a subjective term. There's a huge difference between knowledge and truth.

You are mistaken... We like to think of truth as absolute, and objective... TRUTH is a moral form, and a form of relationshp...And, something else... Truth is life, for each of us the most objective of all possible truths... But if knowledge is not true, it is not knowledge, and is worse than knowledge, for untruth accepted as knowledge is an impediment to survival... If i am correct, then Kant concluded that knowledge is judgement, just as our ideas and forms of the physical world are both knowledge, and judgements, and truth, at least to the extent we know...Whether we frame truth as an absolute or not, all we need of truth, and all humanity needs of truth is enough...

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

IRH, I'm more fascinated by other "intelligent" life forms on other planets in and out of our galaxy. Can't do much about the reverse of the big bang, can we?

Idle speculation does not a philosopher make...

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@talk72000,

talk72000 wrote:

http://www.thenietzschechannel.com/bio/cosima.htm

I guess your's contain all the lurid details.

No... Doubt it, just got it... It does have the advantage that one can read it in the can... I am a booky...If I forget a line, I walk to the shelf and flip through the dog eared pages till I find it... But I do not expect all that much... Flirtation and prostitutes was as close as Nietzsche ever got to love with a woman...

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@Fido,

0 Replies

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:

Not loving knowledge, but truth. Knowledge is a subjective term. There's a huge difference between knowledge and truth.

You are mistaken... We like to think of truth as absolute, and objective... TRUTH is a moral form, and a form of relationshp...And, something else... Truth is life, for each of us the most objective of all possible truths... But if knowledge is not true, it is not knowledge, and is worse than knowledge, for untruth accepted as knowledge is an impediment to survival... If i am correct, then Kant concluded that knowledge is judgement, just as our ideas and forms of the physical world are both knowledge, and judgements, and truth, at least to the extent we know...Whether we frame truth as an absolute or not, all we need of truth, and all humanity needs of truth is enough...

And just how does relation impede the possibility of Truth ? Is dialectics about lies ? maybe for some, I heard it before... but not for me, I see it the other way around.
Truth is about what is and not about my knowledge or even my ability to describe it which is yet another instance, another degree in the matter...

To say there is no Truth is to say there is no World...no nothing.

If I can describe Truth in ten thousand different way´s this does n´t mean there is no truth but only that the ONE Truth is ten thousand different things, and as a set, One and the same !...

Truth is about the length of the string of Information. Not just the one that which as become already, but also the potential which is yet to be...And it will ! (here´s why I am a Determinist, I believe in Truth !)

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@Fido,

Tell that to the astrophysicists who are looking into other life forms. They would be interested in your intellectual input.

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@Fido,

Quote:

I would be happy to agree that thought involves reacing new conclusions from a process that is not directly logical, and yet, what I said remains true: Before anything can be taught, the logic of it must be taught... Cause and effect are strictly logical, for example, but insight, or knowledge guided speculation is not necessarily logical, but to give proof to insight one must understand what occurs in terms of cause and effect..

You obviously haven't got a clue about the status of "causality", "logic" , "proof" and "understanding" in either particle physics or biology. And it is from these so-called "narrow areas" in which classical notions have fallen apart, that philosophers hide. You/they simply haven't got the metalanguage to handle it. What, for example, are you going to make of "backward action in time" , "non-locality", or "observations conforming to the symmetry of an equation"? Or what analysis can you offer for the interaction of structure and function in aspects of teleological reasoning in biology ?

Let me hear the views of a philosopher who has studied the biological basis for the emergence of "logical thought" such as that undertaken by Piaget. Or let mehear from a philosopher who understands "an observation event" as an interaction between observer and observed, neither being a priori. Then I might take them seriously !

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

it is from these so-called "narrow areas" in which classical notions have fallen apart, that philosophers hide. You/they simply haven't got the metalanguage to handle it. What, for example, are you going to make of "backward action in time" , "non-locality", or "observations conforming to the symmetry of an equation"?

But philosophers address all these kinds of matters and they construct suitable languages for doing so. If you're unaware of this, then you are simply ignorant, and ignorance doesn't constitute any manner of case.

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@ughaibu,

Of course I am aware of such attempts by some "philosophers" who are often scientists wearing a different hat ! But they are conspicuous by their absence on this forum. Most of the contributions here attacking Hawkin's conjecture are from people who think they can play chess with the rules of checkers.

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@fresco,

Hawkins attacked, where ??? And I was thinking it was the other way around...This is not a matter of attack ! I even like the man...who does n´t ?

Philosophy is not to be restrained on a formal Cathedra alone and tossed aside!
To declare it dead is an insult to all sciences and mankind particular circumstance as agent of reason ! SIMPLE !!!

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Only an insult if you think that teaching older philosophical ideas is no longer relevant. Otherwise, you're just talking about philosophy as fashion.

In many ways that philosophy is dead, music is dead. It's not to say that new and inventive music isn't being produced today. For instance, take something like chords or time signature, when was the last time an original chord progression was used? How many songs are written in 6/6? I think that too many are interested in finding new lakes than swimming in the one's we have.

Imagine the depression of the cartographer when aerial images of the earth began assembling the world in more accurate ways than their own.

A
R
T

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The question is still, what do Hawkin and Feynman know about philosophy, especially about contemporary philosophy. Where do they get the authority to issue such pronouncements?

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Philosophy is Dead

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