Does Philosophy still hold a place in progressing society? DEBATE

Don't turn this into a fight guys. Just keep it as a chilled debate. We want answers, not insults.

Reply 46

Supermonkey92

8

Original post by High Stakes

So you're implying that it is as of recent, impractical to pursue philosophy purely. Rather, it ought to be accompanied with another field of study, a science?

Absolutely not.

Logic and metaphysics are still very worthy subjects to delve into. I meant specific interaction with science.

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Reply 47

High Stakes

OP

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Original post by Supermonkey92

Absolutely not.

Logic and metaphysics are still very worthy subjects to delve into. I meant specific interaction with science.

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I see. I read more up on the applications of philosophy and found some interesting uses in terms of artificial intelligence and its future.

Does the world need more philosophers? Do you think that society is under-utilising the philosophers we have today? Many graduates of philosophy go onto do careers that are completely irrelevant to what they learned during their degree.

Reply 48

Supermonkey92

8

Original post by High Stakes

I see. I read more up on the applications of philosophy and found some interesting uses in terms of artificial intelligence and its future.

Does the world need more philosophers? Do you think that society is under-utilising the philosophers we have today? Many graduates of philosophy go onto do careers that are completely irrelevant to what they learned during their degree.

At the moment philosophers are just as important as scientists in certain fields like consciousness. For the past twenty years or so, neurologists haven't been able to address the 'hard problem' of consciousness (as chalmers puts it). A more detailed understanding of the brain has only gave more detail to the soft problem and the link between brain states and consciousness.

In fact NDT tried to play away the problem of consciousness because science seems stumped by it.

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Reply 49

childofthesun

19

The French education ministers sure seem to think so(much to the great annoyance and frustration of French baccalaureate students everywhere :lol:

)

Reply 50

Kallisto

22

Original post by High Stakes

(...) Does it still contribute to our understanding of the world and the natural sciences?

Some prominent figures such as Laurence Krauss and Neil DeGrass Tyson have made a lot of claims about philosophy being useless. Stephen Hawking stated that philosophy is 'dead'.

Any insights?

Philosophy, in my honest opinion, has made a contribute to the era of enlightenment, I am sure. Just think about Kant's version of enlightenment and the philosophers who were focusing on it and have created their own thoughts. Or just to think about Marx's philosophy about materialism and capitalism which can be regarded as a critique to the living conditions of his lifetimes. From these eras started, I would say philosophy has caused an important impulses on a way to modernity.

In my opinion, philosophy is a bit sunk into oblivion, because there are hardly/no people who are capable of or willing expressing own thoughts and to turn them into new theses (so people who reinvent the wheel). Philosphy as an approach to social criticism and critique of bad living condition is definetely 'dead'. And I am afraid that this counts to natural sciences as well. Instead of find an answer by thinking about it carefully (as in ancient greece times), it is rather used (precisely) methods to get it.

Moreover, it is obviously that philosophy became a breadless science in times of globalization and technology. It has not a such fertile soil as it was in the 18th and 19th century, an era where - in my point of view - philosopy was at the peak.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 51

Original post by studentro

Why do you think that to be agnostic on the matter of god is to disregard science?

I thought I had explained that, obviously not clearly enough. When an agnostic explains why he is agnostic, it is always about an absolute truth. Absolute truths do not exist, even more so when you claim supernatural events, like god. Science does not work on the principle of absolute truths, it works on evidences, which point to what is probably true. An example of that is the idea of 'The god of the gaps', most atheists insist the evidences are pointers to truth, as these evidences mount up religion slips further and further behind the clouds of the supernatural. Agnostics don't even use the exegesis of religion, just sit on the fence waiting for an absolute truth, which will never come.

Think about an engineer, he does not need to know the intracasies of the science, he just needs to know the practicalities, and the one thing we know by experience is that science works.

The point being that agnostics deny science just as much as the Catholic church has in the past, the church because it is against their book, agnostics because they want an absolute truth.

Reply 52

Original post by ChaoticButterfly

They are incredibly important questions though. We have to try and answer them. I don't really know what you are saying other than agreeing with me that there are a load of important questions that science alone can not answer.

Something else I always note in this kind of discussion is that when people mean philosophy they normally mean say a philosophy professor pontificating about some abstract obscure subject. When there are actually loads of example of practical philosophy in action, we just don't think of it as philosophy. When a group of politicians and medical professionals debate and discus what the rules around manipulating the DNA of a fetus should be. When the cut of point for an abortion should be. Is it ethical to terminate a zygote if you know it is going to develop into a disabled child. That is all practical philosophy.

To say philosophy is useless based on the more abstract pure philosophy off philosophy's sake is exactly the same as saying pure and theoretical physics is worthless because what practical value does it have? Yet anyone who knows anything would know that you wouldn't have all the practical applications of physics, like your PC you type this on, without the pure abstract physics for physics sake stuff. It's the same with philosophy.

.

All questions are important, unfortunately the answers are somewhat disappointing when they are made from assumptions. How do we determine that a feotus should be terminated, there is no way of knowing, all we can use is past evidence, but there is always the chance that we could be wrong. So how does ethics make a judgment without using evidence. If science cannot give us the evidence how can philosophy?

Reply 53

Absent Agent

21

Original post by High Stakes

Just a question I wanted some light shed on. I'm a science student at heart but I also quite like philosophy and recognise it as the father of sciences. But I'm interested in the implications that philosophy has on society today. Does it still contribute to our understanding of the world and the natural sciences?

Some prominent figures such as Laurence Krauss and Neil DeGrass Tyson have made a lot of claims about philosophy being useless. Stephen Hawking stated that philosophy is 'dead'.

Any insights?

Yes, although one might think and expect that in the modern world Philosophy doesn't not contribute to the sciences, it does in our thinking about them. Why do you think great scientists were also philosophers in their thinking. Newton privately studied the works of Thomas Hobbles, Henry More and Rene Descartes. His first of motion had previously been mentioned in Descartes' Discourse on the Method. It was Aristotle who first asked the question as to what keeps a moving object moving? Despite critisicing philosophy in its practical sense- as he puts in in the line below- he was a thinker at heart:

"I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called a hypothesis, and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy."

It is philosophical thinking that makes one a formal thinker.

Reply 54

testing1234568

12

Original post by dozyrosie

I thought I had explained that, obviously not clearly enough. When an agnostic explains why he is agnostic, it is always about an absolute truth. Absolute truths do not exist, even more so when you claim supernatural events, like god. Science does not work on the principle of absolute truths, it works on evidences, which point to what is probably true. An example of that is the idea of 'The god of the gaps', most atheists insist the evidences are pointers to truth, as these evidences mount up religion slips further and further behind the clouds of the supernatural. Agnostics don't even use the exegesis of religion, just sit on the fence waiting for an absolute truth, which will never come.

Think about an engineer, he does not need to know the intracasies of the science, he just needs to know the practicalities, and the one thing we know by experience is that science works.

The point being that agnostics deny science just as much as the Catholic church has in the past, the church because it is against their book, agnostics because they want an absolute truth.

As you've stated, science does not give us knowledge of absolute truths. Therefore, me admitting that I do not know any absolute truths (in other words, calling myself agnostic) does not go against science.

Note:
I have not demanded absolute truths, merely admitted that I don't know them.
I am not waiting for absolute truths to 'make up my mind' or 'get off the fence', I am merely admitting that I don't know them.
I am not denying that for practical purposes it can be sensible to operate under the assumption that something is true, I am merely admitting that I wouldn't know it is true for sure.

Reply 55

The Assassin

Post edited automatically

Reply 56

Original post by studentro

As you've stated, science does not give us knowledge of absolute truths. Therefore, me admitting that I do not know any absolute truths (in other words, calling myself agnostic) does not go against science.

Note:
I have not demanded absolute truths, merely admitted that I don't know them.
I am not waiting for absolute truths to 'make up my mind' or 'get off the fence', I am merely admitting that I don't know them.
I am not denying that for practical purposes it can be sensible to operate under the assumption that something is true, I am merely admitting that I wouldn't know it is true for sure.

Yes it does. Science is evidence based, yet it is motivated by technology. You have no problem using the technology, in fact without it you would die or at least wish to. Yet you acknowledge the science as maybe true, but not proven. So you foster the belief that "It's only a theory, or you can't prove it is true".

Saying you are admitting you cannot prove either way is tantamount to incredulity, because you are incapable of following the argument it becomes open to debate. I will ask you one question, are you agnostic about evolution?

Reply 57

Original post by The Assassin

@NYU2012

HA Ha, Sir Galahad to the rescue. Bring it on.

Reply 58

The Assassin

Original post by dozyrosie

HA Ha, Sir Galahad to the rescue. Bring it on.

I'm looking forward to this too :smile:

(not because I care about the thread itself, but the bantz)

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 59