• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Can Philosophy "Know" ANything?

Some Friggin Guy

Muse
S
Joined
Aug 22, 2003
Messages
854
In this thread (sorry, I have no idea how to link an individual post), Lifegazer makes the comment that science cannot know certain things (namely, what caused the Big Bang and what was its reason), but philosophy can.

I am not entirely sure what he is getting at, but it raises a question for me:

Science, to the best of my knowledge, does not go hand-in-hand with philosophy. The best definition I have come across (and one used several times on this board) is that science is a tool used to find patterns in the universe through observation and to use those patterns to come up with logical explanations.

To me, that makes science ultimately objective.

Philosophy, on the other hand, is a tool designed to find answers, usually through a belief system, where the answers more often than not change from person to person. Philosophy is, therefore, truly subjective.

The question I would like to ask the board is this:

Can philosophy truly know anything?

To my mind, I don't believe it can. Since most philosophy (even ethical philosophy) is, at least to some degree, subjective, I don't find it possible that it can produce concrete knowledge.

Does anyone have a differring opinion? I am, as always, willing to be proven wrong.

Edit because Gentlehorse is right, I posted a stupid mistake.
 
Some Friggin Guy said:
Philosophy, to the best of my knowledge, does not go hand-in-hand with philosophy. The best definition I have come across (and one used several times on this board) is that science is a tool used to find patterns in the universe through observation and to use those patterns to come up with logical explanations.
Click to expand...

You might want to change that first word to "science".
 
I think therefore there is thought.
 
I don't know about all philosophies, but those of Interesting Ian, Lifegazer, Iacchus, and a couple of others are worthless. It's all a bunch of mental and verbal wanking.
 
I think philosophy can know a lot of great questions. I don't know that it can know which of the many many questions it poses can be considered great.

So many ways of thinking about things flash on like cold fusion and then are shown to be suspect.

What I'm saying, and I think others have said this before me, philosophy isn't nearly so strong coming up with answers as it is coming up with questions.
 
Some Friggin Guy said:
In this

To me, that makes science ultimately objective.

Philosophy, on the other hand, is a tool designed to find answers, usually through a belief system, where the answers more often than not change from person to person. Philosophy is, therefore, truly subjective.

The question I would like to ask the board is this:

Can philosophy truly know anything?
Click to expand...

Philosophy, as well as science, or anything other axiomatic systems (although philosophy is a *very* loose axiomatic system with transformations labeled as "logic"). You can't go outside of your axiomatic framework, and Godel's Theorem shows that you can't create one that both expresses all expressable truths and has no contradictions.

First, to answer your question completely, there are a few questions you need to think about first...

1) What is your criteria for "knowledge". I "know" that electrons obey certain rules I can express loosely in English. Have I ever done experiments or codified it myself?

2) Is knowledge or truth absolute? I.e. can two contradictory facts be true for two different people?

3) Is "true knowledge" the what or the why? Science can tell you what all day long, but not why. Philosophy is the reverse: it can make up reasons why, but not really good at being predictive of anything and tell you what.

Now, I personally take the stance that one can never truly for certain 100% *know* something. Science will tell you that too, if you look past the surface determinism and get into the actual error and chi-squared stuff for experimentation. Science says "we are pretty damn confident we know, but never sure".

As an aside, I believe an individual can really never know anything about him/herself internally, and we can hardly know anything about the nature of external reality either, as we are relying upon it to examine itself, same as the individual is trying to self-analyze.

Eh, you can think about this stuff 'till your heads in knots... I'm going for a taco...
 
If philosophy can conclusively and rationally prove something does it cease to be philosophy and becomes scientific?
 
HarryKeogh said:
If philosophy can conclusively and rationally prove something does it cease to be philosophy and becomes scientific?
Click to expand...
Possibly. Aristotle introduced the construct of the syllogism. It's a tool that is used to conclusively and rationally prove something

Perhaps it is best considered not as Philosophy but under Rhetoric, Linguistics, or Logic. But so many of these ideas are subsequantly challenged. I don't know if the syllogism has been attacked on linguistic or other grounds, but if it has, the implication is that it never moved out completely from the umbrellla of philosophy.
 
HarryKeogh said:
If philosophy can conclusively and rationally prove something does it cease to be philosophy and becomes scientific?
Click to expand...

Undoubtedly, after all science was once known as "natural philosophy".

Philosophy is knowledge, but it is intuitive knowledge. Intuition or instinct is not based on hard fact,...but it's objectively useful. If it weren't then why would it have evolved in a hard world where useless things don't survive for long?

I like to view philosophy as I do art. Art is not usually true to life, and yet there is truth to it...and pleasure to be derived from it.

It's fine as long as you don't confuse it with the TRUTH(tm) and take it way too seriously. That's when philosophy becomes religion.

-z
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom