Does anything exist?

[JoeMorgue]

This is embarrassing. You didn't understand a damned thing, did you? No wonder you've cut and run from every single challenge and question, and have yet to produce. Bring it, or step aside.

Dude I'm not arguing against whatever really, really weird baggage you've brought into this discussion where you're acting like philosophy is a member of your family and I've insulted its honor.

"Durr I'm a bouncer and I'm gonna kick you out of my bar for being mean to my friend philosophy." What a load of clown shoes. Get over yourself.

 

[Jimbo07]

I must have missed when philosophy answered all of those questions better than science, or indeed at all.

You didn't, because it hasn't. Science hasn't answered a lot of questions regarding rights and ethics better, either, mind you.

Science is an activity, as is philosophy. Sometimes one influences the other.

Or did the definition of philosophy changed yet again to "A system for categorizing all the questions that don't (or more often we pretend we don't) have answer for?"

It hasn't changed. That's like saying, "yesterday, you were saying science is defined as biology and now you're changing it to chemistry."

Coming from a physics background, I'm partial to “All science is either physics or stamp collecting.” - Rutherford (*maybe)

By the way, where in human endeavour would you place categorizing hard-to-answer questions, by the way? What questions are philosophers pretending we don't have answers for? Which philosophers, and why would they say-so?

 

[Belz...]

Conceptual space: The full extent of human thought, knowledge and imagination, including science, fiction, woo, myth, the kitchen sink, and yes, here we find Bob, our uncle. Hi Bob!
Physical space: The natural world, famously the subject of scientific inquiry.

Ok, now I understand. Thanks for taking the time to type all that.

Now, er... where were we going with that?

 

[Belz...]

Dum dee dum dee dum... see above. No chip, but as many a bully and tossed bar customer has found out, I cannot tolerate bullies, so I bully them.

That's fine, but what you observed wasn't bullying. It's inquiry. We spent a lot of energy and time trying to wrest answers from our jabba-esque contributors here but it's taken quite a long time to get anything going. Theprestige, yourself and a few others have at least tried.

 

[JoeMorgue]

You didn't, because it hasn't. Science hasn't answered a lot of questions regarding rights and ethics better, either, mind you.

*Sighs, rubs the bridge of my nose.*

Science hasn't answered everything, philosophy hasn't answered anything because it's not really a functional method of anything, it's loose collection of affects and personas and truisms. Yeah that's kind of my point.

The fact that science can't/hasn't answered everything doesn't mean there has to be a viable alternative.

A car can't drive on water. The alternative to it is a boat. But you can't make a pile of straw, call it a boat, and when you point out that the pile of straw can't go on water you just scream "Well neither can a car!"

This is "God of the Gaps" but just applied to argumentatives.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Now, er... where were we going with that?

Out beyond the event horizon of the formless I'd wager.

 

[Jimbo07]

*Sighs, rubs the bridge of my nose.*

Ditto.

Science hasn't answered everything, philosophy hasn't answered anything because it's not really a functional method of anything, it's loose collection of affects and personas and truisms. Yeah that's kind of my point.

Well, of course it's not, on the face of it. Philosophy is no more a "loose collection of affects and personas and truisms" than science is a collection of facts. We've gone over this multiple times. You're somehow managing to misrepresent both philosophy AND science!

The fact that science can't/hasn't answered everything doesn't mean there has to be a viable alternative.

In the domains that the natural sciences have been shown to be effective, there has yet to be shown a viable alternative. I suspect that most credible philosophers haven't foisted one on us, if for no other reason than because that's not the point.

A car can't drive on water. The alternative to it is a boat.

Surely, surely, SURELY you can't possibly be suggesting that either I (not a philosopher), or any actual working philosophers have put forward Ethics, say, as an alternative to cellular microbiology in studying bacterial pathogens?

But you can't make a pile of straw, call it a boat, and when you point out that the pile of straw can't go on water you just scream "Well neither can a car!"

This is "God of the Gaps" but just applied to argumentatives.

Cars and boats are not the same thing, except where their ideas give rise to and mix in amphibious vehicles. Apples and oranges aren't the same thing either, but apples haven't been proposed as an alternative to oranges when looking for the 10x presence of Vitamin C in oranges.

...

You know, unless somebody's claimed something stupid, like, "philosophy proves that magic powers can exist, and that science doesn't answer anything about the physical world," I don't understand where these non-working attacks on philosophy are coming from. Even then, it seems misdirected, because statements like that aren't philosophy, anyway.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Same crap over and over.

"Science and philosophy answer different questions!"

Now I'll ask for an example of a question that philosophy has actually answer that isn't just redefine "answer" to mean something that isn't an answer, and I will get silence.

 

[Jimbo07]

Same crap over and over.

"Science and philosophy answer different questions!"

Now I'll ask for an example of a question that philosophy has actually answer that isn't just redefine "answer" to mean something that isn't an answer, and I will get silence.

... and you'll be barking up the wrong tree... and you'll keep barking up the wrong tree.

"WHAT IS THE ANSWER FROM PHILOSOPHY?!?!!?"

Okay.

Well, I guess here we all go around the loop again:

Name one example of a question that physics has actually answered, irrevocably, that isn't just redefine "answer" to mean something provisional, for now. I predict I will get silence. If you don't understand that both of those challenges miss the point of the activities entirely, then how can we progress the conversation?

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

Now I'll ask for an example of a question that philosophy has actually answer that isn't just redefine "answer" to mean something that isn't an answer, and I will get silence.

I'm sure you'll get silence with that poorly worded question, but I don't think the silence means what you think it means.

 

[theprestige]

I like

Philosophy is the dinosaurs (and other ancient creatures, some which are alive today, and separate from those just of therapod descent - we're foolish to deny the impact of crocodillians and sharks on the modern world, say)

Science is the birds, far more successful at self-powered flight than any prehistoric creature was or still is.

: D

This is a bad analogy, because philosophy and science are orthogonal. Science does not offer an improved form of moral reasoning over philosophy. Science has a lot to say about what physically is, and nothing to say about what morally should. Too, science has nothing to say about the the best ways to think about thinking, or to think about anything else. We need philosophy to tell us that science is a good way to think about (some) things.

 

[theprestige]

This is what I mean when I say people aren't arguing for philosophy, they just feel the need to defend its honor.

Whereas others just feel the need to impugn its honor for no reason.

 

[Belz...]

Science hasn't answered a lot of questions regarding rights and ethics better, either, mind you.

And you can't cook a car, either. Science only answers factual questions. Ethics is about values and emotions; you can reason yourself into "answers" all you want but it's very wobbly. So really, philosophy hasn't answered those either.

 

[theprestige]

Same crap over and over.

"Science and philosophy answer different questions!"

Now I'll ask for an example of a question that philosophy has actually answer that isn't just redefine "answer" to mean something that isn't an answer, and I will get silence.

Three questions philosophy has actually answer [sic]:

Is race-based slavery wrong?

Should women have the right to vote?

Is property theft?

 

[Jimbo07]

This is a bad analogy, because philosophy and science are orthogonal. Science does not offer an improved form of moral reasoning over philosophy. Science has a lot to say about what physically is, and nothing to say about what morally should. Too, science has nothing to say about the the best ways to think about thinking, or to think about anything else. We need philosophy to tell us that science is a good way to think about (some) things.

I think it's kind of a good (or at least fun) analogy! Historically, science arose in a particular crucible of religious and philosophical traditions to become something unique. It has since gone on to subdivide into disciplines uniquely capable of studying various questions to a degree never before seen!

Philosophy still exists. So too, do other archosaurs. Theropods have given way to birds. Philosophy has given way to physics, at least in terms of junction behaviour in semiconductors. I have yet to see a lone P/N junction construct a coherent political philosophy in the same way I have yet to see a bird consume an entire 20 foot crocodile in one sitting!

 

[theprestige]

Natural philosophy has refined over the years into the epistemology we call science.

Philosophy as a whole includes other things, that are neither extinct nor obsolete, nor supplanted by science. Moral reasoning, for example. There's no "morality turned into science the way dinosaurs turned into birds". Morality is still a vital question today, and science still has nothing to say about it. Science still cannot have anything to say about it.

 

[Jimbo07]

Philosophy as a whole includes other things, that are neither extinct nor obsolete, nor supplanted by science. Moral reasoning, for example. There's no "morality turned into science the way dinosaurs turned into birds". Morality is still a vital question today, and science still has nothing to say about it. Science still cannot have anything to say about it.

I think we've just said about the same thing. See: crocodiles.

 

[ynot]

Three questions philosophy has actually answer [sic]:

Is race-based slavery wrong?

Should women have the right to vote?

Is property theft?

What are "philosophy's actual answers"?

How did "philosophy" arrive at those answers (what method was used)?

Why can't those subjective questions be answered with either "yes" or "no"?

Am I doin filosofy?

ETA - The last question is an oxymoron.

 

[Belz...]

Is race-based slavery wrong?

Should women have the right to vote?

Is property theft?

The first two are matters of values. Slavery didn't become wrong because someone found a new argument. It became wrong because more people felt it was wrong.

As for the third, it's nonsense, so I suppose it's at least conceptually the realm of philosophy, though presumably even a toddler could answer that one.

 

[ynot]

The first two are matters of subjective values. Slavery didn't become subjectively wrong because someone found a new argument. It became subjectively wrong because more people subjectively felt it was wrong.

Added for clarity.

As for the third, it's nonsense, so I suppose it's at least conceptually the realm of philosophy, though presumably even a toddler could answer that one.

Property can only be thieved if it’s claimed to be owned. Claiming an ownership of property claim is theft is therefore an ownership of property claim. You’re a thief, but what am I?