Philosophy Now Forum

Aryan_Invader wrote:

ForgedinHell wrote:Fair enough, so science doesn't tell one not to stick people into a gas chamber to see how many can be killed in an hour, but neither does philosophy. Wasn't there a well-known philosopher who became the highlight of the nazi educational program? How come philosophy convinced him that being a nazi and killing children was a good thing? To the extent science may be without a soul, I have yet to see a scientist make excuses for mass murder, but philosophers cannot say the same with respect to the use of philosophy.

Maybe we need to erect holocaust museums in memory of all those poor rats and mice and rabbits and frogs... sob.
Science is def. not about seeking, experimentation, exploitation, dispassionate objectivity; so perhaps doing real Science is useless too...
So utilizing the fruits of real science should be useless too.
So you being on this computer is useless too...

Nothing you stated even remotely makes sense.

ForgedinHell wrote:Go look up Richard Feynman, one of the greatest physicists who ever lived, he made fun of philosophers all the time. Hawking just wrote a book about a year ago stating, "philosophy was dead." Edward Wislon's latest book clearly states that philosophy will never give us answers, but science does. Lawrence Krauss hangs out with many of the people you listed, and he stated that while he appreciates AC Grayling helping him with philosophy, that scientists don't waste time on philosophy of science. Dennett by the way is a philosopher, not a scientist. Harris barely earned a doctorate in his 40s, and his thesis was junk, and formed the basis for his book, A Moral Landscape. I'm not familiar with the other two, but couldn't care less.

Btw, the few examples I gave was to counter your unqualified statement,

"The fact is that scientists don't waste their time with philosophy and consider the discipline of philosophy of science as a waste of time. "

Philosophy as it is currently presented in the West had been bastardized and more often viewed as a form of mental masturbation. Thus I do not blame you for having such a negative skewed view of philosophy. However, if you are unable to see philosophy in its full context, then, there is a great opportunity loss for you.

In anycase, philosophy-proper would be something that is expected to defy definition. I am approaching philosophy in its widest sense, i.e. leveraging on 'wisdom' i.e. tracing it to its etymological roots. I am promoting philosophy on a a world-wide basis rather than as some form of self-gratification exercise. UNESCO has declared a certain day of the year to be 'World Philosophy Day' for that purpose.

As I had written somewhere earlier, philosophy is not in the business of feeding definite answers, but provide one the means to 'fish' for their own Q&A for the individual and humanity overall well-being.

Btw, Science itself is value-free and is useful to technologists and others. According to Popper, scientific theories are, at best, merely conjecturals, albeit 'polished' falsifiable conjecturals.

It is true the typical scientist don't give a damn for philosophy as a subject, but they nevertheless are practicing philosophy-proper as individuals to facilitate their scientific research.

Note your ignorance on Daniel Dennett,

wiki wrote:Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28, 1942)[1][2] is an American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science.[3]
He is currently the Co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies, the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and a University Professor at Tufts University.

Dennett is a firm atheist and secularist, a member of the Secular Coalition for America advisory board,[4] as well as an outspoken supporter of the Brights movement. Dennett is referred to as one of the "Four Horsemen of New Atheism," along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens.[5]

I have read Hawking's book. His statement 'Philosophy is dead' is based on a very narrow aspect of philosophy, i.e. classical or metaphysical realism. Hawking's own conceptualizing of his model-dependent-realism itself is a philosophical exercise.

ForgedinHell wrote: The fact is that scientists don't waste their time with philosophy and consider the discipline of philosophy of science as a waste of time. For example, scientists wouldn't waste their time on the childish word-games you play. This is also a reason why many lay people don't think much of philosophers either. Anyone, even small children, can play games regarding the imprecision of words. Anything anyone writes or says is always subject to some knucklehead claiming "you were imprecise, you need to study philosophy." Since I am already well aware I can write those words in response to an argument, I believe I can save a lot of time and energy by not studying philsophy.

If Einstein, who was influenced by Kant, had not questioned the prevailing assumptions about time and space he would never have come up with his theory of relativity. Many scientists endorse Karl Popper's falsfication criteria to demarcate science from other disciplines such as philosophy. The different interpretations of quantum mechanics are ultimately based on metaphysical assumptions. If I had the time I could come with many more examples demonstrating scientists doing philosophy, but I suspect I would be wasting my time given your apparent immunity to reason and evidence.

Can you perhaps be more precise about the word-games I play? I would like to know why the appreciation of clear meanings to ensure better communication and sounder inferences is something scientists would not do. Perhaps also give an example of where I have indulged in a word-game and explain why it was a great waste of time?

Any knucklehead can indeed claim you were imprecise and suggest you study philosophy. But note that what I was pointing out was that you are indulging in the very activity - ie - philosophy - you are claiming is a waste of time and that if you studied philosophy - or perhaps just reflected on what you said - you would realise this as well. Now, if I am mistaken, please correct me by explaining why your way of thinking is not you doing philosophy. Of course this unfortunately means you will have to be sufficiently precise in your distinctions, so you may be in danger of committing further ironies.

philosophy in a broad sense is equivalent to what we call "belief", "view"or "conviction". in other words the use of the term philosophy is in a broad sense similar to that of those concepts. so philosophy per se neither has a negative nor a positive sense. hence it is as nonsense to say that philosophy is useless as it is to say that conviction or view or belief is useless. its mistaken way for using the language. we have good philosophies, bad philosophies, useless philosophies, harmful philosophies in the same manner that we have good beliefs, bad beliefs or useful world views and harmful worldviews. therefore "argumentation" and invoking empirical and non-empirical evidences to question the uselessness of "philosophy" , is by itself a "philosophy" which cannot convince me; because its prejudiced and dogmatic way to deny the existence and presence of a human and social phenomena.

hossein wrote:philosophy in a broad sense is equivalent to what we call "belief", "view"or "conviction". in other words the use of the term philosophy is in a broad sense similar to that of those concepts. so philosophy per se neither has a negative nor a positive sense. hence it is as nonsense to say that philosophy is useless as it is to say that conviction or view or belief is useless. its mistaken way for using the language. we have good philosophies, bad philosophies, useless philosophies, harmful philosophies in the same manner that we have good beliefs, bad beliefs or useful world views and harmful worldviews. therefore "argumentation" and invoking empirical and non-empirical evidences to question the uselessness of "philosophy" , is by itself a "philosophy" which cannot convince me; because its prejudiced and dogmatic way to deny the existence and presence of a human and social phenomena.

Not buying it. Yoy are using an old, worthless trick that philosophers routinely use to try to justify their existence. The argument is basically, if you are living, breathing, thinking, then you are doing philosophy. The problem with such an approach is that it renders philosophy meaningless. To say that when an engineer designs a computer he is doing philosophy is just philosophy taking credit for the work of non-philosophers.

... philosophy taking credit for the work of non-philosophers.
You're criticising a personification of an abstract concept there, dude. That's the kind of error which a good philosopher would have avoided. Just saying ...

In this very thread we can find evidence as to why "philosophy" is useless to most and why the very title of "lover of wisdom" does not apply.

Take the douche-bag, Fogintheskull fanatical in his desire to separate thinking form the application of thinking; philosophy from science.
Here we see how when "God is dead" becomes fact, for those who cannot deal with a world with no authorities, these twits grab onto the next best thing.

Science is the child of philosophy or of a particular branch of philosophy.
We can witness the genes motivating it to grow, or the memes,directing its growth, in the principles it takes as being self-evident: particles....The Big Bang...the sanctity of life.

Pinker describes the presumptuousness of modern western science, particularly when it comes to the humanities as such:

Pinker, Steven wrote:• The theory of self-deception was foreshadowed by the sociologist Erving Goffman in his 1959 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, which disputed the romantic notion that behind the masks we show other people in the one true self. No, said Goffman; its masks all the way down. Many discoveries in the ensuing decades have born him out.

• Though modern psychologists and psychiatrists tend to reject orthodox Freudian theory, many acknowledge that Freud was right about the defence mechanisms of the ego. Any therapist will tell you that people protest too much, deny or repress unpleasant facts, project their flaws unto others, turn their discomfort into abstract intellectual problems, distract themselves with time-consuming activities, and rationalize away motives. The psychiatrists Randolph Nesse and Alan Lloyd have argued that these habits do not safeguard against bizarre sexual wishes and fears (like having sex with one’s mother) but are tactics of self-deception: they suppress evidence that we are not beneficent as we would like to think.

• The Blank Slate had, and has, a dark side. The vacuum that it posited in human nature was eagerly filled by totalitarian regimes, and it did nothing to prevent their genocides.

• I suspect that few people really believe, deep down, that boys and girls are interchangeable, that all differences in intelligence come from the environment...

• [The Blank Slate doctrine] implies that [people] could be conditioned to enjoy servitude or degradation.

• The case against bigotry is not a factual claim that humans are biologically indistinguishable. It is a moral stance that condemns judging an individual according to the average traits of certain groups...

• The revulsion we feel toward discrimination and slavery comes from a conviction that however much people vary on some traits, they do not vary on these [innate traits].

His book on the dominating self-evident "facts" taken for granted in modern science is interesting.
The Blank Slate- The Modern Denial of Human Nature is the title of his book.
In it he expands upon the three basic myths which are taken for granted in any scientific inquiry dealing with the humanities:

The Blank Slate: An idea made famous by Locke, that humans are born as a clean slate with no predispositions, no determining limitations and no past to hinder their future.
With it the entire scientific investigation into species and natural selection is rendered moot when in reference to the human species, which is exempt, it seems, to everything that applies to other animals and to nature as a whole.
Here we have a continuation of the Jewish and Christian and Islamic doctrine.

The Ghost in the Machine: Essentially this implies an immutable core, a soul that can be eternal, and is directly linked to the Monism of Judaism and its offshoots of Christianity and Islam.
Kant turned it into the thing-in-itself, Spinoza called it substance many refer to it as spirit, soul, essence using the terms in ways contrary to their pagan ancestry and contrary to their experiences with life and reality.
It essentially posits the idea that behind all appearances lies this immutable "thing" which, although it cannot be seen to measured to experienced, is presumed so as to make the apparent an illusion. The connection to the eastern philosophies of mass-crowd-control nihilism is evident. In the east it takes on a rather "negative", in relation to our own preferences, viewpoint becoming "emptiness", but in the west it manages to retain its "positivity" with no proof at all and no justification neither.
One simply presumes and if it feels right and comforts and offers hope, then it it taken as 'self-evident'.

The Noble Savage: Directly connected to Rousseau's rather French romanticism.
Man is born kind and noble, and selfless, and gentle and generous and loving and harmless...and it is culture - which emerges out of nothing, presumably, and is accepted easily, again presumably - which "corrupts" him and leads him astray. Here we have a more obvious connection to the roots of all these monstrosities, with Jewishness and Christianity and Islam.
Man...the fallen angle, the corrupted one, the one who bit the apple and is now condemned to redeem himself through millenniums of suffering and violence to gain his place back, next to God.
Man...the "good" made to be "evil".
This can only sway the m,ind of a desperate buffoon with no access to any documentary dealing with primate, or any other animal, behavior.

Now take this notion of a "beginning", implying an "end".
Straight out of Jewish dogma, adopted by the Christians and the Muslims.

It is why the late Hitchens, and Dawkin and Harris seem to have trouble debating idiots like Craig and D'Souza and Comfort.
They shared the same presumption because they were all infected with the same mindset, the same mythology, the same basic principle.
Where can we witness this basic principle in science?
When it seeks the "god particle" (or any indivisible particle) or when it speaks of a beginning to the universe in The Big Bang or when it cannot respond to the question: "Why does morality evolve?".

ForgedinHell wrote:Not buying it. Yoy are using an old, worthless trick that philosophers routinely use to try to justify their existence. The argument is basically, if you are living, breathing, thinking, then you are doing philosophy. The problem with such an approach is that it renders philosophy meaningless. To say that when an engineer designs a computer he is doing philosophy is just philosophy taking credit for the work of non-philosophers.

IMO, the fundamental of 'philosophy' is that first impulse and activity of human beings striving to be distinctly human progressively, and differentiating them from being animals.

To progress as human beings (not as animals), there is a need to 'know' and that is the root of Science if we were to trace to its source. Science is a tool of philosophy at the fundamental level.

When a practitioner of any faculty of knowledge venture outside its defined scope in search of progress or a shift in perspective (paradigm), inevitably there is philosophy. This point is well demonstrated in Einstein's "imagination is more important than knowledge". Imagination don't count in Science. It is philosophy in action for an engineer, as a human being, when he uses his imagination for novelty and potential improvements. An engineer merely use engineering technically within its rules to finish the final product for commissioning.

The impulse of continuous improvement for humanity sake is 'philosophy' at its base. From that base (substance), philosophy manifest into many forms.

ForgedinHell, you are like a toad trapped with a dark hole as your confined world. You can continue with your pessimistic version of 'what is philosophy', I prefer the optimistic one to expand my range of cognition and consciousness.

ForgedinHell wrote:

hossein wrote:philosophy in a broad sense is equivalent to what we call "belief", "view"or "conviction". in other words the use of the term philosophy is in a broad sense similar to that of those concepts. so philosophy per se neither has a negative nor a positive sense. hence it is as nonsense to say that philosophy is useless as it is to say that conviction or view or belief is useless. its mistaken way for using the language. we have good philosophies, bad philosophies, useless philosophies, harmful philosophies in the same manner that we have good beliefs, bad beliefs or useful world views and harmful worldviews. therefore "argumentation" and invoking empirical and non-empirical evidences to question the uselessness of "philosophy" , is by itself a "philosophy" which cannot convince me; because its prejudiced and dogmatic way to deny the existence and presence of a human and social phenomena.

Not buying it. Yoy are using an old, worthless trick that philosophers routinely use to try to justify their existence. The argument is basically, if you are living, breathing, thinking, then you are doing philosophy. The problem with such an approach is that it renders philosophy meaningless. To say that when an engineer designs a computer he is doing philosophy is just philosophy taking credit for the work of non-philosophers.

first of all let me purge the naive myth of "philosophers trying to justify their existence" thing you keep alluding. people who have been named "philosophers" by other "people" in the "society", didnt want anybody to respect them or buy their system of thought. in many cases they have devoted all their lives and wealth for the sake of their ideals. in the most of the cases they have had wealth and educations in medicine or engineering but in spite of that they refuse to stick to that point and didn't just attend to a company to work as an "engineer" to feed themselves and continue to do that no matter what happens in the society and for the others,(though i dont see it as improbable that you respond that they have been just abnormal and psychologically disturbed people who for instance spent years in prisons for just an ideal. but for me, the world without some ideals and the people who stand by those ideals is just abhorring)
its been people and the society who respected "philosophers" and continue to do so; hence its firstly historically false and secondly childish to describe the matters as if philosophers insist that they must be recognized; great philosophers havnt been people needy of acceptance of the others at all.however unlike you, the greatest universities and academies on earth as well as people - educated or non-educated, continue to appreciate and commend their works and participations. its a fact that people tend to applaud them. maybe you say that communities as well as universities like Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Berkeley, Oxford,... are totally wrong and should change such useless habits, well in that case it will be your vocation to convince them of your argumentations, but you have another yet better choice, to spare yourself of that vocation and just say "well, there are people who do like it but i dont like it, its a matter of taste", like those people who dont like rap music and dont try to dismiss the whole rap style as worthless and mock those who are interested in, and instead just say: "well its the matter of taste and i dont like it". i think its a more civilized way for being different.
secondly, its plain wrong to abstract the term "philosophy" and try to find an essence for it; because its just a "name". you at the bottom of your argumentation seem to have the most traditional forms of "essentialism" and "Platonism"; i.e. there must be something common to the word "philosophy" and i have to find it and show that that is worthless.
if we deny all philosophies we'll be obliged to obey the most stupid philosophies: maybe attending church every Sunday and listening to the priest to hear that tomorrow the christ will come or to the mullahs who encourage the mob to explode themselves in order to fly to the heaven. i have heard that Bashar assad is an ophthalmologist and its very hard for me to imagine how can you resist his justifications for killing people by continuing to label ethics and philosophy as worthless and praising the value of engineering. i mean you cannot defend the principles of humanity and ethics by relying on the principles of engineering.
we have people like Nelson Mandela who spent years and years in prison just for an ideal and refused to say "well its not my problem, let me get employed as an engineer"; and we have people like Eichmann who perhaps being very well educated in science, killed thousands of thousands of people just because their employer such wanted. we have engineers who have commited suicide and also engineers who helped the society to flourish and did great jobs. this is the difference in "vision" (vision towards the world, meaning of life, humanity, history and other such unscientific abstract concepts) not in their "principles of engineering" for christ's sake; and i dont think its very hard to see this fact. wait a minute, im not saying that Mandella was a philosopher; its just that, science just teach you how to do things with more power or accuracy and how to control the nature and not how to live authentic and meaningful and as i said its the "vision" and "philosophy" which makes man perfect not just the power to control the nature. for otherwise wherein we find the reason and motive for caring for others? for caring to the ideals beyond the ego? in science? or religion? and remember philosophy or vision is not necessarily something which should be learned or gained in the classrooms.
there are psychologists like "viktor frankl" who withstood and prevailed the years of Holocaust and Auschwitz, rose up more strongly and developed the most profound and useful theories of psychotherapy ; there are others who just loses their spirits in the face of the slightest hardships and commit suicide in times of suffering or worse and by the same weakness inflict pain to other people, wherein lies the difference? Frankl himself says it lies in the difference between "poor versus rich philosophies".( in 2 important essays Frankl extensively criticizes trends in psychology which try to reduce philosophy to pathological roots, avoid philosophical discussions or overlook the philosophy's importance in healing. he recommends a "psychotherapy in terms of Mind" which "necessarliy brings philosophy to the fore". see: Frankl,1956, "From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy" and Frankl, 1962, "Pschiatary and Man's Quest for Meaning" ). maybe you describe his theory of psychotherapy as "unscientific" or "worthless" but the fact is ForgedinHell, psychotherapists themselves see the matter differently.

hossein wrote:

ForgedinHell wrote:

hossein wrote:philosophy in a broad sense is equivalent to what we call "belief", "view"or "conviction". in other words the use of the term philosophy is in a broad sense similar to that of those concepts. so philosophy per se neither has a negative nor a positive sense. hence it is as nonsense to say that philosophy is useless as it is to say that conviction or view or belief is useless. its mistaken way for using the language. we have good philosophies, bad philosophies, useless philosophies, harmful philosophies in the same manner that we have good beliefs, bad beliefs or useful world views and harmful worldviews. therefore "argumentation" and invoking empirical and non-empirical evidences to question the uselessness of "philosophy" , is by itself a "philosophy" which cannot convince me; because its prejudiced and dogmatic way to deny the existence and presence of a human and social phenomena.

Not buying it. Yoy are using an old, worthless trick that philosophers routinely use to try to justify their existence. The argument is basically, if you are living, breathing, thinking, then you are doing philosophy. The problem with such an approach is that it renders philosophy meaningless. To say that when an engineer designs a computer he is doing philosophy is just philosophy taking credit for the work of non-philosophers.

first of all let me purge the naive myth of "philosophers trying to justify their existence" thing you keep alluding. people who have been named "philosophers" by other "people" in the "society", didnt want anybody to respect them or buy their system of thought. in many cases they have devoted all their lives and wealth for the sake of their ideals. in the most of the cases they have had wealth and educations in medicine or engineering but in spite of that they refuse to stick to that point and didn't just attend to a company to work as an "engineer" to feed themselves and continue to do that no matter what happens in the society and for the others,(though i dont see it as improbable that you respond that they have been just abnormal and psychologically disturbed people who for instance spent years in prisons for just an ideal. but for me, the world without some ideals and the people who stand by those ideals is just abhorring)
its been people and the society who respected "philosophers" and continue to do so; hence its firstly historically false and secondly childish to describe the matters as if philosophers insist that they must be recognized; great philosophers havnt been people needy of acceptance of the others at all.however unlike you, the greatest universities and academies on earth as well as people - educated or non-educated, continue to appreciate and commend their works and participations. its a fact that people tend to applaud them. maybe you say that communities as well as universities like Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Berkeley, Oxford,... are totally wrong and should change such useless habits, well in that case it will be your vocation to convince them of your argumentations, but you have another yet better choice, to spare yourself of that vocation and just say "well, there are people who do like it but i dont like it, its a matter of taste", like those people who dont like rap music and dont try to dismiss the whole rap style as worthless and mock those who are interested in, and instead just say: "well its the matter of taste and i dont like it". i think its a more civilized way for being different.
secondly, its plain wrong to abstract the term "philosophy" and try to find an essence for it; because its just a "name". you at the bottom of your argumentation seem to have the most traditional forms of "essentialism" and "Platonism"; i.e. there must be something common to the word "philosophy" and i have to find it and show that that is worthless.
if we deny all philosophies we'll be obliged to obey the most stupid philosophies: maybe attending church every Sunday and listening to the priest to hear that tomorrow the christ will come or to the mullahs who encourage the mob to explode themselves in order to fly to the heaven. i have heard that Bashar assad is an ophthalmologist and its very hard for me to imagine how can you resist his justifications for killing people by continuing to label ethics and philosophy as worthless and praising the value of engineering. i mean you cannot defend the principles of humanity and ethics by relying on the principles of engineering.
we have people like Nelson Mandela who spent years and years in prison just for an ideal and refused to say "well its not my problem, let me get employed as an engineer"; and we have people like Eichmann who perhaps being very well educated in science, killed thousands of thousands of people just because their employer such wanted. we have engineers who have commited suicide and also engineers who helped the society to flourish and did great jobs. this is the difference in "vision" (vision towards the world, meaning of life, humanity, history and other such unscientific abstract concepts) not in their "principles of engineering" for christ's sake; and i dont think its very hard to see this fact. wait a minute, im not saying that Mandella was a philosopher; its just that, science just teach you how to do things with more power or accuracy and how to control the nature and not how to live authentic and meaningful and as i said its the "vision" and "philosophy" which makes man perfect not just the power to control the nature. for otherwise wherein we find the reason and motive for caring for others? for caring to the ideals beyond the ego? in science? or religion? and remember philosophy or vision is not necessarily something which should be learned or gained in the classrooms.
there are psychologists like "viktor frankl" who withstood and prevailed the years of Holocaust and Auschwitz, rose up more strongly and developed the most profound and useful theories of psychotherapy ; there are others who just loses their spirits in the face of the slightest hardships and commit suicide in times of suffering or worse and by the same weakness inflict pain to other people, wherein lies the difference? Frankl himself says it lies in the difference between "poor versus rich philosophies".( in 2 important essays Frankl extensively criticizes trends in psychology which try to reduce philosophy to pathological roots, avoid philosophical discussions or overlook the philosophy's importance in healing. he recommends a "psychotherapy in terms of Mind" which "necessarliy brings philosophy to the fore". see: Frankl,1956, "From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy" and Frankl, 1962, "Pschiatary and Man's Quest for Meaning" ). maybe you describe his theory of psychotherapy as "unscientific" or "worthless" but the fact is ForgedinHell, psychotherapists themselves see the matter differently.

So? Philosophy is still worthless. I'm writing on a computer that exists due to science and engineering, not philosophy.

Ha...science built upon challenging nature, trying to understand ti rather than surrendering to its mysticism...

You moron, science is built upon a way of seeing the world...an attitude.
In a philosophical system where nature was to be feared, submitted to, no science would be possible.
There's a reason why it was in ancient Greece where most of the modern sciences took hold and then expanded, you simpletons. It was based no a way of seeing, a way of coping, a way of reacting to reality.

You morons only enjoy the end result without once appreciating what preceded it.

But why is the computer so valuable to you twits?
Is it because without it your stupidity would be even more obvious?
Is it because it helps you compensate for natural deficiencies?
Is it because it corrects consequences earlier technologies produced?

ForgedinHell wrote:I'm writing on a computer that exists due to science and engineering, not philosophy.

No, you are writing on a computer that exists due to Science and Engineering, and Philosophy.

ForgedinHell wrote:So? Philosophy is still worthless. I'm writing on a computer that exists due to science and engineering, not philosophy.

Ignorance again.

The fundamental impulse of philosophy in humans is that drive to be better than whatever the existing state, i.e. continuous improvements against the corresponding unfoldment of greater threats as humanity's knowledge expand continually.

The advent of computers were a resultant of that drive for continuous improvements. Science and engineering are merely tools for technology which is interdisciplinary. The drive for innovations, efficiency, aesthetic (note Steve Job), etc. are fundamentally philosophical in essence.

Clueless, FogFart has no idea what philosophy is outside academics. Being a typical institutionalized mind he, it, cannot think of any discipline outside the establishment.

For this human excrement philosophy is dry text about dead guys: thinking what others thought about the world.
This FogFart can't comprehend how philosophy is a stance on life; a way of seeing the world which then determines what art, what application of knowledge what methodologies develop from it.

In short, he is a moron.
There's no nicer way to say it.

ForgedinHell wrote:
So? Philosophy is still worthless. I'm writing on a computer that exists due to science and engineering, not philosophy.

What if you’ve defined philosophy in such a way that nothing can change the situation for you? Then you’ve made “use” and “usefulness” meaningless.
And as a matter of fact its beyond me by virtue of what kind of deductive system you inferred philosophy is worthless from the premise that so many people admire that, so many universities focus on that and so many scientists advocate that, let alone that many of the great philospophers actually have been scientists or mathematicians (Kant, Husserl, Frege, Godel, Tarski, Wittgenstein, Russell, Popper, Friedrich Waismann (was a mathematician and physician), jaspers (was a professional psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl though not philosopher but was a great psychologist and psychiatrist who always admired and relied on philosophy and philosophers), there is also no doubt that fields like psychology, sociology, political science, economics are extensively affected and in some degrees relied on philosophy and systems posed by philosophers. Consider the case of Marx, Adorno, Horkheimer, Habermas and “sociology”, Nietzsche and "psychology", Hegel , Popper (though not friends at all!) and political science.
In fact in the boundaries there’s nothing but “useless philosophizing” which can determine a clear sharp cut-off between literature, poetry and philosophy and also between pure mathematics , logic and philosophy.
As I previously said your excessive stress on usefulness is a symptom of capitalistic way of looking to the matters (the more you consume and spend money the more you are acceptable) but then you remind me of my grand pa who rejected fields like music, art, history, literature, chess, pure mathematics (let alone philospophy) as unproductive and useless and instead just sided bakers and welders and carpenters and bricklayers.
You also remind me of a first and last face to face discussion between Popper and Wittgenstein in 1946 in which Wittgenstein boastfully challenges Popper if he can show him one single problem of ethics which is meaningful and Popper replies that “not to threaten visiting lecturers with pokers”!
How much is a rose given to us by our beloved ones? Or a piece of music played at night by our lover? How much is a kiss of our lover? How much dollar is it? How much crude commodity can be earned by that?
You can establish a site by your “computer” to recruit for Al-Qaida and by the same computer you can establish a NGO for feeding African children; which “science” teaches no to the hate and yes to the love? Again, it’s the difference in vision and philosophy which makes man perfect: science is neutral in itself, it can be in the hands of a ruthless bloodsucker like Bashar Assad or in the hands of a great leader, its sheer power, its neutral, but "how" you harness and utilize the sheer and neutral power is what makes the difference; that difference supervenes on the difference in visions as I previously said.