Philosophy Now Forum

Given the success of science, do we really need philosophy? Four distinguished scientists and philosophers and about 170 members of the public gathered in a London bookstore to hammer out the issues. This robust and good-humoured Round Table was the second in the series held by Philosophy Now and Philosophy For All to examine how philosophy relates to other ways of seeing the world.

http://philosophynow.org/issues/27/Roun ... Philosophy

The only relevance was something that lawyers used a branch of philosophy to compliment their profession, else philosophy in itself is largely irrelevant and mostly outdated.

HexHammer wrote:The only relevance was something that lawyers used a branch of philosophy to compliment their profession, else philosophy in itself is largely irrelevant and mostly outdated.

Depends what you want it to do? If you want it to do metaphysical ontology then I guess what you say is true but if in a world of Science you'd like your populace to have an understanding of how to understand and make decisions about what the scientists are saying then I'd think Philosophy still a useful and relevant subject. Also fairly useful if you'd like a public that could engage with democracy and politics.

Philosophy Now wrote:Given the success of science, do we really need philosophy? Four distinguished scientists and philosophers and about 170 members of the public gathered in a London bookstore to hammer out the issues. This robust and good-humoured Round Table was the second in the series held by Philosophy Now and Philosophy For All to examine how philosophy relates to other ways of seeing the world.

http://philosophynow.org/issues/27/Roun ... Philosophy

Philosophical discussion and debate has always been a fertile ground for ideas and creativity in thinking. I'm not saying that all of it is positive or even relevant but without it science would never have got off the ground at least not to the level it now is.

Arising_uk wrote:

HexHammer wrote:The only relevance was something that lawyers used a branch of philosophy to compliment their profession, else philosophy in itself is largely irrelevant and mostly outdated.

Depends what you want it to do? If you want it to do metaphysical onto;ogg then I guess what you say is true but if in a world of Science you'd like your populace to have an understanding of how to understand and make decisions about what the scientists are saying then I'd think Philosophy still a useful and relevant subject. Also fairly useful if you'd like a public that could engage with democracy and politics.

You are speaking in too general terms, please specify and give proof!

HexHammer wrote:

Arising_uk wrote:

HexHammer wrote:The only relevance was something that lawyers used a branch of philosophy to compliment their profession, else philosophy in itself is largely irrelevant and mostly outdated.

Depends what you want it to do? If you want it to do metaphysical ontology then I guess what you say is true but if in a world of Science you'd like your populace to have an understanding of how to understand and make decisions about what the scientists are saying then I'd think Philosophy still a useful and relevant subject. Also fairly useful if you'd like a public that could engage with democracy and politics.

You are speaking in too general terms, please specify and give proof!

Pardon? You make a massive generalisation and then call this fault on me?

Still, just for you. An academic study of philosophy, at least in the Anglo-American tradition, is much concerned with critical thought and thinking, it teaches one to analyse thoughts and concepts and to identify the axioms upon which they are based and to look for logical contradictions, it teaches one how to follow a long train of thought and to express ones opinions upon such things in the form of writing and speech. It teaches one how to research ideas and to compare and contrast differing viewpoints for their merits and demerits. Such a study also covers the historical development of political systems and the development of science from its origins and the epistemology underlying such things, in effect, one gets an understanding of the ideas that underlie much of our current thoughts and ideas about things and the world. As such I think it would be a useful process for many to undergo if we wish to have citizens that can fruitfully participate in a modern technological democratic society as it would leave the citizen slightly more able to make informed judgements about what our politicians and scientists claim they can or cannot do.

Politicians using philosohy, most unlikely!

HexHammer wrote:Politicians using philosohy, most unlikely!

I'm not saying they should use it but that the public could use it when considering their words. Although over here a large chunk of the current politicians take a PPE degree, i.e. Philosophy, Politics and Economics so some may well use philosophy in their thoughts, but its apparent that the philosophy part is playing a much smaller role in their education and its all politics and economics now-a-days.

How many of you were able to read the entire transcript?

Seems like it is blocked by a subscription wall.

Kuznetzova wrote:How many of you were able to read the entire transcript?

Seems like it is blocked by a subscription wall.

Not seems, is. If you subscribe to the magazine then all articles are available, if not then some are not.

There is only one way to get 'K' to subscribe to anything.

(I would prefer to have read the entire article before making a comment. However, it seems like nobody else in this thread actually read it either. (?) )

Philosophy was the traditional spearhead of intellectual activity throughout history. Somewhere in time, a transition took place where science began to outpace philosophy. "Philosophers" were so left behind, that their activity became a mere reaction to scientific advances, rather than the other way around.

I will put the time of this transition at the beginning of the 20th century, particularly in the advent of Special Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and the commercial adoption of electricity and radio by the general public. As scientific disciplines became more specialized, philosophy became more specialized on campuses. Philosophy in a specialized form, looked more and more like some sort of study of aspects of language. The first person to react to this change was Wittgenstein.

In Wittgenstein we see a person first admitting that natural, conversational language breaks down in its capacity to communicate some difficult or subtle idea that it was never equipped to depict in the first place. His final conclusion on this matter: "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language." Wittgenstein is also going to recognize a cultural and behavioral aspect to language, which is later adopted as a foundational basis of linguistics, as well as anthropology. Wittgenstein then started to critique language as a social "game" in and of itself.

In the backdrop of all this, the mathematical sciences were continuing at a breakneck pace in their progress. The equations of science had no problems at all when it came to depicting a subtle idea that natural language cannot capture correctly.