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What is philosophy?

Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 1:08 am
by QuantumT
People seem to think that philosophy is a playground for religion and other personal beliefs. It is NOT!

Philosophy is the wild card of science. It is the courage of scientific conclussion!

You cannot do what you want with philosophy! You must obey the rules of science!
But you are allowed to explore them to the deepest extent!

Philosophy is a mind game, but it is not yours! To partcicipate you must stay within the boundaries of science!

Re: What is philosophy?

Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 2:28 am
by surreptitious57

Philosophy asks the questions that science cannot and they will not always have easy answers to them

Re: What is philosophy?

Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 5:23 am
by A_Seagull
surreptitious57 wrote: Sat May 19, 2018 2:28 am
Philosophy asks the questions that science cannot and they will not always have easy answers to them
And just what are these questions that science cannot ask?

Re: What is philosophy?

Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 6:13 am
by Greta
For me, philosophy is simply about being curious and the ideas birthed from that curiosity. Scientific knowledge greatly helps IMO, allowing one to readily check whether their deductions and intuitions are on track or not. Much spadework has already been done via the scientific method.

I don't see a hard line between philosophy and science, nor between philosophy and law, nor philosophy and sociology, psychology, the arts or politics (the latter would include religion). Every one of those disciplines has its own bodies of philosophy, its own philosophical aspects, concerns and internal debates.

I find philosophy at its most interesting when it acts as a meta-discipline, aiming to to sweep together and unify as many disciplines as possible into overview perspectives and hopefully help come a little closer to the Great Question:

What the f* is going on?

:)

Re: What is philosophy?

Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 7:00 am
by HexHammer
QuantumT wrote: Sat May 19, 2018 1:08 am People seem to think that philosophy is a playground for religion and other personal beliefs. It is NOT!

Philosophy is the wild card of science. It is the courage of scientific conclussion!

You cannot do what you want with philosophy! You must obey the rules of science!
But you are allowed to explore them to the deepest extent!

Philosophy is a mind game, but it is not yours! To partcicipate you must stay within the boundaries of science!
Nonsense, too many times scientists has been scolded for being cynical and brutish with their experiments on both humans and animals, thus philosophy had to step in and dictate more humane rules of how to conduct and treat humans and animals.

Re: What is philosophy?

Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 5:16 pm
by QuantumT
HexHammer wrote: Sat May 19, 2018 7:00 am Nonsense, too many times scientists has been scolded for being cynical and brutish with their experiments on both humans and animals, thus philosophy had to step in and dictate more humane rules of how to conduct and treat humans and animals.
I see no disagreement, nor need to say nonsense :)

Re: What is philosophy?

Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 5:19 pm
by Eodnhoj7
Philosophy is the application of boundaries through the practice of reason as an observation of structure and relations. Science is limited in its abilities to define phenomenon because the methodology cannot maintain itself under its own scrutiny. "Being que Being" maintains a dual circular and linear progress that maintains and advances knowledge.

Re: What is philosophy?

Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 7:03 pm
by QuantumT
My intention with this thread, was to reclaim the scientific roots of philosophy, and disqualify the modern day approach, that philosophy can be any idea presented by any moron.

If philosophy is to be taken serious in the future, we all must defend that! If we don't, philosophy is dying.

Re: What is philosophy?

Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 9:47 pm
by commonsense
Philosophy is inquiry. It attempts to get at the truth of something.

A haphazard search for truth produces haphazard results. Questions omitted by a less than rigorous approach may alter what is accepted as truth.

To avoid arriving at random conclusions, there needs to be rules in place--rules about what questions to ask, what methods to use in the asking and the answering, what answers to accept as relevant evidence and how to organize the answers in standardized fashion. Hence, science.

Philosophy is inquiry. It depends on evidence, not opinion.

Re: What is philosophy?

Posted: Sun May 20, 2018 11:16 pm
by gaffo
QuantumT wrote: Sat May 19, 2018 1:08 am People seem to think that philosophy is a playground for religion and other personal beliefs. It is NOT!

Philosophy is the wild card of science. It is the courage of scientific conclussion!

You cannot do what you want with philosophy! You must obey the rules of science!
But you are allowed to explore them to the deepest extent!

Philosophy is a mind game, but it is not yours! To partcicipate you must stay within the boundaries of science!
disagree with your view.

Philosophy is "thinking about stuff" (why/what "am i/are things" - in this life).

Science is just another philosophy that "works" per Hume.

Re: What is philosophy?

Posted: Tue May 22, 2018 12:48 am
by Eodnhoj7
QuantumT wrote: Sat May 19, 2018 7:03 pm My intention with this thread, was to reclaim the scientific roots of philosophy, and disqualify the modern day approach, that philosophy can be any idea presented by any moron.

If philosophy is to be taken serious in the future, we all must defend that! If we don't, philosophy is dying.
The root of science is the application of measurements as a form of definition...philosophy is definition.

Re: What is philosophy?

Posted: Tue May 22, 2018 8:49 pm
by commonsense
Philosophy is meta-science. Philosophy is intra-science.

Keep the science in philosophy and the philosophy in science.

Re: What is philosophy?

Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 10:13 pm
by FlashDangerpants
A_Seagull wrote: Sat May 19, 2018 5:23 am
surreptitious57 wrote: Sat May 19, 2018 2:28 am
Philosophy asks the questions that science cannot and they will not always have easy answers to them
And just what are these questions that science cannot ask?
The way Isiah Berlin describes philosophy works for me.

In brief he says that philosophy asks questions where we aren't entirely sure yet how to verify, or in some circumstances even recognise a correct answer. Once we know how to arrive at a correct answer to a question though, that question is no longer philosophical, it becomes a question for science, or economics, or history or something. Whether you see that as promotion or demotion is a matter of perspective.

So an example would be all the time that Aristotle and friends spent arguing about what the universe is made out of. You might say the atomists won that one, but really it would be more accurate to say that a philosopher (Bacon I suppose) came up with a whole new way of looking at such questions, which then became a matter for scientists like Galileo.

So add a "yet" on the end of "Philosophy asks the questions that science cannot" and you sort of have a decent start I think. The only real error is that so many people here seem to be linking philosophy only to science. There are plenty of philosophical question that are not, and could never be scientific, such as "what makes killing people wrong?".

Re: What is philosophy?

Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 10:25 pm
by HexHammer
Eodnhoj7 wrote: Sat May 19, 2018 5:19 pm Philosophy is the application of boundaries through the practice of reason as an observation of structure and relations. Science is limited in its abilities to define phenomenon because the methodology cannot maintain itself under its own scrutiny. "Being que Being" maintains a dual circular and linear progress that maintains and advances knowledge.
Do you have a name for that fairytale world which you reside in?

Re: What is philosophy?

Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 10:29 pm
by HexHammer
QuantumT wrote: Sat May 19, 2018 7:03 pm My intention with this thread, was to reclaim the scientific roots of philosophy, and disqualify the modern day approach, that philosophy can be any idea presented by any moron.

If philosophy is to be taken serious in the future, we all must defend that! If we don't, philosophy is dying.
Philosophy has been dead for centuries, replaced by science.

Philosophy are only good for "softer value" that you can't measure, like love, human care, ethics etc, but such things are not really taught in school and needs to be brought up on national and international lvls, where leaders can have it brought to attention.

I do agree with you here!