Philosophy Now Forum

in a discussion with Trajk Logik, (it a nice change of pace,
not to be insulted three posts into a thread, thank you)

anyway, he wrote this and it bothered me for a bit, but after
some thought, I can answer this, however, I feel this topic to be
interesting enough as to warrants its own thread...

Trajk Logik: ''Philosophy is dependent on science- our observations
and current understanding of the world. I doubt Socrates and other
dead philosophers would say the same thing he did thousands of years ago
if he had access to our current knowledge of reality. Philosophy is
that part of knowledge that allows us to imagine what might be given
our current understanding. Much of it is word salad, or a misuse of
and can be filtered out by simply applying logic to the statements being used"

K: and I appreciate TL for his thoughts, however, I believe this
writing is important, not for the facts offered, but the assumptions
being made...

Assumption: that philosophy is dependent on science...
that science is dependent on certain ideas, that is quite clear...
but I would argue that the basis of those ideas come from
philosophy... for example, logic is not a scientific idea, it
comes originally from philosophy... Aristotle.. and the basis of
science after 1500 AD, comes from the writings of people
like Frances Bacon, Descartes, Newton.. science has built
its entire structure based on philosophical writings, but philosophy
isn't based on science.. the scientific method is a philosophical
concept, not until later was it a scientific method.. (I note that
for centuries, Newton was considered to be a philosopher/scientist,
with the emphasis on philosopher, not scientist)

Assumption: that Socrates/ and others ancient writers would
abandon their thoughts given the ''modern'' access to reality that
we have... (I have always maintain that both Jesus and Nietzsche
would have given up their principal beliefs had they lived longer,
with age comes a different perspective)

this statement points out the difference between science and
philosophy.. the fact is that science and philosophy have vastly
different goals and objectives... anyway, think about what science
does and what philosophy does? Nietzsche said it best when he wrote
that the philosophical search is the search for values, something
that science cannot or will not examine... as the son of a Newspaper man,
as part of any story a newspaper will note, is this... it is engaged
with who, what, when, where, why and how... every single news
story must have, as basic points, those 6 things...
as does science except for the most important aspect, which is why...
science can, quite successfully, the who, what, when, where and how..
but it can't describe the why....science for all its importance,
cannot, cannot explain the most important aspect of human existence,
values... what values are the important values.. and this is the entire
point of Socrates.. he was engaged with philosophy because he was
engaged with values.. and not science... Socrates for example, didn't engage
with other philosophers in their search for the sole matter that the
universe was made of... for some thought the primal matter of the
universe was water, some thought fire, some thought earth and
others air.. and that engagement is science... the search for the how...
but science back then wasn't concerned with values and the soul...
we come to why Socrates was so important, he engaged with values,
not science.. and science, no matter how hard it tries, it cannot
engage in values.. only in the how...how does something work,
not in the why of something.. just the how...

assumption: and here come the viewpoint of much of modern philosophy,
that much of philosophy problems come from the misuse of language,
or the world salad created in philosophy.. I assume TL is referring to
the mess that is Kant and of course, Hegel, ...and of Heidegger and
of Sartre.. all of whom were known to make a mess of language..

In fact, much of philosophy in the 20th century has been exactly what
TL suggests that we investigate language itself.. try to make language
less confusing and more accurate... and virtually every single pre-world
war 2 writer, in one way or another, investigated language

this is in fact why Wittenstein was originally famous..
and one of the key investigations of language by Russell
and Whitehead... perhaps the real creators of the Analytic
philosophy that at one time dominated philosophy departments
around the world...the book, one of those unread classics that
underly our modern thinking, ''Principia Mathematica''

(one of their cardinal beliefs was that math is the language
of the universe and we can understand that math as language
if, if we worked out that language.. as Russell and Whitehead
believed they did and incidentally, both were to reject that
viewpoint) 

now I note, that the investigations of language that were once
so prevalent, don't really exist anymore... the idea that
if we just use common sense and logic to language, we
could be far more effective in our use of language, no longer
seem to be a common thought... and one has to ask,
why don't we investigate language like we did a hundred
years ago? the idea that language and word salad and
the misuse of language can be solved by logic and common sense
and analysis... is no longer true....after generations of attempts,
the analytical study of language has no value, it doesn't lead us
anywhere... it doesn't provide us with any sort of useful answers...
it turned into a dead end... the bottom line here is if it worked,
people would still be using it... but it doesn't and so it faded away...

as I must have breakfast, I shall continue this one the other side...

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Thu Feb 15, 2024 5:09 pm Trajk Logik: ''Philosophy is dependent on science- our observations
and current understanding of the world. I doubt Socrates and other
dead philosophers would say the same thing he did thousands of years ago
if he had access to our current knowledge of reality. Philosophy is
that part of knowledge that allows us to imagine what might be given
our current understanding. Much of it is word salad, or a misuse of
and can be filtered out by simply applying logic to the statements being used"

I like your words Trajik

well, I am currently eating breakfast, that must count for
something...

anyway, let us list the 7 areas/branches of philosophy....
logic, metaphysics, ethics/moral, aesthetics, political philosophy,
epistemology, and Axiology.... Now I would submit that a branch,
a key branch of philosophy is not listed nor is it ever listed,
and yet it is the heart of philosophy.. that of values.... what
values are important and why those values, and not others?

Now what is the role of science in these 7 branches?
we can see the value of science in epistemology..
ok, score one for science.. what about logic? as earlier noted,
logic came from philosophy, not from science..
so now even...

metaphysics: is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental
nature of reality... and here is where it gets interesting... is metaphysics
actually, a scientific thing or is it a philosophical thing?

virtually all the things that make up metaphysics is studied in both
philosophy and in science...for example, metaphysics includes,
and in no particular order... being/existence, identity, change, consciousness,
space, time, necessity, actuality and possibility...

and science, well science clearly studies all of those too... so there
doesn't seem to be any sort of priority to either one...so until further
notice, we shall this one a draw....

so, what is left, oh yes, political philosophy, ethics and aesthetics...
and I don't see a call from anyone to bring science into any
of these areas....for example, how would science bring any
sort of clarification to ethics? or to Aesthetics? or even to
political science? I just can't see a role for science in
any of these philosophical branches......

so, in regard to any study that is common to both science
and philosophy, most of the time, one is better off
with an engagement with philosophy, not science....

and I have suggested that one of the main areas of philosophy,
is as Nietzsche noted, an engagement with values....
what values should we have and why? and I believe that
was what Socrates tried to do... create a discussion of
values and what is their importance....

(now note that science cannot give us any type of understanding
about values and which values are necessary/needed values for
human beings, science can only tell us about the how, not the why?
science can tell us, maybe, how life began, but not why life
is important or why living has more value than being dead)

Any sort of listing of values is certain to be a very long,
and incomplete listing... we can never be able to list
all values and why? the incompleteness theory
of Godel also applies here... here is a fairly incomplete listing
of values, hundreds, thousands, and perhaps millions of values
are left to chart...

courage, accountability, honest, adaptability, loyalty, friendship,
gratitude, beauty, equality, justice, love, security, teamwork,
compassion, adventure, creativity, authenticity, freedom, to name
just a very few of all the possible values....

and Socrates ask us to work out what values, are our values?
What value or values are the guiding light of our existence?
now some may say, rightly, that some animals have some of
these values, but, do they have them because of choice,
as we humans have choice, or do the animals have
these values because of instinct and they have no choice in
their values? for me, the thing that makes us human is our
choices, if we had no choice, then we are not human....
choice is what makes us human...animals with no choice,
clearly are not human by virtue of having no choice, only
instinct...so, what choices of values is more important?
in other words, what values/choices bring us closer to
our becoming human? as is the meaning of, point of existence
is traveling the road from animal to becoming human, fully human....
and it is by the choice of values that bring us closer or further away
from this goal of becoming fully human.....

so anyway, the question for me is one of values.... which values do
we choose and why those values and not other values?
and I suggest that no matter how hard we try, we cannot
get a response from science...for science cannot tell us what
value or values are worth living by?

and that is the point of, the goal of philosophy... to work
out values and how to put those values into practice
as human beings... values as a ''way of life''
for some say, that Christian values are the only values worth
living, but that is only true if you use Christian values as a ''way of life''
as values to use every day, every hour, every minute and every second....
the only way Christian values have value is if they are used as
a ''way of life'' not as something we might hear once a week for
an hour or two...and promptly forget..

I consider values as something we use as a ''way of life''
and a way of life 24/7/365.... not occasionally when it is convenient....
we can't use values as we use ethics, as it is situationally required...
for we don't have an ethical system to live by, we have
situation ethics... the situation dictates the ethics...
and we can't use values that way either... we use
our chosen value, every day, in every situation we come across..
not as it seem useful to use and then disgard.....
values are forever, situational ethics is temporary....

so, how does science tell us or inform us in which
values we should hold to and why that value/values?
that is a philosophy problem, not a science problem...

Kropotkin