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In the book: The Grand Design , Stephen Hawking starts out by loudly asserting that "philosophy is dead". Hawking says philosophy has failed to keep up with the times and it has been left up to science to carry the torch of human enlightenment.
Do you agree or disagree? Is Philosophy now irrelevent in light of the new knowledge science has given us? Can it be saved? Is Hawking full of cow puckey?
I disagree, in the ancient world the philosophers were those who looked for meaning in the stars as well as every day events in the lives of humans. I majored in Philosophy and it was a heavy math and science course of study. Philosophy seeks to answer mans questions about the world, included in this, in modern times and the ancient civilizations would be mathematics, astronomy (not astrology, a pseudoscience at best) alchemy evolved into Chemistry, Physics also evolved as another way to explain what mankind sees in the real world. Most Philosophers have been scientists and/or mathematicians. Albert Einstein was one of the greatest philosophers in modern times, his thoughts on the nature of leadership are famous as are his thoughts on the responsibility of science. Descartes,Rene, who wrote the famous Discourse on method and meditation, "Cogito ergo sum" "I think, therefore, I am" was a famous mathematician of his time. Bertrand Russell was a mathematican, Charles Darwin was a naturalist. Science, Mathematics and Philosophy are inately entwined. They are all seeking answers on the nature of existence.
In the book: The Grand Design , Stephen Hawking starts out by loudly asserting that "philosophy is dead". Hawking says philosophy has failed to keep up with the times and it has been left up to science to carry the torch of human enlightenment.
Do you agree or disagree? Is Philosophy now irrelevent in light of the new knowledge science has given us? Can it be saved? Is Hawking full of cow puckey?
whatdayathink ?
How can there be any true science if there is no coherency - no way of interpreting results?
How do you achieve coherency without logic? If science no longer has to make sense and can be completely incoherent, ultimately, what good is it?
I think he is right. Science can not answer many questions, but the race thinks science can answer everything that it needs, and what it can't answer is not relavant. I would be tempted to say that it is really politics that will carry the "enlightenment" (as dark as it is) and science will serve it, just as everything else is politicized now. In our world, everything that dies does not stay dead (I think somewhere in this is the culture's fascination with zombie movies), fads always come back, and when science gets into a dark age maybe philosophy will reappear.
Did some research on both "what is philosophy?" and reaction to Hawkings' latest faux pas.
Have to agree with the majority of dissent: Hawkings does not know what he is talking/writing about.
I would hate to think that with all the celebrity status that orbits around the man that he has allowed it to create a reality where he perceives and is perceived as some kind of super oracle.
He has certainly forgotten the maxim: the more I know, the more I know that I do NOT know.
And that maxim has got to open up man different channel of philosophy, nes pa?
He certainly gives the impression of thinking that science does now 'know it all' and philosophy has no part left to play. I am sure there is a lot left to discover and philosophy may have some use in suggesting hypotheses to research.
On the other hand, I do see that areas which were once considered outside the realm of science and were only approachable through philosophy (morals, human emotion, the meaning of the arts) can now be understood through science or science now has the methods to approach them.
If philosophy insists that science cannot do this thus, should not try as morals, emotion, love free will and the like are within the non - science realm, then it has ceased to be helpful and has become obstructive.
The basis of philiosophy is logic, or so my philiosophy primer said. Methods of correct thinking are the basis of science. However, philosophy can also cover the speculative including Theology.
If theology and the areas of philosophy that take the basis of theology as a given are not dead, it is high time they were. My experience has been that this area deals in illogic rather than logic, confusion rather than clarity and preferring speculation to discovery.
He is both right and wrong, there are branches of philosophy that have not kept up with the times, they almost refuse to let science inform what they are doing. On the other hand, analytic philosophy (what is mostly taught in US universities) has kept up with the times and is still rather relevant to man's intellectual development, but it rarely involves the things most people think Philosophers deal with (questions of god, the soul, etc, etc). Here are some titles of articles from the "Journal of Philosophy":
- What to do if you want to Defend a Theory.
- Cohesion, Gene Flow and the Nature of Species.
- Genetic Properties of Evolutionary Games and Adaptationism.
Seems pretty informed by modern developments to me...
He is both right and wrong, there are branches of philosophy that have not kept up with the times, they almost refuse to let science inform what they are doing. On the other hand, analytic philosophy (what is mostly taught in US universities) has kept up with the times and is still rather relevant to man's intellectual development, but it rarely involves the things most people think Philosophers deal with (questions of god, the soul, etc, etc). Here are some titles of articles from the "Journal of Philosophy":
- What to do if you want to Defend a Theory.
- Cohesion, Gene Flow and the Nature of Species.
- Genetic Properties of Evolutionary Games and Adaptationism.
Seems pretty informed by modern developments to me...
Yes, it does but hold on..
(q) - What to do if you want to Defend a Theory.
(a) get some scientifically - verified evidence to support it.
(discuss)- Cohesion, Gene Flow and the Nature of Species.- Genetic Properties of Evolutionary Games and Adaptationism.
yes - but first, get some scientifically verified evidence to support the discussion.
If philosophy works with science it has great value, but if it tries to keep science out of the discussion it seems to me to be hampered at best or obstructive and obscurantist at worst.
I do not see the reason why science (the modern conception-hawked by Hawking, as philosophy used to be science) needs to intrude in all thought, as the dominant structure. How does one place a "universal" scientific method for determining morality within diverse social groupings? Science can be borrowed, just as all other disciplines can be by philosophy, but when brought into philosophy it and the rest that is used must be reformatted or restructured into philosophical language or communications; otherwise it might as well be those others disciplines.
If philosophy concedes to this notion, that it must look like Hawking or replaced by his view, it will be lost as he says. As a discipline it needs its own boundaries and control of its own methodologies-modern science does not own rationality nor can it derive all "reality" from its methods; that is why society is differentiated into several systems; ancient systems, the primitive, had low differentiation-usually religion and politics or a combined form. The drive to either place the modern into just science, or as I view it, just politics, is a return to the primitive; which seems to be Hawking's desire when he stated somewhere that science will win in the end-that notion de-differentiates society. The notion that science is the final form of thought, or the sum of it all, structures science up as a religion. As with all human knowledge science is dialectical and what is assumed to be absolute now will not be at some point in the future-Hawking, one day, will be obsolete.
Philosophy is beyond science and above it, and it should not abandon itself to the lower or inferior, science, despite what the rabble think. Philosophy has and can continue to critique science and its structures. This material is out there if loud mouths take the time to read it they will see that philosophy is far from dead.
In the beginnings of philosophy it was understood to be of primary concern for the individual, not necessarily for the masses (when it wishes to become more than it is, it forms up into Heidegger and the Nazis, Marxists and the USSR, etc). It was understood that the masses had neither the time nor the inclination to understand themselves, but usually flowed with the dominate society-only the philosophically blind do not recognize this. Hawking said something like science would lead the mass into enlightenment now that philosophy is dead. In other words the mass are the sheep, he is right in that. Those enlightened by philosophy will not be led like sheep but find their own way. In mass categories philosophy is dead but it is alive in the categories of the individual-or at least a few of them.
(q) - What to do if you want to Defend a Theory.
(a) get some scientifically - verified evidence to support it.
Theory formulation is more complicated than that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
yes - but first, get some scientifically verified evidence to support the discussion.
Philosophy isn't science, philosophers aren't interested in verify what they claim with "scientifically verified evidence" because their claims aren't empirical in nature. Philosophy, at least analytic philosophy, is about conceptual analysis. Philosophy and science are district, yet they are mutually informed by each other.
Philosophers play a role in science in two respects. Firstly, they can provide interpretations of scientific results, secondly before you can submit something to empirical inquiry you have to first frame the problem in an appropriate conceptual context. If you look at the frontiers of science you'll find many philosophers don't conceptual work.
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