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Is philosophy a science?yagnyavalkya
There is a very thin line between metaphysics, philosofy and religion
Metaphysics is a science Edit by Rvec: This topic was part of Speed of thought ?!, but because it was too far off-topic (and I got an angry pm  ) I split it.Indi
Is that so? Indulge me. Go to google.com, and type "define: metaphysics" in the search bar, without the quotes. Share what you find with the rest of the class. You might also want to try dictionary.com. And, you're free to pick your own source, if you like. yagnyavalkya
Google, Dictionary and all other sources in the internet are not the authority on any particular subject
I am a scientist by profession please have a look at my page If I start working and quoting google in my scientific papers I will be laughed at In fact my dear friend Philosophy itself is a science Quote from the journal Theoria vol. 69, Part 3 (2003) you can access this at http://www.infra.kth.se/phil/theoria/editorial693.htm Heres to you According to one view, philosophical treatments of a subject are, at least in typical cases, an early phase in the scientific study of that subject. Philosophy is then regarded as a form of protoscience, out of which science can be developed. One of the many proponents of that view was William James Reference : William James, Some problems of philosophy: a beginning of an introduction to philosophy, New York, Longmans, 1911. The second view treats philosophy in toto as one of the disciplines of science. This viewpoint is represented by CJ Ducasse, who identified philosophy as the science whose subject-matter consists of “spontaneous particular appraisals – and whatever turns out to be implicit in them”. Reference : C J Ducasse, Philosophy as a science. Its matter and its method. Oskar Piest, New York 1941. The third standpoint considers some but not all forms of philosophy as a science. One of the most outspoken proponents of this view was Hans Reichenbach. He distinguished between “speculative” and “scientific” philosophy, also called “old” and “new” philosophy. Contrary to speculative philosophy, scientific philosophy “leaves the explanation of the universe entirely to the scientist; it constructs the theory of knowledge by the analysis of the results of science and is aware of the fact that neither the physics of the universe nor that of the atom can be understood in terms of concepts derived from everyday life.” Reference: Hans Reichenbach The Rise of Scientific Philosophy University of California Press, Berkeley 1954. In the middle of all this chatter about what is a science, I wonder about philosophy. Certainly, over the route of my occupation, I've been astounded to observe how the for the most part nonrepresentationally metaphysical themes originally conversed by philosophers include to impact an assortment of clearly experimental disciplines exterior philosophy. Effort by philosophers on the metaphysics of modality (or the semantics for modal languages) resulted in a model that has useful applicability in a wide variety of topics (e.g. the study of probability, the study of natural language meaning). Philosophers nurse the conception of causation while it was hiding from anti-metaphysical services, and now it is a highly regarded theme again in the individual sciences (e.g. no discussion of practical reasoning can ignore it). Psychologists interested in concept configuration appeal to work in metaphysics as abstract Some of us are still fairly open about the statement that we do experiments. I wonder how to make a distinction between philosophy and 'real' science. Check all these references When I argue that Philosophy is itself a science you can say that metaphysics which according to you is philosophy is also a science Please have a look at theses reference 1. Experimentalmetaphysics2: The double standard in the quantum-information approach to the foundations of quantum theory Studies In History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies In History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, Volume 38, Issue 4, December 2007, Pages 906-919 Amit Hagar 2. Science, truth and history, part II. Metaphysical bolt-holes for the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge? Studies In History and Philosophy of Science Part A, Volume 38, Issue 1, March 2007, Pages 185-209 Nick Tosh 3. The evolution and limits of science Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Volume 30, Issue 1, October 2006, Pages 51-55 Daham Ismail Alani and Zina Alani Mougharbel 4. http://www.gwfhegel.org/ Metaphysics is not the branch of philosophy that explains physical phenomena using reason and logic in a way that falls outside the bounds of either religion or science' rather it is a philosophical science which deals with transcendental concepts such as being, one, true and good which in its simplest form is 'being as such'. What really makes Metaphysics hard to define is its object: being. Being cannot be defined properly but only descriptively. yagnyavalkya
According to ELIZABETH A. RAUSCHER AND RUSSELL TARG
Bay Research Institute 1010 Harriet Street, Palo Alto, CA 94301 e-mail: radiant@pacbell.net in an article entittled "The Speed of Thought: Investigation of a Complex Space-Time Metric to Describe Psychic Phenomena" published in Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 331–354, 2001 The speed of thought is undefined in meters per second. Since consciousness can access the complex eight space as though it is contiguous, space-time distances are non-existent for mind-to mind, or mind-to-target awareness—separation of consciousness is an illusion. The compelling data for precognition make it appear that the future is unalterably determined. This fatalist point of view maintains that our awareness moves inexorably along the time line at a rate of one second per second. But, this seeming limitation of our free will is only a four-space perception. We believe that the higher dimensional space described here gives additional degrees of freedom, which are available to our awareness, allowing us to have greater access to possible futures. simplyw00x
As a science degree student I can safely say that this is not the case. Like Indi stated, the scientific and natural answer to your question is 'c. 100mph'. Areas of study don't get to define themselves as science, they need peer acceptance from other scientists and that is something armchair philosophers don't have. Indi
How can you seriously be a practising scientist and not know what a "real" science is? -_- That's like being an orchestral violinist and not knowing what a score is. Despite your meandering and nebulous claims (most of which are based on poor comprehension, but we'll get to that in a minute), science is quite well defined, and is very clear about what is and what is not a science, and why. The problem is that we use the word "science" colloquially to mean a number of different things, many of which are not science. Take "Creation Science" for example. To the untrained eye, it looks a lot like science - even more so than philosophy does. It has "theories", it has data, it has experiments, it has experts, it has journals... sure seems to have everything that a science should have. But is it really science? No, it's not. Why not? Because it uses religion? No. Because "real" scientists denounce it? No. The reason "creation science" is not really science is because it does not satisfy the requirements necessary to be a science.
No, but they are a good place to start your research before making spurious claims. You have far more chance of being laughed at if you make ridiculous claims that could have easily been shown wrong by a ten second Google search, such as in this case.
Now, a modicum of common sense is required when collecting journal evidence to support a claim. First, you want to pick a journal that actually knows what they are talking about. If you want to determine whether X is a science, you don't ask the X experts, you ask the science experts. For example, if you want to know whether steel processing is considered a first or second tier industry, you don't talk to an expert in steel processing, you talk to an expert in industrial classification. They know what makes something first or second tier, not the steel processing people, and they can check the steel processing industry to determine what category it fits and why. So if you want to know whether philosophy meets the standards of science, you should really check a science journal, not a philosophy journal. And, once again, using a two second Google search, i find: Theoria: A Swedish Journal of Philosophy Hm, not a great start, but not enough to rule out the possibility that maybe an expert in science was writing in a philosophy journal. Of course, that takes another two second check, this time in Wikipedia (which i'd guess you also consider beneath you to use as a source). Sven Ove Hansson appears to be an expert in theoretical philosophy. Not looking good, but hey, maybe he has a good argument in his article. Even if it's not his field, a good argument is a good argument, right? And here is where we run into the biggest problem in your methodology. You have failed to understand what you read. Here is what Hansson says (as quoted by you): "{P}hilosophical treatments of a subject are... an early phase in the scientific study of that subject. Philosophy is then regarded as a form of protoscience, out of which science can be developed." (Incidently, for shits and giggles, i should mention that the source of his argument, William James, is also a philosopher... not a scientist.) Somehow you managed to read "philosophy is an early stage of science" as "philosophy is science". Clearly that's just bad comprehension. And reading through Hansson's editorial, it becomes clear that he does not agree with you. He says that philosophy leads to science, and science feeds philosophy (as he says: "Being a member of this community of disciplines is a matter of both giving and taking. As philosophers we have to respect the knowledge obtained in other disciplines, but we can also expect knowledge workers in other disciplines to respect achievements made by philosophers. Hence, philosophers should refrain from attempts to solve problems in physics with “purely conceptual” methods that ignore results from experimental physics.[5] Similarly, physicists should refrain from trying to solve epistemological problems without making proper use of concepts and methods that have been developed by philosophers specializing in epistemology."). At no point anywhere in his editorial does he say that philosophy is science. In fact, in the bit that i quoted, he explicitly says it's not.
Without a copy of the source, i can't comment on its content. i can, however, comment on its author, Curt John Ducasse.
Ya... he sure sounds like an authority on what is and what is not science. ^_^;
Again, without access to the source, i have only what's in front of me. And what i see is a bad case of poor comprehension again. What i read there does not say philosophy is a science. It says that Reichenbach tried to found a new branch of philosophy that he called "scientific philosophy" that uses science as a source for philosophizing.
"I wonder how to make a distinction between philosophy and 'real' science." Simple. By looking at the definition of what is a "real" science, which is precisely defined, and seeing what fits and what doesn't. All of the cases you describe above demonstrate that philosophers learn from scientists and scientists learn from philosophers. So what? No one denies that both fields do benefit from each other. That doesn't make them the same thing.
i do not say metaphysics is philosophy. Metaphysicists do. Since you look down on simple dictionary definitions and Google search results and prefer scholarly journals as references, i offer this: Metaphysica: a journal on metaphysics. Read the single paragraph on that page, and count the number of occurences of science, scientific, scientists etc. Then count the number of occurences of philosophy, philosopher, philosophical, etc. Share your results with the rest of us. Oh, but of course, a single reference is not enough. So do the same for this journal: Review of Metaphysics. Or, you can start from a resource list, like here.
Which is yet another reason why metaphysics fails the science litmus test.
^_^; Dude, seriously... if you really want to be taken seriously as a scientist, take a little more care with what articles you use as sources. Let me highlight the problem above:
^_^; i recommend that you go back to basics and find out what science really is. This is a very good place to start. When reading that, try to figure how metaphysics can possibly satisfy the criteria described there.
i have to disagree with you, partly. Peer acceptance is neither necessary nor sufficient to make something a science. There is lots of peer support for things like "Intelligent Design" and other pseudo-scientific pap... and those are not sciences. In addition, some sciences - in their early stages - have very little peer support... psychology was not considered a science at first (and many of its early theories were not legitimate scientific theories), but it was, is and always will be a science. There is a very precise and well-defined set of standards that determines what is and what is not a science. Anything that fits those standards, peer support or not, is a science. You mentioned armchair philosophers, and you're right... who cares what they think? But there are entire, well-defined fields of philosophical research, with professional philosophers publishing well-accepted, rigorously-reviewed scholarly articles that must meet high standards. However, that is neither sufficient nor necessary to make philosophy a science. Philosophy must meet the standards of what is and what is not a science, or it is not a science. It does not meet those standards.[url][/url] Coclus
Philosophy is definitley a science, and it could be even considered a meta-science, as it is often one level above other sciences..
yagnyavalkya
You still cant understand the difference between a philosopher and a scientist "DUMBO" ( I eat this word and please read this as anything but derogatory)
HAVE YOU HEARD OF THE DEGREE PHD it is called doctor of Philosophy You are wrong I am not a practicing scientist I am a pro scientist I am not like you who sits and types on the pc and claims that to be right with google support I guess it is not worth talking to you anyway Try to have an open mind and try to to have a decent discussion when given the references try to read the fulltext of the articles don't just goggle and start replying I guess all you know about any subject is what google can give you If I may go a step beyond even religion is a science Most scientist earn that degree Thanks for you google generated response I have got better work than that yagnyavalkya
What is meant by an armchair philosopher
You are doing very bad justice to Stephan Hawkings Is the philosopher supposed to be a traveler? newolder
Sorry i'm late... Too much comet Holmes watching...
I'm happy to read that Indi cleared up yagna..'s misunderstandings but yagna... doesn't seem to think so. So it goes. Philosophers are monkeys that think about thinking about thinking. Scientists are monkeys that use tools in repeatably demonstrable ways to test ideas to breaking point. Then they revolt and start over... It seems, however, that since 1998, all physics is now solvable with the tool-kit of special unitary group theory in eleven dimensions - a gift from mathematicians. 
http://endlessuniverse.net/ is about Steinhardt & Turok's book on SU(11) theory. It's 'urgent reading', according to Roger Penrose, "It may well be closer to the truth than you think!". Great times ahead, ed. simplyw00x
Not by current scientists. These fields only have support within their own communities.
I think it's perfectly legitimate that there are still doubts about it as a science given the extent to which things are generalised to an hopelessly large scale, and the degree to which this is a problem is reflected by the fact that it is still not universally accepted in the community.
Yes, but they are scholarly-reviewed by other philosphers and not by groups that are unambiguously 'scientists'. Furthermore, the very idea of rigorous and reproducible scientific method is null in philosophy as it's about coming up with and accounting for ideas rather than proving that these ideas are true. yagnyavalkya
THis is what Mr Indi says in this post unfortunately he has poor memory or does he think that since the post is transfered to a different section readers wont knwo what he said here is what he said in the other post from which this disscussion has emerged
Funny MR Indi prefers to lie to suit his cause Indi
Wow. ^_^;
^_^; i don't need to ask Google what that means. i know already, as does everyone who has a PhD. As you say, many scientists have PhD's. But you know what, so do many artists. Are you seriously going to tell me with a straight face now that Fine Arts is a science? ^_^; How about a PhD in Sports Medicine... is that philosophy? ^_^; You keep mocking Google, but you really should use it. If you did you would find out the answers to the questions you are asking me... and they're not the answers you think they are. You ask: why does a scientist receive a doctorate in philosophy? The answer is: because once upon a time, the only thing you could study was philosophy. There were no places that offered degrees in science, art, languages, social studies... nothing. All they had was philosophy. They called the study of the natural world "natural philosophy", and the study of morality, ethics, theology and so on "moral philosophy". Thus the only degree that you could get was in philosophy, and this has stuck with us historically. We still hand out doctorates in philosophy... for everything ranging from philosophy, to science, to art, to religious studies... everything. Once upon a time, there were no scientists - everyone was a natural philosopher. But you know, we grew up. We invented science and the scientific method, so that we don't study "natural philosophy" anymore. We study science. Yes, science grew out of philosophy - no one denies that. But science became something in its own right that is not philosophy. Science grew out of philosophy, but science is not philosophy. A tree grows out of a seed, but a tree is not a seed.
^_^; *sigged*
Oh, goodness no. You sit and type on the PC and claim to be right without Google support. ^_^;
i read every article i had access to without going out of my way, and every other article i read summaries. None of them agrees with your claims. Not one.
Religion is a science... philosophy is a science... what next? Fingerpainting? You can't just say ____ is a science, or the word science becomes meaningless. _____ is a science if and only if it meets the standards required to be a science. Religion does not. Neither does philosophy.
Ah, but now your argument becomes circular. A field is only a science if scientists call it a science, right? So what if I said Physics, Chemistry and Biology are not sciences? Prove me wrong. What you will do is try to point to scientists and say: look, they think physics is a science. But then i say... are they physicists, chemists or biologists? If they are... then their opinion doesn't count. ^_^ That is why we don't rely on peer support to define a science. We have a definition that is simple, clear and practical. Physics, chemistry and biology fit that definition. Even if no one in the world called physics a science, it would still be a science, because it fits the definition.
Yeah? ^_^ Let's review your arguments for why philosophy is a science: 1.) Because some papers i found on teh intarnets said so (when they actually don't). 2.) Because scientists earn a doctorate of philosophy (when artists earn the same thing). 3.) Because i'm using Google, and therefore don't know what i'm talking about. 4.) Because you say so. Let's review my arguments for why philosophy is not a science: 1.) Because there is a definition that defines what is science, and philosophy does not fit that definition. Well, gee, looks like you got me. ^_^;
Long time no see. ^_^ Yes, some people learn by examing facts and altering their beliefs to best agree with those facts, others learn by yelling "SHUT THE HELL UP AND LISTEN TO WHAT I SAY, DUMBASS". ^_^; Indi
Wow ^_^; yagnyavalkya
Actually there is a lot of brick batting here without doing justice to the topic
That includes me Here is what I have to say about the topic Firstly lets consider this Philo-sophia is greek "love of wisdom" and sciencia is latin "knowledge" the greek equivalent being "episteme" Is it true that wisdom and knowledge are the same? Knowledge revolves around facts and wisdom on the other hand is abstract and need not be a fact. wisdom is more bound by time and space coordinates and can change with them just to put it in simple terms what is wisdom in one place at a certain time need not be wisdom at another place and time ( there are exceptions ) But knowledge is not bound as is wisdom at least to that degree In Science one tries to get at the specifics and facts, the actual info in sequence that we can point down and create meaning from. In Philosophy one tries to give the impression of seeing at the larger picture and comprehend the inter and intra relations of what it all means, the underpinning for survival to commence with. Philosophy was at one time a contemplation to start off where natural science ends, and in an esoteric sense to be the ultimate "science", in the larger sense the definitive knowledge. Most hard core scientists and rationalists in the present era emphasize that there is no knowledge beyond the natural sciences, and consequently also that philosophy in its pure form actually does not exist. In fact some say that it (philosophy) is a discussion about the something that science hasn't yet considered machines/ methods to scrutinize, and hence puts it aside as a speculative branch of science. ( that is of course if Indi agrees) This is paradoxical and creates a wee bit of confusion as Physics an important branch of science is speculative itself and in fact eg.nobody knows much about the existence of subatomic particles. But this paradox makes us understand why philosophy was the fore runner of what we call science ( which actually was not invented but rather discovered because knowledge is always there it is not created ) History ( and Indi too!) says that where philosophy ended science began and now it seems that where science ends philosophy begins That is because Philosophy asks the most vague of the questions and surprisingly never answers that at least not convincingly as science does and most of the answers are as vague as the questions themselves One can say that philosophy is a kind of science which tends to ignore the hard core system ( which science employs) of hierarchical thinking. In hierarchies, you go from wide-ranging to the precise. In science it is basically asking organized as such. A top down approach ( eg from the whole organism to the molecule). But philosophy takes you right to the core But again that is not all there are a lot of differences between science and philosophy The distinction between Science and Philosophy is that that Science treats experimental data. In order to conduct science there ought to be already conformity about the use of instruments, the units of dimension and the significance of hypothetical terms. Most of the 19 and 20th C physicists did very little inspection and spent a lot if not most of their endeavor in theorizing. This goes to show that ( at least what they thought that single experimental counterpoint is sufficient to misrepresent a vigorous theory. But this not the truth anymore physicists now are in search of observing the elementary particle instead of hypothesizing their presence. The contention that philosophy is a branch of natural science is by and large based on the chronological detail when ancient thinkers called philosophers, explored subjects a number of which, when became adequately evolved, got classified and included elite followers of their own, and then became independent in existence separating away from the parent idea or subject. But the parent idea still kept name of philosophy. One can expect a lot more to evolve from philosophy. It is just that when concrete answers are found to philosophical question it no more remains philosophy but becomes science. But the truth remains that in ancient times the an assortment of fields of awareness were not well-known, and who tried to seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge on any subject be it history, biology etc was called a philosopher. Whereas now knowledge seekers in the quest of explaining phenomenon are called scientists studies which no more called philosophy do not in subject matter or any other way diverge from philosophy as fundamentally as does mathematics from the natural sciences. Till the Renaissance, 'philosophy' and 'science' were well thought-out to be the same discipline. Modern philosophy is usually considered to commence with the beginning of modern physical and biological science. Wherein scientist thought ( still think) that all questions can be answered and explained and the modern philosopher says not "all" can be answered but those not answered by science can be answered by philosophy albeit in a vague manor ( because there is freedom to do that in philosophy and not in science Just a reminder here that this is a discussion you can always refute someones viewpoint without insulting or questioning credentials Have an open mind question the axioms Every topic can be argued to and for Questioning rvec
please do not double post but instead use the edit button. 2 Posts made by the same user in a short time and no other posts between them are not allowed.
Also please stop insulting each other:
And don't post one liners:
newolder
In order that this doesn't wander too far, should we all re-group after watching David Malone's excellent 1-off documentary, initially shown on BBCTV4? It's a very fine take on science & philosophy, imho.
http://www.videosift.com/video/Dangerous-Knowledge Starts with Georg Cantor and grows exponentially from there... Great and liberating stuff. At least, it ought to be.  ed.
P.S. Apologies for recent absence - much chaos hereabouts and mtb-ing has got itself firmly in my blood now... Anyone seen/heard from Bikerman recently? yagnyavalkya
Actually I just saw the long well written essay in philosophy by Indi just about now and guess what Indi has said ( quoted above) An what does he/she say now
Philosophers seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge and I guess Indi is arguing for the sake of argument Gagnar The Unruly
In order for a question to be scientific, it must be answerable using the scientific method. Philisophical questions are not answerable via the scientific method. Therefore, philosophy is not a science. Science, however, has underpinnings in philosophy. In fact, the soundness and applicability of the scientific method can be argued scientifically as well as philosophically. In that sense, science is (or is at least reliant on) a particular philosophy. Philosophy, however, cannot be said to be a science.
dwinton
None of those is a science. In fact, they directly oppose science. It is interesting however to consider the motivations behind philosophy. Science arises because a better understanding of reality allows us to do less work for the same result or achieve new results (mechanical advantage and computers respectively). However, we develop knowledge in science far faster than we can harness it. We have math with no bearing on reality and no relevance to real world problems and theories about the nature of black holes which we may one day control but for this time are not controllable. I wonder if the pursuit of knowledge without a necessary goal differs greatly from philosophy. I guess we could ultimately use science to some end whereas the rewards for philosophy seems pretty intangible. At the same time, I don't believe in a God or a greater purpose to reality so perhaps the knowledge of how to lead a good life which is defined through philosophy is as important as quantum mechanics Ankhanu
Science has its origin in philosophy. Philosophy, however, is not science. Yes, I speak as a scientist, and one who has an interest in general philosophy as well.
Ankhanu
I may as well slightly expand my rationale here
Science, as you all know, is simply a process and mode of thought of observation; generally an observation that is explored for cause/effect, using a specific form of testing, ie. controlled experiment. Philosophy is, in essence, thought exercise; pondering questions, asking "why", but it does not necessarily include the standardized testing of the questions being pondered. There's no real structure to philosophy, and often, there are no right or wrong answers, as it's all cerebral in nature. It's the structure of science and the pursuit of evidence that separates it from general philosophy. nisibdv
Philosophy is not a science, it is more a sickness of the mind and soul. Is the imposible intent of a man to find the truth by himselve.
simplyw00x
*UGH*
You can't use dictionary-bashing to solve this. Semantics is not going to determine the answer to this question, as obviously philosophy is viewed differently now to how it was 2000 years ago by greek philosophers.
Then the collected body of people who society calls scientists and who call each other scientists say you're wrong. My argument ins't circular but the method of deciding what's a science is. Something is a science if it's accepted by the scientific community, and the scientific community is composed of people and ideas that other people have previously deemed 'scientific' Ankhanu
It's not circular at all... something is science if it uses the scientific method. That's really all science is; a method and perspective.
yagnyavalkya
I AGREE
Philosophy is not a science simplyw00x
Not sure I'm happy being on the same side of a debate as someone who thinks that there is a "speed of thought" and that this phenomenon constitutes metaphysics... Bikerman
Hmm....I'd have to disagree a little here. I accept that 'philosophy' is difficult to define and I also accept that it is not synonymous with or equivalent to science (though, as you rightly say, science 'grew out of' philosophy). I think, however, that we can say that there is some structure in philosophy. A resonable definition might be 'a logical critical examination or system of thought'. Logic is, I suggest, an essential feature of philosophy and that means there is some structure implicit.. Ankhanu
Yeah, you are right. I just kinda assumed logic to be understood...
I must be more explicit, I suppose
I didn't mean to infer that philosophy has no structure... rather that it doesn't necessarily include an evidence collection method to its structure. Indi
That is not what i called circular. Quite the opposite, that is what i said determines what is and what is not a science. However, your description of what science is is a little lacking. Science is many things beyond simply the method and perspective (which is really a by-product of the method, or vice-versa). Science is also the body of knowledge collected by means of the scientific method. What i called circular was simplyw00x's argument that scientists determine what is and what is not science. That is what is circular. i asked him to prove to me that physics, chemistry and biology were sciences using that method, and he replied that they are sciences because physicists, chemists and biologists say they are... without a trace of irony. Determining whether something is or is not science based on whether or not it uses the scientific method is not circular, and is in fact the one and only right way to do it. Since philosophy does not use the scientific method, it is not science. It's as simple as that. Yes, philosophy contributes to science (and science to philosophy)... but that doesn't make it a science. Yes, what was once the realm of philosophy is now studied by scientists... but that doesn't make it a science. One thing and one thing only determines whether philosophy might be a science: whether it uses the scientific method. It does not. Therefore it is not science. yagnyavalkya
Although Ladies and Gentlemen I clearly agree that Philosophy cannot be given the status of a branch of science
There are certain things to be considered here about science itself. the strict definition states that "knowledge gained in the course of study or practice," or "knowledge covering universal truths of the operation of general laws, as obtained and tested through scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world." But one should see that the centrality of the realist scientific method does not only depend on its reliance on scrutiny and experimentation. Scientific claims are by no means evaluated purely in relation to the findings of particular experiments. Rather claims are appraised by considering a large range of issues which includes experimental findings; theories; ideas about method; statistics and so on Here again science is guarded by four important institutional imperatives: universalism, communism, disinterestedness and organised scepticism. These constitute the norms of science. To be clearer Communism needs that knowledge is freely shared; organized scepticism, that all knowledge claims are reviewed for their theoretical consistency and empirical sufficiency; disinterestedness and universalism, that everyone’s knowledge claims are assessed by essentially the identical impersonal criteria and thus that methodical status is gained through merit and value rather than benefaction or social position. The point to ponder here is how well or how bad philosophy fits here. If it fits poorly here then I dare say it can even be dismissed as a wasted human endeavor Philosophy I would say is not an empirical science (observation or experiment method) Again if we have to go by definition to classify philosophy as not a science then I wish to bring it to your notice that Philosophy is most difficult to define. Most definitions of philosophy are controversial. In a discussion of this kind ( the topic above) People have a extensive range of resources that can be used for patronising descriptions, including notions of lies, delusions, mistakes, flattery, deceptions and misrepresentations, all of which can be used on to challenge the adequacy of a depiction. Given that there are these resources for undermining factual versions, hence there certainly is a set of other (re)sources that can be used to evaluate a version and make it complicated to weaken. These resources can be used to build a description as a factual or rather an actual account. simplyw00x
Define the 'scientific method' and explain how this single term can encompass the vastly different things which biologists, chemists and physicists do (think of the difference between theoretical chemists/physicists and biology such as Louis Pasteur's discovery of Penicillin) - then explain how this fails to encompass philosophy, psychology or homeopathy. Bikerman
Simply put the scientific method comprises : 1. Observation and description of a phenomenon. 2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomenon. 3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict results of new observations. 4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions.* This is a bit simplified but not, I hope, overly simplistic. *The test(s) should aim to disprove the prediction(s), not prove it/them. In other words the testing should seek to refute the central hypothesis. Some apects of psychology use scientific method (neuro-psychology for example) but others rely on introspection or other methodology which is often neither predictive nor testable. Homeopathy is based on a 'water memory' hypothesis which has never been shown to actually exist and has certainly never been able to pass stage 3. Ankhanu
The Wikipedia entry on the Scientific Method gives a bit of a history as well as the base concepts behind what it is; this little page from a University of Rochester professor also summarizes it nicely.
Though the various disciplines of science are fairly disparate in what they observe, they all use this basic concept of developing, testing and refuting knowledge. Whether you're a biologist (like me) or a physicist, the base concepts of how knowledge is formed are the same, and it's all about the Scientific Method. It is this method that defines science. (Psst, Pasteur worked in germ theory and developed pasteurization; penicillin was Sir Alexander Fleming, a little over a century after Pasteur's death.) simplyw00x
Shows how much biology I know...
Still, the definition of the 'scientific method' isn't exactly concrete, and as Bikerman said, various bits even of the same discipline can be descirbed by it whereas others can't. So surely it's not adequate for determining the whole scientific character of a field of study? yagnyavalkya
Actually I think we are digressing a bit
We are now into what is science (although that I think is basic knowledge in order to answer the question if Phil is a science or not) But here I see a couple of posts on Scientific methods) Have you thought of Discovery as against invention in Science Discovery in science (most great discovers in the history of the world are renowned scientists) need not follow the scientific methods described above and yet it comes up with most significant findings that satisfy all the requirements of science ( Null hypothesis, statistical significance and repeatability) Epistemologists have debated at extent if at all scientific discovery is a coherent and rational process. If it is, it ought to be achievable to write computer programs to discover laws or theories; and if this true then there should be a logic of discovery. But I guess it is not so That is to say that science is just beyond experimentation, mathematization. Actually conceptual analysis with an open frame of mind unhindered by the Human created laws of science ( Like the scientific Methods explained by Bikerman above) actually gives rise to supra logical science The right method is important for peer acceptance of say my research ( I cannot publish in a journal without that) but science does neither starts there not does it end there. Again I am trying to say that if we just go by the definition of science and philosophy to answer the question "is philosophy a science" then I guess we are just wasting our time in the forum because there always ( google and other net resources to clear our doubts as indy says) One should not forget that every system of classification in any subject may it me science or arts is by humans for ease of study
Here again I wish to say that just because that popular philosophy does not use Scientific methods It should not be taken for granted that no philosopher uses scientific methods in philosophy I would like to bring your attention a book ( which I happened to read a few years back) called "The Rise of Scientific Philosophy By Hans Reichenbach ( Late Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles.) Apart from this there is a whole lot of people who try and approach philosophy in a scientific manner A mention about Mario Augusto Bunge is apt here.
Actually knowledge is also formed by other methods including scientific methods Simple human factor also is involved here I think all of us here agree that Logic is essential for both Science and Phil. Logic involves “units” of occurrence, nonexistence and quantity or scale or measure, leading through the principles of concordance, difference and associated discrepancy. These are in fact simple guides to initiation of empirical generalization, leading to discover experimental regularities or affirmative correlations among known factors. Bu where does this stand when it approaches to the uncovering of unheard of entity or forces, for example the unifying theories. Most theories like the the atomic theory, the relativity theory, theory of gravitation and the electromagnetic theory did not actually come out from strict scientific methods. Actually what I am trying to say that to answer the question "is Phil a Science" if we are going to follow the scientific method we may not be entirely correct. The alternative is to follow the philosophical method to answer the question ( where we are not laid back and restricted by definitions and rules) Bikerman
I agree that scientific method does not define whether a statement or group of statements is itself scientific. Scientific method is simply an agreed methodology for attacking problems rather than an attempt to define what science is.
What we are seeking, therefore, in attacking the central question here is a demarcation between science and non/pseudo-science and, I believe, for this we should look to Karl Popper's work. Popper would agree that there is no specific methodology necessary in defining science. Instead, he argues that the fundamental demarcation is that of falsifiability. In other words: If a statement/posit/theory can be tested and falsified (refuted) then it is scientific. If not then it is non/pseudo-science. Indi
The definition is quite concrete. What part of it do you think is under any question in practice? Of course, philosophers are always trying to improve the definition because it is not perfect, but perfection has nothing to do with clarity. Even though we are well aware that the scientific method is not perfect, there is no question about what it is and how to use it. And you misread Bikerman. He said some forms of psychology use scientific methods, and others do not. That does not create any kind of conflict. It just means that some branches of psychology are not doing science. It does nothing to say that the field itself is not science. To put it into perspective, it is very common for young scientific fields to resort to things that are not really scientific but "just work", or at the very least provide some data to use - at least until better methods are found. Even in physics this was true in the past, although the field is so mature now that it is no longer acceptable. Numerous properties of light were described and presumed for centuries before there was any imaginable hope of testing them empirically, or any real reason for believing they should be that way. Eventually the field matured to the point where practical testing and realistic speculation (speculation based on actual observed properties rather than what scientists "felt" light should be like) could be done. The same will happen for psychology as it further matures. Eventually people will be able to describe - quantitatively - emotions, and emotional responses, and will develop ways to measure and/or test them. The ancient Greeks predicted the atomic structure of materials based - not on any kind of scientific approach - but on what "felt" right to them, and they used that as a basis for their nascent fields of materials science, metallurgy and engineering. It wasn't science, and it was only right by fluke, and it doesn't mean that the rest of the observations they made about nature weren't science.
i don't think that goes nearly far enough. i would, at the very least, make it: "... can be tested and falsified (refuted) by making observations of the natural universe, then it is science..." Bikerman
Yes, I think I would accept that addition. In science observation trumps theory every time, and this is central to the endeavour. yagnyavalkya
Now our job is cut out Is Philosophy a science Answer in a scientific way for that we have to falsify the statement by making observations of the natural universe We falsify it by adopting the definition of science and philosophy which again is given by science itself We come a full circle Is Philosophy a science Answer in a Philosophical way we keep going round and round and proposing various theories, ideas and opinions and may well probably agree to come to a consensus Bikerman
There is no fundamental problem.
Philosophy is not a science. Nobody has made any serious arguments to the contrary and I know of no philosophers who would try to make such a case - largely because it would limit philosophy to problems which can be attacked using scientific method and philosophy is not, and should not be, limited in such a way. Fundamental considerations in philosophy such as truth or justice cannot be tackled satisfactorily by scientific methodology alone, although such methodology can often be used to inform the debate. Ankhanu
Analogy may be the way to go here. Let's use... religion to ask the same question that's being asked here. Basically the question on philosophy/science, if applied to religion would look something like: Is religion Christianity? or Is religion Hinduism?
Basically, the posed is question "Is overarching umbrella classification a subset of one of its subset classifications?" Obviouly, religion, the general concept, can't be completely described by using a specific example of a religion that is contained within its coverage. Similarly, philosophy can't be completely described by the subset school of philosophy, science. There's a reason why, for example you get a Philosphical Doctorate (PhD) in sciences, not a Scientific Doctorate in Philosophy. Bikerman
OK...interesting point.... Basically I see three ways to regard the relationship between philosophy and science: 1) Philosophy as 'proto-science'. In this view philosophy is free to study things which will perhaps go on to be the subjects of scientific study. 2) Philosophy as a discipline within science - a viewpoint proposed by Ducasse but not supported by many others. 3) Philosophy is in some cases science and in others not. This could be argued to support your definition of philosophy as an 'overarching' discipline, since it distinguishes between 'speculative philosophy' and 'scientific philosophy' as two components of the whole. yagnyavalkya
It all started with the post on speed of thought
and has progressed thus far I have gained considerable knowledge from the posts ( all of them) I think we are all satisfied with the outcome of the discussion Bikerman sums it all Thanks I am off this topic newolder
Has any philosopher found any holes in e8?
No. How is that possible? They simply don't have the 'knowledge' to begin until they understand that it's all balls in chaotic motion and nothing else besides. redace919
Science as I know it is doing this. Someone comes with new idea and if the idea is good and reasonable someone tries to prove whether the idea is true or not by experimenting. This is the basic property of science. I make decision with respect to results from experiment. On the other hand, I think philosophy is not science, because someone comes with the new idea and others too and everybody is arguing who is right. No experiment, just empty words. But of course you cannot test some things by experimenting, so philosphy has its place on this world. But science will always have better results, because people do not need to believe or disagree with someone, they can always test the idea.
Indi
Close! You have the general idea correct... it's just some of your wording that's a little problematic. First, your outline of how science works is roughly right, but the devil is in the details. In science, not just any new idea counts, no matter how good or reasonable it may seem. There is a very specific set of requirements for what ideas count as scientific ideas. Part of that is that they do have to be testable, but that's not all of it. On the the other hand, in philosophy, every new idea does count, provided that it's reasonable. Second, science never tries to determine whether anything is true. All science tries to do is make sure it's not wrong. That is not the same thing as proving it right. Far from it. When you come up with an idea that counts as scientific (the technical term is a hypothesis), you use an experiment to try and prove it false. If you prove it false, you ditch the hypothesis and try to come up with a new one. If you fail to prove it false, you try again with a different test. You can never prove it true. (All of this is a gross simplification - but the ultimate point is that science does not prove anything true.) On the other hand, philosophy is trying to prove truths (in some fields - other fields are trying to prove that it's true that nothing can be proven true... go figure). Third, philosophy is about arguing who is right, true. But so is science. The difference is that philosophers use reason and logic alone to defend their position, and scientists use reason, logic and evidence, although evidence outweighs everything else. But some branches of science don't use evidence at all, and rely only on arguments from reason and logic. These people are mostly trying to determine which theory best describes what experiments observe, and generally speaking they all take the evidence into account, they just interpret it differently. In science, the ultimate answer will be determined based on experimental evidence - the arguing is really just "what to try next?", if you look at it from a broad enough perspective. But in philosophy, the argument will be resolved by whose logic and reasoning is the best - and no, not all reasons are equal, not by a longshot. Both science and philosophy make the assumption that there is one "true" answer to each question, and that we are capable of understanding it (maybe with a little work, anyway). Science tries to use evidence to rule out the other possibilities with the hope that it will leave just one possibility... which will be the one "true" answer. Philosophy tries to find the "true" answer to each question as directly as possible, relying on the assumption that only the true answer will work perfectly and all other answers will fail in some subtle way or another. Fourth, philosophy is hardly about empty words. Philosophical questions often deal with issues that determine life and death... and sometimes even immediate life and death, not life and death in some distantly intellectually conceivable future. The rights afforded to prisoners of war - and who counts as a prisoner of war - are issues that matter a great deal today, right now, in many parts of the world. Is an insurgent in Iraq a prisoner of war, or not? Science will not answer that question for you, i'm afraid. And finally, it is not correct to say that science gives better results than philosophy. They are answering different questions, and in fact, science is arguably answering the easy questions. You see a plane fly overhead and say "see? science put that there, not philosophy." All true. But think about all the "results" of philosophy apparent in your life. You are not being hunted for sport or food by other people. You have rights. You are very likely not anyone's slave, and neither do you owe payments to anyone for the air that you breathe. You even get to have your own opinions and thoughts. i'd say those are pretty freakin impressive "results" of philosophical thought that you would be unable to live life as you know or even conceive of without. Compared to those "results", planes, trains and automobiles and the other trinkets of science are kinda cool... but not really as fundamentally important to being, or existing as you do. Bikerman
I think that is a rather impressive summary of the issue.
yagnyavalkya
"science is arguably answering the easy questions"
Easy and hard are relative terms It is because we get the answers it seems easy in philosophy there are no answers so we term them hard neither science nor philosophy has anything to do with easy or hard we cannot scale the question attempted by these areas of investigation that easily In fact " You see a plane fly overhead and say "see? science put that there, not philosophy." Science actually did not put the plane there whereas the human philosophy put it there the very idea of flying in the sky was a philosophical approach refined by science newolder
This is not meant as 'rude' yagnyavalkya but that's simply bird-talk: it's a bit like monkey-speak but twisted differently. Flight evolved in nature long before any philosopher was conceived of. The same underlying principle* got Cassini-Huygens to Saturn/Titan & family. To see further required 'ideas' that simply were not discovered until a hundred years ago. Those ideas and a few extras combine now to explain everything. Cheers for the years. ed. 
* acceleration. angtxgal
I think all theoretical science has a basis in philosophy and that philosophy is certainly the historical beginnings of modern science. To be taken seriously a scientist must do more than philosophy or think about their topic, they must demonstrate using evidence. Yes the experts do think beyond the evidence to predict and explain based on their experience. To contribute more than expert opinions they still must use evidence that will stand the test of time. yagnyavalkya
So who decides what is reasonable and what is unreasonable? are we not going round and round again what is reasonable to one philosopher may not be reasonable to another ( after all is that not what ethics is all about). The clause that and idea will count only if it is reasonable is a very stringent clause and will erode creativity In addition one should understand that reasonablilty is again bound by time A philosophical idea sounding unreasonable at this moment of time may be highly reasonable at a future moment of time On the hand in science reasonablilty is judged within the parameters and confines of a specific time and space and is stated thus when making the hypothesis
Truth is already proven and only then it is said to be true. Why then “philosophy is trying to prove truths”
Does it mean that philosophers willfully avoid or discard evidence or does it mean that they only take up questions that science says that has no evidence ( like “ is there an entity called God?) By not taking the concept of evidence into consideration do the philosophers acknowledge the lack of evidence ( pertaining the above example question)
I would say that Medical science deals with questions of life and death including and very importantly immediate life and death much more effectively than philosophy In fact agriculture and plant science deals with life and death in some distantly intellectually conceivable future better than philosophy To put it (c)rudely Philosophy deals with these questions ( life and death?) for time pass of people who don't have the stomach for science and more accurately for those who don't want answers or solutions so that they can claim it has harder than science
Actually this is more a scientific question than a philosophical question. AS we have, in this topic been going by definitions to explain the differences between Philosophy and science ( much to my dislike!) I think if we approach the same method insurgent: 1: a person who revolts against civil authority or an established government; especially : a rebel not recognized as a belligerent 2: one who acts contrary to the policies and decisions of one's own political party (http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/insurgent) Iraq: The Republic of Iraq, usually known as Iraq is a country in the Middle East spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert A prisoner of war : is a combatant who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The answer is easy now But we can always make the answer hard if try and ignore "evidence" Insurgent; Iraq and Prisoner of war are clearly defined words in Social, geographical and political science areas hence splitting the question by definitions we get simple scientific answers Specificity here is the word "war" defining this in the context of the question will make it sound harder! But on the other hand if we want to try and NOT GET an answer we can always philosophizes the issue as we have seen that all philosophy does is to leave the questioner and the answer seeker in limbo!
Like I said before we are ignoring the time and space coordinates when making assumption as such made above In simple terms these assumptions are true or false depending on the space and time confines in fact we all know very well that philosophy differs spatially ( eg. Greek Philosophy's, western Philosophy Oriental philosophy etc.,) 1. In the middle of Africa and even in the Islands of Andamans in India people are hunted for Food There are cannibals still 2. In India there is virtual slavery ever present, people not being able to pay back loans serve as slaves in fact to the extant that the progeny of the debtor is also a virtual slave ( http://www.infoplease.com/spot/slavery1.html) and http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/India.htm 3. It wont be long before we start paying for air we breathe in fact little did we think that we would be paying for the water we drink a Century ago! ( please read this it is an interesting article and latest as well ( http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-6982493/Countries-asked-to-pay-for.html) 4. In a lot of countries people don't have rights as one would imagine in the west All these will come under Social science, Political science and economic science and these questions can most definitely answered by science as we know it I think ethics is being confused here with philosophy as a whole as I know it ethics is a branch of philosophy most the examples cited here are ethical issues Unlike science ( which is the same for everyone) ethics is different form person to personal country to country but again not always It is simple as this is layman terms If you want answers and solutions go for science of you want to beat about the bush go for philosophy Bikerman
I won't post an extensive reply to this, I'll leave it to Indi to continue if he wishes. I'll simply pick up on the point that seems most objectionable to me.
You try to assert that the question of Iraq and prisoners of war can be tackled scientifically. You make your case by relying on semantic definitions of what insurgents, prisoners of war and countries are. This has nothing to do with science - where is the empiricism or experimental observation? Is there an experiment you can perform to differentiate between a POW and 'detainee'? Can you demonstrate experimentally why Iraq is Iraq? What experimental protocol would you suggest to differentiate between a freedom fighter and a terrorist? These are philosophical, sociological and political concepts which are to some extent agreed (by no means universally) but are not 'testable' in any meaningful way. They are, therefore, not 'science' at all. I think this illustrates the difference between science and philosophy rather well. You seem to be taking the position that most things can be tackled scientifically and that philosophy is a cop-out for those who can't do science. I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference. yagnyavalkya
Yes thats exactly what I am trying to tell even philosophy has to have an understanding of what is Iraq, POW etc., and that is where the difficulty comes How then does Philosophy define Iraq In fact what I want to stress is if you need a meaningful answer the question of Iraq and prisoners of war can be tackled scientifically by social , political and economic science ( which do not exactly rely on the hard core Physical or biological science methods) rather than going to philosophy not to get an answer. Just to come back to the core question of this post " Is philosophy a science?" Is there an experiment you can perform to differentiate between a POW ( read Philosophy) and 'detainee' ( read science )? Can you demonstrate experimentally why Iraq ( read Science or Philosophy) is Iraq ( read Science or Philosophy)? What experimental protocol would you suggest to differentiate between a freedom fighter (read Philosophy) and a terrorist ( read Science)? I bet some one has an answer here that would solve our problem!
If by the above statement you mean that philosophical methodologies ( if there are any?) can be used to tackle these questions. How well does philosophy tackle these questions to give answers that are universally accepted? " cannot be tackled by scientific methodology alone" what are the other non scientific methodologies that can be used to tackle these fundamental question? Is the Hypothesis : Philosophy is a science testable?
My new Idea is that Philosophy is a science I guess going by the pace of discussion here the idea does not count probably because it is not "reasonable" What I am trying to tell you here is that the very question is Philosophical
" Fundamental considerations in philosophy such as truth ( My truth here is "philosophy is a science") or justice cannot be tackled satisfactorily by scientific methodology alone, although such methodology can often be used to inform the debate Which means here that we are just informing the debate or are we? So how do we get an answer to this question
What are the other non scientific methodology we use to tackle this question Will the answer obtained be universally accepted? Indi
Absolutely not. It's all yours if you want it. yagnyavalkya
Can the above statements taken as support to say that Philosophy is a branch of science that doesn't use evidence at all, and rely only on arguments from reason and logic.
I don’t quite get it: When “science never tries to determine whether anything is true” then why should (Both) science and (philosophy) make the assumption that there is one "true" answer to each question. Does it mean that science makes the assumption that there is one true answer but never tries to determine whether anything is true? I think it is rather that science CANNOT determine whether anything is true no matter how hard it tries and believe me it does try as is the case where statistics is involved wherein even accepting the null hypothesis does not make it true. In simple terms only when you try to find the truth you can falsify something and especially when you have already assumed that there is one "true" answer to each question.
The above is only one of the methods ie the hypothetico- deductive method But science also uses retroduction which in essence is contributing to the employment and development of verification to test the truth of putative knowledge and this works the other way round But neither does this prove anything true Sometimes in the hypothetico- deductive method a different hypothesis ( among the set of ones available by induction) is already assumed to be true at the beginning of the experiment, making the null hypothesis the contrasting to what the experimenter knows. This presents a paradox wherein you are forced to hypothesize opposite to what you think is right just because science cannot prove anything is true. In simple terms I will start an experiment to disprove a hypothesis that “ I don’t need food to live” when actually by inductive and observational method I know the contrary. And of course not to mention the root of it all which is the inductive process But again The inductive method gives us facts that is only probably true. It can give us a high degree of assurance based on confirmation that strongly justifies scientific wrapping up ( although temporally determined), there is no certainty. Does this sound very much like philosophy? finally talking about science and the quest for truth I dare say that science does make Apodictic propositions Bikerman
Firstly I have a problem with 'social sciences' in that I do not regard many of the disciplines contained within that 'banner' as science at all. I do not regard Political Science as science. It's true that some elements make use of scientific method but the discipline is rooted, to my mind, in philosophy. The only element of the discipline which is scientific (again in my opinion) is Behavioralism and even then there are disagreements amongst 'political scientists' about what, and how important, behavioralism is. Much of Political Science is, I think, normative - ie value judgements of how things ought to be. To me such judgements are inherently philosophical and NOT scientific. Ankhanu
Socail science, political science, et al. are not true sciences... just because they use the word in their name does not make them sciences. They borrow some scientific concepts, but are not sciences. (it's kind of like the definition of life, unless all criteria are met, we do not consider something alive, hence, things like viruses are not living organisms though they exhibit several of the criteria)
Yagnyavalkya, your arguments are painfully circular. That's not an attack on you, but that's what I'm seeing. None of your arguments seem to quite defend your stance that philosophy is a branch of science... though I do concede that some aspects of philosophy are scientific in nature. Philosophy on the whole, however, is not a science. Historically, science came from philosophy, not the other way around, and philosophy remains too broad a concept and too broad in practice to fall completely within the definitions of science. Science has a fairly rigid definition, yes, some of philosophy falls within it, but by no means does all of it; many philosophical branches/studies don't even attempt to approach science. Yes, both philosophy and science ask "why?" Both can come to the same result in the end... but saying that philosophy is a science is like saying that an internal combustion engine is a boxer engine... yes, all boxers are internal combution engines, but not all internal combustion engines are boxers. Ya dig? And no, science does not try to prove truths... well, not directly anyway; science attempts to disprove truths, and if they manage to stand after all attempts at disproof, chances are the truth is true... at least until we figure out how to disprove it  There is no proof in science, only evidence to support or deny.Bikerman
Comparing science to a boxer engine is most unfair (on science). I've owned several camper vans in my time and am, as a result, somewhat of an expert in replacing the type 2 engines.
Whoever started the rumour that camper vans go on forever is a liar and a scurvy-knave. Indi
i disagree. Not with the claim that political science is not science - no, that i agree with, for obvious reasons. i disagree with the claim that political science is rooted in philosophy, or that it has any meaningful relationship with it. To compare and contrast philosophy (relevant branches of philosophy only, of course, like political philosophy and ethics) and political science:
Basically, political philosophy uses a variant of the scientific method to observe, hypothesize, and test political theories, with the hope of coming up with predictive political theories and models... the ultimate goal is to come up with a way to find the political system that will work best in any given situation to produce desired results. Philosophy has no interest in experimentation or coming up with predictive models... its goal is find the political theory that we should, ideally, be using (assuming everything else is perfect, or, perhaps, the perfect theory will give perfect results regardless of the conditions). All intellectual disciplines are related, and there is always a great deal of overlap. Political philosophy dips its toes into both philosophy (borrowing the conceptual political models it comes up with, like utilitarianism) and science (borrowing the method, more or less), but it is not a subdiscipline of either of those things.
If you want to be pedantic, science did not "come from" philosophy in the sense that what was once philosophy is now science. Science "came from" philosophy in the sense that philosophy was used to develop the concept of the field and the method it uses (and that development process continues today). Or to put it another way, science did not evolve from philosophy, it was created by philosophy. Of course, because this did not happen overnight - it took literally millennia to put it together - and because during this very slow birthing process most people did not recognize that science was a new tool and not simply one way of doing philosophy, it is not immediately clear to see the distinction. During the transition, people tried to use philosophy to understand things that should have been studied by science (and would have, had it existed at the time). They had mixed success. Eventually when science had developed enough to the point that it was ready to tackle these questions, using philosophy was kinda pointless. And of course, this process is still going on today. The two most recent examples are psychology and cosmology. Until the first theoretical frameworks to model the human mind were constructed in the late 1800s/early 1900s, the whole concept of studying the human mind was out of the reach of science. But once those models came to fruition, science could step in. Eventually the field grew and matured, helped by advances in other fields like computers and the study of the brain. And now, we have psychology. Similarly, cosmology was entirely a philosophical question until the expanding universe was discovered in the early 1900s, and the first cosmological theories drafted. Since then, the origin of the universe has become an increasingly scientific one, to the point where philosophy is almost - but not quite yet! - superfluous. Future advances, like M-theory, will probably shove philosophy completely out of the issue.
i'd go a step further. Not only do many fields of philosophy have no interest in science, many parts of science are of no interest to any fields of philosophy. What branch of philosophy is interested in the mating habits of a dragonfly? newolder
Indi wrote:
and, of course, you are able/allowed/whatever to hold an opinion. 
I could be wrong but, imho, philosophy is demonstrably superfluous since nothing exists (including ALL ideas) that isn't explained by geometry and its algebraic labels. The conclusion that both Lisi* and Perelman reach is that it's simply all balls connected in the simplest conceivable way. Though, it appears, it was too difficult to repeat as a Prize acceptance speech in Perelman's case*. 
* The minimal Lie algebra is the same as the maximal group (of ideas) described by and manifest in E8/Spin( .
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman Indi
What, no mention of Heim? ^_^; newolder
From wiki:
Sounds dual to e8 x SU(11) to me: the 'metron' sounds like a Planck-unit or unification scale and may be related to (a 2-D shadow of) Higgs reasoning? but i haven't read that description of QFT before. Still, it's just another idea and if its algebraic representation doesn't result in the prediction of supersymmetry, it won't last this year(?) out, again imho. There's a poster, campermon, over at RichardDawkins.net who draws/animates his theoretical nodes of Earth, Air, Fire, Gravity, Water and Cheese beautifully and humourously too.
http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=33154&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=25  yagnyavalkya
IF there is no philosophy there is no science
Ankhanu
But if there is no science, is there still philosophy?
Bikerman
Indi
Well... distinct is a strong word, and the claim that they are entirely independent is also a little strong. Science is a shameless plagiarist - it will lift good ideas from anywhere. It lifts heavily from mathematics (obviously using math methodology and facts), but it also lifts from literature (the idea of metaphor and analogy to describe physical systems and behaviours, not to mention leveraging the imagination of science fiction writers), history (using data recorded by ancient cultures for many things), information/communication theory (distributed information storage and error correction methods), and... philosophy. From philosophy, science borrows things like the idea of methodological naturalism, empiricism, and so on. Science uses philosophy as a metric to check itself by, and to improve itself. Yes, science uses philosophy. That doesn't mean science is philosophy. Science also uses history. From history, science uses information written down by ancient cultures to verify its findings, and as a source of raw data. Does that mean science is history? Hardly. Science uses history. So i hope that covers that. Science uses philosophy. But that doesn't mean it is philosophy. Now, about the past - did science come from philosophy? More or less, yes, it did. Originally, the study of nature was an entirely philosophical one. Gradually over the ages, people hit on the flavours of philosophy that made the study of nature work well. The early Muslims were among the first to really come close to nailing it, then around the 1600s it was explicitly outlined and codified, and the first "science" group (the Royal Academy) was founded. They used the state of the art of philosophy at the time to help the formulation (and in the centuries since, and we've advanced philosophy, science has borrowed the advancements that were relevant, and incorporated them). So if science came from philosophy, does that mean science is philosophy? No, of course not. You came from your parents but you are not your parents. Science also came from Islamic thought - so does that mean science is Islam? Don't be absurd. i hope that makes that point clear, too. Science comes from philosophy. But that doesn't mean it is philosophy. In summary: Science uses philosophy. Science comes from philosophy. But neither of those faces mean that it is philosophy. So let's take question by the horns. Is science philosophy? That can be interpreted in one or two ways: either science and philosophy are the same thing, or science is a subset of philosophy. Let's take the latter formulation, because if we disprove that, we automatically disprove the first. If science is a subset of philosophy, then everything that is science is also philosophy. Is that true? Obviously not. Is the charge/mass ratio of an electron philosophy? Hardly. Is the mating behaviour of the yellow-bellied titmouse philosophy? Not even. Therefore, science is not a subset of philosophy. Conclusion: science is not philosophy. ---------------------- Now that i hope that is finally over and done with, let's consider the new question - does science need philosophy? (Or vice versa, as Ankhanu puts it? Well, that's an easy question to answer. Philosophy was around for thousands of years before science. Therefore, it doesn't need it.) i say no, it doesn't need philosophy. If every philosopher on the planet were to suddenly drop dead, and every single philosophical writing were to be lost over night, would science keel over and die too? No, it would not. It would certainly suffer, but it would also suffer if history or literature were lost. Science definitely uses philosophy, sure. It benefits greatly from advancements in philosophy. But it can survive without it, however hobbled it might be. Now, if there had never been any philosophy at all, would there still be science? i would say yes. Its formation would have been done very differently (rather then being "designed" as it was in the seventeenth century, it would have "evolved"), and we would probably lack the ability to understand why it works... but it would still work. In fact, i would suggest that the existence of philosophy retarded the development of science. Platonic ideals and Aristotlean mechanics and such were huge missteps that prevented things from being figured out for centuries. They became impediments to scientific progress. Even if we never bothered to question why the world exists, we would still want to learn how to build better huts to protect us from the elements, and we would still want to be able to predict storms, and so on. Science does not need philosophy. But science is greatly enriched by philosophy (and history and literature). So, Bikerman, while i wouldn't call them distinct or independent... i say they could be. i would not wish that they were, because both disciplines benefit hugely from each other, but they could be. Bikerman
Hmm..I would still support the use of the word 'distinct' - as in distinguishable/not equal/not the same thing, but I agree that the word independent was poorly chosen (and spelled)
I agree, of course, that science benefits from philosophy (and other disciplines) as philosophy benefits from science. Indi
Heh. Well... i can't totally disagree, but neither can i agree. ^_^; The problem is on philosophy's side. Science has very nice and clear bright lines drawn around its magisterium, but philosophy does not. It's very easy to say "this is science's business and this is not", it's very hard to do that for philosophy. Without clear boundaries around philosophy, i can't say with any great certainty that it doesn't overlap significantly. i suppose you could find a clear delineation between the two if you look at goals. For example, both science and philosophy could ask "is the universe a deterministic system?". Same question, and while philosophy has any number of avenues open to it to determine the answer while science only has the one (empiricism), they could go about answering it the same way. They should get the same answer. but the difference is what they want the answer for. Science would want the answer because it would give an idea of the form of law that could be used to understand, describe and predict the operations of nature - logically if nature is deterministic, then any law that describes nature properly must also be deterministic. Philosophy could want the answer for the sake of using it as a premise in any number of unrelated arguments (like the free will argument), or, just for the sake of having it. From that perspective, i guess you can call the two distinct. But me, i see it as a case of having no trouble deciding whether something is science, but not being so clear on what is philosophy. Sure, some things are clearly distinguishable as one or the other, but some are not, so i hesitate to give a generalized statement like that. Bikerman
Actually I was thinking about this last night in bed (sad, I know). What brought it to mind was that I was re-reading a chapter of Popper's Logic of Scientific Discovery. My Grandfather bought me the book when I first became a student (he was a wise old bird). I didn't read it, of course, until much later, but I still dip into it now and again and Popper became something of a 'mentor' to me when thinking things through.
When I was reading it suddenly struck me, at one stage, that I was reading science and philosophy (ch5) and that this refuted my previous comment about being 'distinct'. I must, therefore, agree with you on this and retract the word 'distinct'. vineeth
Philosophy is not a science according to present concepts of science or its levels of understanding. Philosophy becomes a science when its arguments are proved by some known or accepted scientific methods. A good example is Ayurveda which was purely a part of Indian philosophical system but now widely accepted as a branch of or parent of medical science.
Bikerman
Ayurveda is in essence a belief system. It is based on faith. It contains many practices which are testable in science and, no doubt, some which are useful, but Ayurveda itself is not accepted as a scientific discipline. Indi
The example may be... well, no point in being gentle: god-awful... but the argument has merit. There are many aspects of science that were once the domain of philosophy, and one science advanced to the point where the question became scientifically valid, science either took over or started working in tandem with philosophy. Once upon a time, things like personality and "man's propensity to evil" were entirely the realm of philosophers and fanciful theories about the nature of the human "soul". Nowadays, we have psychology, and we can study - in great and accurate detail - exactly what it is that makes us "do evil" (such as evil goes). Modern philosophy might ask broad and metaphysical questions about what it means to be human, what is and what is not human and what our "purpose" in the universe is... but no modern philosopher can expect to philosophize about why some people are good and some are bad (outside of theology, which is still stuck in the dark ages, more or less, by virtue of its subject matter) and not be laughed at. Another question that may soon be snatched completely away from philosophy is the question of whether or not the universe is a determined system. The evidence seems to strongly indicate that it is not, but is that the final word? i'd hesitate to say definitely yes, but i'd sure bet on it. Some other questions are being undertaken concurrently by science and philosophy - the determinism question mentioned in the preceding paragraph is one, for now. All in all, i'd say that it's true that some parts of philosophy can and do become science eventually. Of course, that does nothing toward saying they're the same thing. yagnyavalkya
Ayurveda is not just a belief system and it is not based on faith IT is actual an ancient system of health care where the drugs to treat are mostly and entirely plant products THe major difference in allopathy at least in terms of drug delivery is that in allopathy chemically synthesis's specific drugs are used and in the case of ayurveda the whole plant product is considered the active ingredient where in there exists a chance for unknown interaction of various natural compounds present in the plant a very good example is that of catharamthus roseus alkaliod Actually semantic meaning is that Ayur menas life and veda means knowledge and that is a far cry from your interpretation that it is just a belief system! In fact it has very scientific branches The eight branches of Ayurveda are: 1. Internal medicine - Kayachikitsa 2. Surgery - Shalya Tantra 3. Ears, eyes, nose and throat - Shalakya tantra 4. Pediatrics - Kaumarabhritya Tantra 5. Toxicology - Agada Tantra 6. Purification of the genetic organs - Bajikarana (or Vajikarana) Tantra 7. Health and Longevity - Rasayana Tantra 8. Spiritual Healing/Psychiatry - Bhuta Vidya About it not being accepted a scientific discipline the question who is not accepting as a discipline in fact the main criticisms in this area is that Critics object to the lack of rigorous scientific studies and clinical trials of many ayurvedic products. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine states that "most clinical trials of Ayurvedic approaches have been small, had problems with research designs, lacked appropriate control groups, or had other issues that affected how meaningful the results were (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayurveda) THere are some institutes in the US which are attempting to get it into the mainstream which is an uphill task because if we incorporate the modern medical principles in ayurveda then the science just transforms to modern medicine again the drugs are natural products here as against synthesized clinically tested products in allopathy yagnyavalkya
How can a god awful example have merit in terms of argument? if some example had merit in terms of argument can that example be god awful God awful is otherwise known as atrocious, unpleasant Unpleasant I can understand because the author can feel that way when a type of truth you don't want to accept surfaces. But I cant understand an atrocious example having merit I have never seen anything more absurd or rather god awful( in the authors own words) in my own words ridiculous than this. Do I get an olfactory perception of " I know all and I judge everything over and above a parental patronizing attitude yagnyavalkya
I thought the thread was about is Philosophy a science and not is science a philosophy!?
Plagiarism is the practice of claiming or implying original claim
Quite right now lets shake the homs to get things right philosophy is a subset of science is what I am trying to say although Philosophy evolved d much earlier it never knew that there was a greater super set under whihc it itself comes and then came the complete set ie science What about the third way ie is philosophy a sunset of science if so then philosophy is a science albeit an imperfect one all the more reason for science to distance away Crinoid
Mmmm, without become involved in debate, may I voice an opinion (without being beaten for this) of viewing philosophy as a:
- one of the sources of revenue for educational organizations (you know, the common example: when you last time had seen in classifieds "Philosopher wanted"? ) - occupational activity of a very small number of people, and a leisurely activity of those, who still have a leisure, in modern times, - but not as science, art or religion, alas. Everybody is entitled to have own opinion, OK? Indi
Why would you not want to get involved in a debate? ^_^; That's how everyone learns, and how knowledge in general increases.
That's kind of funny, actually. ^_^; i have to wonder what such a classified ad might look like: PHILOSOPHER WANTED Must be willing to question everything, while questioning questioning everything, and questioning the question of questioning everything. Pay will be contingent on proving money exists. Only successful candidates need apply, because the final choice is already determined, and we don't feel like wasting our time doing interviews for candidates that will be unsuccessful. Seriously, though, what sense would it be for educational institutions to hire philosophers that serve no purpose at all except being a job that some people can do? Why devote an entire department of philosophy if the whole field is just a pointless hobby (and if so, why not devote an entire department to stamp-collecting)?
Are they? Do you really think so? Is a person entitled to have the opinion that they can kill anyone that looks at them the wrong way? If all of the medical data shows that drug A will cure some illness and drug B will make it worse, is a doctor entitled to have the opinion that drug B is better? Is a scientist entitled to have the opinion that the world is flat? Is a person entitled to have the opinion that if they see a TV in a store they like, they can just take it without paying? Is the store security guard entitled to have the opinion that anyone taking a TV should be shot on sight? What do you think? Maybe it's ok for everyone to have an their own opinion, but not ok for them to act on them? Hm, interesting questions, aren't they? ^_^ And, they're the kinds of questions that we need philosophy to answer. They are questions that science cannot answer - science can give us raw data, it can tell us (for example), whether drug A or drug B is more effective, whether a society that allows vigilantes has higher or lower crime rates, and whether or not the Earth is flat - but it can't tell us what to do with those facts. yagnyavalkya
Really Science does tell us what to do with the facts Eg.,1. whether drug A or drug B is more effective Science tells us what to do with these drugs use them further hypothesis from available data and latter experiment to find an even more effective drug and many more ways to use them effectively Eg.,2 whether a society that allows vigilantes has higher or lower crime rates Science as against philosophy will tell us how to deal with vigilantes in view of the fact that some vigil antic tendencies are governed by brain biochemistry as mush as social interaction. Science will tell us how to go about approaching the end goal ( an ideal society) with the raw data availble Eg., whether or not the Earth is flat Science will tell us how, when, why certain things as as they are because of the shape to the earth On the other hand philosophy may answer some esoteric questions but will not in itself be an instrument in achieving a desired end point Bikerman
Firstly the drugs themselves are made by pharmaceutical companies who are driven primarily by economic considerations. They will certainly make heavy use of science, but the decision to develop or not develop a particular drug owes as much to financial considerations as it does to science. Then we have the prescription of the drugs which are manufactured. Here in the UK, for example, we have the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) who determine which drugs can be prescribed. Their determination is based partly on science (the effectiveness of a drug), and partly on economics (cost benefit analysis for the drug). It is not the scientists who decide - they simply provide the data - it is the administrators in NICE. Finally we have the usage of the drug. The end-user is as likely, or more likely, to be driven by financial, social and personal considerations as they are by scientific analysis of effectiveness. That is why we have millions of people buying useless remedies, often for conditions that either don't need treatment, or that they don't suffer from, from companies who cynically manipulate their concerns.
Science can tell you something about the neuro-pathology, sure. You can also gather statistical information about crime rates (although that is unlikely to be strictly scientific as it will involve sociological and psychological 'judgements'). Philosophy can inform you about concepts of freedom and justice etc. It can also address issues of personal responsibility. Should an 'insane' person, for example, be treated the same as a 'sane' person when they have committed a crime? Science cannot address this issue - it can merely provide help in making the diagnosis. Ultimately neither scientists nor philosophers pass the laws. The legislature is not a scientific body - it is a political body. It should be informed by science, certainly, but it is not driven by science, it is driven by political considerations. How a society deals with vigilantes is a judicial decision based on laws passed by the legislature - neither the judiciary nor the legislature are scientific bodies. chasbeen
Its interesting that anyone can claim a subject is or is not a "science". I think that you can no more disprove that philosophy is an extension of science than you can say that religion is NOT an extension of science.
Bikerman
Saying that religion is not an extension of science is easy - look, I just did. Religion is an irrational faith system which does not and cannot subject its claims to experimental or observational testing. Science is a rational system of explanation which requires that its theories are subjected to experimental and/or observational testing. There - easy isn't it. You are obviously a bit confused about what science is. Why not read the sticky? That should help you sort it out. chasbeen
Perhaps I should elaborate. Religion is based on Faith and as such is not science. However, perhaps it is based on fact and that the things we read about in the bible did actually happen. If so, what are the explanation for these miracles. Perhaps these miracles are a result of some advanced science.
I don't know how you would claim philosophy was an extension of science thougth.  Bikerman
You can, of course, choose to read such passages from the Bible as allegories or 'stories' which demonstrate some deeper underlying truth. That is what most Christians do today, but by doing so they admit that their interpretation is not something which science can or should seek to address. Science is not concerned with stories and interpretations of stories - it is concerned with observable reality and hard facts. chasbeen
I tend to look at things statististically and as such part of me would like to think there was some way of drawing some conclusions from these ancient facts.
Bikerman
Not sure how statistics can help. 'Ancient facts' presupposes they ARE facts... yagnyavalkya
No the decision to use or not use in not essentially financial and political Science uses its own data to develop new drugs I am not talking about manufacturing etc., I am talking of the biochemical data which helps in drug discovery If someone feels that "science can't tell us what to do with those facts" then they are not looking at the facts in a scientific way, only facts help us in unraveling further facts. In essence science feeds the growth of itself
Science can address the issue very well and much better than philosophy Science will help us determine the qualitative and quantitative parameters associated with insanity or sanity while philosophy will only to figurative say philosophize with vague statements of morality that actually will have no bearing on what exactly to do to reach a goal. Of course it will help in making a diagnosis and further science will help us in taking a "sane" decision concerning the diagnoisis You have not said anything about the last eg coming back to it indi said science will tell us whether or not the Earth is flat - but it can't tell us what to do with those facts. Do you agree with the statement that science cannot tell us what to do with the fact that earth is a sphere. I feel that the same science will tell us to put a geostationary satillite above the earth I feel that science facts feed the growth of science Bikerman
The very terms 'sane' and 'insane' are, however, sociological rather than scientific. Can you give me a scientific definition of insanity? Can you give me a scientific technique for diagnosing sanity? (Don't bother trying - you can't because there is no such animal). Sanity is a legal term, not a scientific term, and it is defined essentially as meaning 'conformity to social norms'. The whole issue of sanity is a philosophical one, not a scientific one.
Science will not tell you to put a satellite in orbit, it will tell you how it can be done. The decision to put such a satellite in orbit will be taken for political or economic reasons and that decision will be taken by businesses or politicians - not by scientists. We know, scientifically, how to put a man on the moon but we are not doing it anymore are we? Why is that? Because the political and economic decision was taken, after the Apollo programme, not to do so. Science does indeed feed itself, but that has nothing to do with the decision to use or not use the knowledge thus gained. Those decisions, as I have repeatedly said, are political and economic in most cases. Science opens-up options. In the case of drugs, science allows the developments of new products. In the case of 'sanity' science can be used to look at the neuro-pathology of the brain. In the case of the Earth science can give us the dimensions and relationships to other bodies. In non of these examples, however, does science dictate what we do with the data produced - it can't. yagnyavalkya
Actually I am unable to get my point through I am not talking about people here (politicians, economists et.,) I shall try again "Science does tell us what to do with the facts" but what I am trying to say is figuratively the science itself is needed to do what can be done with data science tells us in terms of consequences of the action. say for example the same drug one If there is raw data on the effect of some drug science tells how to use the raw data in such a way that a better drug can be found this what I mean by saying that science does tell us what to do with raw data. I am not talking in terms of end use actions of a product. "Science will not tell you to put a satellite in orbit, it will tell you how it can be done" if it tells us how to put it in orbit then it definitely is telling something then how can we say that "Science does tell us what to do with the facts" Actually I am trying to put through what is my mind and the above is the best way I can
by sanity I meant a state of being where there are certain biochemical perturbations in the brain making it deviate from accepted social behavior. I am not trying to go philosophically into sanity and its definition Summing it up I would say that science defensibly says us what to do with the facts by the word "do" I did not mean end user action of an application or human action on the product but actions in the direction of further improvement and refinement of what is already known these actions on improvement and refinement is told to us by science Now let me put it this way One of the first steps in a scientific investigation is review of available literature review gives us the known data on a particular area the review gives us the direction in which to go in effect tells us what to do next . This is what I meant by science data tells us what to do I this above context don't you think that saying "Science does tell us what to do with the facts" is not exactly correct? Bikerman
I think you are very confused.
You cannot talk about science without talking about people - it doesn't exist in a vacuum. You cannot say that science tells us what to do and then go on to say that you are not talking about the 'end use actions'. You cannot say that science tells us what to do with definitions of sanity and then say 'I am not trying to go philosophically into sanity and its definition'. You are talking about the feedback loop of science - which is fine, but is NOT the same as saying 'science tells us what to do' in a particular situation. Yes, science opens up new avenues for scientific research and in that way is a self-sustaining process. That is a completely different issue from the one we were discussing. yagnyavalkya
On the contrary I am quite clear only that you are unable to think like me here (that is why you think that I am confused ) in fact I guess no two human being can possibly think alike entirely and that too about a topic of this nature
Now I think I got through that is what I meant by what science tells us
I can say that here because in the context of the last few posts by us in the thread we are we are discussing science and what science tells us and not what philosophy tells us but I agree that you have full freedom not to agree with what I am saying Bikerman
Take another example:
Once again, the problem is not that I don't think like you, it's that you don't say what you mean. Finally take the statement:
If you want to have a sensible discussion about science and philosophy, then you must try to express yourself in a clear and unambiguous manner. I appreciate that this is probably more difficult for you, since English is not your native language. You cannot, however, blame the reader for not comprehending your meaning when, in fact, your meaning is not expressed in the words you use. yagnyavalkya
No it is not the language that is in question here there is every possibility that a similar problem would have occurred even if I was discussing in my native tongue with another native It is simply that I am unable to convey in the words what I think correctly (it can be any language) thoughts are very abstract indeed In fact If i had the opportunity to talk to you may be I would have been clearer or at least you could have understood what I am thinking in a better way I feel that in a discussion of this nature talking to express one's mind is better that writing what is in the mind It is just that science tells us something (only have to look for it) and of course does not tell us many things. so "Science does not tell us what to do with the facts" is not entirely correct To a person who can see what the facts tell it does tell something about what to do with the facts and to a person who cannot see what the fact is telling it is not telling anything Again it is a matter of discernment Bikerman
I'm afraid I disagree. I was able to understand you meaning - as you said - but it was a struggle. I could easily have expressed what you were trying to say (in fact I think I did so) in a clear and unambiguous manner so the problem is not the language, it is the usage of the language. English is a very rich language. You should be able to express anything in writing that you could express in speech. In fact I prefer written English because I find that the extra time allowed to compose your points allows meaning to be conveyed in a much more coherent manner than conversation. yagnyavalkya
Again I not getting through I was not talking about the lack of resources in the language or my lack of knowledge of those resources that is preventing me from getting through In fact to tell you the truth all my publications (articles and books) are in English I am more comfortable with English than my native tongue in my professional work
may be you are partially right there but for me thought is expressed better in speech than in written because there is lack of spontaneity in writing I also feel that if we talk we could clear our db outs more interactively than in writing now coming back Science as against philosophy will tell us how to deal with vigilantes
To say it wont ends it and does not allow creativity to think "can it" I did not mean "What you probably meant was that science may be able to give us insights into the neuro-pathology of certain types of people who may become vigilantes" I meant the science can bring about drugs to counter vigilant types. I never said "vigilantes have any mental problems" I said they may have certain hormonal changes in acute basis to bring about vigilantist type of action to say that " science will not tell us how to deal with vigilantes" is a strong statement, by saying that you just dismiss a possibility with no further inquiry. That is to say if a particular person A is vigilant because of proven biological basis science does say what to do to counter that. I mean you have to look at the data with more discernment Here is as clear as I can get it is just that science tells us something (only have to look for it) and of course does not tell us many things. so "Science does not tell us what to do with the facts" is not entirely correct To a person who can see what the facts tell it does tell something about what to do with the facts and to a person who cannot see what the fact is telling it is not telling anything Again it is a matter of discernment by which I mean the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure krishnakumar
Philosophy is not a science
but science is philosophy I think it is pretty clear I dont understand four pages of stuff for a simple thing as that! HalfBloodPrince
No, it's not; science is based on observable proven fact. Philosophy is based on ideas and belief. Two very different things. Indi
Just one little correction. ^_^ "No, it's not; science is based on observable proven fact. Philosophy is based on ideas and reason. Two very different things." Not that what you said is wrong, it's just that it feeds the mistaken beliefs that too many people have about philosophy. Just because someone believes something, that does not make it philosophy. Anything that is reasonable/rational is open game in philosophy. In science, it has to match observation, rational or not (although, science makes heavy use to reason in determining which working explanation to accept). krishnakumar
"Just because someone believes something, that does not make it philosophy" what exactly do you mean by that? Do any of these bullets come close to what you think? 1. Someone is you and the rest are the rest 2 Someone is the rest and the rest are you 2. Just because someone does not believe something, that does make it philosophy 3. Every man has his own philosophy 4. Quote "Not that what you said is wrong" unquote do I or can I read it as a positive statement like" what you said is right" 5. Quote "although, science makes heavy use to reason in determining which working explanation to accept" unquote should I (we and all others) take it that that Philosophy "Does not make heavy use to reason in determining which working explanation to accept" Which do you think in your opinion is better Open game or a game with rules (observation, making use of reason in determining which working explanation ) Are there any examples of mistaken beliefs that you have or had (in the realm of science and philosophy)? just quizzing I am new here and sounds great here! Finally The word reason do you mean that philosophy is not based on reason and ultimate Please give me something terse and not verbose ( again - I am new here- going by you posts Do I have to expect a ~ 2000 word answer lol!? and the last " ^_^" what does ^_^ mean ? if science is not philosophy and philosophy is not science doe that mean that they never intersect in the sub set of sets (set theory) if they do what is the intersecting set called? What is the universal set ? Quote "Philosophy is based on ideas and reason" quote should I take that the science is not based on ideas and reason? and if I take it that science too is based on ideas and reason then are science and philosophy similar [ I am not using the word "same " here] Indi
Ok, you asked for it. ^_^;
It means exactly what it says. Not every belief is a philosophical belief. If i believe that hamburger i had for lunch was the best hamburger i ever had, that is not philosophy.
1. This makes no sense. 2. This makes no sense. The second 2. This is absurd. 3. No. 4. No, you can read it as "i am not saying you are wrong" or "i am saying you might be right". 5. If you want to. But it's not what i said.
Depends on the game and why it is being played.
Many! In fact, everything i believe now may be wrong. If you have evidence that shows that something i believe is wrong, show it. Just be forewarned - most of the things i believe, i believe because i have already collected a lot of evidence that shows they are true.
No.
It means i'm amused, same as
No. Cars are not trees and trees are not cars, but they are both in the set of things that have mass.
Depends, what do you want to call it? "Branches of human knowledge", "fields of study"?
Beats me.
i suppose you could, if you wanted to. But it's not what i said.
Of course, they're very similar. Bikerman
That's what I call terse.
Laugh? I nearly bought a philosophy.. yagnyavalkya
Thats what I call
a good reply to a a good set of question Terse indeed makes it easy for all of us! or is it Abruptly or brusquely short Does a smiley actually mean "amused" I thought one can be amused at a foolish statement or a statement which one does not subscribe to as well and why should the universal set beat you indi? Quote indi" No, it's not; science is based on observable proven fact. Philosophy is based on ideas and reason. Two very different things." should I take it that science too is based on ideas and reason or science is only based on observable proven fact and has nothing to do with ideas and reason and that everything that is based on ideas and reason is Philosophy and not science TBSC
Well ideally, science shoud be based on observable, verifiable facts. Proof is for mathematics...ha ha! Indi
i don't get why people are having so much trouble with this simple quote: "Science is based on observation. Philosophy is based on ideas and reason."
i said science is based on observation. BASED ON. "Based on" does not mean "only uses". It means "based on". Stargate is based on Egyptian mythology and the lame-ass claims of Erich von Däniken... but obviously it is only use those sources (to my knowledge neither of them dreamt up aliens with glowing eyes or US soldiers blowing up Ra the sun god with a nuclear bomb). Science is based on observation, meaning that no matter what else it may use, observation is the primary source. Yes, science uses ideas and reason! (Obviously -_-) But those ideas and reason are all based on observations, and if the ideas and reason do not agree with the observations, they are thrown out. By contrast, philosophy is based on ideas and reason, and often does not even bother with observation at all. But it can and does use observation. (Again, obviously.) However, reason trumps everything else in philosophy, and if observation and reason do not agree, then observation is wrong. (But, normally what ends up happening is when an idea does not agree with observation, another idea that agrees better is thought up, and if you have two ideas - one that agrees with observation and one that does not - it is reasonable to go with the one that does. Still, there are many philosophical ideas that not only disagree with observation - they even disdain it completely.) Clear now? yagnyavalkya
Cant be clearer ! Actually the first sentance of your reply is not all that simple as you might think it is and your explanations below makes it very comprehensible and clear A simpler one would be "Science is primarily based on observation although it uses ideas and reasons. Philosophy is primarily based on ideas and reason and it may or may not use observations." would you agree with that ? But I still have a question How can one accept a philosophical idea that disagrees or even disdains it completely? ( observations) In the context of the thread say for example my own idea that Philosophy is a science? ptolomeo
No, philosophy is not a science...
yagnyavalkya
SO what is it that we all agree with
Is it a science or not? MGC77
It can potentially be a science. How are you going to use the scientific method? Indi
Elements from philosophy can and have come into the realm of science as soon as a way was found to apply the scientific method to them. The most impressive success story is psychology, which brought the study of human thought and emotion into the realm of science. Many other smaller questions and topics have also made the jump. Right now, as we speak, there is a brand new field of science developing devoted to the scientific study of human morality - it is taking age-old philosophical questions about morality (where does it come from (or, as it would be asked in philosophy: is it deontological or rational), how does it work (or, as in philosophy: what is moral and how do we decide), and so on), and developing a framework to discuss those questions scientifically. But that doesn't change the fact that they are two separate fields, with two distinctly different methods of finding answers. Poetsunited
Religion - philosophy - science
basicly what religion does, is believe in things that can't be proven... things that can be proven, that's science... Now philosophy tries to prove dogma's ( things that you need to believe if you want to be part of a religion, for example if u are catholic u believe in god ) and if they can prove it, it becomes science... thuyhanh
Google, Dictionary and all other sources in the internet are not the authority on any particular subject
I am a scientist by profession please have a look at my page If I start working and quoting google in my scientific papers I will be laughed at In fact my dear friend Philosophy itself is a science Quote from the journal Theoria vol. 69, Part 3 (2003) you can access this at http://www.infra.kth.se/phil/theoria/editorial693.htm Heres to you According to one view, philosophical treatments of a subject are, at least in typical cases, an early phase in the scientific study of that subject. Philosophy is then regarded as a form of protoscience, out of which science can be developed. One of the many proponents of that view was William James Reference : William James, Some problems of philosophy: a beginning of an introduction to philosophy, New York, Longmans, 1911. The second view treats philosophy in toto as one of the disciplines of science. This viewpoint is represented by CJ Ducasse, who identified philosophy as the science whose subject-matter consists of “spontaneous particular appraisals – and whatever turns out to be implicit in them”. Reference : C J Ducasse, Philosophy as a science. Its matter and its method. Oskar Piest, New York 1941. The third standpoint considers some but not all forms of philosophy as a science. One of the most outspoken proponents of this view was Hans Reichenbach. He distinguished between “speculative” and “scientific” philosophy, also called “old” and “new” philosophy. Contrary to speculative philosophy, scientific philosophy “leaves the explanation of the universe entirely to the scientist; it constructs the theory of knowledge by the analysis of the results of science and is aware of the fact that neither the physics of the universe nor that of the atom can be understood in terms of concepts derived from everyday life.” Reference: Hans Reichenbach The Rise of Scientific Philosophy University of California Press, Berkeley 1954. In the middle of all this chatter about what is a science, I wonder about philosophy. Certainly, over the route of my occupation, I've been astounded to observe how the for the most part nonrepresentationally metaphysical themes originally conversed by philosophers include to impact an assortment of clearly experimental disciplines exterior philosophy. Effort by philosophers on the metaphysics of modality (or the semantics for modal languages) resulted in a model that has useful applicability in a wide variety of topics (e.g. the study of probability, the study of natural language meaning). Philosophers nurse the conception of causation while it was hiding from anti-metaphysical services, and now it is a highly regarded theme again in the individual sciences (e.g. no discussion of practical reasoning can ignore it). Psychologists interested in concept configuration appeal to work in metaphysics as abstract Some of us are still fairly open about the statement that we do experiments. I wonder how to make a distinction between philosophy and 'real' science. Check all these references When I argue that Philosophy is itself a science you can say that metaphysics which according to you is philosophy is also a science Please have a look at theses reference 1. Experimentalmetaphysics2: The double standard in the quantum-information approach to the foundations of quantum theory Studies In History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies In History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, Volume 38, Issue 4, December 2007, Pages 906-919 Amit Hagar 2. Science, truth and history, part II. Metaphysical bolt-holes for the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge? Studies In History and Philosophy of Science Part A, Volume 38, Issue 1, March 2007, Pages 185-209 Nick Tosh 3. The evolution and limits of science Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Volume 30, Issue 1, October 2006, Pages 51-55 Daham Ismail Alani and Zina Alani Mougharbel 4. http://www.gwfhegel.org/ Metaphysics is not the branch of philosophy that explains physical phenomena using reason and logic in a way that falls outside the bounds of either religion or science' rather it is a philosophical science which deals with transcendental concepts such as being, one, true and good which in its simplest form is 'being as such'. What really makes Metaphysics hard to define is its object: being. Being cannot be defined properly but only descriptively. _________________ "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE / Hamlet Act 1. Scene V abt. 1601 deanhills
I like this explanation Indi about what philosophy is, especially the part about when one idea does not agree with our observation, then we tend to discover others, and choose the better of those. So have to ask: what happens when we apply this to religion or would you define religion differently? Indi
Of course religion is defined differently. ^_^; Think about it, if religion had the same definition as science or philosophy... wouldn't it be science of philosophy? ^_^; The fact that it is not science or philosophy pretty much proves that religion is defined differently. i can sum them up very briefly.
And, of course, as in philosophy, it does happen that when a religion's faith butts up against contradictory evidence or logic, another religion pops up that agrees with the logic and evidence a bit better. Some switch. Some stick with the old idea (which is legal in religion, because faith trumps logic and observation). (It is the same situation as with both philosophy and science, except in those cases, reason and evidence are the trump card - reason for philosophy and observation for science. For example, when a scientific theory seems illogical, someone will try to come up with another scientific theory that explains the same observations just as well, but is more logical. Some will buy into the new theory. Some will stick to the old.) Modern Christianity is a perfect example. Back in the day you'd be burned at the stake for declaring that Hell was not an actual physical place where the damned suffer by being burned in a lake of fire. But reason tells us that such a thing is simply sick, and absolutely contrary to the idea of a "good" god. Thus, modern Christianity came up with new ideas about Hell simply being a "state of separation from God," without the literal torture. Some people prefer this new form, some stick with the old (which is fine because, remember, there is nothing wrong in religion with saying "to hell with reason and evidence, my faith stands".) deanhills
Thanks Indi, this is well put. Can one then by the definition of religion say that if one has faith in love, then love can be a religion? How about faith in reason? Faith in observation? Faith in science? Could science become a religion too? Faith in human beings? I perfectly understand your explanation, but I think there has to be more than just faith to compare religion with philosophy and science. Faith is a major component of religion, but I think there are many other elements in religion that are not covered by faith. Belief, worship, reverence, surrender, hope, love? Bikerman
Faith - fundamental to religion. Means acceptance that something is true (regardless of evidence) Belief - tricky word this. Can mean the same as faith or can mean 'acceptance that something is right/true because of evidence'....depends on the context and usage - I find it a confusing word. Worship - you generally worship the supernatural (why would you worship the natural?) therefore you need faith.. Reverence (awe, respect) - this is not exclusive to religion. It is a word I would use to describe my own feelings when considering the universe.. Surrender - in the religious sense you surrender to a higher (supernatural) power - again that requires faith. Hope - Hmm...dubious about that one. You know the rules of a religion - follow them or don't follow them...either way you know the outcome.... Love - certainly not exclusive to religion, though common to many. It is an emotional state rather than a religious element. Indi
No. Religion is based on faith, but that is not the limit of its definition any more that being based on observation is the limit of the definition of science. The full definition (or at least, a much more complete definition) is that religion is a set of beliefs that are based on faith about the nature of the universe/cosmos/whatever and the role of humans (or just believers) in it. So faith in love or reason or science is not religion. All of them are beliefs based on faith, but none of them are beliefs about the nature of the universe. That means they're not religion, religion has much more to it. By the same token, thousands of people over several decades believe in extra-terrestrial visitors because of the tens of thousands of reported observations. To them, their belief in aliens is based on observation... but that doesn't make it science. Science has much more to it (and when the belief in aliens is held up to scientific standards, it doesn't hold.)
Well, yes and no. You're right that there's much more to religion than simply being a bunch of beliefs held by faith. The specific nature of those beliefs matters. If i believes that the Leafs will win the Cup next year, there is no logical reason or observation that can support that belief, so it would have to be a belief held by faith... but it wouldn't be a religious belief, obviously. Religious beliefs are based on faith, but there is much more to them than just that fact. Furthermore, just because religious beliefs are based on faith, that doesn't mean that they use only faith. If religion eschewed reason completely religious apologists wouldn't exist - their sole purpose for being is to try to provide explanations for their religion based on reason. Their challenge is that their beliefs did not start from reason, they started from faith, so unless they're really lucky and they just happened to be reasonable beliefs from the start, it can be difficult to find reasoning that works. And that's really what the nature of religion is. Even if you use reason and observation - which you're free to use, there's no reason you can't - they are secondary to faith. Faith first, reason and observation (and everything else) after. Now, the "no" part of my answer has to do with this bit: "... I think there are many other elements in religion that are not covered by faith...." That's partially correct, depending on the precise interpretation of what you wrote. If you mean there are elements of religion that are not faith, then yes, there are. But if you mean that these elements do not reduce to faith, then no - in religion, if you dig deep enough, you always come to faith. All of those things you listed, while most of them are not faith itself, all reduce to faith, eventually. (For example: Why do you (that is, a religious person) have hope? Because of some aspect of your beliefs which give you hope, and your beliefs are based on faith.)
These things may be part of your religion, but they are not part of religion in general. There are religions that have no interest in worship (Scientology and Theravada Buddhism, for example). Hope? There have been numerous hedonistic doomsday cults that have no place for hope. And i wouldn't say there was much love in Thuggee beliefs. Don't make the mistake of assuming that all religions are like your religion, or the religions that you are familiar with. deanhills
Thanks for the detailed explanation Indi. Your judgment that my observations regarding religion are true only for "my religion" is spot on. A number of people have argued that the world is a mirror of our own thinking, and I believe that is true. The world is a mirror of my own thinking. I understand your point of view that the definition of religion has to include all world religions. The doomsday cults, scientology etc. included. Not my cup of tea though. I have just discovered I am not that interested in other religions, am totally ignorant about them, more the reason for not being qualified to debate the issue. agudosnet
As a science degree student I can safely say that this is not the case.
Bikerman
Err, that particular appeal to authority is unlikely to cut much ice here. I think you can safely assume that several of us are already graduates (not that this is particularly important). yagnyavalkya
Sorry guys I am back Guess I should do some justice to the thread I started
I am staring off with my new Signature Quote I guess that sums it all up Philosophy is Science! Related topics
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