Philosophy

[Alexa Ray]

Throw out a buzzword that I can roll with then.

Uh... I don't really... xD Um, music? I don't really know what a "buzzword" is lol

 

[Brovo]

A buzzword is generally something that has a lot of drama around it and tends to be quite controversial as a result of that drama. Think words like "feminism" or "communism".

Basically: If you could start a topic with one word, and you know that word would cause extremists to flock to it and fling shit at each other like the underdeveloped primates that they are, that's probably a buzzword.

 

[unanun]

The fact that everyone is disagreeing over even the definition of philosophy highlights a fundamental problem, wherein merely a difference of viewpoint, or accepting different axioms, entirely sets the landscape of the debate to come. Furthermore, it seems modern day philosophers are entirely uninterested in sharing their musings with common folk, hiding behind a barrier of esoteric language and vocabulary. The paper I provided goes a long way to show that philosophy will never solve any problems nor will it ever progress.

 

[scribz]

The fact that everyone is disagreeing over even the definition of philosophy highlights a fundamental problem, wherein merely a difference of viewpoint, or accepting different axioms, entirely sets the landscape of the debate to come. Furthermore, it seems modern day philosophers are entirely uninterested in sharing their musings with common folk, hiding behind a barrier of esoteric language and vocabulary. The paper I provided goes a long way to show that philosophy will never solve any problems nor will it ever progress.

That's quite an interesting philosophical assertion you have there.

As for "music" as a buzzword, I can work with that, gimme a day though :D

 

[unanun]

Consider an Aristotle that is cryogenically preserved and attends a modern lecture on physics. He passes out from shock at the degree of indisputable advancement we have made in understanding our world. The same cannot be if he were to sit in a philosophy class (again, this is discussed by a much more qualified man in the link I provided).

 

[Hecatoncheires]

That's probably because we're still so enamoured with the Greek philosophers of yore. What unanun's really highlighting is the difference between subjects like Humanities and subjects like Science.

 

[Brovo]

The paper I provided goes a long way to show that philosophy will never solve any problems nor will it ever progress.

Yeah. Philosophy will never help someone understand things like hard determinism versus free will and all the shit in the middle. It's not like society is a constantly progressing, evolving body that throws the basis of its ideological beliefs upon one school of thought or another.

Philosophy will never solve any problems. Tsk. Maybe not progress, I'm not a master of philosophy nor do I pretend to be, but to make the general assertion that it solves no problems, either on the individual or societal levels, is ignoring the basis of society's thought processes.

As for the argument that philosophy isn't interested in describing itself to the general public, neither is the uppermost tiers of biology or physics. The general public couldn't care to understand, that's what specialized individuals in those fields are for: To progress knowledge that will be useful to the whole in ways they generally won't understand. Ask the average idiot what radiation is and watch their jaw drop when they discover that radiation is a constant, everywhere they go.

 

[Hellis]

I'd say something lenghty, likely mention how philosophy is the basis of most our ideologies, how science grew from philosophy...


But Brovo pretty much covered it.

 

[unanun]

I'm not sure I understand your assertions. Philosophy requires points of view. Ignoring the dubious ability to do the same to the result of any measurement, the fundamental problem with philosophy is that it requires a point of view, and therefore an unquestionable axiom.

Is it right or wrong to kill one hundred humans? The answer wholly depends on what point of view you take. Statesmen have used that throughout history to justify everything.

I shall take some choice quotes from the paper I linked. As is the danger with this practice, I quote to bolster my argument .. a full perusal really is necessary.

"Philosophy is essentially destructive. Whatever you believe, no matter how obvious or fundamental, no matter who you are, or where, or when, there's a good philosophical argument that your belief is false. There is no deep, foundational belief that philosophy cannot refute (not even Descartes' Cogito)."

"This story of Aristotle's return to philosophy no doubt is somewhat plausible to the reader (excluding, probably, the time-travel part). Perhaps it is no more than that or just barely that. But this is all I need. The fact that this story contains even a whiff of plausibility shows that the reader can discern a crucial difference between science and philosophy. From our twenty-first century perspective, we see that Aristotle was not even in the ballpark with most of his scientific ideas, theories, and conclusions. His works in science are only of historical interest. But he is a giant to this day in philosophy. We can learn by reading his philosophical works."

"I didn't say society doesn't progress. It does. We are now quite clear on the immorality of slavery. (More or less: though slavery is illegal in every country in the world, there are more slaves now than ever, and it is a billion dollar business). But philosophy didn't discover slavery's immorality. Philosophers weren't leading the charge against slavery when it was openly and commonly practiced. What happened was that political leaders and social activists (who weren't philosophers, but social activists) changed the way many thought about slavery to the point that attitudes changed, laws were enacted, and society and culture thereby changed. Philosophers had to catch up. This is true across the board in ethics. Except for a tiny handful of writings (Mill's on women's rights, for example; Locke on individual liberty and equal rights), philosophers were, and still are, not at the vanguard of any advance in morality and ethics. Philosophers didn't discover and start the push for animals rights, civil rights, rights for the disabled, the disenfranchised, they didn't push first, before everyone else, for increased diversity and respect for all humans and all life. They had to catch up to these ideas, and frankly, many are lagging quite far behind, still. "

"Ethics appears to be unlike other areas of inquiry. After all, we cannot find contemporary defenders of Ptolemy (c. 100-c. 170 CE), Copernicus (1473-1543), or even Isaac Newton (1642-1727), all claiming to have the best theory of the physics of celestial motion. Nor are there contemporary mercantilists or physiocrats, as there were in the eighteenth century, all claiming to have the best theory of economics. But we can find contemporary defenders of Aristotle (384-322 BCE), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), for example, all claiming to have the best theory of ethics. Of course, significant disagreements remain in other areas of inquiry, but the extent of disagreement appears to be much greater in ethics."

 

[Jorick]

I'm not sure I understand your assertions. Philosophy requires points of view. Ignoring the dubious ability to do the same to the result of any measurement, the fundamental problem with philosophy is that it requires a point of view, and therefore an unquestionable axiom.

Is it right or wrong to kill one hundred humans? The answer wholly depends on what point of view you take. Statesmen have used that throughout history to justify everything.

I shall take some choice quotes from the paper I linked. As is the danger with this practice, I quote to bolster my argument .. a full perusal really is necessary.

"Philosophy is essentially destructive. Whatever you believe, no matter how obvious or fundamental, no matter who you are, or where, or when, there's a good philosophical argument that your belief is false. There is no deep, foundational belief that philosophy cannot refute (not even Descartes' Cogito)."

There are some major problems with this concept.

First, as the quote I left in there says, no matter what your belief is there is a good philosophical argument that will refute it. These ideas about philosophy being inherently destructive and unable to progress are, in fact, philosophical beliefs. By this philosophy's own declarations, this philosophy can also be undermined by other philosophy. Ironically, this belief that talks about how destructive philosophy is might just be the most destructive of all philosophical beliefs, because it essentially says that the field as a whole is worthless, including itself. All one would need to do to refute this claim of zero progress would be to find a time when philosophy made significant progress. Funnily enough, another one of your quotes does just this by citing "Mill's on women's rights, for example; Locke on individual liberty and equal rights" as philosophical works that were at the forefront of the development of modern ethics. Look at that, progress was made, this philosophical belief has been refuted by its own assertions.

Another problem is that this school of thought indirectly claims that all philosophy is equal. For there to be a "good" philosophical argument to refute every belief, by necessity all philosophical arguments must hold equal weight; before anyone goes calling straw man on me, I challenge you to come up with some alternative way all philosophical thoughts could have good arguments for refutation other than this total equality of philosophy that I speak of. You cannot refute Mill's ideas of women's rights without saying that a philosophy that posits that women are no more than chattel is of equal worth and weight, so they must of course be considered equal due to this philosophical belief of inevitable refutation. A philosophy espousing world peace would have to be totally equal to a philosophy calling for the willing self-extinction of humanity. Nazi philosophy would have to be totally equal to Gandhi's philosophy. If all philosophies are not considered wholly equal then the infinite refutation would not be possible, thus by necessity if you believe in the idea that philosophy is inherently destructive and everything can be refuted you have to set each idea as perfectly equal to all others. Furthermore, to make this work you would actually have to say that refuting a philosophy does not make it totally worthless until you're done using it to refute other philosophies, else the system falls apart. You have to be able to refute philosophy A with philosophy B, then refute philosophy B with philosophy C but go on to say philosophy B is still completely valid for refuting philosophy A because otherwise you would end up with a relatively small set of master philosophies that cannot be refuted. Some would say this illogical requirement disproves the whole philosophical belief, but luckily logic is a philosophical concept that by this theory is apparently easily refuted, so all is well. I hope I don't need another paragraph to explain why this sort of total equality just doesn't ever work in the human mind, thus making this philosophy actually kind of impossible to ever apply practically.

Actually, for the hell of it, let's see where blunt force application of this infinite refutation thing would lead someone if they believed in it and followed it. I think it would have to lead to the death of one's humanity. All systems of morality are easily refuted, thus you cannot have morals. All thoughts of property rights are easily refuted, thus you cannot own anything and you cannot respect what others claim to own. All philosophies of certain things (like rape and murder) being bad or wrong and deserving of punishment are easily refuted, thus you cannot condemn anyone for even the most heinous of atrocities and punishing them is totally out of the picture. So on and so forth, once you strip all philosophy away because none of it is true due to all of it being easily refuted you're left just with pure instinct and biological necessities to run your actions. This is the only way this philosophy can go if you actually believe in it and follow its principles. To hold to a moral code or respect property rights or want to punish murderers would be to follow a philosophical belief that you know is utterly and completely worthless, so a true believer in the limitless refutation wouldn't be able to follow any of them. Abandoning all higher thought is alright because you don't really exist (because Descartes is refuted) and the physical world is just a dream (because the ideas that the physical world exist and our senses are reliable are refuted; by the way, this means all of science is false) and there would be no consequences if you behave like an animal (because cause and effect as a concept is refuted). Shit, maybe I didn't go far enough. Maybe the end game of following this philosophy is not a mindless animal state, but rather a coma state where you just lay there and do nothing because nothing is real and you don't exist. This is the kind of nonsense that you get if you try to apply this philosophical concept of total refutation in any practical way, which I think is a good philosophical argument to refute its validity.

Back to basics, another problem here is that "there is no progress in philosophy" defeats itself in yet another way, this one more direct. Progress in this context would be new or improved ideas. There would have to be no forward momentum, no new philosophical concepts coming into existence, for this to hold true. However, "there is no progress in philosophy" is a philosophical concept that at one point in time was a new idea. Positing that there is no progress is in fact taking a step forward and making progress in philosophy. It's a self-defeating concept. It hasn't always existed, thus it was new at some point, thus it was progress, thus it is wrong.

However, with all of that said, I think the biggest problem with the idea of there being no progress in philosophy is that it misunderstands what philosophy truly is and points only at science as "proof" that there is no progress. Philosophy in fact lies on the middle of a spectrum rather than standing hand in hand with science alone. The two ends of this spectrum are science and art, and philosophy is roughly equal parts both of them. Philosophy compiles new information in the same way as science, and a lot of the new information is thanks to scientific advances, but it does not do the same things with new data as science does. Science stacks new data up in a very orderly fashion to build towers to reach new heights of understanding. Philosophy instead uses the methodology of art in this regard: instead of building towers, it lets everything pile up in a few disorganized heaps and digs through them at leisure. To understand what I mean by this, think of classical music and modern pop music. Can you say without a shadow of a doubt that the modern music is better than the classical? Do the same with styles of painting. Do the same with styles of writing. You may have preferences, but saying one is inherently superior to the other would be foolish. It's rather similar in philosophy.

In philosophy, as it is in art, there is no massive strive for improvement. You get some new things that pop up once in a while (like new musical genres), and some new takes on old ideas (like new musical subgenres), but it's hard to say one is objectively better than any other. It can be done if you choose a particular set of rigid metrics and apply it to all of the different ideas, but who's to say that your choice of metrics is truly objective? Instead it's more a matter of personal preference. Some people will think a particular philosophy is the best and others will disagree with them, and that's fine because it's a subjective thing. Some societies will generally discard whole areas of philosophy (such as moral philosophies which say there is no such thing as right or wrong so no punishment is justified) just as they will largely ignore certain types of music (such as how polka is pretty rare in the United States). It's just the nature of the beast.

Philosophy has never been a pursuit of objective truth; philosophers are quite aware that there can be no objective truth from thoughts alone. Progress in philosophy cannot be fairly equated to progress in science because they have vastly different methods of gathering and using information, which means their benchmarks for progress are different. Progress in science is the discovery of objectively verifiable new things, the clarification of points of old things, and disproving things previously held to be true. Progress in philosophy is the accumulation of new things and additions to old things; the nature of these additions actually doesn't matter, because new things go into the piles whether they're great truths or fallacious nonsense. Philosophical progress is not just about coming up with utterly new things, just as scientific progress is not just about totally new discoveries. Science deals in facts and certainty, philosophy deals in concepts and probability; they are different entities, thus it is ridiculous to apply the same standard to both of them. To claim that philosophy makes no progress you have to completely mistake the nature of philosophy and totally ignore the past couple thousand years of new ideas and additions that have been made. Just because it does not reach toward the same lofty goal of objective truths that science aims for does not mean that there is no progress. That is the main failing of "there is no progress in philosophy," and that alone is enough to discard the idea as false.

 

[unanun]

If all philosophies are not considered wholly equal then the infinite refutation would not be possible, thus by necessity if you believe in the idea that philosophy is inherently destructive and everything can be refuted you have to set each idea as perfectly equal to all others.

They are. There is no objective measure of good that says one thing is better than another, only your own personal belief that killing a human is a bad thing. If I think killing a human is a good thing, there is basically nothing you can do to refute my axiom because they are definitions from which all other derivations follow.

To understand what I mean by this, think of classical music and modern pop music. Can you say without a shadow of a doubt that the modern music is better than the classical? Do the same with styles of painting. Do the same with styles of writing. You may have preferences, but saying one is inherently superior to the other would be foolish. It's rather similar in philosophy.

It is exactly as you say. Philosophy makes no progress because there is no objective definition of progress, there is no way to quantitatively measure improvement just as there is no way to assign an objective score to arts and literature. Philosophy, like arts and music and literature, makes no progress.

Philosophy has no worth outside of a way to provide points of view.

 

[Brovo]

Philosophy, like arts and music and literature, makes no progress.

Except for the entirety of human history in which additional instruments were invented, literary forms were created, tropes and stereotypes invented from things we observed in the world, the evolution of story structure through the ages down to the finest detail...

I guess if we pretend that progress is a nebulous term instead of something easily defined in the English vocabulary we can pretend things have no objective value. The objective value of philosophy is understanding different view points and the exercise of logic in abstract form. The objective value of literature, art, music, and so on, is in emotional connections.

There is no objective value in discarding entire fields of study and expression because they render no physical value in the same manner that biology and physics does. That, is irrational.

 

[scribz]

It is exactly as you say. Philosophy makes no progress because there is no objective definition of progress, there is no way to quantitatively measure improvement just as there is no way to assign an objective score to arts and literature. Philosophy, like arts and music and literature, makes no progress.

Philosophy has no worth outside of a way to provide points of view.

Well no, not true.

Let's look into free market economics. Libertarians run by the philosophy that if you just let the market be free, a natural ebb and flow of the system will bring happiness and prosperity and advance us as humans. We can measure that, we can measure the altruism within a system like that, the health, the environment. We can use quantitative comparisons and determine if the change in the system is because of said factor from various scientific standpoints. Philosophies often have a practise that can be studied.

If you want to say "but then you have to go with the axiom that happiness is better", then the answer to that is "fuck you, measurement is just as relative as any prerequisite to any philosophy given. It's all shades of grey in the end"

 

[unanun]

How is that progress? What do you define as progress? Is the creation of new things justifiable as progress?

If you go back to the definition of progress you linked, you will find that the definition cannot be applied in any way to arts and literature. Creating something new is not progress. That is exactly the same argument the fine fellow talks about in the paper.

"This pattern of ignoring old science but rereading over and over again old philosophy repeats throughout the histories of science and philosophy. Here's another case. Consider Einstein (1879-1955), Frege (1848-1925), and Wittgenstein (1889-1951). The works of the latter two philosophers are read closely to this day, not only by accomplished, professional philosophers, but in graduate seminars where their works are plumbed for deep truths. Yet, no physicists read Einstein's 1905 papers, even the one on Special Relativity, nor do they read his 1916 paper on General Relativity. Of course, both Special and General Relativity are still taught—they are regarded as the backbone of modern physics and cosmology. Having been tested thoroughly, Einstein's
theories are currently regarded as true. But it is precisely because these theories are regarded as true that no one reads them in their original descriptions. Instead modern versions with much more perspicuous mathematics are taught and used. Since his theories are true, what Einstein actually said needn't be fought over. Frege's and Wittgenstein's theories and conclusions, on the other hand, are not regarded as true; they are regarded as interesting and important. So, of course, the originals would be read and examined. . . and fought over. For example, Kripke's interpretation of Wittgenstein (1982) caused strong debate, with many Wittgenstein scholars decrying Kripke's book and the ideas in it (e.g., McGinn, 1984; Baker and Hacker, 1984)."

Philosophy suffers from the inability to clearly define an objective measure of truth. In experimentalism, truth is getting the same result no matter how I end up measuring it, with whatever instrument I construct. Can you say the same things exists for philosophy, arts, or literature ...?

"What could explain this pattern of vast disparity in the histories of philosophy and science, in what the returning Aristotle experiences? Only one thing: Philosophy doesn't progress. Yes, it morphs and transforms to stay current. Our metaphysics today is not Aristotle's metaphysics. Ours is populated, for example, with possible worlds, whose existence is bolstered by a robust and large family of logics that Aristotle couldn't have imagined. Our metaphysics contains ideas like supervenience, which is used to explain, among other things, the relationship between mind and brain and the relationship between consciousness and brain. But more importantly, our metaphysics is for us. It is written in our language for us to communicate our twenty-first century ideas in. But that's all; that's the extent of the "progress". The ideas and theories are new or couched in modern language, but no real progress is made, none."

 

[scribz]

Philosophy suffers from the inability to clearly define an objective measure of truth. In experimentalism, truth is getting the same result no matter how I end up measuring it, with whatever instrument I construct. Can you say the same things exists for philosophy, arts, or literature ...?

Except within it's application and with the presence of quantitative study on it's application.

If you want to say philosophies can be inherently useless because it's nothing but a bunch of definitions and arbitrary values based on things like connotations within word play. Sure, I agree. But practise of philosophies that bring about a measurable change can be quantified in the fields of science.

 

[Jorick]

They are. There is no objective measure of good that says one thing is better than another, only your own personal belief that killing a human is a bad thing. If I think killing a human is a good thing, there is basically nothing you can do to refute my axiom because they are definitions from which all other derivations follow.

It is exactly as you say. Philosophy makes no progress because there is no objective definition of progress, there is no way to quantitatively measure improvement just as there is no way to assign an objective score to arts and literature. Philosophy, like arts and music and literature, makes no progress.

Philosophy has no worth outside of a way to provide points of view.

You're making the mistake of assuming that progress requires objective measurement. There is a definition of progress, which I already gave in my previous post, and it happens to not be objective because progress itself is not inherently an objective thing. Progress is moving forward, plain and simple; whether or not you are able to measure exactly the length of the steps taken to move forward is a secondary consideration to progress. Can you objectively measure the exact progress made by the scientific discovery of a way to measure food crispness? No, you cannot. There is no objective measure for scientific discovery. There are no science points that are calculated to decide exactly how much a new discovery has aided scientific progress. You can apply the same thing to major discoveries as well, such as Einstein's relativity theories. How many scientific progress points were those worth exactly? Nobody knows, because such a quantitative measure of progress simply does not exist for science, just like it does not exist for philosophy. Does that mean that science does not progress either? I would say no, and I wager you would as well. Science makes progress despite a lack of quantitative measurements of progress made, and philosophy does as well.

Also, points of view are concepts of inherent worth to society, so saying they have no other worth is a pointless statement. Which is more valuable, the philosophical concept of free will or the scientific discovery of a way to measure food crispness? Which is more valuable, the concept of democracy or pain relief medication discovered through science? Which is more valuable, the point of view that all people are equal and should be treated as such or the scientific achievement of landing on the moon? All of these things possess some level of value to society, yet half of them are simply concepts or points of view. Ideas do not lack value simply because they cannot be applied in objective physical fashion. Objectivity is not inherently a good thing, nor is subjectivity inherently a bad thing; they are different, that is all. There are certain tasks which are better suited to objective or subjective observation, but that again does not make one better than the other. You seem to be unaware of or in disagreement with this point, unanun, and it confuses me greatly.

 

[unanun]

Your first sentence completely lost me.

I am not sure how practice of philosophy is inextricably bound with science. I'm willing to wager a vast majority of scientists go about their craft without any knowledge of philosophy, or willingness to practice it.

For example, part of my research involves using a computer program to design a device that exhibits the largest possible current under certain constraints. That statement is mathematically and physically quantifiable and does not involve opinion or feelings. The same can not be said for any branch of philosophy. There is no truth in philosophy because truth depends on the point of view one takes.

 

[Hecatoncheires]

I was gonna yell about how awesome David Hume is, but this shit is way funnier.

 

[scribz]

In the end, if science is to provide objective content, it's ultimately a philosophical action that provides context. While I agree that philosophies that can't be measured and are ultimately abstract, are nothing but thought stroking. If you base your philosophy on science, then you're able to apply context to that science.

 

[unanun]

'New' is not 'progress'. You seem to be mixing my claim of 'philosophy makes no progress' as me saying something is 'bad'. I have avoided any mention of whether something is good or bad. The definition of good or bad, such as viewpoints, changes with context. It is entirely possible to imagine a society where the value of human life is zero - it has happened in the past! And at that time, such a thing was entirely regarded as good. There is no objective truth to philosophy, nor is there any piece of art or literature that is demonstrably 'better' than another piece.

Progress in science, however, is exactly how I have quoted it (see above, I don't want to rehash the argument in my words for fear of diluting it).