It seems like the main complaint here against philosophy is that it is an unproductive endeavour, so I will address to this.
First, the nature and nurture issue:
maverick_starstrider said:
Yes, I always get a kick out of seeing modern philosophers STILL debating nature vs. nurture and you point out that statistically we are getting a beed on what contributes to what and that more and more our understanding of genetics is answering that question and it is in the science of genetics and psychology that we will find the answer. They will then say "shush, we're doing philosophy" and go back to debating tabula rasa, Locke, Hume and Descartes.
The nature and nurture debate is still a very much controversial question in not just philosophy but across the medical field and social sciences (I'm doing psychology with philosophy as cognate). Human development is not dictated by their genes but are a result of interaction between their genes and environment. It's a two-way system so we have every reason to STILL debate the nature and nurture issue. But yes, it is an empirical question, largely, but it doesn't mean that philosophy cannot mix with science to answer the nature and nurture debate. Especially in the medical, social and biological sciences philosophy becomes important for ethics because we can't do experiments to test ethics.
DukeofDuke said:
...You can call it art. But I am not impressed by it as a productive field of study. And I don't think I set out to prove anything, rather I wanted to bring a specific charge against the field of philosophy.
AUMathTutor said:
@DukeofDuke:
But empiricism is just another philosophy.
Yes, that is exactly right DukeofDuke. Science essentially is empirical philosophy. Science is driven by empirical findings and on the basis of these empirical findings you argue for a conclusion. This is no different than philosophical arguments except you don't need empirical findings to argue for a conclusion in Philosophy. But both are founded in logic.
Because all sciences are empirically driven, their methodology is what we call inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning is simply this, using one famous example:
Scientists used to believe that all swans are white. They conclude this because they have found that:
Swan A is white,
Swan B is white,
Swan C is white,
Therefore, All swans are probably white.
But we now know this isn't true because we discovered black swans in Australia :)
This, essentially is how all the sciences work.
Philosophers, however, more commonly use another method called deductive reasoning, which is simply this, using the previous example:
All swans are white,
X is a swan,
Therefore, X is white.
This is essentially how most philosophy arguments work. Now can you imagine how both are founded in logic and how both can complement each other? Clearly, both deductive and inductive reasoning are used in science and philosophy so both disciplines are not all that incompatible. Philosophy can complement science and science philosophy. Thus, philosophy is not useless.
Not only this, the methodology and principles of science (e.g. determinism, parsimony, etc) is created from philosophy, that is, the philosophy of science. If you want to know more here is a great discussion by Hilary Putnam (who is also a Professor in Mathematics, btw):
So, this is already one evidence that philosophy has been a productive endeavour - it helped create science.
If you are still not convinced, here are some basic concepts developed from philosophy that have been very useful or are still highly unresolved by science or philosophy.1)The problem of infinity.
Anyone who has done philosophy in paradox, time, space/physics would know these famous questions. There are many so I will illustrate a few basic questions. Since most of you are physicists here see if you can answer these famous philosophical questions :)
If the past is infinite, then how is it that we even reach the present at all? If there is an infinite past, we would never reach a present state because we must make an infinite steps to reach anywhere. This, essentially, seems illogical. So, does this show the universe must have a beginning?
If everything can be reduced to an infinite amount of particles, then how does something infinite in size make up something with apparently finite size like us? If not, how can you justify that there is a fundamental particle? So far, we have only found more and more smaller particles why can't it go on infinitely?
Take a motion of an object from A to B (e.g. our hand moving from place A to place B). Break this motion down into an infinite number of micro-distances. So, how can an infinite number of micro-distances apparently make up a finite distance that we can measure and see?
2)The naturalistic fallacy.
The NF has been an important concept in ethics. Basically the naturalistic fallacy states that an IS statement does not equate an OUGHT statement. For example, is it rational to fear death? Some people would want to argue that it is because we are biologically hard-wired to fear death (e.g. death smells bad to our senses so we avoid it). Philosophers would argue that, hey this is actually illogical because this commits the naturalistic fallacy. Just because we are biologically hard-wired to fear death DOESN'T mean we OUGHT to fear death. Just like growing wisdom teeth is biologically hard-wired (IS statement), doesn't mean that growing wisdom teeth should be encouraged (OUGHT statement) because it is often useless and painful to us. Philosophers would say that you must justify that our biology to fear death is good to justify we ought to fear death. But maybe we have to fight our biology like we have to fight our wisdom tooth sometimes.There are many difficult but great questions like these in philosophy and this is why I think philosophy is a productive endeavor because it is a great advisory tool for the sciences. So, no, it's not just a history lesson. Philosophy is useful because it provides guidance to science, science in return provides guidance to philosophy. This is why in the beginning of the post I said that we need both to understand the universe and why so many great scientists like Einstein, Newton, etc dabbled in philosophy.
I liked that class a lot, and we did talk about death. We concluded pretty early on though that humans are not rational, because, well, that's biologically obvious. Don't really need much philosophy for that...By the way, doing anything at all is illogical. There is absolutely no logical reason to type that reply. Why did you do it? EMOTIONS. Emotions provide the "why" to any situation, they are the driving force behind action, the way our genetics control our rational mind to perform the appropriate computations. And there's a helluva lot of study behind that.And its all very fascinating because it relies on BIOLOGY! NEUROBIOLOGY too! Here I like the "philosophy" mainly because it sets up the question that the biology we studied answers.
