Philosophy, ancient and modern

[Ed Cryer]

The word is Greek; it means "love of wisdom".
Ancient philosophers pursued knowledge and understanding. They included
what we'd call "science", but over the ages such things have been
stripped off and rebranded as the "empirical sciences". Philosophy is
left with not much more than an inquiry into the very tools of
understanding. Reason itself.

Ed

[D]

Post by Ed Cryer
The word is Greek; it means "love of wisdom".
Ancient philosophers pursued knowledge and understanding. They included what
we'd call "science", but over the ages such things have been stripped off and
rebranded as the "empirical sciences". Philosophy is left with not much more
than an inquiry into the very tools of understanding. Reason itself.
Ed

Would you say there can ever be progress in philosophy?

[Ed Cryer]

Post by D

Post by Ed Cryer
The word is Greek; it means "love of wisdom".
Ancient philosophers pursued knowledge and understanding. They
included what we'd call "science", but over the ages such things have
been stripped off and rebranded as the "empirical sciences".
Philosophy is left with not much more than an inquiry into the very
tools of understanding. Reason itself.
Ed

Would you say there can ever be progress in philosophy?

I think not. It gets added unto over the ages; e.g. philosophy of
science, linguistic analysis. But I agree with your underlying supposition.

Even so, I think it has its uses. It makes you aware of the limits of
human understanding; of how much that we accept as truth is
fundamentally flawed.

Ed

[D]

Post by D

Post by Ed Cryer
The word is Greek; it means "love of wisdom".
Ancient philosophers pursued knowledge and understanding. They included
what we'd call "science", but over the ages such things have been stripped
off and rebranded as the "empirical sciences". Philosophy is left with not
much more than an inquiry into the very tools of understanding. Reason
itself.
Ed

Would you say there can ever be progress in philosophy?

I think not. It gets added unto over the ages; e.g. philosophy of science,
linguistic analysis. But I agree with your underlying supposition.
Even so, I think it has its uses. It makes you aware of the limits of human
understanding; of how much that we accept as truth is fundamentally flawed.
Ed

So you would not say that the fact that philosophers no longer debate how
many angels fit on the head of a pin is progress? Or perhaps it is more
due to progress in science?

[Ed Cryer]

Post by D

Post by Ed Cryer

Post by D

Post by Ed Cryer
The word is Greek; it means "love of wisdom".
Ancient philosophers pursued knowledge and understanding. They
included what we'd call "science", but over the ages such things
have been stripped off and rebranded as the "empirical sciences".
Philosophy is left with not much more than an inquiry into the very
tools of understanding. Reason itself.
Ed

Would you say there can ever be progress in philosophy?

I think not. It gets added unto over the ages; e.g. philosophy of
science, linguistic analysis. But I agree with your underlying supposition.
Even so, I think it has its uses. It makes you aware of the limits of
human understanding; of how much that we accept as truth is
fundamentally flawed.
Ed

So you would not say that the fact that philosophers no longer debate
how many angels fit on the head of a pin is progress? Or perhaps it is
more due to progress in science?

British philosophers love using foreign words; especially German ones.
Let's try a "Gedankenexperiment".

A university has three departments side by side; philosophy, theology,
physics.
A notice appears on a signboard outside, saying "Tonight's speaker will
talk about how many angels ..... etc.

In which dept would you take a seat?



Ed

[D]

Post by Ed Cryer

Post by D

Post by D

Post by Ed Cryer
The word is Greek; it means "love of wisdom".
Ancient philosophers pursued knowledge and understanding. They included
what we'd call "science", but over the ages such things have been
stripped off and rebranded as the "empirical sciences". Philosophy is
left with not much more than an inquiry into the very tools of
understanding. Reason itself.
Ed

Would you say there can ever be progress in philosophy?

I think not. It gets added unto over the ages; e.g. philosophy of science,
linguistic analysis. But I agree with your underlying supposition.
Even so, I think it has its uses. It makes you aware of the limits of
human understanding; of how much that we accept as truth is fundamentally
flawed.
Ed

So you would not say that the fact that philosophers no longer debate how
many angels fit on the head of a pin is progress? Or perhaps it is more due
to progress in science?

British philosophers love using foreign words; especially German ones.
Let's try a "Gedankenexperiment".

I am fluent in german but I find it strange that philosophers love to mix
in german and latin.

Post by Ed Cryer
A university has three departments side by side; philosophy, theology,
physics.
A notice appears on a signboard outside, saying "Tonight's speaker will talk
about how many angels ..... etc.
In which dept would you take a seat?

Physics! I would be very interested to hear what physicists have to say
about the subject.

At the risk of showing my hand, I didn't think theology departments still
existed in serious universities.

Post by Ed Cryer
Ed

[Ed Cryer]

Post by D

Post by Ed Cryer

Post by D

Post by Ed Cryer

Post by D

Post by Ed Cryer
The word is Greek; it means "love of wisdom".
Ancient philosophers pursued knowledge and understanding. They
included what we'd call "science", but over the ages such things
have been stripped off and rebranded as the "empirical sciences".
Philosophy is left with not much more than an inquiry into the
very tools of understanding. Reason itself.
Ed

Would you say there can ever be progress in philosophy?

I think not. It gets added unto over the ages; e.g. philosophy of
science, linguistic analysis. But I agree with your underlying supposition.
Even so, I think it has its uses. It makes you aware of the limits
of human understanding; of how much that we accept as truth is
fundamentally flawed.
Ed

So you would not say that the fact that philosophers no longer debate
how many angels fit on the head of a pin is progress? Or perhaps it
is more due to progress in science?

British philosophers love using foreign words; especially German ones.
Let's try a "Gedankenexperiment".

I am fluent in german but I find it strange that philosophers love to
mix in german and latin.

Post by Ed Cryer
A university has three departments side by side; philosophy, theology,
physics.
A notice appears on a signboard outside, saying "Tonight's speaker
will talk about how many angels ..... etc.
In which dept would you take a seat?

Physics! I would be very interested to hear what physicists have to say
about the subject.
At the risk of showing my hand, I didn't think theology departments
still existed in serious universities.

Post by Ed Cryer
Ed

In his book "Confessions of a Philosopher: A Journey Through Western
Philosophy" Bryan Magee claims that all the major questions of western
main-stream philosophy occurred to him in his lived childhood experience.
Well, they didn't in mine. I only became aware of them when I read about
them.
OK, so I'm thick.

However, I can recall what turned me into books of philosophy.
I was always an avid reader, and I constantly came up against statements
that the world wasn't real, that it was a product of mind.
This I couldn't swallow, so I started reading about idealism, and was
swept off my feet by it all. This philosophy was better than chess.

Philosophy is interesting; it engages you and keeps away the gremlins of
boredom. Peeling away the skins of ignorance and prejudice, seeking out
the bedrock of our existence; it's like sending protons around a large
hadron collider, and looking for some Higgs Boson in the resulting mix.

Ed

[D]

Post by Ed Cryer

Post by D

Post by Ed Cryer

Post by D

Post by Ed Cryer

Post by D

Post by Ed Cryer
The word is Greek; it means "love of wisdom".
Ancient philosophers pursued knowledge and understanding. They
included what we'd call "science", but over the ages such things have
been stripped off and rebranded as the "empirical sciences".
Philosophy is left with not much more than an inquiry into the very
tools of understanding. Reason itself.
Ed

Would you say there can ever be progress in philosophy?

I think not. It gets added unto over the ages; e.g. philosophy of
science, linguistic analysis. But I agree with your underlying supposition.
Even so, I think it has its uses. It makes you aware of the limits of
human understanding; of how much that we accept as truth is
fundamentally flawed.
Ed

So you would not say that the fact that philosophers no longer debate how
many angels fit on the head of a pin is progress? Or perhaps it is more
due to progress in science?

British philosophers love using foreign words; especially German ones.
Let's try a "Gedankenexperiment".

I am fluent in german but I find it strange that philosophers love to mix
in german and latin.

Post by Ed Cryer
A university has three departments side by side; philosophy, theology,
physics.
A notice appears on a signboard outside, saying "Tonight's speaker will
talk about how many angels ..... etc.
In which dept would you take a seat?

Physics! I would be very interested to hear what physicists have to say
about the subject.
At the risk of showing my hand, I didn't think theology departments still
existed in serious universities.

Post by Ed Cryer
Ed

In his book "Confessions of a Philosopher: A Journey Through Western
Philosophy" Bryan Magee claims that all the major questions of western

I like his TV-show. I have, I think, all episodes on my TV computer for
quick and easy access for when I'm in the mood for a nice discussion.

Post by Ed Cryer
main-stream philosophy occurred to him in his lived childhood experience.
Well, they didn't in mine. I only became aware of them when I read about
them.
OK, so I'm thick.
However, I can recall what turned me into books of philosophy.
I was always an avid reader, and I constantly came up against statements that
the world wasn't real, that it was a product of mind.
This I couldn't swallow, so I started reading about idealism, and was swept
off my feet by it all. This philosophy was better than chess.

Interesting. I thought all youth have a period when they go through an
idealist phase, but eventually grow out of it. I studied philosophy at
university, and over the years, I've landed firmly in the materialist
camp, with a nice little agnostic twist, delivered by G.E. Moores "here's
a hand" argument.

I have found no better argument for the material world. The problem though
is that it is so simple that people think it is childish and don't take it
seriously.

Post by Ed Cryer
Philosophy is interesting; it engages you and keeps away the gremlins of
boredom. Peeling away the skins of ignorance and prejudice, seeking out the
bedrock of our existence; it's like sending protons around a large hadron
collider, and looking for some Higgs Boson in the resulting mix.

True.

Post by Ed Cryer
Ed

[Ed Cryer]

D wrote:
I studied "modern philosophy" at a well respected British university. It
started with Descartes.
I was struck by how many young men had written books, convinced that
they'd somehow found new approaches or solutions to old problems.
George Berkeley and David Hume are my British favourites. Not to mention
A. J. Ayer with his "Language, Truth, and Logic".

But someone always came up with "This was handled by Plato in ..." In
fact, Alfred North Whitehead went so far as to say that "The history of
philosophy is no more than footnotes to Plato".
I tend to agree.

Ed

[D]

Post by Ed Cryer
I studied "modern philosophy" at a well respected British university. It
started with Descartes.
I was struck by how many young men had written books, convinced that they'd
somehow found new approaches or solutions to old problems.

Ahhh! I have exactly the same experience! Especially on discussion forums
for technologists. It is very common for some philosophical topic to come
up, and someone then comes up with an argument that is several 100 years
old, but the thing is, if you studied your philosophy you know where the
argument is going before it started.

The downside is that it might make me too fast at dismissing things, but
never have I discovered something new in those discussion thread, so the
upside is it does tend to save a bit of time. ;)

Post by Ed Cryer
George Berkeley and David Hume are my British favourites. Not to mention A.
J. Ayer with his "Language, Truth, and Logic".

Hume is a Ninja! I looove his empiricism, and also, how his social
contract thoughts blossomed into the wonderful ethical branch of
contractarianism. Especially Narvessons version!

Post by Ed Cryer
But someone always came up with "This was handled by Plato in ..." In fact,
Alfred North Whitehead went so far as to say that "The history of philosophy
is no more than footnotes to Plato".
I tend to agree.

I'm more into Aristotle, but I do understand the point.

Post by Ed Cryer
Ed

[Peter Moylan]

Post by D

Post by Ed Cryer

Post by D
Would you say there can ever be progress in philosophy?

I think not. It gets added unto over the ages; e.g. philosophy of
science, linguistic analysis. But I agree with your underlying supposition.
Even so, I think it has its uses. It makes you aware of the limits
of human understanding; of how much that we accept as truth is
fundamentally flawed.

So you would not say that the fact that philosophers no longer debate
how many angels fit on the head of a pin is progress? Or perhaps it
is more due to progress in science?

Philosophy has been wedged, I think. The whole huge bag of natural
philosophy has been taken away and rebadged as science. Meanwhile, most
of the theological questions are now considered to be "not very
interesting". I get the impression that philosophers as a group are now
finding themselves in the same position as Dawkins's God of the Gaps,
desperately looking for fields of enquiry that have not been claimed by
someone else.

Physics continues to throw up interesting questions, but not many
non-physicists are willing to tackle them. How many philosophers have
debated the issue of whether string theory is a valid view of reality?
Or, to take a major issue that's almost within living memory: is the
Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics valid? Most physicists have
an opinion on that, but few non-physicists do. The question is too
mentally challenging.

[D]

Post by Peter Moylan
interesting". I get the impression that philosophers as a group are now
finding themselves in the same position as Dawkins's God of the Gaps,
desperately looking for fields of enquiry that have not been claimed by
someone else.

I don't think it is that sinister. The gold standard for me, when it comes to
philosophy in the modern day and age, is ethics. I think philosophers fill an
important function in our society analyzing the ethical implications and moral
dilemmas of our time, _and_, of the future, when it comes to the technologies we
develop, how we use them, and how they affect (or will affect) our lives.

Other areas I think philosopher are (arguably) relevant is logic (could be
argued that this is now math however), philosophy of science, and to some extent
the resurgence of philosophy of how to live a happy and meaningful life (could
be argued that this is on its way to be sucked up by positive psychology).

Another area I think might have been revitalized is philosophy of mind in this
day of AI?

Then there is of course history of philosophy and philosophy of history. I think
it could be argued that a knowledge of those branches might aid us in making
informed decisions.

Post by Peter Moylan
Physics continues to throw up interesting questions, but not many
non-physicists are willing to tackle them. How many philosophers have
debated the issue of whether string theory is a valid view of reality?
Or, to take a major issue that's almost within living memory: is the
Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics valid? Most physicists have
an opinion on that, but few non-physicists do. The question is too
mentally challenging.

I don't know. But I would imagine that plenty of philosophers debate multiple
worlds and other interpretations.