

Science and the Demise of Philosophy - 321abc
http://robertpriddy.com/lim/7.html

======
antaeos
I call shenanigans.

 _Wholly oriented towards investigating and changing the material world,
science rejects anything related to practical self-discovery or spiritual
truth. In this lies the crisis of the widespread modern intellectualism that
swears itself to science; it is incapable of investigating, understanding or
dealing with human purposes, eternal values, spiritual realities or the
challenges of the meaning of life. On the contrary, science relativises values
and makes a private matter of them, thereby undermining them and consequently
a moral and good society too. Discovery of new truths about the human soul and
destiny will remain beyond its scope until the extent of ignorance about this
is better appreciated and much wrong physicalistic thinking about the
constitution of the human being is more widely discredited. Only when science
is put firmly in its place for what it really is, a study of physical reality
by physical means chiefly for material and economic ends, will the crisis be
overcome._

As far as I can tell, Priddy isn't saying anything the deconstructivists
haven't already; and by that I mean the same hollow self-justifying outcries
that have dominated the humanistic part of C.P. Snow's Two Cultures since,
well, since Wordsworth. If Priddy and his ilk could ever dream up an
alternative which would "put science in its place," I'd be happy to hear it,
but so far, science makes progress regardless of whether or not we have the
words to describe its journey. It's a simple fact that the humanistic
vanguards apparently have a very hard time coming to terms with.

~~~
prodigal_erik
I do think "Einstein's famous breakthrough was one of reason advancing well
beyond the facts" bears thinking on. It took years before we could try to
falsify relativity empirically, so in the meantime how did we avoid filtering
him out as just another crackpot?

But it's hard not to dismiss "even investigative and creative reason have
largely been blinkered so as to concentrate it overwhelmingly upon the
observable world" as whining that people care more about learning from reality
than from nonsense made up on the spot.

~~~
ajdecon
Several things about Einstein's work made it plausible and not obviously the
work of a crackpot, despite its initial non-falsifiability:

* It was consistent with most observations and experiments done thus far.

* It offered an explanation for known issues which were being grappled with at the time, i.e. the observation of speed of light in moving reference frames.

* It built on existing work and showed Einstein's familiarity with the state of physics at that point.

* It was possible to understand how the theory _could_ be tested, even if the technical skills of the time were inadequate.

Compare this to most crackpot theories we see today: they may be inconsistent
with previous observations. They claim to debunk "establishment" theories
rather than attempting to grapple with new problems. And they are often
constructed so they _cannot_ be falsified, even postulating improved
experimental techniques.

So if you see a new theory which claims to explain something like high-Tc
superconductivity but requires advances in technology to be testable, it is
probably a good-faith effort. But if you see a theory which claims to
revolutionize physics by means of an unobservable energy field with no
plausible experiments, you're probably looking at a crackpot. Bonus points if
the author says "Einstein is WRONG!" in a press release.

~~~
Herring
There's also that michelson-morley came out around the same time. Whether or
not Einstein heard of it, there's very few ways of combining e&m & newtonian
physics in light of that experiment. (Pun intended)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_special_relativity#S...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_special_relativity#Special_relativity)
Apparently the fizeau experiment did influence his thinking

------
brg
Philosophy, as it is taught and developed in academia today, is in no way
"essential in the further understanding of the nature of humanity and the
cosmos."

Science and philosophy were once one. Aristotle, and Descartes where all
hailed as both great scientists and great philosophers. But during the
renaissance, critical thinking, creativity, and logic separated and became
science. Everything that was left retained the name of philosophy.

To look at it another way, science has lead directly to a downfall in
philosophy, in that it has provided a way for one to test theories and build
upon ideas. In contrast to the progress of science, one sees that philosophy
has developed into a useless branch of linguistic games ("What time is it on
the sun?") and esoteric navel gazing ("Essence in this its self-movement is
reflection"). Anything that can be tested or verified has been removed from
the field called philosophy by the philosophers, who have today reverted to
Platonists by abanding experimentation in lieu of problems of "pure" thought.

Consider any philosopher of the period since Descartes. Lets say Immanuel
Kant. Now what is Kant's philosophy? What of Kant's philosphy has been
accepted as true by the community. What of Kant's philosophical theory has
been rejected as false by the community. How has the community settled these
question of Kant's philosophy?

The answer is that there is no philosophical community. There are only
philosophical camps. The only thing relating each camp to another is that they
all at war with each other in a grand popularity contest. The community that
gets the most air time is in the lead. There is no progress in philosophy,
only novel ideas which supplantt the old due to the boredom inherent in
parroting nonsense.

~~~
foldr
> But during the renaissance, critical thinking, creativity, and logic
> separated and became science.

But modern logic was developed by philosophers in the late 19th and early 20th
century. Frege, Tarski and Russell weren't scientists. And it's surely absurd
to suggest that there isn't any critical thinking or creativity in the entire
philosophical literature since Descartes.

> There is no progress in philosophy,

That's clearly false in some areas. To stick with the same example, our
understanding of paradoxes has been greatly increased by the development of
modern mathematical logic, which is largely the work of philosophers. To take
another, we now have a much better understanding of the possible ways in which
the mind might relate to the brain, thanks to the development of behaviorism,
functionalism, etc. in the mid 20th century.

In some areas, such as moral philosophy, it's true that there has been no
progress if you define progress as consensus. But so what? Would you rather
no-one ever thought seriously about moral questions? Just because it is
difficult to reach a consensus on some topic doesn't mean that there's no
value in thinking hard about it.

~~~
brg
I apologize for not responding sooner. This is after all a discussion, and not
a forum for simply venting.

As for logicians as philosophers, perhaps I am in the minority when I
disassociate them soley based on their results. Maybe that is perhaps defining
the problem set based on the solution. But in general logicians follow the
rigor of mathematics, and as a result their accomplishments are timeless. But
when they are older often simply abandon the rigor for treatises on the
"meaning" of the Incompleteness theorem or the futility of logic.

As a young man, Russell classified himself as a mathematician. And to
paraphrase hi, he became a philosopher when he slowed down, and then a
politician when we slowed down even more.

Perhaps the split on mind/brain understanding is again the birth of the
science of psychology. Kuhn's work is obviously sociological in nature, yet it
is untested. In the regard, perhaps philosophy has a place as a proto-science.
It is were ideas gestate before rigor.

But you ask, "So what?" My answer is that these discussions and time spent are
not much more than entertainment for those engaged; but they are portrayed as
the most noble art and purest pursuit of man. The general populace scoffs when
an actor demands respect for ill-conceived political views or an artist is
uncovered as a faux-intellectual. In my opinion it is the same when the the
twenty year old with tweed jacket and goatee settles down with Nietzsche in
the university commons. That's a past time activity; which is fine. We all
enjoy a football game, a movie, or a stimulating books. But when we partake of
them we know what we are doing. We aren't lying ourselves and others that we
are going to make the world a better place by watching the telly tonight.

~~~
foldr
> Maybe that is perhaps defining the problem set based on the solution.

Yes, it is. You're just defining anything that makes progress as science or
mathematics rather than philosophy, so your claim is a tautology.

I can't really make any sense of your last paragraph. I'm sure some
philosophers are assholes, but that doesn't mean that philosophy isn't worth
doing.

~~~
brg
Yes, it would be a tautology if I had defined it in terms of progress. But
progress is the result of the methods and intention of the endeavors of
science; falsifiability being one of them. Another is applicability, which
often comes in the form of being subject to experimentation.

Logic is a great tradition of in both science and philosophy; and even now
there is a working community with practitioners of the field with both titles.
But when I was entered graduate school I left for the mathematics department
specifically because formal logic was relegated to the unfashionable corner of
most philosophy programs.

~~~
foldr
>Yes, it would be a tautology if I had defined it in terms of progress.

And you did -- how else could you exclude developments in logic from the
history of philosophy?

> But progress is the result of the methods and intention of the endeavors of
> science; falsifiability being one of them.

No-one has really thought that falsifiability is a contentful constraint on
scientific theory formation for some time now (even Karl Popper basically
abandoned the view in all but name).

~~~
brg
"No-one has really thought that falsifiability is a contentful constraint on
scientific theory formation for some time now"

This quote is a textbook case of someone parroting the fashions of philosophy
to make noise instead of a point. To wit: it talks about undefined general
opinion, it has dropped a "name" in lieu of evidence, and by focusing upon a
vague "formation" of ideas instead of the "methods and intention" as quoted
above, it could be interpreted as being being confined to a narrower scope
than the original statement and thereby attempts avoid the statement it is
attempting to supersede.

Most importantly, it digresses from what goes on in reality without bothering
to consult it. Within the scope of the original statement, which is talking
about the scientific method, the community is actively engaged in this
discussion: <http://www.google.com/search?q=is+string+theory+falsifiable>

~~~
foldr
>it has dropped a "name" in lieu of evidence,

In more formal contexts that's called a "reference" or "citation". Here, if
you can't be bothered to google for this stuff:
<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/>

> To wit: it talks about undefined general opinion,

In what sense is it undefined? I'm talking about the general opinion in the
philosophy of science. You can check that statement out by reading the
relevant literature, if you don't believe me.

>Most importantly, it digresses from what goes on in reality without bothering
to consult it. Within the scope of the original statement, which is talking
about the scientific method, the community is actively engaged in this
discussion: <http://www.google.com/search?q=is+string+theory+falsifiable>

If you actually read the paper in the first result of that search, it gives a
reasonably good explanation of why falsifiability is a very fuzzy and
indeterminate requirement. But if you really want to demonstrate that
mainstream physics is seriously worrying about questions of falsifiability,
you need to give links to journal articles.

------
teeja
The fact that this chapter doesn't bother to mention Kuhn, Popper, Feyerabend,
etc. tells me this is axe-grinding.

"The resulting weak role of 'handmaidens' who applaud progress as scientific"
were Feyerabend's favorite targets.

------
aidenn0
Is this worth my time to read? My bogo-sensor was going off like crazy after
reading the first couple of paragraphs.

------
joe_the_user
Wow,

This certainly gives a powerful overview of the quandary of human beings in
our modern world.

Bit heavy for hacker news but I welcome it.

The problem is, humanity won't go back to the world whose loss Priddy
describes. So how do we solve these problems going forward?

~~~
billswift
Since the "problems" in that chapter don't actually exist, we ignore them, how
else?

