I noticed that philosophy in this forum is lumped together with religion. Personally I would have liked to see it in the Science and technology section. But then I came across the following sentiments:
There is no statement so absurd that no philosopher will make it.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106-43 BCE) Roman statesman. De Divinatione
Philosophy, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer. (The Devil’s Dictionary, 1911)
Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German Philosopher
Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.
Attributed to Richard Feynman (1918-88) U.S. Physicist. Nobel Prize 1965.
…philosophy is to science as pornography is to sex.
Steve Jones
Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself.
Henry Louis Mencken. (1880-1956). Minority Report, H. L. Mencken’s Notebooks. Knopf, 1956.
Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists.
Richard Feynman
So now I’m not so sure … how important is philosophy to science? And besides, isn’t the whole scepticism mindset a philosophical conviction?
Mintaka
On the whole, scientists don’t pay much heed to what philosophers do or say. One exception is when a philosopher’s erroneous scientific notions are brought to the attention of scientists (as has happened a few times in the past), usually resulting in a minor turf fracas. Thus, philosophy is rarely viewed as important by the scientific community, which is rather more concerned with the day-to-day business of doing science. However, if one examines certain branches and sub-disciplines of philosophy (and there are many of these), for example philosophy of science and epistemology, it is not hard to see that these areas of study are “science of science” as it were. While in itself unremarkable, it is still worth pointing out that science itself started out as philosophy and could be considered an approach that follows a particular philosophy, namely an overriding insistence on evidence that meets or exceeds certain minimum quality standards. Scientists would also do well, I think, to remember on occasion some of the basic problems that philosophy wrestles with, for example the problem of induction or the demarcation problem, because these apparently insoluble difficulties draw attention to the limits and subtle complexities of knowledge accumulation. In fact, knowledge and what it is, is itself something of a philosophical conundrum.
Sure, but so is a science-minded approach. “Philosophy” literally means “love of knowledge” and there is no universally agreed definition or set of standards for the acquisition of knowledge. In essence, the meaning of the term “philosophy” without further specification is simply too broad for anything but casual conversation where its meaning usually is (or should be) contextually clear.
'Luthon64
You are of course dead right. Defining philosophy, seems to be tricky. I once read a book that devoted an entire chapter just explaining what philosophy is, and what it is not. I remember being both confused and impressed simultaneously!
It seems that the very lack of a defining property lends it a fluidity which allows it to permeate just about everything. I like to think of it as meaning merely thinking rationally. So even when the scientist puts thought into an experimental design, he is practising philosophy.
Mintaka
I have a book called “think” by Simon Blackburn, it does a fairly good job of explaining the different philosophical views out there. It also basically sums up what philosophy in essense is, namely thinking about subjects in a coherent way. In terms of that definition then the answer is a resounding “YES!” (like those black t-shirt motivational speakers wear) that its important to science.
Science as we know it sprang out of what used to be called natural philosphy. Over the years they whittled away until we have the scientific process and thought we use today. It is a way of thinking more then anything and therefore is in itself a philosophy.
Like most people, when I thought about the definition of Philosophy, I thought that Philosophy was merely a discipline dedicated to answering the questions “Why are we here?” and “Are we really here?” and thinking about new ways of asking those same question in a changing society (“Are computers ‘here’ too?”).
When I signed-up for some Philosophy courses I was pleasantly surprised that I was completely wrong. Sure, Frenchmen will always have a need to ask inane questions while gently twirling their cognac, but that is what is referred to in Western Philosophy as Continental Philosophy whereas the American and British Universities (including most of the colonies) have a preference for Analytic Philosophy. Analytic Philosophy is mostly concerned with questions of truth (what is truth?) and epistemology, and has lead to branches including Formal Logic and the Philosophy of Science. Analytical Philosophy also gave us those handy terms for describing fallacies (you know; “Straw men”, “cum hoc ergo prompter hock”, “argumentum ad baculum”, etcetera).
As 'Luthon pointed-out, scientists need not concern themselves with philosophy much, it is the job of the philosopher of science to observe scientists and try to understand this “science” thing from an outsider’s perspective (almost like anthropologists of science, without the sociology aspect). Philosophy of Science may sound weird, but it is a discipline dedicated to discovering what “scientific” means. Why is it that two groups of scientists conduct research in different ways and argue that the other group is not being scientific (think about homoeopaths versus pharmacologists). How can they claim that? Why has the standard for what is considered “scientific” changed over the centuries? I’m sure that you have all heard of one of the pioneering philosophers of science, Karl Popper, who gave us “falsificationism” - well, the scientists were doing that already, Popper just put a label on it, but how did the scientists come up with that concept not having a label for it originally? Does it naturally arise from the rules of Formal Logic? If so, why didn’t the pseudo-scientists arrive at the same method? I could go on for hours about that subject alone, but I can see someone dozing-off at the back there.
Is Philosophy useful? Hell yes!
Ever since taking these philosophy courses I seem to end a lot of sentences with question marks? Is that normal? I’d better stop.
James ?