Why is there persistent disagreement in philosophy ?
I came across a brilliant paper published in a philosophical journal. I was thinking of the reasons behind philosophical disagreements and why there isn't some sort of consensus among philosophers regarding philosophical ideas. For anyone interested, l have attached a link to the article written by Prof Christopher Daly.
Article
The philosophical disagreement is summarized in the paragraph below.
But are there any successful philosophical arguments where a successful argument that p is one that would convince any perfectly rational, intelligent and neutral party that p ? I know of none. (That is, I know of none for any substantive philosophical thesis.) … If any reasonably well-known philosophical argument for a substantive conclusion had the power to convert an unbiased ideal audience to its conclusion (given that it was presented to the audience under ideal conditions), then, to a high probability, assent to the conclusion of that argument would be more widespread among philosophers than assent to any substantive philosophical thesis actually is. (van Inwagen 2006, pp. 52–3)
The author discusses 3 different reasons for the persistent disagreement among philosophers and refutes them. I have tried to summarize them.
The first was given by Russell. Philosophical problems are solved only when science finally tackles them. Philosophers handle all questions which scientists at the present moment cannot investigate or answer. The obvious objection would be that, there are many philosophical problems that will never fall under science such as ethics and further more, it still does not tell us why philosophers can't solve such problems.
The second reason provided argues that philosophical arguments rely heavily on many other fields where the direction of progress cannot be predicted and as long as the other fields make progress, philosophical ideas will be undermined. The objection to this argument is that, this feature is not specific to philosophy and many other disciplines continue to produce theories that are widely agreed upon despite reliance on other disciplines. There are certain branches of philosophy such as logic ( where there isn't a lot of dependence on hypothesis of other disciplines but there is still disagreement among logicians.
The final reason which the author represents and refutes is the idea that we may have some sort of cognitive limitation due to evolution and as such, we cannot solve philosophical problems. Our brains were not evolved for such endeavors. This thesis can be refuted. Why can human beings think mathematically and achieve undisputed results ? ( it is very difficult to distinguish the complexity of philosophical problems from mathematical ones). Where do we draw the line between cognitive closure and openness ? While monkeys cannot understand language and their minds are closed to it, we can easily entertain philosophical ideas and there is a sense of philosophical ability/talent. Further more, even if the original purpose of our brain was for survival only, how does that impede us from developing higher order thinking ? The paper presents a detailed critique, so you can check it out.
The author presents his reasons as to why there is a persistent disagreement among philosophers and l think this view is right. I noticed this too often. The author contends that the methods of philosophy are problematic.
It would be interesting if the reasons which the author rejected can be improved upon or the thesis presented by the author can be furthered developed. Can we devise some sort of philosophical method that will enable us to decide better premises or even reject faulty ones. Or will philosophy continue to remain the way it is ?
Article
The philosophical disagreement is summarized in the paragraph below.
But are there any successful philosophical arguments where a successful argument that p is one that would convince any perfectly rational, intelligent and neutral party that p ? I know of none. (That is, I know of none for any substantive philosophical thesis.) … If any reasonably well-known philosophical argument for a substantive conclusion had the power to convert an unbiased ideal audience to its conclusion (given that it was presented to the audience under ideal conditions), then, to a high probability, assent to the conclusion of that argument would be more widespread among philosophers than assent to any substantive philosophical thesis actually is. (van Inwagen 2006, pp. 52–3)
The author discusses 3 different reasons for the persistent disagreement among philosophers and refutes them. I have tried to summarize them.
The first was given by Russell. Philosophical problems are solved only when science finally tackles them. Philosophers handle all questions which scientists at the present moment cannot investigate or answer. The obvious objection would be that, there are many philosophical problems that will never fall under science such as ethics and further more, it still does not tell us why philosophers can't solve such problems.
The second reason provided argues that philosophical arguments rely heavily on many other fields where the direction of progress cannot be predicted and as long as the other fields make progress, philosophical ideas will be undermined. The objection to this argument is that, this feature is not specific to philosophy and many other disciplines continue to produce theories that are widely agreed upon despite reliance on other disciplines. There are certain branches of philosophy such as logic ( where there isn't a lot of dependence on hypothesis of other disciplines but there is still disagreement among logicians.
The final reason which the author represents and refutes is the idea that we may have some sort of cognitive limitation due to evolution and as such, we cannot solve philosophical problems. Our brains were not evolved for such endeavors. This thesis can be refuted. Why can human beings think mathematically and achieve undisputed results ? ( it is very difficult to distinguish the complexity of philosophical problems from mathematical ones). Where do we draw the line between cognitive closure and openness ? While monkeys cannot understand language and their minds are closed to it, we can easily entertain philosophical ideas and there is a sense of philosophical ability/talent. Further more, even if the original purpose of our brain was for survival only, how does that impede us from developing higher order thinking ? The paper presents a detailed critique, so you can check it out.
The author presents his reasons as to why there is a persistent disagreement among philosophers and l think this view is right. I noticed this too often. The author contends that the methods of philosophy are problematic.
Let’s begin with our methods. The methods we use in philosophy are both too weak and too strong. They are too weak because, even where deductive arguments are used, issues arise about the clarity or the justification of the premisses used in the arguments. No deductive argument will settle any of these issues: it simply pushes the problem back by introducing new premisses subject to the same issues. Still, the same structure is found in other disciplines. For instance, in mathematics, chains of reasoning ultimately run back to axioms, and the question of their justification eventually arises (Maddy 2011). But this takes us to a special feature of philosophy, namely that the methods used in philosophy are also too strong: the same methods used to reach a conclusion from a premiss set can be turned back and applied to those premisses and to the inferential steps used in drawing the conclusion. Debate about the conclusion is then parlayed into debate about a premiss or an inferential step. To debate means to argue, and any argument provided will be open to the same scrutiny.
It would be interesting if the reasons which the author rejected can be improved upon or the thesis presented by the author can be furthered developed. Can we devise some sort of philosophical method that will enable us to decide better premises or even reject faulty ones. Or will philosophy continue to remain the way it is ?
Comments (81)
I agree with Colin Cooper.
What he said AND...
...the fact that so few people (philosophers and people in general) are willing to simply say, "I do not know"...even if modified with, "...but my guess would be."
It is my opinion that "I do not know and cannot make a reasonable guess" would allow for a great deal of philosophical agreement...
...if only philosophical discourse were not the province of humans.
One kind of disagreement is whether "Debate about the conclusion is then parlayed into debate about a premise or an inferential step." is bug or a feature.
Maybe saying anything involving the relationships between ideas and things requires being "too strong."
Daly seems to object that the process never gets to the last word in different arguments. That expectation is itself an element in many arguments.
There ain't no easy way out.
This is true of mathematics. However, the vast and productive bulk of non-pathological mathematical results, particularly those that describe nature, do not involve critical analysis of axioms ultimately underlying them. The mathematical snowball was well on its way before substantial efforts to establish foundations occurred.
Nevertheless, by altering basic assumptions new perspectives arise, sometimes contradicting previously held notions. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smooth_infinitesimal_analysis
Once adopted by a clique of mathematicians, the game of logical development and creativity proceeds as a kind of social effort. How does this compare with philosophical arguments? You tell me.
Whether or not to trust the results of science (and why) is itself a philosophical question, and arguably something only really becomes a science when a philosophical approach to how to tackle a certain kind of problem is widely agreed upon. That is why speculative "philosophical problems" are only solved when science finally tackles them: a philosophical solution just is the giving of a way to tackle the problem in such a conclusive manner that we'd call it "science".
I disagree that ethics will never "fall under science" unless by science you mean specifically the physical sciences (as in common today); I see no reason why an approach to answering questions about morality that is just as solid as the physical sciences' approach to answering questions about reality cannot be found, and widely adopted, beginning fields of ethical sciences that can answer questions about morality as conclusively as the physical sciences can answer questions about reality.
That just shows that those ethical questions were never really philosophical questions to begin with, any more than what was effectively "speculative physics" ever was. The philosophical questions are the ones about how to answer questions about those things. A successful philosophical answer says how to answer them, and then another field takes over actually doing that answering.
No such thing.
Sure, you could find a solution - but would it be the right one? Would it set out what we ought to do? If you agree with the mooted solution, you would say yes; but if you disagree, well, off we go, disagreeing again.
There seems to me to be a profound miscomprehension in the idea that we might find the solution to ethical questions; as if they were out there, under a rock or hidden in a calculation. No, we choose ethical solutions.
And that's my answer to ; philosophers disagree because there need be no one correct answer to the questions they ask. One is not obligated to this or that solution. Instead, we make our choices.
Quoting Colin Cooper Not so much; the nature of philosophy is to choose.
Quoting Frank Apisa
:up:
But it is. Unfortunately, one cannot always say "I do not know"; one is obliged to choose. To stay home or to go out? Meat or veg? Sanders or Trump? "I don't know" will not suffice here.
The reason for this, though, is hard to say. My guess is that philosophy and its techniques developed out of sophisms developed in the courtroom, and so are designed to trade on verbal confusions. Roughly, we call questions that make use of verbal confusion that is deep enough to go unnoticed 'philosophical.' That is their hallmark. The point of philosophy is just to push these contentions around, adopting rather than examining the confusions, so that philosophy is a kind of professional metasemantic blindness. Knowledge of language in some second-order sense wouldn't allow it to survive as a discipline, as the cognitive loop would snap.
Watching philosophers talk is sort of like watching a bird with a broken wing keep flapping it, and trying to readjust, not understanding what's wrong. We as humans talk and think in such a way that we fall systematically into certain verbal dead ends and thought traps. When we are deep into them, we call ourselves philosophical.
:cool:
As do garbagemen.
Quoting Banno
The exact same can and has been said about relying on the methods of science to tell us what is real.
Yeah but garbagemen don't approach with the pretense of knowing.
The writer's concept of "brilliant," as an adjective applied to paragraphs of pseudo-intellectual claptrap says it all.
Philosophers are not intellectually qualified to understand physics, yet they believe that they can understand the universe and its various manifestations, such as human consciousness, without a passing grade in Physics 101, which most of them are incapable of attaining. Such fools are doomed to irrelevancy.
Put more simply, in hopes of engaging a few philosopher's attention-- philosophers are about as qualified to understand any aspects of the universe, themselves included, as Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in a think tank full of carrots.
GL
A bit harsh, but colorful and provocative. :cool:
Some aren’t. Others are. All should be to do their jobs correctly.
[quote=“The Codex Quarentis: The Metaphilosophy of Analytic Pragmatism;url”] I hold that the relationship of philosophy to the sciences is the same as that between administrative fields (technology and business) and the workers whose tools and jobs they administrate. Done poorly, they constantly stick their nose into matters they don't understand, and tell the workers, who know what they are doing and are trying to get work done, that they're doing it wrong and should do it some other, actually inferior, way instead, because the administration supposedly knows better and had better be listened to. But done well, they instead give those workers direction and help them organize the best way to tackle the problems at hand, then they get out of the way and let the workers get to doing work. Meanwhile, a well-conducted administration also shields the workers from those who would detract from or interfere with their work (including other, inferior administrators); and at the same time, they are still watchful and ready to be constructively critical if the workers start failing to do their jobs well. In order for administration to be done well and not poorly, it needs to be sufficiently familiar with the work being done under its supervision, but at the same time humble enough to know its place and acknowledge that the specialists under it may, and properly should, know more than it within their areas of specialty. I hold that this same relationship holds not only between administrators and workers, but between creators (engineers and entrepreneurs) and administrators, between scientists (physical or ethical) and creators, and most to the point here, between philosophers and scientists. Philosophy done well guides and facilitates sciences, protects them from the interference of philosophy done poorly, and then gets out of the way to let the sciences take over from there, to do the same for creators, they to do the same for administrators, they to do the same for all the workers of the world getting all the practical work done; whether that work be the original job of keeping our bodies alive using the original tool of our bodies themselves (i.e. medicine and agriculture), the job of making of new tools to help with that (i.e. construction and manufacturing), multiplying and distributing our power to do that (i.e. energy and transportation), or multiplying and distributing our control over that power (i.e. information and communication).[/quote]
Perhaps it may be unfair to compare philosophy with hard sciences and a comparison with economics, social science and psychology is more useful. Philosophy should be understood as some sort of art, arguments don't matter as much as analytic philosophers think they do. Philosophical truths, if they exist are a product of careerism, intellectual atmosphere. Every philosophy theory had its place in time and broadened over perspective in this regard. If you reject this idea, we will need to dig deeper, as to why philosophers disagree.
Philosophical argument run in both directions.We cannot justify our premises in philosophy as we have to start somewhere. I think every philosopher starts with a general philosophical attitude, for example logical positivists were anti metaphysical. Why certain philosophical ideas appeal to us may only have to do with how well they fit with our general attitude towards philosophy. The general attitude is mostly a product of history. If Kant was born before Hume, he could have supported empiricism.
Yet, we can find consensus in mathematics and hard science, despite human infallibility. Are philosophical questions such that we cannot help but be biased.
Good lord, l like your energy. I cannot be a philosopher unless l act like one. I am just a spectator. Carnap, Poincaré, Husserl were educated in physics and were philosophers too. The list goes on and on. You're not the first person to take a jab at philosophy. Feynman was famous for ridiculing philosophers and perhaps he was to some extent, right.
While l cannot predict how our understanding of ethics will be in the future. I want to understand why till this day we have not achieved any sort of consensus or agreement, so to speak. I think this problem in philosophy is universal and present in all branches of philosophy, we don't find any sort of agreement. Ethical questions are philosophical questions and we cannot dismiss them simply because we fail to agree to a single method. In history of philosophy, there have been instances when philosophers agreed to a certain method and a separate independent field emerged, but we cannot expect this to be true for all philosophical problems, even in the future.
I think philosophers have nothing to offer when it comes to physics or even mathematics. While no scientist can take the theory of relativity to be 100 percent accurate, doubting it's over all validity is akin to doubting whether my hands exist or not. We can devise clever arguments, like Hume's problem of induction and try to present science as only an interpretation of the world but it will not influence scientists in any way. I don't like scientism and science will always be silent when we to understand metaphysics, ethics etc but we shouldn't downplay how successful science has been in predicting the world/nature.
It is only now we're learning about topics like morality, mind and even the universe genesis; the way that psychiatry is flawed, how we base mental health on statistically common 'unhealthy' actions rather than direct association with the patient shows that we are young where philosophy of mind is due.
There are countless other examples.
You were called idiots by a fare few conspiracy theorists for a while - not to say this means much but the idea of a prolonged youth is out there.
Probably from thesises as such and their pseudo-serious nature. Stating philosophy has no gain nor merit. It's not politics, it's what a father teaches his son, metaphorically.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our philosophies,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
It is a thought process that benefits you even through all the heated debate. Having a side at all is good, unless the topic is completely stupid.
That itself is something that many philosophers disagree with. Kant thought that the single, correct answers could be determined by reason, for example.
Why can't you and Kant come to agree on which of you is right (assuming he were alive)?
For certain, at times, one must choose. "Yes" "No" or "I abstain" are all reasonable choices at times. At other times, they are not reasonable. For "Trump or Anyone else on the planet"..."I abstain" is not reasonable in my opinion.
:up:
Partially agree although I have the feeling people are first human, burdened by all the same biases as every other fellow human, and only then philosophers, purportedly liberated from said biases. This probably has no bearing on the OP's main thrust.
Quoting Wittgenstein
This is true enough. The moment something definitive, something scientifically sensible, is discovered in a philosophical issue, it tends to break off from philosophy and establish itself as a new field of knowledge. Socrates, being the paradigmatic philosopher, is testament to this view of philosophy as being essentially investigatory of the unknown rather than being a body of facts to be recorded and regurgitated on demand.
Quoting Wittgenstein
This I didn't get. I thought progress in other fields would ultimately aid in the birth of ideas/theories gestating in the philosophical womb since ages. These ideas/theories would eventually chart their own paths and find a niche in the framework of our knowledge. If this is the case, agreement would be the rule rather than the exception.
Quoting Wittgenstein
This I've wondered about. Logic isn't a language per se - it's not a mode of communication but rather consists of laws on how thinking should be conducted if truth is the objective. What we consider as language like English, Hindi, etc. are mutually unintelligible but it's possible to think logically in all languages; this I take as evidence that logic isn't a language at all but if one insists that it is then, it's a universal language and so, disagreements should be nonexistent or at a minimum.
Quoting Wittgenstein
This is a real possibility (for me) and for evidence I needn't look far - there are many on this forum who may, with little effort, comprehend topics that are way above my paygrade. Nothing precludes a similar situation being true for humanity as a whole - our reach exceeding our grasp on more occasions than we'd like.
All that said, I'm curious what your namesake, the foremost philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, would've said about all this disagreement among philosophers. Are we playing language games as they were meant to be or have we mixed up the rules of one language game with another language game?
In the context of Wittgenstein's language games, I'd like your views on the following matter:
Among controversial philosophical problems the one I'm relatively familiar with is the theism-atheism debate; one side claims god exists and the other side negates that belief. A key issue in this debate seems to be the meaning of "exists". Existence, its familiar meaning, is about physical objects - things we can perceive with our senses. Ergo, to use the word "exists" for a non-physical entity such as god is to somehow misuse it - importing, without a valid permit it seems, a concept from the language game of the physical into another language game, that of the expressly non-physical and so, quite predictably, we must end up disagreeing rather than not. :chin:
If any gods exist...they are not "supernatural." If they exist, they are as "natural" as apples.
My guess is that there are MANY things that humans cannot sense...that exist. There may be dimensions of being right here in the space we occupy that humans cannot "perceive."
We humans do tend to be sure that we are the end-all of intelligence. But we are merely what appears to be the dominant life form on a mote of a planet circling a nondescript star in a nondescript galaxy.
I’m not questioning the success of the physical sciences, but rather highlighting how they spun off from philosophy, became a success of philosophy, and so largely ceased to be a topic of philosophy, except for little quibbles and fringe viewpoints. And how it’s perfectly possible that the same could happen for ethics. Once philosophy has done its job on a topic, cleared up how to answer questions about it, it rightly stops having anything more to say about that topic, besides repeating why you ought to go do the other thing that’s now been created, e.g. philosophy’s relationship to the physical sciences is now just to attack or defend them, and only those who would attack them still attempt to do work in conflict with them, while their defenders show why not to do that.
Would you consider the interesting possibility that if "gods" exist, some of them created apples? And that they are therefore more natural than apples?
They are both natural.
Not sure of your reasoning for why one would be more natural, but...go with it if you want.
Nonsense. Philosophy is all about agreement, but the field is dominated by nitwits who know nothing about the mechanics, the physics, of the subject they are discussing. They are as likely to agree on anything as a dozen teenage girls will agree on how to build an Indy car's 650 horsepower engine, or to understand the physics behind the concepts of horsepower and the principles of thermodynamics.
Plain and simple, philosophers are not qualified to understand things. They have not developed minds capable of solving problems.
Frank,
Please accept my apologies. I did not include any reasoning-- figured it would be obvious that if "gods" created apples, we know the origin of apples, and that they are not natural. Humans created automobiles, so we can figure out that cars are not natural-- they would not have come into existence without intelligent engineering. Same as for apples.
That brings us to the more interesting question. If the gods are natural what natural process created them?
Yes, yes, yes!
The best philosophers were those who knew what they could of physics, beginning with Galileo and Descartes. The subjects are intertwined. A physicist not mindful of philosophy is doomed to be a shitty physicist. A philosopher who has not taken Physics 301 (calculus required) is likely to be an intellectual crap dispenser.
Feynman disliked philosophers because they were mostly fools, but was certainly a philosopher himself. That's what made him interesting. Consider his interpretation of the three laws of thermodynamics:
So you think things "created" by the gods...would not be natural?
Seems to me that if a thing exists in nature...it is natural.
Too broad?
I repeat...if a thing exists in nature...it is natural.
The Internet is natural...so are apples and the notion of unicorns.
Oh, that one I can handle. The correct answer to that hypothetical is: I do not know...and I doubt you or anyone else does either. Please see my response on page 1...the second response to Wittgenstein'sd OP question. It is germane to this response.
It is the nature of ordinary, low-IQ humans to argue. (Fords are better than Chevys.) Big deal. So far, philosophers are no better, no different, except for their pretensions to be better.
Frank,
You exemplify one of my complaints with philosophers. You attach yourselves to words as if they meant something in and of themselves, as you've done with "natural." That's what Bible thumpers do. Wastes my time trying to deal with such mindless people.
I prefer to work with the occasional individual who understands the concepts that words can represent.
As for you last comment, I did not find your page 1 comment any more interesting upon reread, than upon my initial read.
I do have an explanation for the origin of creators. It is natural. I've published it, but the book did not find its way into the minds of readers intelligent enough to understand it.
Okay buddy *pats*. Make sure you untwist your panties on the way out.
That's a compelling argument.
Published it or self-published it?
Cool. So Frank was discussing bullshit. Engage him, ignore anything I write. Please. I promise to extend the same favor to both of you. -GLQuoting ZzzoneiroCosm
Both. My first book, published under my real name, netted about $60K back when. The only person I met who'd read it was a prostitute in Der Hague who loved the book (I'd first presented it in novel form, behind a good story. She had read the Dutch translation.) but did not believe that the nerd with a limp dick in front of her (she was female, but without charm) could have written it. So I spent $20 and did not get laid.
You were replying to Frank before. I was just pointing out that you reply was about something different than he was talking about.
Perhaps it did...but you don't realize it did. They may have been charitable and considered it satire.
If you think YOU have an explanation of "the origin of creators" that has not found its way into "the minds of readers intelligent enough to understand it"...maybe the problem is "the explanation" rather than those intelligent minds.
That was my first thought. My current presentation is based on that assumption, so I've modified it accordingly from the previous published version. One problem is that lots of people are speed readers, and they are incapable of understanding unique concepts. Likewise, normal readers. I'll try some preliminary introductory material on this forum and see what happens. I anticipate, from previous forum experience, that any topic I try to present via OP will be sandbagged. If that happens, I'll quit.
I've had it happen to me on dozens of occasions.
Not actually a lot "new" in this world.
Try not to put the entire meal on the table at one time, Greylorn.
Pick out the single most important stand-on-its-own element**..and let a few of us hash that around.
**Even if that one element is just an overview, tiny in scope, so that we know where you want to end up.
Frank,
Thank you. Experience has shown that introducing the core ideas at the outset is worthless. But WTF, here they are: The universe, and self-awareness, arose from the inevitable collision of two absolutely simple spaces, each manifesting a single fundamental force, within a third space containing both of them.
So you know where I'm going, and I've already dumped the meal on the floor. Perhaps you'll understand why I think it advisable to work up to that concept. Perhaps, with assistance, sandbaggers can be discouraged. I'll get to work on a new OP.
And so, it doesn't reallly matter why all philosophers disagree with each other all the time, since their point or points of disagreement are hetero-determined by something that is not philosophy, science in this case.
This problem has always fascinated me. The answer, I believe, lies in the complexity of language, the complexity of the human condition, psychology of belief, causes versus reasons for belief, intelligence (ability to reason), etc, etc. I don't think there is a way to solve this in the near future, maybe in the distant future. if we gain the ability to communicate mind-to-mind, it might clear up some of the fog.
The question is what is philosophy supposed to do? I don't think philosophy should be like science since science is essentially about solving physical and practical problems.
Why would you publish a paper stating that you agree with everything Professor X said?!
That's a good way of putting it.
So, that's science in theory. But in practice, a lot of evidence is ignored by the scientific community for plenty of phenomena which would constitute science. So, actually science doesn't have this problem. Michel Foucault, Thomas Kuhn and others discuss this in their books.
Exactly. Literally no one cares about people agreeing or disagreeing with each other.
...oh.
OK, but it is more physical-evidence-based than philosophy, no? And that difference is enough to explain why philosophical disputes can and do go unresolved for millennia, whereas scientific questions get actually decided fairly regularly in the light of evidence. That's the question of the thread.
No. Physical evidence is just a abstract concept. It's not an actual thing. 'Physical evidence' is just as metaphysical as 'God' or 'soul' is.
Quoting bert1
What science are you talking about? Scientific questions are never settled, and can never be settled by definition. Science is based on the current level of human knowledge. Tomorrow that level of knowledge will change. Yesterday it changed. Thousands of years before and after, it will change. Science is never settled. Science is always evolving.
If you’re talking about Pluto, that’s really not an accurate characterization. The classification scheme (not a theory, just an arbitrary convention about how to group and name things) changed, and an object that had fallen into the category of “planet” under the old classification was now categorized as a “dwarf planet” (which is, somehow, not a kind of planet) under the new classification. Nothing about our description of the universe changed or was shown wrong, we just decided to name things differently.
NASA: ‘Disappearing Planet’ May Never Have Existed
Also, BTW, never heard of your source before and just looked them up:
Quoting Wikipedia
Regardless of their fidelity on this particular mostly-apolitical topic, your appeal to them damages your reputation in my eyes, just FYI.
I just Googled it and pasted it. I never went on that website before now.
You can find a different source. I probably read it first in a scientific paper or article. I hate Nixon, and I'm not a conservative. I think Putin is a decent leader, but I am not Russian, so it doesn't really matter.
Your reply is a fallacy btw. It's poisoning the well. Even if Satan said 1+1=2 it would still be right, whether you liked Satan or not.
In any case, I'm glad you just stumbled onto them and don't endorse them, that redeems you in my eyes.
Verily it evolves. It evolves in light of what?
I suppose because we haven't got everything figured out yet. And disagreement could be considered part of the process of dialectics.
Quoting h060tu
Maybe not absolutely 100%, no, but some questions are pretty settled aren't they? They are settled enough to base life and death decisions on, for example, that converting kinetic energy to heat in a brake will reliably slow a car. There's a whole load of contested scientific claims of course, but there's many more that aren't.
Although bizzarely flat Earthism seems to be making a comeback. So maybe I'm totally wrong.
I think science is about method, about what the Greeks called techne and philosophy is more about theory, what the Greeks call episteme. Science's success is measured on how well it does, on the basis of instrumentalism and reliabilism, not anything objective in the world.
Quoting bert1
Right. It's reliabilism. I agree. The theory works sufficiently enough to account for that problem. But that doesn't make it a fact, it makes it a hypothesis that works extremely well, but could change given time and more evidence and so on.
I don't know if it is so clear. Paul Feyerabend believed there was nothing that distinguished science from magic. Ironically, Michael Shermer agreed with him.
Quoting bert1
Well, empirical observation. I wouldn't call it physical, because I don't believe in physicality. But yes, empirical observations would be scientific.
Quoting bert1
Well, I don't agree science forces agreement and philosophy doesn't. I think institutions force agreement, and science and philosophy are both molded by the experience and knowledge of the human beings at any given level of knowledge or circumstances in history. Academic philosophy is very much "forced agreement" as much as science is. But that's because of the academy, not because philosophy as such is that way. I would say the same about science. It's the scientific institutions, wedded to the University system, publishing irrelevant studies in unknown, unaffordable and unreadable journals, corporate and government funding, or whatever that force agreement.
All that goes without saying; so we talk about, what is uncertain, what is disagreeable, what is just too complicated, and that is called philosophy.