> but certainly not in the sense of providing a positive result or foundation for one

I don't think philosophy strives to provide positive results. That is left to science. But philosophical ideas can help direct science, and that is a great contribution.

> post Frege philosophy

Post Frege? Even if you only value analytic philosophers, and mostly for their contributions to mathematical logic, I think you should at least acknowledge Russel, Kripke, Putnam and possibly others, if only for their immense contributions to computer science.

Let's not forget Quine.

> in it's essence philosophy is about how you approach and solve problems, and more importantly how you think about them

This. This is what helps.

> how you think any post Frege philosophy helps

If it doesn't then that explains precisely why we need more new philosophy to make the breakthrough.

Physics can never be about a specific philosophy until it works. Without a working philosophy, we're stuck, which is pretty much where we are right now. We need to keep thinking, and we are, so it's really only a matter of time.

If you really dig into what they're talking about, it presents potential avenues for "solutions" to issues from why physical laws are what they are to how consciousness and free will would be possible. It's a lot more than just angels-on-head-of-pin stuff, and goes far beyond Smolin's previous critiques of string theory.

If a philosophy is making positive statements it's an obvious sham - the best you can do with a meta logic is define the limits of what can be expressed within a logic (postive and negative as related to this world) it cannot have anything to do with producing results.

But it can. Philosophy can clear the brush between two competing paths. If we take path A, that leads to X, Y, Z, whereas if we take path B, that leads to J, K, L. Philosophy has done nothing to say whether reality is more A-like, or more B-like, but in delineating and making clear the consequences of an A-like world vs a B-like world, it has done a significant service in producing physical results. When experimentalists show an inkling of a tiny sliver of 'K', we know can collapse with logical certainty around the B-like world.

Trudging down those paths prior to experimental evidence is of very real value and is not disconnected from the physics itself.

Philosophy is not correctly defined as the generation of logic. If the philosophy you learned is defined in connection with logic then it can be term deteriorated philosophy. The proof is that if we had learned philosophy correctly we also form our own eye of wisdom to see what is in the truth but no one can verify what is true through logic alone as you cannot verify your axioms without external referents. The reason is that truths can only be verified through problems. This all means we can't see the world through thinking, but through the problems.

If anyone post-Frege can define the term philosophy correctly, then it will be helpful to physicists. If not, then not.

It's impossible for someone to teach something that they don't know, have never learned, or learned from someone who doesn't really know.

Why does a precise definition of the discipline matter? AFAIK, there is no such definition of what constitutes physics or even mathematics. Those disciplines are usually "defined" by whatever it is that the people associated with them choose to study. Physics is as physicist does; philosophy is as philosoper does.

Good question. It shows that this is the snit we've gotten ourselves into: philosophy=formal systems. Physics must be based on a formal system, therefore we must have an advancement in formal systems to help physics. There is no advancement, yadda yadda.

The "good" parts of philosophy are the mushy parts. And when you've created a formal system that's self-consistent yet offers no value, you're going to have to step outside formal systems for a while.

That's gotta be a painful leap for a lot of folks who believe that math is the ultimate reality.

I wouldn't equate philosophy with formal systems, philosophy is more about what a formal system is, what formalisms actually mean, and deciding when they are important tools for knowledge, and when they are not.

I'm a regular here and genuinely confused as to why this post was downvoted. What am I missing?