Re:Why Did a Billionaire Give $75M to a Philosophy Department?
by dcow on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @12:53PM
(#16275833)
I mentioned this below, but it's even more relevant here: one of the most interesting things I learned in college is that physics departments used to be called natural philosophy. If you're interested in the cyclic nature of philosophy and dogma and the tension between them, check out Kuhn. He invented the term "paradigm shift". And as you allude to, he argues that "true progress" is impossible without a breakdown and reimagining of the prevailing belief system, the social rut, that has captured people's immediate attention.
Re:Why Did a Billionaire Give $75M to a Philosophy Department?
by Tomte on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @01:31PM
(#16276218)
All the sciences gradually split off from philosophy: physics, biology, chemistry, sociology, psychology, ..., even theology.
Whenever a subfield of philosophy got to the point that it had sufficiently many interesting theories to occupy several people fulltime, it got its own name (for practical reasons) and, after some time, was considered to be its own.
Re:Why Did a Billionaire Give $75M to a Philosophy Department?
by nerfhammer on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @01:23PM
(#16276124)
"natural philosopher" = "scientist" before we had a separate term for it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ0uPkG-pr4
A few notes from the above:
* the beginning of astronomy == plato's school
* the scientific method as falsification == Popper
* quantum theory / relativity / Heisenberg == positivism (If I don't see it (e.g. electron orbitals) it doesn't exist) (* e.g. complementarity)
* Einstein claimed that his reading of Schopenhauer was crucial to thinking about time, space, etc...
in essence, you are doing philosophy when you're re-evaluating your methodology and using a evolving reflective feedback loops to change your thinking.
This is to say that advances in science are often preceded or co-created by a period of philosophy, which it becomes possible express the new scientific ideas, at which point, the philosophy recedes into the background (e.g. no longer is seen an 'philosophy') because it has already been 'accepted'.
If you consider at the the fundamental problems involving physics these days, there is much philosophical activity there as well, but we don't know yet what will come out of it because it hasn't been 'solved' yet, compared to previous big jumps in scientific understanding.