Frequently when philosophers solve a particular problem, it moves out of the realm of pure philosophy and into more "practical" fields, such as mathematics, the natural sciences, justice, or politics.

Do you have some examples of "solved" philosophical problems moving into natural sciences or mathematics? That sounds quite interesting.

Xeno's paradox is a simple one. It's solved by the physics law x(t)=vt (assuming no acceleration) and the application of a geometric series.

Statistical decision theory also supercedes many philosophical problems.

A number of lesswrong articles, typically addressing the nature of categories and how to reason based on them, also move into this territory and browsing lesswrong is probably worthwhile if you are interested.

>A number of lesswrong articles, typically addressing the nature of categories and how to reason based on them, also move into this territory and browsing lesswrong is probably worthwhile if you are interested.

To summarize, for those who don't want to archive-dive LW:

Analytic philosophy has traditionally held that concepts/categories are logical: defined by a conjunction or disjunction of predicates in a formal language. Or at least, it holds that they ought to be once we stop being silly and think clearly.

Most everything we've ever learned in machine-learning and cognitive science instead tell us that concepts/categories are statistical, and that formal logic is therefore not only a brittle framework for real-world reasoning but thoroughly incapable of describing where its own constituent objects come from in the mind.

Does X lead to Y?

Statistics today can answer the question of causality in many cases, especially the controlled studies, and that use to be the domain of philosophy.

were statistics and controlled studies discovered in the domain of philosophy? Or were those discovered by mathemeticians, which simply replaced philosophy.

This is a false dichotomy. Frege was a mathematician and wrote philosophy attempting to explain what a number was. Questions about which domain this effort ought to be bucketed in don't have an answer.

In addition to the math and statistics described by others here, a better understanding of biology has helped solve some problems in ethics. For example the beginning and end of personhood; the beginning is not before the fusing of gametes, and as the brain is the seat of consciousness, someone's "soul" does not lie in their heart or liver, loss of brain function is therefore the end of personhood.

Don't underestimate philosophy's power to change the world. Marx's critique of capitalism had a dramatic effect, for example.

I suppose Marx is a good example of why philosophy can be more useful than it looks. Much as in AI, whenever a philosopher ends up making an important contribution it starts a new type of academic research (political economy in Marx's case) and is no longer considered to be philosophy.

Marx is a good example of why philosophy can be very dangerous. Marx's ideas have literally caused the deaths of millions in Soviet Russia, Communist China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cambodia, Cuba, and probably others. Besides keeping people desperately impoverished in places like Venezuela.

I'm not saying we sholdn't do philosophy because it can be dangerous. Philosophy can also be very good. In fact, we need the good ideas to prove the bad ideas wrong. I am a big fan of philosophy.

But not at the point of a gun (i.e., not on the taxpayer's dime). Philosophers used to be self-funded or funded by patrons. As an aside, since philosophers have become primarily funded by governments and guns, we have a 10,000 fold increase in the number of philosophers, and no increase in the quality of output.

If Marx's theories are philosophical and dangerous, then any refutation of Marx's theories is also philosophical and valuable. The only question then is whether we should try and find people who study those questions and how we should study them.

I'm uncomfortable attributing Marx to philosophy entirely...like many historical figures it seems like he's only a partial fit. Just pointing out where your reasons leads.

Have you read Marx?

What does that have to do with the impact of Marx's philosophy?

He wants to defend Marx but there is no defense, so he does something to attack me instead. It's a classic disinformation tactic.

I don't know that for certain, maybe he's just actually curious, that's why I just answered his question instead of saying this to him.

I think Marx's criticism of capitalism is valid in many ways; but more importantly, I don't think you can blame Stalin on Marx.

Many people think of communism when they hear the word "Marx". Few have read his arguments.

Of course, someone who quotes Objectivism in their profile is not in a strong position to talk about philosophy ;)

Blame Stalin on the myth of 'centralized planning' or whatever Marx dreamed up about more advanced forms of government. It was a pipe dream, because government is made up of people. And selfish, brutal sociopaths keep bubbling up into government. So the more control govt has, the more Stalin's we'll see.

I'm fairly certain capitalism in its current form isn't sustainable (cf Piketty), and I don't think government is intrinsically sociopathic.

The open question is if government with checks and balances is stable in the long term, or if it will fall apart and have one branch take over. Time will tell.

Piketty's arguments are cherry-picked. No, I haven't read the book, and no, I'm not going to take the time to look up sources for you.

First, I am in a strong position to talk about philosophy.

Second, Marx made Stalin possible by setting up the necessary intellectual framework of class struggle, capitalism as oppressive, dialectical materialism (denial of reason and free will), etc.

Yes.

Kant's, Hegel's and Nietszche's too

Aristotle gave us logic, which is the basis for rational inquiry in all fields. Also an important contribution.

Because people couldn't think before Aristotle? Formalizing something is very different than 'giving it to humanity'.

Gravity exerted force before Newton formalized its effect. I think Newton's contribution was still valuable.

Right, but we didn't pretend like there wasn't something that brought you back down when you jumped until newton's work.

In Asia, the key ideas of Confucius, Mencius, Laotzu, Zhuangzi and the like are still alive at the hearts of many.

I totally agree. We should remember pretty much every major academic field we are studying has its root in philosophy. It is true philosophy seems barely standing on its own nowadays as it has branched out to many different fields over the past centuries. Standing on the shoulders' of giants? The biggest giant we have seen so far is philosophy.

Much as Marx, whose contributions are controversial, the work of Peter Singer has also (to a lesser extent) changed the world.

I feel like a lot of outsiders see people like Zizek, and get the impression that philosophy today has a lot do with language and psychoanalysis. I'm not exactly sure what the insights are, but it at least feels like a very different brand than Socrates badgering people about what is justice.

Zizek is to Nietzsche as Dan Brown is to Shakespeare.

I'm not sure I would pick Nietzsche for the gold standard of philosophy. I've always had it that Plato, Kant, and Hegel were the big 3 (in terms of systematic ontologies).

Also, Dan Brown sells like crazy and is easy to read. Zizek, no one can read, and no one actually buys his books AFAIK. But at the level of 'sensationalism' perhaps I could see that.

This is a worthwhile point. People have a misconception about what philosophy is because pop 'philosophy' like Zizek is more about generating controversy than useful inquiry.

It's like someone who has only ever seen click bait dismissing journalism as pointless.

Socrates is analytic -- well, proto-analytic. Zizek is Continental.

I think that dichotomy is just a construct of the Anglo sphere, isn't it? I don't think philosophers outside the US and Britain ever referred to themselves as 'continental.'

Even so Analytic Philosophy was just a reaction against British Hegelians in the later 19th century, starting with Bertrand Russell. Those distinctions get thrown around way too crudely.

I get what you're trying to say but "analytic philosophy" was a pretty specific movement, and calling Socrates pronto-analytic is just confusing.