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Philosophy doesn't bring great facts to table, it starts people thinking about facts. It's where ideas begin.
Scientists and entrepreneurs do not wax philosophical but conceive new ideas everyday.
Yes they do. The very conception of new ideas is philosophical in it's beginning. And the new ideas remain philosophical until fact proves them right or wrong. I'm interpreting 'philosophica'l as 'theoretical' but I think they mean the same thing.
Philosophy can not lay claim to any idea created by humans. Either philosophy is distinct or it does not exist as it's own discipline.
It was Parmenides, back in 450 BC who first proposed the idea that matter consists of elementary particles - he called then atoms.
Pythagoras invented geometry. There are many other examples. The second sentence of your post doesn't make sense to me, could you explain?
Isaac Newton was a philosopher too, and so was Mary Woolstonecraft who argued that mind has no sex and that, therefore, rights cannot be determined by gender.
Parmenides did not discover atoms. Only the idea that matter could be minimized to discrete units. He did not discover neutrons, protons, electrons, quarks. He did not discover elements comprised of different atomic structures.
As I mentioned above, mathematics is the partner of science.
@Chimp3
Agreed. But you could argue that the idea of atoms began with philosophy. And what about the other cases I mentioned? And my query? Do you agree that all ideas are theoretical until proven true or false by fact?
Dalton was a chemist. That is where we get the modern study of the atom.
You're dodging my questions.
I answered the first one.
Isaac Newton: What great contribution to knowledge did he submit using the philosophical method? Scientifically/ mathematically he contributed much!
Then I'll ask again. Do you agree that all ideas are theoretical until proven true or false by fact?
No! Most ideas do not rise to the standard which qualifies as theory.
Every idea is a theory - even a completely barmy one - until it's proven either true of false by fact.
Newton: Yes, but his ideas were theoretical/philosophical in the first instance.
Theories are not hunches. They must be supported by evidence and have the ability to explain and predict a wide array of phenomena. Which defines my original question. What in philosophy has explained a wide array of phenomena and predicted results of queries?
Wollenscraft: Ok! So, morality and politics are advanced by philosophical arguments. To that I submit. But, my claim about the weakness of philosophy was related to hard science.
Thank you. I agree with most of what you say but I still insist that the idea must come before the realisation, therefore, philosophy contributes as much as science does.
Do you consider every idea philosophical?
If you interpret philosophical as theoretical, yes.
Obviously I do not interpret philosophical as theoretical! The Kalam argument for instance. Not supported by fact. Does not make predictions about a wide variety of phenomena.
I'm not familiar with the Kalam argument, but I'll look it up. I'm going to bed, Chimp3, but I'm more than willing to carry on with this tomorrow if you are and if I'm not stretching your patience too much.
It will be a pleasure Keith!
Sure, but why wait? Of course it will make the philosophers cry.
It wasn't that long ago they were telling people that an apple and a ball must obey different rules because they have a different purposes (the apple was made by god/nature to be eat, the ball by man for games). That was considered a logical argument. And they ridiculed the idea of using measurement to test that idea. They would argue because human sense are fallible that it was foolish to try to gain knowledge empirically; and that it should only be gotten from pure logic. It seems like an alien idea in the modern world, but you can still occasionally see the ghost of that mindset in some modern works. I've seen it expressed on these forums a few times.
@burny
You're probably more of a philosopher than you think. Socrates idea was to try to arrive at truth through dialogue with other people, that's to say, by talking with other people and listening to their ideas - which is what you're doing. Yes, it would be good if we could get the theists to define their gods, but they aren't ever going to do that because, if they did, they would lose the argument. In the meantime, we can use our own logical method of enquiry to examine the teachings of religion to see whether or not we find them acceptable. In the end, it's up to each of us as individuals, to do that to our own satisfaction.
"For example, I can prove (as more likely true than its opposite):
- That there is no German money in my wallet.
- That there is not a one inch sized picture of the Queens head on my tea cup next to me.
- That my house is not made of oranges.
- That the prime minister of England is not a six year old girl.
- That there is no dog currently sat in my car."
1. You can't prove that German labor, materials, design or market share of sales are not "in" your wallet.
2. The visual image of the queen's head may not be on that cup but her image can be assumed there by anyone, any time.
3. Your house may certainly be made of oranges, in part at least, should one of the construction workers who built it defecated within its confines after an orange he ingested prior. But, hey, you can't prove that didn't happen.
4. The prime minister of England does indeed embody a 6-year old girl. Just ask Jean-Claude Juncker. He'll fight you all day long on that point.
6. Um, regarding the dog, how do you know that car does not have canine DNA lying in it? Can you prove it doesn't?
The above is certainly the christian meme for disassociation from reality, in this case the reality you give us, with a very typical deflection to the whims of possibility.
We can play that game for the same amount time the christians have since they lofted it into the minds of the ignorant masses.
@chimp and Keith... By the way, the sciences are subsets of philosophy. If one has a PHD in astrophysics one is said to be a Doctor of Philosophy of Astrophysics.
phi·los·o·phy
fəˈläsəfē/Submit
noun
the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.
a particular system of philosophical thought.
plural noun: philosophies
"Schopenhauer’s philosophy"
the study of the theoretical basis of a particular branch of knowledge or experience.
"the philosophy of science"
synonyms: thinking, thought, reasoning
"the philosophy of Aristotle"
And logic is a mathematical discipline. Replace the words of informal logic with variables and you get formal logic. X=1,x≠1... and you have the law of non contradiction that states that cannot be itself and it's opposite at the same time. Et cetera.
I hope this clears things up a bit.
@AU Thank you. I agree with you. I took issue with Chimp3 because he appeared to be saying that philosophy cannot, and has not, contributed anything useful to science. But, thinking about it last night, it might have been better if we had both defined our terms more clearly.
Later addition: Of course, it is also possible, from a purely philosophical standpoint, to argue that logic itself is testable because what we recognise as logic is dependent on the way the human mind perceives things. But, that proposition fails because it's basis cannot be supported by observable fact. However, it retains validity as a theory.
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