Mentioning Phil phD's

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Frogger
NYE: "a rose by any other name"

Physicists, mathematicians and modern philosophers all have their roots in the ancient study of "philosophy". But a man like Newton was a physicist and a mathematician first and foremost. His study of the subjects which are today considered part of philosophy was tangential and fairly useless.

To say that philosophers of today have their existence justified by the work of a man who studied subjects which they are not competent in is to fall into the traps of a changing language...

You are well and truely mired in your own trap, Frogger. You are assuming that your view of the language is the only one to be applied to all cases through the ages.

The fact remains, as you have admitted, that from philosophy has come other useful disciplines. Why do you assume that this will not happen again in the future?

Oh, and there are some who know a great deal more about Newton and his times than you or I who would dispute that the other interests of Newton were of no consequence. Here is one that will amuse you.

http://www.semcoop.com/detail/073820143X

[KrazyHorse]

What I'm saying is that when we use the word "philosophy" we should attempt to remain clear what sense we mean it in.

To reject "philosophy" (as used up to 1900) as useless is ridiculous, and gets rid of every physicist ever to live.

Rejecting "philosophy" (as used today) cannot be countered by the same argument. And when we use the word philosophy without quotations, it may just be me, but I assume we're using the modern meaning.

If philosophers of today want to justify their existence by recalling Newton then they'll have to train themselves as physicists, which they do not.

Oh, and there are some who know a great deal more about Newton and his times than you or I who would dispute that the other interests of Newton were of no consequence. Here is one that will amuse you.

Come, now. I can find a book written by someone that will put forward almost any hypothesis you care to name. The fact is that there's no obvious connection between his theological and alchemical work and his work on physics and mathematics...

[Asher]

Just curious, do the philosophers here consider Charles Babbage to be a philosopher?

[notyoueither]

No matter how you wish to split the term, fields of study which are not today within the discipline of philosophy were at one point part of that discipline.

What we consider to be philosophy today is irrelevant. Just as what people in the future will consider to be philosophy in their time, if the philosophers of today are working on something equally important, perhaps in the field of sentience and cognitve ability. It will be the discipline of philosophy today that is doing the service, along with others. Not the field which is yet to exist.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Asher
Just curious, do the philosophers here consider Charles Babbage to be a philosopher?

He certainly was not a computer scientist.

[KrazyHorse]

NYE, you're continuing to miss the point.

Just because "philosophy" kept the ancient term while physics and math went looking for their own terms does not mean that today's philosophers get to claim the achievements of other disciplines.

EDIT: by the way, I have no problem with philosophy as a subject in university. It's a damn sight better than a lot of other disciplines that have their own degrees...

[Asher]

Originally posted by notyoueither
He certainly was not a computer scientist.

How could he be a computer scientist when he was around well before the field of computer science existed?

He was a mathematician, he just happened to draw up the plans for the world's first digital computer well before they were possible in the early 1800s.

If we are even more anal with our definitions, computer scientists are mathematicians as well, rather than scientists.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Frogger
NYE, you're continuing to miss the point.

Just because "philosophy" kept the ancient term while physics and math went looking for their own terms does not mean that today's philosophers get to claim the achievements of other disciplines.

EDIT: by the way, I have no problem with philosophy as a subject in university. It's a damn sight better than a lot of other disciplines that have their own degrees...

I get your point, but you're missing mine in the context of this thread.

How about the terms Newton himself used? It would be useful to remember that in his time it was common for educated people to be familiar with all important areas of knowledge. He himself uses terms such as I have in this treatise cultivated mathematics so far as it regards philosophy by which he meant that he as applying mathematics to a field of study conventionally within the purview of philosophy, that being the nature of the universe.

There was no seperate discipline then. Science as such did not exist. It was all bound up with religious and philosophical views to that point. Newton was, as far as he himself explains, engaging in philosophy. So yes, philosophy gets to claim some acheivements when there was no field of physics existant to claim them.

So, in the context of this thread, philosophy was very useful. I would expect it to continue being useful as a field of study in the future, which I am sure you will not argue, but others may.

[Asher]

The context of this thread never was about philosophy being useful in the past, although several attempts by several people have tried to turn it that way since it's much easier to prove that.

[notyoueither]

Well, Asher. It seems to me that you have ignored any citation of it being useful in the present, or possibility of it being useful in the future.

It is perhaps good that the governments who fund higher institutions are dominated by people who have experienced the humanities.

[KrazyHorse]

Why do you consider physics not to have existed at that point? Why is it that philosophy and science being all mixed up means that philosophy was the only one to exist?

And what happened is that the most useful, practical parts of philosophy which were actually getting somewhere picked themselves up and left. Philosophy's got no more claim to the whole than science does. And I don't see any scientists claiming that Moore's Utopia was actually a scientific treatise...because it wasn't and we've got better things to boast about.

[KrazyHorse]

It is perhaps good that the governments who fund higher institutions are dominated by people who have experienced the humanities

Hah. Politics is dominated by lawyers, and maybe things would be a lot better if it wasn't.

[Asher]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Well, Asher. It seems to me that you have ignored any citation of it being useful in the present, or possibility of it being useful in the future.

Can you please repeat those citations? I can't remember any serious ones.

I remember being told that it's "useful in educating people", or it's "helpful for the humanities", or something else incrediby vague...

It is perhaps good that the governments who fund higher institutions are dominated by people who have experienced the humanities.

That would explain why 60% of all Federal funding goes to Humanities and Social Science research, with only 30% going to the Science council...

Pretty misguided if you ask me.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Frogger

It is perhaps good that the governments who fund higher institutions are dominated by people who have experienced the humanities

Hah. Politics is dominated by lawyers, and maybe things would be a lot better if it wasn't.

What do you think lawyers study before law school? At least in the Americas.

[Asher]

Originally posted by notyoueither
What do you think lawyers study before law school? At least in the Americas.

I thought it was obvious from his statement that he knows lawyers study SS/humanities before law, that's why he was saying it might be better if they didn't dominate politics.