“Philosophy is dead." - Stephen Hawking

[Daemon Sophic]

I think he's going to get a visit from the Philosopher's Union.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

How does physics effect moral philosophy? Give me a scenario where someone's misunderstanding of calculus was a fatal flaw in their philosophical construct.


Well, I hope you'll excuse my confusion. I didn't take "philosophy should keep pace with science" to mean 'philosophers should stay informed on scientific topics'. Further, I think you'd find that many philosophers, at least the good ones, are aware of scientific discoveries that are relevant to their philosophical pursuits.


Given the record of prominent scientists' (Krauss, Harris, Dawkins, etc.) forays into the philosophical that can most generously be described as poor, I'm unsure that is a proper conclusion.


I just checked my undergrad university (Xavier), and they do study all of the topics you've brought up (math, science, history, and literature) with emphasis on philosophical application. What you seem to be suggesting is not having an undergrad philosophy degree at all; you simply couldn't fit in-depth history, literature, mathematics, and all pertinent hard sciences into four years along with studying, you know, philosophy.

"How does physics effect moral philosophy?"

Can we say straw-man? I never said it did, but how about cognitive science, neuroscience, sociology, anthropology and psychology. Imagine people who claim to study morality actually study humans. Golly gee you think there is a link between humans and morality?

"Further, I think you'd find that many philosophers, at least the good ones, are aware of scientific discoveries that are relevant to their philosophical pursuits."

Being aware of scientific discoveries is a far cry from being educated in a science and trained in its application. I mean that is not even close.

"Given the record of prominent scientists' (Krauss, Harris, Dawkins, etc.) forays into the philosophical that can most generously be described as poor, I'm unsure that is a proper conclusion."

There is more to science than main stream names. That is a very shallow take of science.

"just checked my undergrad university (Xavier), and they do study all of the topics you've brought up (math, science, history, and literature) with emphasis on philosophical application"

Oh please, I am clearly taking about advanced level courses, not your common core requirements.

 

[Mister Emu]

How about including physics and advanced mathematics in the course work required to get an undergraduate degree in philosophy

Can we say straw-man? I never said it did

No, you just suggested every philosophy degree seeker, regardless of area of interest, be required to take physics. Without regard to actual applicability to their studies.

but how about cognitive science, neuroscience, sociology, anthropology and psychology.

As they tangentially touch on the field, yes. Psychology is my field, and you simply don't need to be in advanced studies to have the capacity to apply a new psychological insight to a philosophical question, as rare as that would be necessary.

Imagine people who claim to study morality actually study humans.

But, they don't.

There is more to science than main stream names.

Of course, and yet when those mainstream names widely regarded as great scientists step into philosophy, they fail abjectly. Even in the OP, Hawking, a giant in physics, says that physics is killing philosophy and that a gigantic collider the size of the milky way will answer most of our questions, completely ignoring that understanding the physical/material how of existence doesn't in any way answer most of our deepest questions. And we've already agreed that physics is irrelevant to moral philosophy.

Natural scientists should stick to their preferred specialty instead of thinking that their rigorous training makes them "better prepared for the hard questions". No, they are better prepared for very specific questions in extremely specialised lines of inquiry.

Oh please, I am clearly taking about advanced level courses, not your common core requirements.

Oh please, I am talking about classes on the application of the varied disciplines upon philosophy and not core requirements.

Show me the need, show me the failure, show me anything but insubstantial rhetoric about philosophers needing advanced science.

 

[CogentPhilosopher]

Stephen Hawking tells Google 'philosophy is dead'

To be honest, even though I have a soft spot for philosophy I have to agree with him. It needs to keep pace with science if it is to remain relevant.

What do you think?

I highly disagree with his comment.

It goes to show how a man can be so brilliant in one area but be ignorant in another.

 

[doclando]

I think philosophy complements science very well. Carl Sagon demonstrates this relationship between philosophical and scientific thought beautifully and practibly as it applies to a givin subject.

Science of course is sterile by itself givin it's a practical application involving direct observation and manipulation of various elements.

Your point reminds me of some basic thoughts I had going through a basic philosophical enquiry in undergrad and deeper insights in postgrad. Actually, science is bound to a paradigm with a philosophical assumption assuming the world is given and material only. Science built on a materialist view attempts to replace all metaphysical with a short sighted deterministic epistemology. The sciences cannot have anything to do with immaterial things; it has only the material and some abstractions thereof that could be related to sense perception. Science is a magnificent structure that rose from the enlightenment to immensely benefit western civilisation. The sciences helped exorcising the middle aged religious powers and demystified the mysteries of many powerful practitioners that laid clam to 'be the only legitimate source of interpreting reality'.

Science may be sterile in itself and isolated from other disciplines, like perhaps mathematics could be in itself of no use; but how can engineers and other practical trades be done without the use of mathematics? The use and the meaning of mathematics lies in what it allows the human mind to do with manipulating nature in a mathematical way.

This is also the case with philosophy. Philosophy, as in mathematics' way to facilitate building machines and buildings, is a way of and aid in thinking. Scientific thinking, as only one way of thinking, has a materialistic assumption of reality in it's metaphysical tradition coming from the Atomist's and Plato's essentialist presupposition. To keep in this line of understanding the world, an epistemological theory of causality determine it's thinking that follows to the “Structure(s) of Scientific Revolutions” according to Thomas S Kuhn (ISBN: 0-226-45807). In its relative materialist world, the sciences in all academic disciplines working with a scientific method of research have successfully built our reality we have today. Now, more than ever, the philosophical questions should address the first principles that underly our closed material paradigm today. If philosophy denies the non-material and attempts to deny the metaphysical, it has lost its way of understanding the world through ways of thinking, and replaced the whole of philosophy with the essentialist materialistic epistemology of causality. It has been this way since Plato.

Any philosophical thought comes from the results that science uncovers and serves as a motivator and driver that science discovers, and observes through our own wonderment and awe as new discoveries uncovers the truth of things by which we clamer for more information and observation of what mystifies and astounds men and women for generations, for which the imagination itself has no limit, not unlike science in comparism by way of new discovery and the frontiers that are opened that can be embarked upon.

Following from that I said above, science is in no way suited to address any philosophical questions, because it is enclosed in a relative frame of reference of it's causal reality. Philosophy that depends on the sciences has lost its way of thinking openly; determined by the confines of causality's frame of reference.

How are your suppose to philosophize about the nature of reality if you don't know physics? And how do you expect to understand physics if you don't know math? Also understanding a mathematical science definitely helps with reasoning skills, problem solving, and logical think further more a decent understanding of math is need to properly comprehend a fair amount of scientific research.

Especially if things border on the physical like fermions with its quarks and leptons, with the bosons and the recently discovered Higgs boson among dozens of other bosons. Despite the discomfort of the scientific paradigm when it encounters the verge of the physical into the metaphysical of quantum probabilities and the Unscharferelation described by Heisenberg in 'The parts and the whole' (ISBN: 3492222978) as well as 'Physcs and Philosophy' (ISBN: 3777610240), physics can get quite metaphysical when reading these books by the creator of the first quantum physics.

Because of work by Heisenberg, Einstein, Bohr, the Copenhagen interpretation and many other theoretical physicist's propositions, I understand philosophy as more basic than the sciences. It helps a lot to understand the assumptions of the scientific paradigm by studying all the scientific method based disciplines, but it is not per se helpful for philosophic enquiry. Logical thinking, the philosophical theories and schools of thought are all different ways to think about what we experience as the world; they are all elements of epistemologies, some of which has realised its metaphysical assumptions in it's first premisses about what is, while some do not even realise it has a fundamental metaphysical presupposition that determines it's kind of epistemology.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Stephen Hawking tells Google 'philosophy is dead'

To be honest, even though I have a soft spot for philosophy I have to agree with him. It needs to keep pace with science if it is to remain relevant.

What do you think?

I personally think that the only thing that is really "wrong" about philosophy is the persistent question, "why?" It presupposes that there is some sort of plan, some purpose, some teleology about what is. And if that is not the case, the philosophy that supposes that there is can never find an answer.

In my view, philosophy needs to spend more time on "how" than on "why." Rather than "why are we here," we might do better to ask, "since we're here, how might we do well?" Rather than ask "what is my purpose," we might try, "how do I know what I should do?"

I think that's what "natural philosophy" (which eventually turns into science) did. It turned the "why" into "how?" And as a result, it is much more powerful now.

Hawking is, I think, quite correct.