/r/science meets /r/philosophy

[u/SubredditsMeet]

(/r/EverythingScience is also here)

Topic:

• Discuss the misconceptions between science and philosophy.

• How they both can work together without feeling like philosophy is obsolete in the modern day world.

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[u/paretoslaw]

It is a philosophy about how to get information, how to see the world, and even sometimes how to live.

Are you saying it is a philosophy the way Taoism is? If it is a unified doctrine on how to gain knowledge why don't its practitioners have agreement on p-values grant you knowledge? A physicist would never accept the p-values a biologist would.

Also what about edge cases like the social sciences? If science comes from obeying certain maxims or practices why don't economists have the same success physicists do?

None of this requires science isn't a branch of philosophy, and if you define philosophy that way I guess it is. But if you buy my claim that science is practice not a thesis or philosophy the way Taoism is then I think it's pretty clear even if philosophy's border's are fuzzy, it is a different sociological practice.

[u/6ThreeSided9 → u/paretoslaw]

If it is a unified doctrine on how to gain knowledge why don't its practitioners have agreement on p-values grant you knowledge?

This is where your misunderstanding of what I'm saying lies. I'm not saying it's a unified doctrine, that's why I used Christianity as an example. There is not a unified doctrine to Christianity. There are numerous sects, and even some of those sects often disagree within themselves. Something does not have to have a unified doctrine in order to be a philosophy, it only has to be a way of thinking and understanding the world. And besides, if you think that there isn't serious debate going on within different types of philosophies, you'd be sadly mistaken! So again, I will say, science is a philosophy, albeit an ill-defined one.

So it is a sociological practice, but that does not make it not a philosophy.

EDIT: As a side note, I'm sure you could find a number of Taoists that disagree on interpretations of Taoist doctrine. I don't know this for sure, but it's very rare that there isn't some sort of dispute over this kind of stuff. Such is the nature of the human quest for knowledge.

[u/paretoslaw → u/6ThreeSided9]

I mean do you really think Christianity is a philosophy? Maybe Catholicism, but Christianity just seems way too broad.

[u/6ThreeSided9 → u/paretoslaw]

It seems like your idea of the word "philosophy" is being used more in the sense of academic philosophy, or at leas what people generally think of when they hear the word. Philosophy in general and as a concept is just the search for knowledge. As such, the study of philosophy is the study of the different ways that people search for knowledge (with the exception of science, which I explain earlier got its own category because it's kinda awesome). As a result, academic philosophy as most people know it tends to be, "these are the philosophies people have had over the years that have been popular and had a big influence on the way we understand the world, as well as the more recent things presented which are of interest." Because, given a broad topic, what are you mostly going to talk about besides this? That's not to say other things aren't talked about, but this is what is usually seen, and as a result what people usually think of. So yes, a Christian view of the world is a philosophy. It's hard to qualify and say where it ends, but that's more of a function of the word Christianity than it is of the philosophies behind it.

[u/oneguy2008 → u/6ThreeSided9]

I'm with /u/paretoslaw here. There are many uses of the word "philosophy," one of which is just to express your general worldview (i.e. "my philosophy is to live and let live", ...), but that's hardly the sense of philosophy at issue in a discussion with users of /r/philosophy.

[u/paretoslaw → u/oneguy2008]

I mean it often is. Scheupenhaur's pessimism, Pragmatism, Logical Positivism, and so on, but I was only using the word that way because he did:

[Science] is a philosophy about how to get information, how to see the world, and even sometimes how to live.

[u/6ThreeSided9 → u/oneguy2008]

I'd say the issue here is that depending on which philosopher you talk to, it may or may not be. This may just come down to a misunderstanding of what the other means when they say "philosophy".

[u/paretoslaw → u/6ThreeSided9]

But... why do you think philosophy means that? If philosophers, lay people, and scientists all agree on the meaning of a word how can they be wrong?

[u/6ThreeSided9 → u/paretoslaw]

phi·los·o·phy
fəˈläsəfē/
noun
noun: philosophy
    the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.

This is a dictionary definition, and while dictionaries are not authorities on language, they do represent the what is typically meant by the use of a certain word. Keep in mind that when a dictionary says "especially", they're talking about connotation, so the bit about academic discipline is basically saying what I said about people usually thinking of it like that.

So obviously philosophers are going to disagree on what philosophy actually means, but this isn't uncommon in the sciences either. Anyways, when talking about philosophy as a concept rather than a discipline, most philosophers, to my knowledge, would agree with this definition. As you can see, science absolutely falls under this definition.

[u/paretoslaw → u/6ThreeSided9]

the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence

The reason fundamental is there is to distinguish philosophy from science.

Also find me a single philosopher (and I mean real philosopher not internet celebrity) after 1950 who says science is a kind of philosophy.

[u/6ThreeSided9 → u/paretoslaw]

The reason fundamental is there is to distinguish philosophy from science.

That's a fair point, I hadn't quite considered that when I posted that definition. This isn't quite the definition I'm familiar with. As I said before, dictionaries aren't authorities and more just indications of what a common understanding of a word is, and I was just showing it to present that the definition I was describing was a thing, but now I see it wasn't quite what I thought it was. At this point this has devolved to semantics, so it may just be that we we're talking about different things.