What has philosophy ever done for us?

GuanYin

Great to see a philosophy forum

A few threads on boards have previously denounced the general contribution of philosophy to humanities progress.

Personally I think that philosophy paved the way for the age of science and technology that we now live in. Many of the great scientists that we know considered themselves great philosophers.

The foundation of science was the cornerstone of philsophical contribution but what can philosphy offer now that science has come to the forefront.

Personally I think it is ethics and bioethics in particular that are the hot areas.
Too many scientists are advancing their fields without giving much thought to what the consequences will be.

flogen

yes, would agree with you regarding ethics in science... there is great discussion to be had in what is too much... and where the line between being humans and being budding gods gets blurred.

other than such science based debates, i suppose there is general moral debates to be had, the usual oldies (religion, destiny, etc).... also what our modern lives is doing to ourselves.... what will the results of such a hi-tek and reality tv hungry world do to our souls and personalities (social skills.... is e-mail and text destroying the telephone and therefore just another nail in the coffin of conversation?)

Flogen

Kappar

I would also agree that ethics is a very important area to study even more so because of the time we live in where science has created a world which was never seen before. We can could grow a child to take organs and give to others we could change the colour of a child's skin etc. If we have created this world we must grasp the ethics of it.

TheSonOfBattles

Originally posted by flogen
and where the line between being humans and being budding gods gets blurred.

Its interesting to think that since humans are basically complex, biological machines its entirely possible that we are just the product of another races science, and that said race are our "God". Playing God isn't as bad as its made out to be, after all making machines with an AI is creating life, whether or not we choose to grant rights to said life, and where the line between machine and lifeform is drawn is the most interesting part for me in this particular discussion though.

Sarky

But a picture of an aborted sub-routine doesn't win as many votes as a foetus, does it?

Philosophy and science are closer than people like to think. Science is a philosophy. Ideas about how the the universe works, cause and effect, and concieving really odd (at the time)ideas. Archimedes, whatever you like to think, was NOT a scientist, yet some of his ideas are the cornerstones of basic physics. Interesting side-note: Newton tried his hand at alchemy after writing down those wonderful laws of motion.

Executive Steve

philosophy is the wellspring of science as it is the basis for the idea of rational scientific method. [descartes] it is impossible to overstate the importance of and influence of philosophy. the philosopher contemplates problems that eventuallyy scientists get round to dealing with at which point scientists take over and they become science. [ i reckon epistomology is next btw.]

nuclear science has been with us ever since heraclitus postulated the existence of the atom in ancient greece.

now think what contemporary philosphers thoughts will influence the world in two thousand years.

Capt'n Midnight

It's a matter of trust. If you believe others then you don't need to think for yourself. FF allegedly did research into this in the 60's and figured out that only 10% of the electrate thought and they could ignore them and concentrate on the other 90% /eVotingRant

There are many systems which try to explain the experiances our senses seem to convey to what we classify as our brain. Two of these are science and philosophy. They differ from a lot of other systems in that you are not supposed to believe what anyone else says but instead be able to follow their arguments which must be based on facts which you can deduce from first principles in the same way they did. There are a lot of things that science and philosophy can't explain about each other (or other things) but there is a large overlap. In both cases ANYONE regardless of race, creed, social status etc. can point out inconsistincies or contradictions in well held view points and if these are valid then the assumptions or conclusions may need to be changed.

Philosophy is a system that gets us to ask who we are as a species - it would be interesting to see how ET's would regard our philosophical assumptions

ferdi

Originally posted by Sarky


Philosophy and science are closer than people like to think. Science is a philosophy. Ideas about how the the universe works, cause and effect, and concieving really odd (at the time)ideas.

agreed. however, philosophers seem to me more open minded , science seems is closer to a religion in some ways - there are some things that are just fact in the eyes of a scientist, no argument. philosophy is all about argument where as i find that alot of scientific type people take a very upperhanded position ie: the world is like this - these are my scientific laws and principles - they are right - end of discussion.