| Is philosophy an art or a science, and what is its importance?
Posted: 4/14/2008 12:46:38 PM |
Humans just don't seem to have figured out that they are team-players in an organism which is much more vast than most can even imagine.
The Gaia Hypothesis is a fascinating subject to explore. It could be argued that we are at a tipping point where human beings are starting to recognize that we are part of a larger organism where it is either to be respected or dominated. Aboriginal peoples have respected the larger organism for eons. Western culture is only beginning to realize our place in the world. Whether it is too late or not can only be answered by time. | |
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| Is philosophy an art or a science, and what is its importance?
Posted: 4/19/2008 9:38:11 PM | Well is mathematics an art or a science?
Philosophy is not based entirely on opinion. As in science, there are hypotheses - I don't believe we have found any scientific ways of testing a lot of these yet, but maybe one day we will.
There are different aspects to philosophy, like logic, which have a very scientific basis.
We examine a premise, looking for holes in someone's reasoning in the same way that science does.
The important thing about true philosophy (not your common pub 'philosophy'!), is that it gets us thinking rationally. Rational thought is a very good foundation for science, and it is a good foundation for our everyday lives.
It encourages us to research or examine an idea fully before we make up our minds about something. I think that can only be a good thing!
And...to those who believe that philosophy is an 'arty farty' and useless practice, I have a very valid point to make...
Hope that cleared things up  | |
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Posted: 4/22/2008 7:16:13 PM | There is an old Buddhist saying that goes, "If you should meet your Guru, kill him."
Oh this is great! Very funny
With respect to philosophy, there are no absolute truths. Additionally, the core of philosophy is ethics and wisdom. Underpinning those words is respect.
Which happens to be the “crux of the biscuit” (F. Zappa, circa 1970’s) with regard to some of the discourse on these forums, especially with some puffed up posters. Meaning that there is a deplorable lack of respect for those that aren’t as well read and rubbing ones face in it only breeds contempt.
Patience - meaning, "to know" in all it's aspects and incarnations.
You seem to be the kind of person who loves philosophy and wants to share it. That is the kind of wisdom that attracts a person like myself.
In all respect, don’t confuse wisdom with intelligence. Wisdom is gained through the experiential application of knowledge. Intelligence is knowledge unexperienced. Intelligence can be bandied about from any book. In this application I believe the latter is the wiser assumption.
I think differing philosophical points of view as branches of a tree, each competing for its share of the light. It is the leaves at the top of the tree whose ego says, "it is us that provide for the life of this tree." They have forgotten the roots and the branches who now sit in the shade.
Well said | |
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Posted: 4/23/2008 6:20:52 AM | Quoting Silivros:
"In all respect, don’t confuse wisdom with intelligence. Wisdom is gained through the experiential application of knowledge. Intelligence is knowledge unexperienced. Intelligence can be bandied about from any book. In this application I believe the latter is the wiser assumption. "
I would have thought that most books worth reading involve more wisdom than mere intelligence. Not everyone with a high IQ ever becomes wise or writes a meaningful book. Mind you it's not always about experience either. Lots of people live for a very long time and yet for all their experience they have not wisdom. Nietzsche's life experience, for most of us, would have seemed stunted and yet he was wiser than any of us. One could say the same of Kant. The mere act of expending days on Earth and becoming older is not what makes one wise, nor necessarily does the life one has lived. Wisdom is measured not in quantity of years but in QUALITY of thought, and that is not something to be measured temporally. If it was, to be old would mean to be wise and to be less old would be to be less wise.
Also I'm not sure how intelligence can be "bandied about" from a book. After all, reading about how fast Jesse Owens could run cannot make me run as fast, reading about someone won't make me "intelligent" either. But I might learn something from them and become a bit "wiser".
As for what you mean by knowledge, that's not quite clear. Are there different kinds of knowledge? Does one HAVE to have experienced something to know it. How could we ever experience some of the things we claim to know? There are a lot of mathematical, logical, historical, scientific etc things we know to be true that we cannot "experience"! | |
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Posted: 4/25/2008 10:52:52 PM | "Experience is the Child of Thought, and Thought is the Child of Action. We cannot learn men from books" ~ B. Disraeli, British PM 1861-1868
Not that I put much emphasis on politicions, but the quote fits.
Do you read what you write?
"That's about as close to QED I think I can get in a rhetorical exchange my friend. You make my points for me..."
I read that somewhere, and it applies...
Thank you. | |
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Posted: 4/26/2008 4:55:20 AM | | The difference between us is I keep trying to respond to whatever points you make and you spend all your time attacking me. Again and again, forum after forum, you come snarling with snide remarks about either my job or others that are academics. If you want to argue a point, by all means, proceed. But if you simply want to attack me, then, well it's a bit boring and its VERY childish. | |
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Posted: 4/26/2008 4:57:42 AM | | I mean, I answered all of your queries just above and yet you don't once try to respond or dialogue with any of the answers I gave you. Instead you try and play to some imagined gallery and make some impossibly juvenile attempt to level a badly constructed insult. | |
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Posted: 4/26/2008 11:48:46 AM | | Someone has too much mind on their hands. | |
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Posted: 4/27/2008 9:23:36 AM |
I mean, I answered all of your queries just above and yet you don't once try to respond or dialogue with any of the answers I gave you. Instead you try and play to some imagined gallery and make some impossibly juvenile attempt to level a badly constructed insult.
Kirk, I have read your polemic invective on this thread numerous times. It surprises and disappoints me that a person of your academic standing would resort to the kind of dialog that you employ in attempts to get your points across. You can quote the finer points of history's greatest philosophers with great eloquence yet are unable to pass on their wisdom. The wisdom is in how you assess the people that you are trying to communicate with. To quote Israel Scheffler, "the manner of teaching should respect the student’s intellectual integrity and capacity for independent judgment." | |
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Posted: 4/27/2008 11:51:16 AM | | Like I keep saying...can we stick to ideas and points here...and a little less about me????? | |
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Posted: 4/27/2008 12:04:48 PM | | I'm really tired of reading about me...I'm a rather uninteresting person...but I am genuinely interested in some of these questions...I'm not trying to teach or instruct...just trying to figure things out... but thanks for yet another character assassination! | |
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Posted: 4/27/2008 7:35:04 PM | this is too funny.
who is respecting whom and why? | |
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Posted: 4/28/2008 7:50:07 AM | | I also find it slightly amusing that I am the one constantly fielding insults and ad hominem attacks and yet I am still supposedly narrow-minded, polemical, disrespectful...I haven't made any personal comments to the best of my knowledge. I have disagreed with people but never insulted anyone or made remarks about what they do for a living...I just wonder who's being disrespectful??? | |
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Posted: 4/28/2008 8:05:21 AM |
I'm really tired of reading about me...I'm a rather uninteresting person...but I am genuinely interested in some of these questions...I'm not trying to teach or instruct...just trying to figure things out... but thanks for yet another character assassination!
Don't take it so personally. You are also far from uninteresting and I believe that I could learn a great deal from you . The point I am trying to make, albeit poorly, is the teacher/student relationship is not limited to the classroom. In simple conversation, the teacher/student role exists when trying to get an idea across. The moment invective seeps into a conversation, the topic becomes more emotional than intellectual. I think this is the crux of Scheffler's philosophy. | |
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Posted: 4/28/2008 9:19:14 AM | When I am insulted publicly, then how am I supposed to take it? I have not made a personal attack on anyone. I openly contest views, arguments and points of view, but that's not invective.
Furthermore, since when am I required to take on the mantle of teacher to anyone here extrovertthinker? That would be presumptous in the extreme. I try to be civil and never try to insult anyone and do not take offence if anyone disagrees with my points. But I don't see why the constant slurs against my character are warranted or necessary. | |
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| Is philosophy an art or a science, and what is its importance?
Posted: 4/29/2008 5:07:21 AM | | I have. It's been thrown at me a couple of times. It was supposed to be a funny response to a question that someone asked quite ironically. It was supposed to be a joke but obviously it's out of context and can be construed badly...I think you'll find that there's no slurs or insults against anyone in particular. The comment is just a joke remark that came out wrong... | |
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Posted: 4/30/2008 6:14:40 AM | You sound like an interesting person.
and that you have studied quite a bit of psychology.
that's all for n ow | |
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| Is philosophy an art or a science, and what is its importance?
Posted: 7/11/2008 4:20:03 AM | First, a disclaimer...I haven't read this entire thread, so I may be repeating something someone else has already said.
I think the original question makes some pretty big presuppositions. Why would we assume there's a dichotomy between art and science in the first place? There's a question for the philosophers to ponder before we even ask the question. I know that, as humans, we need to classify the world and divide it into parts in order to make meaning of our experience. But maybe we give too much credence to our classifications and divisions. Maybe all the really cool thinkers lean more toward one-ness and wholeness, seeing the classifications as a matter of convenience, rather than 'the way things really are'.
(What a fabulous discovery...and to think I've been trying to find dates here! This is way more fun.) | |
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| Is philosophy an art or a science, and what is its importance?
Posted: 7/13/2008 10:52:22 PM | Philosophy is a love of knowledge.
It is neither an art nor a science.
Its questions cannot be justified purely by scientific methods or by judging them for their beauty.
It is a creative endeavour like arts and sciences, it involves logic like the sciences.
There can be a philosophy of arts and a philosophy of sciences. There can also be a philsophy of love, of knowledge, and of love of knowledge.
Philosophy is the most beautiful, yet most useless endeavour of humans; it is the most interesting one, yet the least physically thrilling one; it's all mental, and it's all in vain, it's all a much-ado-about-nothing yet it means the whole world to me. Without philsophy life would not be worth living for me.
Someone very smart person said it's not answers we need for questions in philosphy; what we really need is a cure for philosophy.
I agree. Like the love of a woman, the love of knowledge is the purest, most innocent, yet most beautiful passion.
Some philosophers drink wine, since "in vino, veritas". I find caffeine goes well with introspection and extraspection. And music. | |
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| Philosophy IS Science. Science IS Philosophy. Art IS Science, Science IS Art.
Posted: 7/14/2008 12:42:02 AM | I see little difference nor conflict between being a scientist or a philosopher. Many great philosophers in history would just as easily be termed scientists today because of their contributions to both fields. Aristotle, Da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Descartes, Stephen Hawking, Einstein, just to name a few.
Before the term "scientist" there was the equivalent term "natural philosopher".
I see artists as scientists of a different sort. They do experiments, they attempt to explain the world around them, they give insights into their own mind. The question seems to me to be more about semantics and context.
Another implication of this understanding is that ANYONE can "do" science, just like anyone can "do" philosophy, and anyone can "do" art. It's all part of being human. | |
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| Philosophy IS Science. Science IS Philosophy. Art IS Science, Science IS Art.
Posted: 7/23/2008 4:39:17 PM | Many great philosophers in history would just as easily be termed scientists today because of their contributions to both fields. Aristotle, Da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Descartes, Stephen Hawking, Einstein, just to name a few.
What you said here is a true statement, but to conclude from it that there is neither a difference nor conflict between being a scientist or a philosopher is not the right conclusion I beg to affirm.
The people you named were on one hand scientists, on the other, philosophers. They contributed both to science and to philosophy. But not to both at the same time and in the same respect. They very often relied to scoop from the ideas of one of their fields to build something on in their other field, but no statement ever was both a scientific statement and a philosophical statement at the same time, roughly since Socrates.
And for the conflict aspect: Many philosphies exist about art and ethics that are outside of any scientific scope, and most if not all religious philosophies are in stark contradiction to science. (Unless you ask a fundamentalist believer, be that person of any faith.) | |
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| Philosophy IS Science. Science IS Philosophy. Art IS Science, Science IS Art.
Posted: 7/23/2008 6:24:44 PM | There are a few interesting definitions of science on http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/1122sciencedefns.html. Several by Nobel laureats. I suspect most great scientists are very confused about what exactly science is. And they probably don't really care either. All they are interested in is knowing more and they are probably quite happy to let those who are more knowledgeable about science figure out exactly what it is.
Where does epistemology fit with philosophy, art and science.
Is the understanding of visual depth perception art or science? Artists seem to have understood it well before science. To this day, I don't think science textbooks discuss all of the visual cues for depth perception that have been known to artists for centuries. Why isn't it science? | |
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