Latest in verbal tilt creationism. https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2018/07/22/natural-selection-is-not-an-explanatory-mechanism/ …pic.twitter.com/yFpLwWgvGS
Exactly. But why spend time figuring out where the verbal trick is when one can move on to moving science forward? Opportunity cost. Sesardic was correct he he noted that some of the most important work of philosophers is defending science against other philosophers...pic.twitter.com/8BdsAFY2C0
-
-
The analogy to the ontological argument seems apt. One can construct elaborate modal ontological arguments which are hard to understand and look fancy, but ultimately the simple perfect island type replies are perfectly reasonable. One doesn't need to learn modal logic.
-
For those wondering about the specific example of modal ontological argument, see here. http://analyticabstraction.blogspot.com/2007/11/philosophy-of-religion-2-natural_14.html …
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
Philosophical ideas, including those of Fodor, played an important role in the cognitive revolution and the development of evolutionary psychology. Sometimes philosophy can make a positive contribution to science.
-
Being useful *for scientists* isn't the only way of being useful. The proof of Fermat's last theorem doesn't help solve scientific problems—it's just a feat of logic that's valuable by the standards of mathematics.
-
I think Fodor's argument was dumb and only got attention b/c he was famous—not going to defend this ex of philosophy. But being clear about the logic of scientific theories is a kind of knowledge valuable in itself, that may be only indirectly useful for practicing scientists.
-
There's no "opportunity cost," b/c working scientists can ignore most of this stuff, just like they ignore pure mathematics, while philosophers specialize in these issues. Though sometimes conceptual insights from math or philosophy do have unanticipated relevance for science.
-
I used to argue this view but now I'm pretty skeptical even about it. What's some cases where philosophers made philosophical input that turned out to be very useful to science? How often does this happen considering the sheer amount of talent in phil depts? Seems like huge waste
-
Re. talent. Philosophers are quite smart, and so their talents could surely be put to some better use than arguing about pointless shit. https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/?p=3925 pic.twitter.com/yP1k1Uq3zl
-
If I understand you correctly, you're saying that the things philosophers are concerned with are pointless b/c they aren't (directly) useful for science. Do you you think the proof of Fermat's last theorem was useless & Andrew Wiles wasted his talent? Not useful for science.
-
After philosophical issues are resolved and scientists adopt a certain theoretical approach, it's easy to forget the role philosophizing played in advancing science. Two generations of psychologists were behaviorists for philosophical reasons...
- 4 more replies
New conversation -
-
-
it's not an entailment of the argument
- 1 more reply
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.