"J. R. Molloy" <jr@shasta.com>
>This reminds me of an Edelman story. Apparently the science department was
>in trouble because it had such a huge expense account. The math department
>bragged that it only needed chalk, paper, and a few waste paper baskets. But
>the philosophy department did even better. They didn't even need waste
>baskets. Get it? The philosophers didn't throw out their wrong questions.
Why did you use the math department as an example of empirical
research? Math is based on logic, classification systems,
consistency, nomenclature, conclusions, extrapolations, etc. Most
math is derived philosophically and logically. It is only proved
later by science empirically. Einstein's E=MC^2 was a philosophical
argument until science proved it later. Imaginary numbers were a
philosophical "what-if" argument that extended the rules, until
physics and electricity confirmed them later. Negative numbers and
the concept of "zero" were abstractions demanded by philosophical
logic and debate. They were not discovered or empirically proven.
It seems to me that all theory is philosophy, and the scientific
method converts theory (possible fantasy) into fact (provable
reality).
Do you condemn logic, scientific method, theories, proofs,
peer-review, extrapolation and imagination when you condemn
philosophy? Or do you exclude these from that realm when you condemn
all philosophy? If so, you may be condemning the parts of philosophy
that I disdain while retaining the parts that I value. That is, we
may agree on our choices, and merely classify them with different
labels.
-- Harvey Newstrom <HarveyNewstrom.com>
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