On Saturday, December 23, 2000 6:18 AM Anders Sandberg asa@nada.kth.se
wrote:
> > Lucky science isn't grounded in philosophy, or we'd all be up the creek.
>
> Oh dear, science largely developed from philosophy and if you want to
> read up on the foundations of science you go to the philosophy
> bookshelves rather than the science ones...
No one here has taking the time to define "philosophy," so it's kind of
premature to dismiss it in toto. I would offer a rough definition of it as
general ideas about reality -- often presented in a systematic form. To
expand on this, we could look at the various branches of philosophy, each of
which focuses on specific aspects or parts of reality, such as metaphysics,
epistemology, ethics, esthetics, and so on.
Given this definition, philosophy is not limited to cute puzzles like that
of Theseus' Ship, but undergirds other areas too, such as science. It's not
that science gets its start from philosophy, science is _grounded in_
philosophy. Yes, science relies, to a large but not total degree, on
empirical work, but this is a philosophy too -- i.e., the view that
empirical work has some degree of validity.
> (Actually, pancritical rationalism in some sense makes scientific
> foundations at somewhat empirical, but you still have to do some
> philosophical thinking there)
See my short piece on pancritical rationalism at
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/PCR.html No one on the list has
challenged my attack on pancritical rationalism... yet!:)
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
My "Rand the Libertarian," published in the current issue of _The Thought_,
is now up viewable on the web at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/RandLib.html
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