From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Tue Dec 26 2000 - 11:10:05 MST
"J. R. Molloy" <jr@shasta.com> wrote
>From: "Harvey Newstrom" <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com>
> > 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.
>
>I'd exclude the scientific method from philosophy because the scientific
>method requires hardware: empirical experimentation, direct observation,
>physical measurement (which includes math), and philosophy does not
>require these ties to reality to do its stuff.
It appears that you condemn philosophy that excludes the scientific
method, fails to test its theories, and does not have ties to
reality. I find this kind of philosophy to be useless as well. If a
kind of philosophy uses the scientific method, tests and validates
its results, and only philosophizes about real-world reality, then
you do not call it philosophy. Given this kind of definition, I
agree with your views.
I think your definition of philosophy is too narrow, however. You
seem to have concluded that *all* philosophy is *bad*, and therefore
anything that is not bad must not be philosophy. This may not be a
bad definition. Just keep in mind that other people may use the word
differently. When Max says the Extropian Principals is a philosophy,
or Mike talks about his philosophies about personal right-to-carry
laws, these are not the kind of bad philosophy you are describing.
But they may still use the word "philosophy".
Despite all the discussion on this topic, I don't think many people
really disagree with you. When you say all philosophy is bad, people
think you are talking about different things. When you describe a
useless philosophy that is illogical, anti-science, unproven, or
unrelated to reality, I think everyone agrees that this would be
useless.
The same applies to your concept of asking the wrong question. I
don't think any question is bad, only some answers. If I ask how
phlogiston works, this is not a bad question, as long as the answer
is "it is a theoretical substance possessing negative weight
according to a theory that has since been proven false." Instead of
quibbling over whether the question is good or bad, I think it is
more useful to determine whether the answer is good or bad.
-- Harvey Newstrom <HarveyNewstrom.com>
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