Great post, Robert. Thanks.Would you agree that we could readily find examples of the recent import of scientific ideas into philosophy? So the modern traffic does seem to move in at least that direction.So, to look for contradictions to your proposal, I need to find cases where philosophical ideas have found their way into scientific practice. Would Bayes be an example? I realize that Bayes himself isnt modern, but there seem to be a moment in the sixties when "we" in psychology were required to start thinking about statistics differently and it certainly wasnt coming from our field. Another example might be Thomas Kuhn.I am guilty as charged by Doug of using this list to pick people's brains, so if you don't want to have yours picked, just leave this alone.thanks for the post,NickNicholas S. ThompsonEmeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,Clark University ([hidden email])Sent: 7/13/2009 8:21:31 PMSubject: Re: [FRIAM] Analytic philosophy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaI think the argument (I paraphrase) "all math/science is traceable back to Aristotle/Parmenides/Zeno/pick-your-philosopher, therefore everything subsequent is mere derivations of their original thoughts" is not completely sound. It's probably reasonable up to the period of Newton, Descartes and Leibniz: these people were philosophers and scientists. As has been pointed out several times, there was no real distinction between the two practices: they were just the one entity - natural philosophy.But then came the Scientific Revolution and during the 16th-18th centuries both disciplines professionalized and - for all but a few exceptional individuals - they split. Philosophers did philosophy, scientists did science. Philosophers might comment on what was happening in science but that does not mean that they were driving it or suggesting the questions that scientists should ask. Philosophy might comment on science but - for most practitioners of science - it did not inform science.My own experience bears this out. I'm a physicist and have worked in research environments all my professional life. When my colleagues and I discuss research priorities, or potential areas for study, or appropriate methodologies we refer to the work of other scientists, not philosophers. I don't think this is unusual. I strongly suspect that it is the work of other scientists and the lessons we learn from our scientific mentors that drive our scientific endeavors.-- Robert
On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 7:18 PM, glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]> wrote:
Thus spake Robert Holmes circa 09-07-11 07:47 AM:
> Y'know if Glen's resolution was true I'd expect more of the scientificThat's just plain silly. You _know_ that math has its origins in
> papers I read to be referencing Quine and Aristotle rather than Landau and
> Lifschitz. Explicitly acknowledging their debt, if you will.
philosophy. Just look at Russell and Whitehead's attempt to provide a
foundation for math that would lead to Hilbert's program (of which the
Riemann hypothesis was a part, and was instigated by Frege). Or look at
Tarski's and Goedel's independent discoveries of
incompleteness/inconsistency, which derailed the program.
Sheesh. Are you unable to use Google? Are you that lazy?
Oh, I don't know. Let's start with Zeno, shall we? Without him, we
> So perhaps you could give me some concrete
> examples: which philosopher should mathematicians thank for suggesting that
> the properties of the Riemann zeta function were worth studying?
wouldn't have a clear concept of the limit, the foundation of modern
analysis. Or, perhaps we go a little farther downstream and talk about
Cantor, whose work was philosophical enough to garner criticism from all
manner of authority.
Well, you can start with Democritus. I could trace the evolution of the
> Which
> philosopher should physicists thank for suggesting that it's worth hunting
> for the Higgs boson?
Standard Model for you... but I won't because your questions are either
just snotty and/or lazy. If you want to know which philosophers helped
cause the hypothetical higgs boson, then you look it up yourself.
--
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
| Free forum by Nabble | Edit this page |