In the latter half of the twentieth century, analytic philosophy diffused into a wide variety of disparate philosophical views, only loosely united by historical lines of influence and a self-identified commitment to clarity and rigor. Since roughly 1960, analytic philosophy has shown a revival of interest in the history of philosophy, as well as attempts to integrate philosophical work with scientific results, especially in psychology and cognitive science.
Robert, Nick, et. al,
The question "What has philosophy done for science recently" seems odd. In the two fields with which I am most familiar, biology and psychology, there is an obvious, continuous, huge influence. A small minority of the "Big Names" in these fields have always been people whose primary contributions were philosophical: Stephen J. Gould, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Jerry Fodor, etc. Their direct influence on the course of empirical study is undeniable.
While I don't know who was important in what specific discoveries in other fields, I did some quick browsing of Harvard's website. Here are some interesting factoids:
*The Physics department lists 19 professors with specialty in "Theoretical X" (X = Atomic, Molectular, and Optical Physics; Biophysics; Condensed Matter Physics; High Energy Physics/String Theory; Mesoscopic) and 2 with specialty in History of Physics. This looks like about 1/3 of the faculty, most of the rest are explicitly experimental.
*The Chemistry department lists 5 professors simply under the heading "Theoretical"
*The Mathematics department is pretentious enough to not list research interests of anyone under a full professor. However, recent seminars include "A brief overview of the philosophy of mathematics", a few years ago they hosted the "International Conference on the Unity of Mathematics" and they have numerous graduate level courses titled "Theory of X"
*The Philosophy department lists 5 people who specialize in the philosophy of a specific science (biology, quantum mechanics, cognitive science / perception, psychology, physics) There is also one person (Peter Koellner) with a specialization including "Mathematical logic, set theory, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics"
Now, I don't know exactly what all these people do, and I'm sure I'm misrepresenting a few of them, but at least a few of them must be philosophers in exactly the sense desired. I'd assume that many other research schools have those people in comparable numbers (or larger numbers, as Cornell's philosophy department lists a handful of computer scientists, computer engineers, and mathematicians as available to supervise graduate students). I also assume that these philosophers wouldn't be kept around, and especially wouldn’t be kept around at Haaaaa’verd if they didn't contribute something to their fields.
To pick a cheap and easy example, I'm not aware of any "scientific" work done by Einstein (i.e., work that was clearly empirical and hence obviously not philosophical), but I suspect he contributed at least a little bit to modern physics. The day to day life of an active physicist might not involve thinking about how his work stemmed from a theoretical paper written in 1905, but that doesn't mean the connection isn't there.
Eric
On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 06:54 PM, "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]> wrote:
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,
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (nthompson@...)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Holmes
To: glen e. p. ropella;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 7/13/2009 8:21:31 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Analytic philosophy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I 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
============================================================
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 |