Strongly agreed. I think “philosophical questions” are the ones that are fun to argue endlessly about even if we’re too confused to actually solve them decisively and convincingly. Thinking that any questions are inherently philosophical (in that sense) would be mind projection; if a question’s philosophicalness can go away due to changes in facts about us rather than facts about the question, then we probably shouldn’t even be using that as a category.
I would say that the sole thing which philosophical questions have in common is that it is only imaginable to solve them using intuition. Once a superior method exists (experiment, formal proof), the question doesn’t belong to philosophy.
if a question’s philosophicalness can go away due to changes in facts about us rather than facts about the question, then we probably shouldn’t even be using that as a category.
I think that’s a good reason to keep using the category. By looking at current philosophy, we can determine what facts about us need changing. Cutting-edge philosophy (of the kind lukeprog wants) would be strongly determining what changes need to be made.
To illustrate: that there is a “philosophy of the mind” and a “free will vs determinism debate” tells us there are some facts about us (specifically, what we believe about ourselves) that need changing. Cutting-edge philosophy would be demonstrating that we should change these facts to ones derived from neuroscience and causality. Diagrams like this would be cutting-edge philosophy.
I think “philosophical questions” are the ones that are fun to argue endlessly about even if we’re too confused to actually solve them decisively and convincingly.
The thing that I find attractive about logic and ‘foundations of mathematics’ is that no one argues endlessly about philosophical questions, even though the subject matter is full of them.
Instead, people in this field simply assume the validity of some resolution of the philosophical questions and then proceed on to do the real work.
What I think that most fans of philosophy fail to realize is that answers to philosophical questions are like mathematical axioms. You don’t justify them. Instead, you simply assume them and then work out the consequences.
Don’t care for the consequences? Well then choose a different set of axioms.
Strongly agreed. I think “philosophical questions” are the ones that are fun to argue endlessly about even if we’re too confused to actually solve them decisively and convincingly. Thinking that any questions are inherently philosophical (in that sense) would be mind projection; if a question’s philosophicalness can go away due to changes in facts about us rather than facts about the question, then we probably shouldn’t even be using that as a category.
I would say that the sole thing which philosophical questions have in common is that it is only imaginable to solve them using intuition. Once a superior method exists (experiment, formal proof), the question doesn’t belong to philosophy.
Nice pattern.
I think that’s a good reason to keep using the category. By looking at current philosophy, we can determine what facts about us need changing. Cutting-edge philosophy (of the kind lukeprog wants) would be strongly determining what changes need to be made.
To illustrate: that there is a “philosophy of the mind” and a “free will vs determinism debate” tells us there are some facts about us (specifically, what we believe about ourselves) that need changing. Cutting-edge philosophy would be demonstrating that we should change these facts to ones derived from neuroscience and causality. Diagrams like this would be cutting-edge philosophy.
The thing that I find attractive about logic and ‘foundations of mathematics’ is that no one argues endlessly about philosophical questions, even though the subject matter is full of them.
Instead, people in this field simply assume the validity of some resolution of the philosophical questions and then proceed on to do the real work.
What I think that most fans of philosophy fail to realize is that answers to philosophical questions are like mathematical axioms. You don’t justify them. Instead, you simply assume them and then work out the consequences.
Don’t care for the consequences? Well then choose a different set of axioms.