A lot of the “nay philosophy” end up doing philosophy, even while they continue to say “nay philosophy”. So I have a hard time taking the opinion at face value.
Moreover it’s not like there is one kind of thinking, philosophy, and another kind of thinking, non-philosophy. Any kind of evidence or argument could in principle be employed by someone calling himself a philosopher—or, inversely, by someone calling himself a non-philosopher. If you suddenly have a bright idea and start developing it into an essay, I submit that you don’t necessarily know whether, once the idea has fully bloomed, it will be considered philosophy or non-philosophy.
I don’t know whether it’s true that science used to be considered a subtopic of philosophy (“natural philosophy”), but it seems entirely plausible that it was all philosophy but that at some point there was a terminological exodus, when physicists stopped calling themselves philosophers. In that older, more inclusive sense, then anyone who says “nay philosophy” is also saying “nay science”. Keeping that in mind, what we now call “philosophy” might instead be called, “what’s left of philosophy after the great terminological exodus”.
Of course “what’s left” is also called “the dregs”. In light of that, what we all “philosophy” might instead be called “the dregs of philosophy”.
I don’t know whether it’s true that science used to be considered a subtopic of philosophy (“natural philosophy”), but it seems entirely plausible that it was all philosophy but that at some point there was a terminological exodus, when physicists stopped calling themselves philosophers.
That is exactly true. The old term for what we nowadays call “natural science” was “natural philosophy.” There are still relics of this old terminology, most notably that in English the title “doctor of philosophy” (or the Latin version thereof) is still used by physicists and other natural scientists. The “terminological exodus” you refer to happened only in the 19th century.
This is still happening, right? I once had a professor who suggested that philosophy is basically the process of creating new fields and removing them from philosophy—thence logic, mathematics, physics, and more recently linguistics.
That’s true, I may have overstated his suggestion—the actual context was “why has philosophy made so little progress over the past several thousand years?” (“Because every time a philosophical question is settled, it stops being a philosophical question.”)
This provides a defense of the claim that luke was attacking earlier on the thread, that
“It’s totally reasonable to expect philosophy to provide several interesting/useful results [in one or a few broad subject areas] and then suddenly stop.”
Possibly, yes, but I’d expect philosophy to stop working on a field only after it’s recognized as its own (non-philosophy) area (if then) - which, for example, morality is not.
Errr… it seems to me that theology in many ways acts like philosophy, with the addition of stuff like exegesis and apologetics… but any particular religion’s theology is distinct from the set of things we’d call “philosophy” as a monolithic institution. This is far from my area of expertise, however!
A lot of the “nay philosophy” end up doing philosophy, even while they continue to say “nay philosophy”. So I have a hard time taking the opinion at face value.
Moreover it’s not like there is one kind of thinking, philosophy, and another kind of thinking, non-philosophy. Any kind of evidence or argument could in principle be employed by someone calling himself a philosopher—or, inversely, by someone calling himself a non-philosopher. If you suddenly have a bright idea and start developing it into an essay, I submit that you don’t necessarily know whether, once the idea has fully bloomed, it will be considered philosophy or non-philosophy.
I don’t know whether it’s true that science used to be considered a subtopic of philosophy (“natural philosophy”), but it seems entirely plausible that it was all philosophy but that at some point there was a terminological exodus, when physicists stopped calling themselves philosophers. In that older, more inclusive sense, then anyone who says “nay philosophy” is also saying “nay science”. Keeping that in mind, what we now call “philosophy” might instead be called, “what’s left of philosophy after the great terminological exodus”.
Of course “what’s left” is also called “the dregs”. In light of that, what we all “philosophy” might instead be called “the dregs of philosophy”.
That is exactly true. The old term for what we nowadays call “natural science” was “natural philosophy.” There are still relics of this old terminology, most notably that in English the title “doctor of philosophy” (or the Latin version thereof) is still used by physicists and other natural scientists. The “terminological exodus” you refer to happened only in the 19th century.
This is still happening, right? I once had a professor who suggested that philosophy is basically the process of creating new fields and removing them from philosophy—thence logic, mathematics, physics, and more recently linguistics.
Thats an interesting definition of philosophy, but I think philosophy does far more than that.
That’s true, I may have overstated his suggestion—the actual context was “why has philosophy made so little progress over the past several thousand years?” (“Because every time a philosophical question is settled, it stops being a philosophical question.”)
This provides a defense of the claim that luke was attacking earlier on the thread, that
“It’s totally reasonable to expect philosophy to provide several interesting/useful results [in one or a few broad subject areas] and then suddenly stop.”
Possibly, yes, but I’d expect philosophy to stop working on a field only after it’s recognized as its own (non-philosophy) area (if then) - which, for example, morality is not.
Is theology a branch of philosophy?
Errr… it seems to me that theology in many ways acts like philosophy, with the addition of stuff like exegesis and apologetics… but any particular religion’s theology is distinct from the set of things we’d call “philosophy” as a monolithic institution. This is far from my area of expertise, however!