[ExI] Why Physics Needs Philosophy

John Clark johnkclark at gmail.com
Fri Apr 1 15:14:16 UTC 2016


On Thu, Mar 31, 2016  Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:

​>> ​
>> no philosopher has made a philosophical discovery in centuries, only
>> mathematicians and scientist do that.    ​
>
>
> ​> ​
> That's doubtful. Theory of reference and intentionality were big topics
> from the end of the 19th century to today.
>

And what original philosophical discoverie in "the theory of reference and
intentionality" did all those philosophers make
​in the last 200 years ​
that were comparable to Maxwell's philosophical discovery concerning the
nature of light, or Darwin's discovery of Evolution, or Planck's discovery
of the quantum, or Hubble's discovery of the expanding universe, or Watson
and Crick's discovery of the genetic code, or Einstein's discovery of
warped spacetime
​, or LIGO's recent detection of gravitational waves caused by merging
Black Holes
?
​For that matter, ​w
hat exactly do we know about "reference and intentionality" today that we
didn't know in the 19th century?


> ​> ​
> I still get the idea that your view of philosophy is something like seeing
> some dope at the bar telling what he feels the meaning of life is.
>

​That is not my view of philosophy, but it IS my view of philosophers.
There is no contradiction because, as I said before, philosophers haven't
done any philosophy in centuries. ​



> ​> ​
> Where does science end and philosophy begin in all that? The line might be
> hard to draw
>

I disagree, I think
​​ t
he line is easy to draw
​
. All science is philosophy but not all philosophy is science; a dope at a
bar pontificating on the meaning of life is philosophy but not science.

  John K Clark
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