Red wrote: ↑Sat Dec 29, 2018 10:10 am
Well it's more about how much the variables can be accounted for. In the physical sciences, there is no human bias affecting the way the laws work, unlike in certain psychology experiments. At least, that's what brimstone told me.
I know that these variables cannot be as tightly controlled for as other fields (like physics or astronomy) but all sciences function in much the same way. Social scientists observe human behavior/cognition and develop laws, then use the scientific method to rigorously test those laws and key theories. That’s no different from what chemists, physicists, astronomers, biologists and all other scientists do. The difficulty to produce tightly controlled experiments does not negate psychology (or sociology) as a legitimate science. It
is a science because it adheres to the empirical method, regardless of the subject of its focus.
Red wrote: ↑Sat Dec 29, 2018 10:10 am
That may be an interesting take. Where would you place each discipline though? What would fall under the non-social sciences that's not under the pure sciences?
I’d make pure and applied sciences a subcategory of “non-social” sciences.
Red wrote: ↑Sat Dec 29, 2018 10:10 am
Academic Philosophy is kinda in the tank in that respect). The history of something isn't particularly important anyway. You can know everything there is to know about Physics without ever knowing the name of the scientists who built the discipline.
That’s
very true. I know very little about the life of Isaac Newton (his religious beliefs, his city of birth, what kind of underwear he wore etc.) but I do understand the 3 basic laws of motion he helped to develop.
When you compare the required courses for a standard Philosophy major to the required courses for a standard Physics major at any particular institution, the former definitely places emphasis on the history of its discipline (as well as the lives of its historical figures). I do think this hampers progress within the field.
https://philpapers.org/archive/DIETIN.pdf
Eric Dietrich, PhD wrote:
Imagine that Aristotle, as he's walking around the Lyceum, encounters a time-warp and pops forward to today, on a well-known campus somewhere in some English-speaking country, with the ability to speak English, dressed in modern garb, and that he doesn't become deranged as a result of all of this. Curious about the state of knowledge, he finds a physics lecture and sits in. What he hears shocks him. A feather and iron ball fall at the same rate in a vacuum; being heavier doesn't mean falling faster, something he doesn't understand. Aristotle along with the rest of the class is shown the experimental verification of this from the moon (from the moon?!?!?) performed by Commander David Scott of Apollo 15. The very same equations (equations?!?!?) that explain why an apple falls to the ground explain how the moon stays in orbit around Earth and how Earth stays in orbit around the sun (orbits?!?!?). He learns of quantum mechanics strangnesses. The more he hears, the more shocked he gets. Finally, he just faints away. He faints away again in cosmology class where he learns, for starters, that comets and meteors, and the Milky Way are not atmospheric phenomena, as he concluded. The Big Bang, relativity, the size of the universe, the number of galaxies, dark matter, and dark energy . . . are all too much for him. In biology class, he learns that a living thing's potential, its matter, is not at all explanatory, as he thought, but instead learns of genetics and developmental biology. He also learns that his idea of spontaneous generation is just plain wrong -- not even close to being correct. He learns of evolution and the discovery that all of life on Earth is related. As the class continues, he again faints dead away.
After he comes too, he soberly concludes that this modern world, this advanced time, has utterly surpassed his knowledge and the knowledge of his time. He feels dwarfed by our epistemic sophistication. Sadly, he trundles off to a philosophy class -- a metaphysics class, as it turns out. Here he hears the professor lecturing about essences, about being qua being, about the most general structures of our thinking about the world. He knows exactly what the professor is talking about. Aristotle raises his hand to discuss some errors the professor seems to have made, and some important distinctions that he has not drawn. As the discussion proceeds, the metaphysics professor is a bit taken aback but also delighted at this (older) student's acumen and insight. Then Aristotle goes to an ethics class, where he learns of the current importance of what is apparently called "virtue ethics." He recognizes it immediately, but again, the professor seems to have left out some crucial details and failed to see some deeper aspects of the view. Aristotle raises his hand. . . .
From our twenty-first century perspective, we see that Aristotle was not even in the ball park with most of his scientific ideas, theories, and conclusions. His works in science are only of historical interest. But he is a giant to this day in philosophy. We can learn by reading his philosophical works. This pattern of ignoring old science but rereading over and over again old philosophy repeats throughout the histories of science and philosophy.
Unlike scientists, who occasionally give up arguing and develop a consensus due to weight of consistent evidence, philosophers do not seem to be able to agree on the most basic of things. Not sure how progress is supposed to be made if they're still arguing over the basics, and touting the silly ideas of people who lived over 3,000 years ago.
Imagine asking Immanuel Kant "Is slavery unjust?" You'd probably get an answer that is very similar to a modern philosopher. That kind of says it all.
Red wrote: ↑Sat Dec 29, 2018 10:10 am
My friend told me that he wants to major in business and philosophy, and I told him not to major in philosophy because of the aforementioned reasons, and he didn't believe me. Eh, what're you gonna do?
That's very similar to what I'm doing (business major, philosophy minor). You could always recommend philosophy as a minor, or direct them into a more applicable field (mathematics, computer science, ethics).