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RE: philosophy

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Maybe I'm reading this wrongly, but working without reference to the
physical world only gets us to "I think, therefore I am" or as some purists
like to say "I think, therefore I think". Anything beyond basic Descartes
requires some interaction with the world. Ideas have to have content to have
meaning, and therefore are "real world" components.

In any of the sciences, once you get beyond undergraduate level, a lot of
what you are doing is philosophy. I guess this is why the primary
qualification in advanced science is the PhD. A lot of physics research
wanders outside the physical world these days (if you are unconvinced of
this just try to read up on string theory), but it is considered physics as
it is rooted in real world observation.

Perhaps we are all saying the same thing - that philosophy is "study
involving the investigation, analysis, and development of ideas at a
general, abstract, or fundamental level" but that this quite often takes
place outside of Philosophy Departments. In an early item Alice asked "are
the comment and analysis pages of the guardian/ newstatesman/ economist the
sweat of philosophers?" I would say that the better investigative journalism
is indistinguishable from philosophical discourse except that it is usually
quite readable.

(I'm finding this quite fun, but will take a back seat for a while as I
think I have hogged the debate of late)

Bernie Doeser
Sandiway, Cheshire, UK.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com
[mailto:owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com]On Behalf Of Alice Evans
Sent: 28 August 2005 15:49
To: BUPS-DIS@bups.org
Subject: philosophy

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BUPS-DIS@bups.org


** For Your Eyes Only **

my point was that philosophers question assumptions and pursue their answers
without referring to physical data. i think this reading fits with brian's
argument. to philosophise is to ask questions about the world (including all
academic disciplines), as brian said. i pre-emptively expanded on this point
by noting that unlike physics which seeks knowledge about the world in an
empirical fashion, philosophy does not require such datum.

indeed, as a passing note, i was doing some reading for my dissertation when
i chanced upon the following,

"the currency of philosophy is ideas - their meaning and rational
fondation - not the nuts and bolts of the legislative prcoess, say, or the
mechanics of community organisation".

(tom regan)

this idea seems to fit with my argument (but of course im not taking mr
regan as gospel, just thought id share his view with the group)

in addition, i thought i'd look up other opinions on the matter and turned
to my old pals at wikipedia who declare that "philosophy is a discipline or
field of study involving the investigation, analysis, and development of
ideas at a general, abstract, or fundamental level". The latter definition
fits in very nicely with my own, i mean, its much more concise, but i think
we're saying the same thing. Wikipedia implicitly acknowledges that other
disciplines share this process of "analysis" but what defines philosophy is
that it develops ideas in the "abstract" sense, without reference to
"spatio-temporal data" (as i declared in my last note).

now, obviously me getting two people that seem to kind of agree with my
position in no way adds to the validity of my argument but perhaps the
fluidity of their language might help ur understanding of mine.

with reference to brian's point, about questioning the underlying
assumptions and foundations to other disciplines, well that's inadvertantly
admitting that what we do is to turn over ideas, presuming his 'foundations'
are metaphorical...


but to my 'attacker', Mr Daniel...

forgive me if i have misunderstood ur argument but i fail to see how you
have refuted my conclusion.

you declare that "anything that is going after knowledge is philosophy" and
i kind of have to disagree... but maybe im confused? please expand.

toodle pips

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy



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