[werpon]

In my view, the whole concept of scientism is the last attempt of philosophy to stay relevant, and it's usually only backed up by appeals to emotion and loaded words.

So, the scientist in me asks: what areas of knowledge are out of the scope of science and the scientific method?

[devoply]

Science can only answer the how? The why is always a philosophical question which has to be loaded with appeals to emotions. Certain personalities are okay with only asking the how, other personalities need the why. Certain other personalities don't need either. They just do. If we stop asking the why, which we more or less have as we think that it's a dead end that leads to nilhism and absurdism then we will accumulate more and more power and use it with delirious overall effects on the systems that we inhabit and will inevitably go extinct.

[adgasf]

I dislike this point because it is imprecise. What do you mean by a "why" question? How do objects fall to Earth? Gravity. Why do objects fall to Earth? Gravity.

[devoply]

Well what I mean by why is the overall moral question of doing the right thing for the continued survival of life on the planet. That's more or less a metaphysical thing. And we don't have that figured out. And it does not seem to me that science will provide the answer to this. As science is hierarchical and specialized. It might provide individual answers but it does not provide guidance as to how or why to use those answers. For instance why we must live or do things a certain way. It merely provides knowledge and tools and then we apply that knowledge and tools to act on the world. If we do not act properly on the world with our science we will inevitably destroy the world. Currently we use the economic paradigm as our moral compass, which seems to work in certain cases but in other cases fails. Philosophy is needed to address this sort of deficit in our economic thinking.

[adgasf]

"what areas of knowledge are out of the scope of science and the scientific method?"

Well, now your are doing Philosophy of Science.

[paganel]

> In my view, the whole concept of scientism is the last attempt of philosophy to stay relevant

I'm not the smartest guy around, but I see myself still reading philosophy while still very close to laying on my death-bed, while I know I wouldn't care that much then about whether worm-holes exist or if the physical Universe is finite or infinite. In that respect philosophy will still be relevant, at least for me. I find the human species one of the most interesting things that I've read or heard about, and I think philosophy does a good job of talking about us.

[daptaq]

Founding all knowledge on the scientific method is just vulgar empiricism, and it's known to have it's limits, and philosophy isn't just "emotions", since science is part of philosophy itself (asking and answering questions about the world, Truth, etc.)

This comic shows the limits of empiricism nicely: http://existentialcomics.com/comic/132

[AstralStorm]

Not true. Scientific method does accept axiomatic systems as long as properties of them are verifiable.

Axioms that can be empirically shown to be likely true or likely false.

Also it treasures smaller set of axioms rather than larger ones.

[xupybd]

What areas of knowledge are out of the scope of science and the scientific method? Um philosophy.....

[lz400]

Large areas of philosophy are routinely demolished by the strangeness revealed by science. Concepts like Time after general relativity, the reach of maths after Godel, existence being coexistence after the discovery of multiverses. Philosophy very often assumes things that the real world ends up proving aren't true.

[maze-le]

> existence being coexistence after the discovery of multiverses

Please keep in mind that multiverses haven't actually been discovered. They are a very real possibility if the model of inflation of the early universe (and thus eternal inflation) is correct. But since the Planck satellite hasn't found conclusive b-mode polarisation patterns, inflationary models should be viewed with a bit of scepticism. On the other hand: inflation can explain a lot of problems in the early universe that would arise without it: magnetic monopoles, the large-scale homogenity and isotropy and geometric flatness. So, it remains a valid model, and the best explanation of the very early universe.

We should be aware of the things we don't know, and not just assume multiverses, when there is no conclusive evidence.

[lz400]

Multiverses as a result of space receding faster than speed of light are pretty much universally accepted. Other kinds are more controversial. There are galaxies not co-existant with us in the future that are now.

[maze-le]

Ahh, I see, we were talking about different concepts of the multivese then. I'd consider your definition of multiverses still as part of our own universe, just not our observable universe. But I think this is more a question of definition...

[lz400]

For the existence and coexistence they amount to the same. There are galaxies now that will leave our co-existance in the future and still exist. Disproves that existence implies co-existence.

[inimino]

Are you sure you're not just more familiar with science than with philosophy? I don't think any of those examples hold up under the slightest scrutiny. Philosophy is mostly demolished by better philosophy.

[lz400]

Philosophy of science is very relevant and more difficult than ever. But you couldn't do philosophy of quantum mechanics before the science of quantum mechanics. When I say philosophy I mean metaphysics or in general attempts to explain the natural world. A lot of that has been made redundant by science. Not ethics.

Modern scientists don't usually like philosophy and don't write about this stuff from a philosophical point of view. It's more necessary than ever that philosophers get with the program. Pretending that science hasn't taken the lead in explaining the natural world won't help. People like Nick Bostrom who think about what science reveals do, even though he's probably hated in philosophy circles, like Daniel Dennett or Lawrence Krauss are.

[inimino]

Scientists in academia are often ignorant of philosophy; this seems to be a side-effect of increasing specialization and corresponding tunnel vision.

Science as an empirical practice of truth-seeking is reliant on philosophy for its foundations. Of course it is possible to "do science" without having any interest in epistemology, just as it is possible to program computers without having any interest in computer science, or to do mathematics without having any interest in mathematical foundations.

[daptaq]

Science is a part of philosophy, and at the same time it extends it. You're assuming that philosophy is only idealist guessing, which is wrong.

I mean, you wouldn't say that "Large areas of science are routinely demolished" by newer science, even though strictly speaking it's true, and you'd therefore give up on science as a whole?

(And if I'd really want to be mean, I'd ask you if science has ever even proven the "real world" exists or that science is true, but I think you got my point.)

[lz400]

Science regularly demolishes science too, of course. Scientists don't have a problem with thatm they just move on. But in my opinion philosophers do.

I know philosophy is extremely rigorous. Science is fiddly, it works in approximations. Philosophers hate ad hocs postulates like dark matter or cosmological constants. They hate not knowing how certain things work. That's part of the problem. They need to apply their rigor to theories that have the chance of being false.

[daptaq]

That's an extreme generalisation. Yes, there are philosphers and philosophies that would reject these things, but it's absurd to assume that all do.

You also have to remember that science operates within it's own framework, and assumes concepts of truth that are accepted within this community, such as the scientific method to gain knowledge. But these are presumed to be true, without anyone having had proven them.

Philosophy on the other hand, as a more general subject, even questions these frameworks and has to operate without any pre-given framework. A Platonist won't be shunned by a scientific discovery, since it isn't a threat to it's epistemological framework.

Therefore I say that science is part of philosophy, but this doesn't mean it's wrong or bad. Everyday life proves it's helpfulness. One just has to keep in mind, that there is no proof it's ultimately true, and that all objections are "appeals to emotion". Followers of Scientism, even though they wouldn't say it themselves, do this, dogmatically believing that they are the true way and that's the problem everyone has with them. (I'm not saying it's better when Platonists or anyone else does it, but the others are more common nowadays)

[lz400]

Not all do, but I'd say there's a real disconnect between the disciplines when there should be more teamwork.

If Philosophy is going to argue that the scientific method doesn't work, or that the world doesn't exist, we can't trust our senses or stuff like that, go ahead. Has there been any practical advancement on this line of thinking in the last 50 years? do you envision that the scientific method will be revised by anything discovered in philosophy?

[chrischen]

The existence of multiverses is philosophy.

[danmaz74]

> discovery of multiverses

Theorization of multiverses...

[lz400]

See my other answer to a comment that said the same thing.

[werpon]

Is philosophy knowledge? Can I use it, for example, to take an informed choice about the real world? Does it at least contain a set of verifiable, falsifiable statements that every practitioner can and has agreed upon?

[icen]

Surely philosophy of science helps you build your framework of verifiable, falsifiable statements (after all, you need to have a logical framework for choosing which statements can be falsified or verified)!

[paganel]

> Can I use it, for example, to take an informed choice about the real world?

I might remembering it wrong, but I think one of the main questions asked by Socrates was "how can we be good persons?". And "what does 'good' mean?". That question absolutely does inform my every-day choices about the real world, because me not being a religious person and not believing in the after-life and such I base most of my every-day thingies on thinking if what I'm actually doing is "good" or not. Asking yourself that is a philosophical question. That and a little bit of Kant, and his "people should never be means to an end".

[kriro]

One could argue that it is because of philosophy (of science) that you even consider "a set of verifiable, falsifiable statements that every practitioner can and has agreed upon" as a litmus test (or demarcation criterion) for what science is supposed to be.