[Retric]

Unless you are seriously claiming that there has been no progress in logic, political philosophy, moral philosophy, the philoosphy of science, etc. etc. in the past few thousand years. Excluding logic I would agree with that statement.

If you disagree then [citation needed].

Philosophy is the study or creation of theories about basic things such as the nature of existence, knowledge, and thought, or about how people should live. To be clear Philosophy does not encompass math and it does not require testing of those theories.

PS: Skepticism is a philosophical attitude that questions the possibility of obtaining any sort of knowledge. It was first articulated by Pyrrho, who believed that everything could be doubted except appearances. (ca. 360 BC - ca. 270 BC) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrho

[foldr]

>If you disagree then [citation needed].

I think you are confused about where the burden of proof lies here. You are asserting the worthlessness of the entire cannon of Western philosophy (and quite possibly other branches of philosophy too). This is an incredible assertion.

By the way, why do you "exclude logic"? Logic has always been a central element of philosophy, at least since Aristotle.

>To be clear Philosophy does not encompass math and it does not require testing of those theories.

Philosophy certainly includes some areas of math (for example, mathematical logic derives partly from work by philosophers). As for whether or not philosophical ideas "need to be tested", that is such a vague locution that it's difficult to respond. But certainly philosophical ideas are supposed to be subject to scrutiny (e.g. compared to alternative points of view, shown to be consistent, etc. etc.)

PS. Thanks for telling me what skepticism is. By the way, if you are interested in testability, you might want to read the ample literature on this notion in the philosophy of science.

[Retric]

This is an incredible assertion. And yet you can't site a single example of progress.

Thanks for telling me what skepticism is. no I showed an example of "modern" skepticism that is over 2,000 years old. Think about this ~2,300 years ago people were having the same basic argument as we are having today I can think of no other field which has stagnated to that degree.

[foldr]

Regarding skepticism, I didn't say that skepticism was a new idea, I said that the idea that science can replace philosophy is a new idea. The kind of skepticism you're talking about is actually incompatible with modern science, so it can hardly be taken as an example of a scientific world view. After all, one pretty clear example of recent progress in philosophy is the demonstration that scientific theories are not reducible to statements about actual and hypothetical experiences or "appearences" (i.e., the failure of logical positivism).

[Retric]

"By suspending judgment, by confining oneself to phenomena or objects as they appear, and by asserting nothing definite as to how they really are, one can escape the perplexities of life and attain an imperturbable peace of mind."

It's the "confining oneself to phenomena or objects as they appear" where the break from philosophy occurs. From the scientific standpoint you ignore the concept of life after death and other "perplexities of life" because it's not knowable. A true scientist builds models on what phenomena he sees and lays no clams one what he can't. Now you might question how that works with a paleontologist, but confining oneself to phenomena means a he thinks it's reasonable to look for patterns based on what your eyes tell you because they are not deceiving you even if they are not a window to deep truth. A paleontologist does not argue with the fact god could have created the world ten seconds ago, rather he argues "excluding unknowable things" this is the patterns I see. But, a philosopher sees no lines of inquiry outside of his purview and still attacks the unknowable questions such as life after death or the invisible god who does nothing.

PS: A better example from that time would be how a water clock behaves after you leave the room, if it displayed the correct time when you get back may have gotten up and danced about the room before you got back and hidden that from you but if that's the case it's an unknowable truth best ignored for visible phenomena.