From: peter@pmoylan.org   
      
   On 25/01/25 05:14, D wrote:   
   > On Fri, 24 Jan 2025, Ed Cryer wrote:   
   >> D wrote:   
      
   >>> Would you say there can ever be progress in philosophy?   
   >>   
   >> I think not. It gets added unto over the ages; e.g. philosophy of   
   >> science, linguistic analysis. But I agree with your underlying   
   >> supposition.   
   >>   
   >> Even so, I think it has its uses. It makes you aware of the limits   
   >> of human understanding; of how much that we accept as truth is   
   >> fundamentally flawed.   
      
   > So you would not say that the fact that philosophers no longer debate   
   >  how many angels fit on the head of a pin is progress? Or perhaps it   
   > is more due to progress in science?   
      
   Philosophy has been wedged, I think. The whole huge bag of natural   
   philosophy has been taken away and rebadged as science. Meanwhile, most   
   of the theological questions are now considered to be "not very   
   interesting". I get the impression that philosophers as a group are now   
   finding themselves in the same position as Dawkins's God of the Gaps,   
   desperately looking for fields of enquiry that have not been claimed by   
   someone else.   
      
   Physics continues to throw up interesting questions, but not many   
   non-physicists are willing to tackle them. How many philosophers have   
   debated the issue of whether string theory is a valid view of reality?   
   Or, to take a major issue that's almost within living memory: is the   
   Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics valid? Most physicists have   
   an opinion on that, but few non-physicists do. The question is too   
   mentally challenging.   
      
   --   
   Peter Moylan       peter@pmoylan.org    http://www.pmoylan.org   
   Newcastle, NSW   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)