I see philosophy as a way of clarifying concepts and sorting out what the best way is to talk about things. You seem to see it as something that goes beyond that and makes inquiries into a whole nother realm that science can't touch. I guess this may be a subtle difference but I think it's important.
There's no point in clarifying concepts if that clarity is not aimed at the discovery of truth. Seeking to understand our own views and the views of others is important, but that's not going to be of any ultimate worth if we're not seeking truth because we could be deceiving ourselves (both individually and collectively). Philosophy has, perennially speaking, been in the business of investigating the deep structure of reality to get at the fundamental natures of things (concept-clarification being subordinate to this higher end). These investigations include both natural philosophy (as concerned with changeable being, see (2) below) and metaphysics (as concerned with not only material but also immaterial being, should the latter be proven to exist by natural philosophy). Natural philosophy provides the foundation for all modern natural science, for it provides the general principles (noncontradiction, causality) and theorems (changeableness of material being) presupposed to all the special sciences. Another way of putting this is to say with Peirce, following Bentham's usage, that natural philosophy is coenoscopic whereas the modern sciences are idioscopic. Now metascience is only established if the foundations of natural science prove that there is more to the world than changeable, material being (via the First Mover argument and/or arguments for immateriality of soul). If these arguments fail, then—as Aquinas observes—natural philosophy (rather than metaphysics) would be First Philosophy. But either way, philosophy is coenoscopic and deals with general properties of all being, whereas the special sciences are idioscopic—i.e., they single out certain types of being and abstract from others (e.g. biology looks at living beings).
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timeasmymeasure
(1) Philosophy (natural and metascientific) and modern science—coenoscopy and idioscopy
Date: 2010-12-01 09:11 pm (UTC)There's no point in clarifying concepts if that clarity is not aimed at the discovery of truth. Seeking to understand our own views and the views of others is important, but that's not going to be of any ultimate worth if we're not seeking truth because we could be deceiving ourselves (both individually and collectively). Philosophy has, perennially speaking, been in the business of investigating the deep structure of reality to get at the fundamental natures of things (concept-clarification being subordinate to this higher end). These investigations include both natural philosophy (as concerned with changeable being, see (2) below) and metaphysics (as concerned with not only material but also immaterial being, should the latter be proven to exist by natural philosophy). Natural philosophy provides the foundation for all modern natural science, for it provides the general principles (noncontradiction, causality) and theorems (changeableness of material being) presupposed to all the special sciences. Another way of putting this is to say with Peirce, following Bentham's usage, that natural philosophy is coenoscopic whereas the modern sciences are idioscopic. Now metascience is only established if the foundations of natural science prove that there is more to the world than changeable, material being (via the First Mover argument and/or arguments for immateriality of soul). If these arguments fail, then—as Aquinas observes—natural philosophy (rather than metaphysics) would be First Philosophy. But either way, philosophy is coenoscopic and deals with general properties of all being, whereas the special sciences are idioscopic—i.e., they single out certain types of being and abstract from others (e.g. biology looks at living beings).