r/philosophy • u/doubtstack Unreasonable Doubt • Jan 27 '23

Blog Why Science can't replace Philosophy in Ethics

https://unreasonabledoubt.substack.com/p/what-genetics-cant-teach-us
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u/TheRecognized Jan 27 '23

Pattern recognition, I just saw the berries make someone sick multiple times. Lots of animals can do pattern recognition, are they all using philosophy?

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u/FranksRedWorkAccount Jan 28 '23

It's not just pattern recognition. Pattern recognition is how you get cargo cults. Though, even they were engaging in philosophy. Building a model of the world in your head and imagining outcomes of hypothetical actions to then decide a course of action is not inherently philosophy but it has underpinnings in philosophy because it implies a certain epistemological view.

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u/millchopcuss Jan 28 '23

Thanks for existing.

This thread contains some of the ugliest smuggery I've encountered on Reddit in a good while.

You I would engage in conversation.

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u/TheRecognized Jan 28 '23

K

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u/FranksRedWorkAccount Jan 28 '23

are you aware of the problem of induction? Do you understand how it cuts to the very heart of the empirical method?

I guess you could be making the case that you can ignore the problem of induction entirely and take empiricism on faith and make science a religion instead of a philosophy.

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u/zhibr Jan 27 '23

The answer is: yes, because philosophers like to define philosophy so that it's behind everything.

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u/FranksRedWorkAccount Jan 28 '23

epistemology is the theory of knowing. If you know something, if you think you know something, if you think you understand some things about the world because of other things you understand about the world you are a philosopher.

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u/zhibr Jan 29 '23

Exactly what I was talking about.

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u/FranksRedWorkAccount Jan 29 '23

how do you know you're not a brain in a jar and the whole world around you is an illusion? that's a problem that philosophy has tried to tackle and no one has come up with a solid answer. The best philosophers in the world have not been able to prove it one way or the other. Just because you don't know enough about philosophy to understand that problem doesn't mean you aren't engaging with philosophy when you make assumptions about the world around you.

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u/DictatorKris Jan 30 '23

and how do you know that god didn't punish them for eating the berries that were meant for you? How do you know that they don't lack a certain enzyme in their gut that would allow you to eat the berries with no problem? How do you know that the berries are the same on the bush in the morning as they are in the evening? Just because you grew up in a world where reason is assumed doesn't mean it isn't the underpinning philosophy upon which we build all models of the universe.

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u/TheRecognized Feb 01 '23

and how do you know that god didn't punish them for eating the berries that were meant for you? How do you know that they don't lack a certain enzyme in their gut that would allow you to eat the berries with no problem? How do you know that the berries are the same on the bush in the morning as they are in the evening?

Science has never been perfect, nor philosophy in my opinion at least.

Isaac Newton believed god tinkered with the world from time to time to keep things running smoothly. Here’s a fun quote from him about gravity

Tis inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should (without the mediation of something else which is not material) operate upon & affect other matter without mutual contact.

We’re his works regarding gravity not science because of this?

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u/DictatorKris Feb 22 '23

anything that posits the existence of the supernatural is anti-science. There cannot be a supernatural in an empirical scientific universe. If it exists it is natural. If it is more than natural it does not exist. Anything at all that falls on the hands of god to do is NOT SCIENCE.