Philosophy...Worthless?

[donkeyhoty]

I realized we have also just hijacked the Philosophy thread.

Well, in the sense that philosophy is the search for truth and wisdom, then no big deal.  

You should probably read the one about Farm Hall first.  It's about the recordings of the german scientists after they were captured and sequestered in an english house for a few months in '45.

I had two classes specifically about Germany in this time period back in college, Germany '14-'45 and Nazi Germany for senior research seminar, so I know more than I probably wanted to know about the subject area.

One of the biggest misconceptions is the idea of a German military-industrial powerhouse.  Much of it is based on propaganda. Yes, the military was very good, but their industrial output was never close to the level of the military.  They were the only nation, besides Japan, geared up for war in 1939.  Once everyone else reached optimum output the Germans were simply worn down and would have been even without stategic bombing.  Case in point, Rommel was forced out of North Africa before the strategic bombing had much of an effect, and the Battle of Britain was lost, for one reason, because the Germans couldn't replace planes as quickly as the brits.

[McQ]

I realized we have also just hijacked the Philosophy thread.

Well, in the sense that philosophy is the search for truth and wisdom, then no big deal.  

You should probably read the one about Farm Hall first.  It's about the recordings of the german scientists after they were captured and sequestered in an english house for a few months in '45.

I had two classes specifically about Germany in this time period back in college, Germany '14-'45 and Nazi Germany for senior research seminar, so I know more than I probably wanted to know about the subject area.

One of the biggest misconceptions is the idea of a German military-industrial powerhouse.  Much of it is based on propaganda. Yes, the military was very good, but their industrial output was never close to the level of the military.  They were the only nation, besides Japan, geared up for war in 1939.  Once everyone else reached optimum output the Germans were simply worn down and would have been even without stategic bombing.  Case in point, Rommel was forced out of North Africa before the strategic bombing had much of an effect, and the Battle of Britain was lost, for one reason, because the Germans couldn't replace planes as quickly as the brits.

Germany also committed strategic suicide in Russia, which didn't help the campaigns on the other fronts. I did my senior thesis on the Geographical Influence of Russia in WWII and its effect on the German Army. Funny how they made similar mistakes to other invaders of Russia (read, Napoleon).

[donkeyhoty]

And they wanted that Russian land for natural resources and slave labor(good ol' Lebensraum).  

It's truly amazing the amount of bodies the Russians could throw around and keep fighting.  Of course, in an all-or-nothing fight casualties become relatively meaningless.

[ImpaledSkier]

Wow, step away from the comp for 3 days and we're having a history lesson...oh well.

Also, what was the name of the show?

I wish I could, but I was only catched glimpses of it. It was basically about all the planes used in WWII.

Amor Fati

Damn it, I have to do this yet again!

Sorry, I skimmed through the philosophy section and didn't see a post like this, but I might've missed it.

Indisputable fact of history #1:

If you mean somebody went, "why?' then yeah. congrats philosophy. I usually name that human curiosity.

Indisputable fact of history #2:

I realize that the scientific method wasn't a "godsend" if you will. It was debated for the proper method. Obviously. But seriously, it's not that complicated. You got a theory? cool. can you design an experiment to test it? you can. can you go run the experiment? done? are your statements true and the data pure? well done! results! interpret it clearly, we'll peer review it and if everything seems good, we'll call it fact. what were people doing before this? making theories and calling it fact? maybe I take too much for granted when finding stuff obvious.
 and if you're talking about t-tests, f-tests, standard deviation, chi-square...I'd give some credit to the mathematicians too.

Philosophy:
1.Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline.
2.Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods.

Now, the definitions make it sound like it's mental masturbation. You can sit around and think all you want coming up with theories and ideas all you want, but if you stop there, it's not doing anything. cool, neat concept, is it true? oh...there's no way to find out. that's too bad. maybe someday we'll figure that out. This is what I'm trying to get at. Maybe 'philosophy' was too broad.

And apparently the irony is still lost on me regarding the closing thing you said in your post. All I'm saying there is I didn't need to waste $3,000 for my philosophy class to learn about modus tolens. modus tolens doesn't mean shit.

and you can refer to me by name if you'd like. Either ImpaledSkier, or Kyle. nice to meet you.

I hope whatever I said is readable, I'd say 'makes sense' but I feel we might have separate personal definitions when it comes to what part of philosophy we're debating.

[Amor Fati]

Impaled:

Your original post is loaded with irony.  Your 'attack' on philosophy begins with the question of the value of a given area of study, in this case philosophy.  Questions of value are, by their very nature, philosophical ones that rely on logic and other-than-empirical methods.  So, you're attempting to use the philosophical method to undermine philosophy.  This leaves you in a weird paradox:  If philosophy is garbage, then you certainly can't use the philosophical method to prove that it is, in fact, such garbage.   Only if philosophy has an indespensible value can your argument turn out true.    But if your argument is true, then the method you use to show that has to be crap.  

Second, since questions of value are necessarily philosophical ones, then your argument is self-refuting.  Using the philosophical method has value if you've successfully proven, with it's use, that philosophy is less valuable than science.  So if we can ignore the paradox, philosophy has an incredible value afterall.  

The final irony is that you claimed to learn to reason well in english class via persuasion papers, which is shown to be false since your reasoning has led to this bizzar paradox and your own argument's self-refutation.

Bottomline: you're using the philosophical method.  If that's nothing more than mental masturbation to you, then this entire thread (other than the history of nuclear weapons) is nothing more than a circle jerk.



As usual, philosophy and science are far more complex than their definitions or public image.  
The dependency of science on philosophy rests on the mirad of epistemological assumptions that are neccessary for science to even get off the ground.    Questions such as: What counts as a good scientific theory?  What qualities are required for a valid proof in science?  What is the link between theory, hypothesis, and test?  Why is retesting by other scientists critical?  are ALL philosophical questions regarding the nature of knowledge and the universe, and must be answered BEFORE science can do anything interesting.  NONE of these can be answered empirically.  Behind the scenes, more technical though related questions are still debated by both philosophers and scientists.

[Scrybe]

Is it worthless?  Well, in what sense are we determining worth?  If you're a scientist you are, hopefully, trying to find out what is true.  This is the same as the philosopher.  And while you both may use logic and reasoning to determine the answer to your hypothesis, the evidence and processes are different.

That's what I was thinking.

Scientific "facts" come and go as new data is discovered, interpreted and integrated into old theories.  Philosophy guides that process.