Dick,

>>>Ignoring, for the moment, the fact that "science" is not a very well defined word, I would say that the issues discussed by scientists should be thoroughly understood by the philosopher otherwise it is clear that he stands in danger of speaking of things he does not understand.>The accumulated knowledge of mankind is not static. If one is going to discuss the underlying issues currently held as "meta-physics" it seems to me that all aspects of physics (particularly mathematics) needs to be well understood.>>The mathematicians are concerned with very little beyond what can be deduced from their axioms. Being a very irrelevant field, there is very little controversy as to what the meanings of their symbols and their constructs are.>If a mathematician says A implies B you can put a very high confidence on the fact that the statement is true (considering that you stay within his definitions of A and B).>Scientists are very interested in "knowing" but are actually not particularly interested in "understanding" at all. I have had a very respected scientist (who will remain unnamed) tell me in so many words "science is not concerned with truth; truth is an issue of interest only to philosophers". And he did not use the word philosopher in a complementary manner. Alex's attitude is very common in the scientific field.

• What is science and what is a philosophy. - alexander - April 18, 2001 - 20:27 UTC
  • Philosophy - harvey1 - April 18, 2001 - 20:34 UTC