I think the argument (I paraphrase) "all math/science is traceable back to Aristotle/Parmenides/Zeno/pick-your-philosopher, therefore everything subsequent is mere derivations of their original thoughts" is not completely sound. It's probably reasonable up to the period of Newton, Descartes and Leibniz: these people were philosophers *and* scientists. As has been pointed out several times, there was no real distinction between the two practices: they were just the one entity - natural philosophy. But then came the Scientific Revolution and during the 16th-18th centuries both disciplines professionalized and - for all but a few exceptional individuals - they split. Philosophers did philosophy, scientists did science. Philosophers might comment on what was happening in science but that does not mean that they were driving it or suggesting the questions that scientists should ask. Philosophy might comment on science but - for most practitioners of science - it did not *inform* science. My own experience bears this out. I'm a physicist and have worked in research environments all my professional life. When my colleagues and I discuss research priorities, or potential areas for study, or appropriate methodologies we refer to the work of other scientists, not philosophers. I don't think this is unusual. I strongly suspect that it is the work of other scientists and the lessons we learn from our scientific mentors that drive our scientific endeavors.
-- Robert On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 7:18 PM, glen e. p. ropella <[email protected]>wrote: > Thus spake Robert Holmes circa 09-07-11 07:47 AM: > > Y'know if Glen's resolution was true I'd expect more of the scientific > > papers I read to be referencing Quine and Aristotle rather than Landau > and > > Lifschitz. Explicitly acknowledging their debt, if you will. > > That's just plain silly. You _know_ that math has its origins in > philosophy. Just look at Russell and Whitehead's attempt to provide a > foundation for math that would lead to Hilbert's program (of which the > Riemann hypothesis was a part, and was instigated by Frege). Or look at > Tarski's and Goedel's independent discoveries of > incompleteness/inconsistency, which derailed the program. > > Sheesh. Are you unable to use Google? Are you that lazy? > > > So perhaps you could give me some concrete > > examples: which philosopher should mathematicians thank for suggesting > that > > the properties of the Riemann zeta function were worth studying? > > Oh, I don't know. Let's start with Zeno, shall we? Without him, we > wouldn't have a clear concept of the limit, the foundation of modern > analysis. Or, perhaps we go a little farther downstream and talk about > Cantor, whose work was philosophical enough to garner criticism from all > manner of authority. > > > Which > > philosopher should physicists thank for suggesting that it's worth > hunting > > for the Higgs boson? > > Well, you can start with Democritus. I could trace the evolution of the > Standard Model for you... but I won't because your questions are either > just snotty and/or lazy. If you want to know which philosophers helped > cause the hypothetical higgs boson, then you look it up yourself. > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com > >
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