Philosophy is a hobby. No. It is a way of life.

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I agreed philosophical thinking is needed on life, it essentially help a lot. On the contrary, instead of process I take it as a guide, a motivator and basis to make a worth happy living life.

"The Socratic Method" is incompatible with "The Scientific Method".

I base this observation on the entry for "The Socratic Method" under "Plato" in "The Encyclopedia of Philosophy", Volume 6, page 317, Gilbert Ryle (1972), Paul Edwards, Editor in Chief.

The book "End the Biggest Educational and Intellectual Blunder in History: A $100,000 Challenge to Our Top Educational Leaders" by Norman W. Edmund (2005), gives a conclusion from a different vantage point.

Holding The Socratic Method as encompassing The Scientific Method is an unwelcomed regression to a pre-scientific era:
"The Socratic method and the scientific proceed by discovery, but whereas the scientific investigates the outer world, and regards the inner world as an externality as well, the Socratic seeks to discover the ultimate truth that lies within us."
From: "Noetics: The Science of Thinking and Knowing" by Krader & Levitt (2010), pages 232-233.

Tadzio

P.S.: This is False: "Chickens are not able to read or learn." Chickens are able to read & learn, as with using operant conditioning, chickens can be taught numbers and to perform arithmetic.

Can anything in philosophy ever proved wrong?

Don't know much about philosophy, but I did learn about utilitarianism, Kant, Aristotlean morals, and other moral systems as part of a course in legal systems. The different moral philosophies go about using very different ways to try and achieve (more or less) the same result, e.g. "murder is wrong". But there's no way to tell if any one of them is actually wrong. To my mind, that means that none of them are right either (because something can only be true if the impossibility of it being wrong has been proven. I believe Karl Popper was the progenitor of falsifiability, oh the irony.).

I hate to say this, but most of the arguments attacking philosophy can be applied to number theory as well. Number theory is my favourite field, just too bad it's also pretty much the most useless field of mathematics - precisely because it's "nothing but pure ideas".

Hi Sunshine,

Number Theory is the most important part of Encryption Techniques, and encryption is becoming more and more important, and very valuable ("The Little Book of Big Primes" by Paulo Ribenboim gave a famous example of Cryptography using Prime Number Theory).

Tadzio

You've misunderstood how knowledge is created. I'm included the link again below. This is in both Science and Philosophy. And philosophers and philosophies that don't do this are ignorant.

http://curi.us/1541-how-to-create-knowledge

No. The Socratic Method has nothing to do with 'seeking truth within'. The Socratic Method is purely a line of questioning. It can be used for anything and everything. Period. What you are quoting is somebodies "opinion" of what he thinks the Socratic Method is for. He is mistaken. He obviously doesn't realize that the Socratic Method is used to teach children, and in consulting. Are these "seeking truths within"? No. Its possible the author was saying something poetic. But it is absolutely false.

Oh thats cool, didn't know that. So I'll rephrase my statement. Only humans are able to create universal explanations of the world around us. Therefore using chickens in an argument as a comparison to humans with respect to learning, is fallacious. Please see The Beginning of Infinity to understand universal explanations and what that means for humans: http://beginningofinfinity.com/

I don't' see the distinction between *process* and *guide*. Could you explain?

I don't see how it is a motivator. It is only a line of questioning. And we use questions all day long. Imagine that your questions were more powerful. By more powerful, I mean that the answers you get from them are closer to what you wanted/expected.

I've been applying the Socratic Method to learn things I never learned in a book, or on wikipedia, or anywhere. I sit down next to someone knowledgeable in a field that I want to know about. And I ask a Socratic line of questions until I've learned the logic of that field, or rather until I learned what it was that I was interested about.

Without a Socratic line of questions, I would not be able to extract the knowledge from that person.

Looks like we should have defined the parameters for considering what is more important. So lets do that. By important, I mean how much a method can help you.

Can the Scientific Method help you in your day-to-day life? No.

Can the Socratic Method help you in your day-to-day life? Yes. It helps with every single human to human communication and with internal thinking.

Therefore, according to the parameters for considering what is more important, the Socratic Method is more important to you than the Scientific Method.

Using Mill's Methods to find out why your car won't start is a big help to you or your mechanic.

ruveyn

I don't' know Mill. But the Socratic Method will help you figure out why your car won't start. And it'll help you learn how cars work because you'll be able to ask better Socratic questions to your mechanic.

John Stuart Mill, a British philosopher wrote the book on how to use induction.

Aristotle could have used what Mill taught.

ruveyn

Mill was known for induction. I use induction when I'm trying to learn how my car works. And I ask Socratic questions to my mechanic in order to confirm my guesses. The mechanic gives his criticisms of my guesses, and that hows I'm able to learn how my car works. And this helps me understand why my car won't start.

Please help me figure this out.

I've talked to a few NT's and confirmed that they think different than me in a very specific way. But I haven't spoken to any Aspie/Autistics yet. So I'd like your input so we can figure this out.

When you're watching tv, and your train of thought goes off on a tangent, are you a) able to follow whats going on in the tv show or b) do you have to rewind it?

Please answer the poll question here.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp4248660.html#4248660

And that's a conceptual problem. You see, if philosophy needs to be scientific, and the socratic method is not scientific and the socratic method trumps everything, we have a lot of confusion going on but not a lot of sense.

Do you have proof, or is this an assertion?

You stated "If the Critical Thinking is systematized, then it is Philosophizing.", Biology is systematized critical thinking in that biologists use a method on a subject area to arrive at conclusions within a system of understanding. However, biology is not philosophy. Here's the issue, either you have to drop one definition or another, but the two do contradict.

Hunh? What journal?

I know what empirical evidence means. Either it supports, or it rejects the claim. Empirical evidence is actually sufficient. Are you really going to claim that you can't know something unless somebody else is there to criticize it??? Really? I utterly reject that. I know lots of things that nobody else has criticized.

As for "test your hypothesis", we need a significant body of statistical information, and ideally an actual experiment. There is no meaningful "testing your hypothesis" without some scientific control. Frankly, I shouldn't be involved in "testing your hypothesis". If you make a claim this bold, it should already have proof.


I provided three criticisms:

"First of all: You have to prove your claim. I don't need to have much grounding to reject an unproved claim I find implausible, as you carry the burden of proof.

Second of all: Personal mastery proves nothing in this circumstance. You didn't state "Any and all people who master Socratic Method dramatically increase their intelligence", and science NEVER states anything like that, meaning that any personal, anecdotal experience could really just be an outlier.

Third of all: I actually don't need to specifically test a particular method to come to the conclusion that this is likely not true. If most things learned do not alter intelligence significantly, then if someone comes up to me saying "Come on, this learned thing will increase intelligence significantly", I have inductive evidence to dissent. Just like if I find that 200,000 different chickens lack the ability to speak, I really have a good reason to think that the next chicken I run across will not be able to speak. I could be wrong, but, I still have good reason. Most studies I am aware of suggest that IQ is highly genetic and does not alter significantly across one's life. Certain activities can cause a short-term boost, but when such actions are ended, then IQ will cease to be enhanced. "

Don't pretend I said absolutely nothing after that comment.


I don't know what you mean by "journal". I am going to stick to standardized IQ testing as "intelligent". If you want to have a different meaning, then use a different term, but I am not going to spend my time learning your particular method.

Also, your informal testing will not be admitted as evidence. Otherwise, I have just observed a pink elephant. Prove me wrong. The issue is that I have no reason to trust your observations. You're a random person on the internet promoting a special theory, this is the exact opposite of a credible source.


With a control and experimental group? How do I even know you have employees? What IQ test did you administer between when you started, and after you started?

Do you expect me to have lab rats I can conduct the experiment with?

Your assertion that I just do something is not something I take seriously. Especially given that you have not actually presented some program. You're just saying "Do Socratic method!", but the problem is that to make this rigorous, we can't just say "do this", we have to say "do this for X time". There has to be a trial. This can't be try until success, otherwise, success is guaranteed. The problem is that I don't think you're showing an awareness of this kind of a concern. The issue is that this actually undermines your credibility, as I am not actually going to spend any time because you tell me to. I'm just going to evaluate you. If you make powerful arguments and show your intellectual abilities, then I'll consider your point, but if you don't then I won't.


No, it isn't. You just didn't follow it. Also, chickens, like EVERY OTHER ORGANISM WITH A BRAIN are able to learn. Learning is a very basic feature of a brain. They also likely have intuitions, just as we do, just not philosophical intuitions.

Basically, all I am doing though, is explaining induction by saying "I observe an X Y times where Y is a large number and observe property Z in all instances. If I observe X again, I still be justified in inferring that X has property Z". That's it. Talking about how chickens are not able to read or learn actually is a failure to understand my point as I am approaching this by explaining how I know that chickens cannot speak. How do you know that chickens cannot read?

Your wordings are confusing. Your definition of intelligence is problematic, as it varies from other definitions that are more standard. Your definition of logic has a similar issue.


Yes, your empirical evidence that only you observed when you're a person on the other side of the internet. Don't you understand the issue? The internet is a place where people don't actually know the identities of those who they talk to. I can't trust anything you say just because you say it. So, if you said something where the level of trust I had to give is low, then that's one issue, but something that's significant, like where you're trying to make a form of a scientific claim..... actually undermines your credibility because it undermines the degree to which I think you can make sense of how to run an argument.

Not that I am aware of. When we derive something from something else, we may just be manipulating the variables to find something else of interest.

That being said... no, I don't think scientific method formally follows from anything else in some a priori sense.


The actions of philosophers is relevant because the argument is that philosophers discovered science, but if they didn't discover science through the socratic method, then the socratic method isn't necessary as a method, and we don't have historical reasons to think science was derived from the socratic method.


Because to claim that science is a tweak of the socratic method, you either have to define your terms and show how your point is correct, or you have to be making a historical claim. You have not defined your terms and shown this. I'm showing that this is not a historical claim.

Philosophers cannot write out a socratic method without a socratic dialogue, so, if they don't use philosophical dialogues, then they don't use the socratic method.

Reduce entropy??? Do you simply mean information randomness? Or is this a redefinition of an existing term? I know you're probably not talking about reducing the local energy lost in chemical processes in HR.


But the term *MOTHER* is a historical claim. You're saying Socratic method GAVE BIRTH TO scientific method. But, if philosophers did not use Socratic Method to arrive at Scientific method, then this is a false claim. Meaning that what philosophers have done or not done is absolutely RELEVANT to the point. There is no way you can make your point without making a point about the history of philosophy.


I am having difficulty understanding you at many points in this conversation, so I don't know where you're going wrong in some of these areas. However, asking a loaded question is actually a terrible idea philosophically, and that's what some of these questions have been. It's not a good intellectual move, but it's a good rhetorical move, and the reason I say that is because a loaded question looks neutral while biasing a conclusion in a certain direction. People are generally better off with analyzing syllogisms than loaded questions.


Ok, but the problem is that you're trying to argue for supremacy of the Socratic Method, BUT, the problem is that if science is better at certain things, then why consider the Socratic method superior? We have no justification because science does certain things better.


No, I don't have to think about that. Also, more situations doesn't mean more usefulness. That's ridiculous. Approximations are often more useful than explicit formula, because they are faster and cheaper and easier to use, which is a clear counter-example.

rombomb2, the claim the Scientific Method would not have been created without the Socratic Method is either a claim about history of philosophy, or about the necessary workings of method. I've challenged you on the historical interpretation. You haven't justified the claim of necessity as I've pointed out that most philosophers today use methods that don't rely on an explicit dialectic, but that the Socratic method is based upon an explicit dialectic. You can say anything you want, but you'll be full of crap unless you can prove your claims.


rombomb2, the problem is that if something "hasn't caught on yet" then that means that it doesn't have a lot of credibility yet. Credibility is partially established by enduring things. So, I don't mind the time factor at all. The time factor is part of the point. If you come in with some random idea, and expect everybody to go along with it, then... we have a very good reason to be skeptical compared to something that we know is known by authoritative figures in the discipline.

Resisting change is good in certain contexts. You want to change your mind, but you don't want to change it to something stupid, so you resist a lot of possible changes until some have proven themselves.


Employed a fallacy? You mean you misused logic?


I am just stopping here. I don't know the exact details of where you are coming from. I don't really want to know either. I've seen enough.

HUNH???? Here's the issue, "how much a method can help you" always goes back to comparisons between it and other things. You can't use the socratic method for breathing, it takes too long. We HAVE heuristics already. The socratic method doesn't do better than heuristic-feedback methods, and those methods ALREADY EXIST. We ALREADY USE THEM. Scientific method is the add-on. So, here's the issue, does science add more to heuristic-feedback method than Socratic method? And scientific method DOES.

This means that scientific method helps you MORE. I might not explicitly do science, but I at minimum rely on scientific claims at multiple junctures, which means that I, indirectly, rely on the scientific method.