Since, by definition no philosophical "statement" has any evidence basis, so can neither be denied or proven - what value can "philosophical" statements offer to problem solving?
"Philosophers" seem mainly to be hand waving and special pleading for semantic and solipsistic analysis of pop culture "beliefs" and claims/statements using everyday language - mainly academic English. Ho hum
Dear Elmer,
Based on my understanding of your concern, there is one book I recently read that addresses the issue: "La Nature et la regle: Ce qui nous fait penser" (1998) by one great philosopher or our times, Paul Ricoer and Jean-Pierre Changeux, a famous neuroscientist who has studied the brain and its processes.
The English translation is "What make us think? A Neuroscientist and a Philosopher Argue about Ethics, Human Nature, and the Brain" (2000) By Princetown University Press. I found it very revealing concerning problems beteween phosolopy and science.
I hope this could help
Jorge
Ricoer is pretty long ago and pre- most good brain science. Let's stick to peer-reviewed experimental evidence, shall we - and not books.
Dear Elmer,
Philosophy cannot give you experimental results. That is certain, because philosophy is not designed to do that. But in brain research there are a lot of unanswered questions and more than that there are things that we even do not know that we can know or not. In other words we don't even know what questions to ask. For example let's talk about consciousness. One of the problems is how to account for first-person experience. We know what a rose smells like, but when we open up a brain or look at how it works on a machine, we cannot get the smell. Those are two very different things. So the question of how to account for the quality of the smell that we get when we smell a rose has not been answered by neuroscience yet. And there is another question of whether this kind of question can be answered by science at all. This is why we need philosophy.
There are two questions. Given limited resources we can choose to study to answer only one. How do we know which one to choose? Toss a coin? Or think hard about it and consider all the possibilities and values. This is philosophy.
So, we have special pleading - and handwaving - no statement in "philosophy' can be proven or disproven? That is like religion or magical claims.
"First-person experience" includes claims about ghosts, aline visitations, etc- why exclude those? On matters of what kinds of questions that is semantics or pop cultural solipsism - nothing useful there either.
Behavior is a matter of medical facts and peer-reviewed experimental evidence or not. Professional problems and problem-solver "choose" based on evidence and facts, simple.
Philosophy, whatever it is, is no more relevant to matters of behavior and the brain then nuclear engineering, surgery or plumbing - lots of unanswered questions there too.
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