Ivette Fuentes explains: “Science and philosophy share common goals. They aim at developing and deepening our understanding of reality, at uncovering the basic constituents of the Universe and its fundamental laws. Science and philosophy also share a common past. … But the overlap between science and philosophy is not only a matter of the past. In our present search for knowledge there are many moments in which the lines between them blur. Every single scientific theory and philosophical exploration starts with questions and with reflection upon them. Basic ideas are produced in order to provide answers to these questions. These ideas are developed though critical and logical thinking. At this point science and philosophy are indistinguishable. … Once a new scientific theory is proposed, it is not only confronted with experiments (when possible) but also to philosophical scrutiny. Once a theory is born, there is an unavoidable need to interpret the objects of the theory and its results. At this stage science and philosophy again come close together.”
Philosophy
Why physicists talk to philosophers … Part 3
Lee Smolin explains: “To aspire to be a revolutionary in physics, I would claim, it is helpful to make contact with the tradition of past revolutionaries. But the lessons of that tradition are maintained not in the communities of fashionable science, with their narrow education and outlook, but in the philosophical community and tradition. And that is why I talk with philosophers and encourage my students to do so.”
Why physicists talk to philosophers … Part 2
Carlo Rovelli explains: science is “a complex discipline that constantly critically rearranges its own assumptions” under the influence of philosophy, and “scientists who claim to do without philosophy are not really without philosophy; they hold a philosophical position without thinking and without being critical about it.”
Why physicists talk to philosophers … Part 1
Sean Carroll explains: “Science often gives us models of the world that are more than good enough, in terms of getting answers that fit the data within the error bars, even though they might not be completely coherent or well-defined. But that’s not really what drives us to do science in the first place. We shouldn’t be happy to do ‘well enough,’ or merely fit the data – we should be striving to understand how the world really works. Our best chance of achieving that outlandish ambition is for science and philosophy to work together.”
How to make hard choices.
Are you a drifter or do you choose your life? Philosopher Ruth Chang explains in this TED talk.
Empty ideas?
Philosophy is a bunch of empty ideas. Or so Peter Unger, a philosopher who has written quite a few impressive works of philosophy, now claims.
Language and moral judgment
Moral judgments depend on whether we are speaking a foreign language. “… when people are presented with the trolley problem in a foreign language, they are more willing to sacrifice one person to save five than when they are presented with the dilemma in their native tongue.”
Biology and blame
Will contemporary science, especially genetics and neuroscience, require substantial changes to our notions of criminal responsibility? Biology and Blame is a series of very interesting articles examining historical and current influences on the notion of criminal responsibility.
The recurring myth about Nietzsche and fascism
Brian Leiter explains that when student members of the Union Council at University College London banned the Nietzsche Club, their “action betray[ed] profound misunderstandings of both Nietzsche and of universities.”
Could you have done otherwise?
The implications of the free will debate. Interesting discussion by FSU philosopher Alfred Mele of what neuroscience does and doesn’t tell us about free will. “An important implication of the free will debate – that is, the actual debate taking place in scientific and scholarly books and articles and in books and articles for the general public – is that we can easily be misled by scientific findings if we don’t interpret them carefully. When we pay attention to details, we see that the neuroscientific challenge to free will is misguided.”
Socratically Speaking 