Yes and no. Science has "come of age" so that now it can carry the torch. Scientists will increasingly do much of what philosophers used to do. So it lives on but in another form.

Philosophy used to include the sciences but inevitably people started to specialize and several fields of knowledge emerged. Philosophy nowadays is only a fragment of what it used to be.

Nevertheless, I still do think philosophy is important. Not necessarily for what it has to say, but for how it can be used. The skeptical philosophical method should be just as highly valued as the scientific method. Otherwise we would lose ourselves in dogma just like we did before in the Middle Ages no, I'm not saying religion and science are them same.

Stephen Hawkings has no idea what he is talking about. He might be a brilliant physicist, but he has no business poking his nose in philosophy if he doesn't know what he's talking about. You don't see Zizek rambling about the intricacies of quantum physics because he is not qualified to talk about it, and he knows it. Hawking apparently does not.

Philosophy as an academic subject is probably dead. It's hopelessly lost up it's own arsehole.

The etymological core of philosophy, love of wisdom, is the only real hope for mankind and it is that love that drives scientific enquiry, amongst other things. In that sense, philosophy is not dead.

I really think that the pursuit of wisdom is a virtue, and one that should be made paramount to all if the world is to be made a better and more civilised place. It seems, in most corners, this virtue is waning, not waxing.

Science is a branch of philosophy, but even if that wasn't the case philosophy still wouldn't be dead.

Science only gives you data, philosophy can teach you what to make of that data.

Sounds to me more like Hawkings was talking about the "where did it all come from and why are we all here?" bullshit that so many confuse with philosophy.

>>243
Philosophy has merit as an Art.

>>247
This.

What we now refer to as the natural sciences was lumped under the blanket term of philosophy in ancient times, until science branched off to become it's own field.

We will always need philosophy and we certainly need it now, because there will always be things we do not know (And we definitely aren't even close to knowing everything today). As long as there are questions we can't answer, we'll need philosophy to tell us how to cope with the absence of answers. Moreover, philosophy will always teach us how to deal with difficult scientific findings. For instance, if science some how found that there was no God, philosophy can teach us how to live our lives in light of this "truth".

Science and philosophy serve two different purposes, and I don't think they're really at odds with one another.

But honestly, who cares what Steven Hawkings says? He's a scientist not a philosopher. That guy's just trying to sell books and stay relevant.

>>243

I've always liked what Ayn Rand says about philosophy being a practical concern for all men (I know, she says a lot of other things, but I like this thing).

Important philosophical questions are questions about how men should conduct themselves and what they should value. I'm also of the opinion that those questions will have a clearer answer in light of psychological and neurolgical discoveries which will tell us what causes us pain or pleasure, what inspires us, what provokes us to violence or leads us to love. Even then, those concepts, it seems to me, have an external importance. Not all humans are equal or equally motivated, but they are all affected by decisions made by men and forces of nature that no man can control. Philosophy and it's gem, Justice, give us the tools to say how men _should_ be lead and how men might reconcile themselves with what they can't control.

I need philosphy because I'm alive, there's a lot I can do, there's a lot I can't do, and I have to do something.

Philosophy is today a slightly more exalted version of religion. Both tried to find truth in a roundabout way. Both tried to invent their own answers as they went along, in the face of a lack of real ones. Religion's fibbing was just more egregious.

>>285
What a load of old twoddle.

Religion is a social phenomenon. It's about people all doing the same silly things on a vast scale. Philosophy, in general, is the search for knowledge, but in modern times is generally thought of as being an exercise in semantics.

>>286
Bah. "Commit it to the flames" I say.

As for religion, it is many things. An attempt to understand the world certainly has been one of them.

Science and philosophy are two sides of the same coin. Both seek the truth, science is simply a more structured and methodological method while you can argue that philosophy is more 'pure'.

I truly love science and I have nothing but respect for scientists but I lament and fear the dissapearance of the philosopher-scientist. Philosophy needs science to confirm its ideas, science needs philosophy to see the limits of its method and to be able to think outside the box. Having one without the other will end up pretty badly.

apart from physics, philosphy is the last interesting thing, because it tries to address the unanswerable. because humans are naturally interested or curious about the unknown, the unanswerable holds an eternal interest.

>>350

Seeking to answer unanswerable questions is obviously a complete waste of time. Indeed I would say that a string of words that cannot be answered does not even constitute a question at all.

no proof = no meaning

'philosophy is dead' seems to be a jolly stupid thing to say. What about bioethics, for example, or justice, or the matter of teaching people how to think?

I think different branches of philosophy become more and more important in our 'democratic', yet complicated societies.

>>370
Even metaphysics is still in the mainstream.