(Oct 28, 2016 03:54 AM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: [ -> ]Does myself and everyone else have to accept untestable remote possiblities, no matter how bizarre, as having even the most slightest of chances of being true?
Doctrines or schools of thought can be invented which systematically deny the existence or possibility of _X_ a priori, or dismiss their practicality. Certain strains of positivism in the past were an example of some scientists and philosophers doing just that. Ernst Mach continued to dismiss atom-related hypotheses as metaphysics even after they became legitimate theories in science. Or deemed treating such entities as "real" to be metaphysical gibberish, anyway; not necessarily their usefulness toward the end.
But at any rate, being a member of those philosophies provides a formal excuse for opting-out of the possibility of _X_ and other unknowns in future context and any other modes / conditions. Logical positivism and some of those older varieties fell out of dominant favor back in the '50s and '60s. But they still have adherents.
Quote:Does philosophy belong strictly within the realm of possibilities?
No. There may not even be a clear sub-genre of it that deals exclusively with such a subject (alone), much less philosophy as a whole. Here's an explication of what "philosophical activity" broadly is:
A particular system of "proper thinking" (logic / reason, school of thought, etc) relied itself upon a more primal level of cerebration to create it and justify or argue for its implementation. That "prior in rank" level is philosophical / intellectual activity in general. As considered with a bare minimum of preset tenets and dogmatic assumptions, whether "folk" or "formal" (not strictly its modern academic versions or its ancient equivalents, IOW). Like a tool that can be used for either gardening or killing someone, philosophical / intellectual activity is used in the verbal defense and offense of everything (including both science and religion). It depends upon the motives of the "handler" as to what agenda the "tool" serves.
A quick way to make the distinction between "natural science" and "philosophy" (of today) is that science inclines toward investigating the empirical events, entities, and situations of the world which (in the beginning) lack dependency upon description, language, or artificial modes of representation. Whereas philosophy's primary target is those artificial arrangements of knowledge rather than the sensible conditions beforehand that are converted into such.
IOW, contemporary philosophy contributes to and investigates, apprehends, evaluates (especially in terms of internal consistency and coherence) our established concepts and the preset affairs of those narrower, specialized divisions of knowledge, practice, and enterprise themselves (like science). It even studies itself (meta-philosophy).
A longer elaboration:
Rather than information which is obtained by observation, like a new bug found under a rock or a new galaxy discovered via telescope... Philosophical activity concerns the focus on, study of, and continued contribution to the invented knowledge of humankind. Our concepts, systems, methods, literature, formal institutions, schools of thought and programs for practices / pursuits. Which are supported by or also "fall out of" items like reason, effectiveness / usefulness or practical development over time, and traditions which made civilization possible (they're usually not of arbitrary origins, IOW).
For instance: The preset parameters, suppositions and "oughts" of procedure which science operates under would be an example of its own "philosophy" or prescriptive furniture (what was engendered by philosophical activity rather than discovered under a bush). Any discipline or organized endeavor has such a scheme for guidance and identity -- by definition they do not consist of random doings.
"Science" was once "natural philosophy", a subgenre of philosophy [the classic conception of philosophy] devoted to cataloging the empirical content of the world and offering explanations for it via the relational inter-dependence of those contents. Eventually NP grew so diverse that it was treated as separate. But since philosophical activity is the primal generalization of knowledge-related happenings ("prior in rank"), science can still be regarded as residing beneath that umbrella. Especially when attention is given to its presets or preconditions for operation, and interpretations of what some of its results and theories mean and their consequences.
The classic branches or subcategories often attributed to philosophy were just the earliest systems of humankind which it focused on (ethics, aesthetics, logic, metaphysics, etc) rather than being a strict territory of subjects which it is limited to. The old momentum of Anglophone academia (including its Western biases) still reflexively tries to keep that stereotype alive. But today it is recognized that there is a division of philosophy for just about everything, including
philosophy of architecture. Philosophy of science is even broken down into multiple subgenres, like philosophy of biology and philosophy of neuroscience.
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"Scientism" (not science) is a typical dispenser of misconceptions and strawmen pertaining to philosophy (the dogma can have its advocates among scientists, though, in regard to their personal views / lives). This refers to "scientism" as non-pejorative, which is a separate issue and usage / purpose of the label employed to stigmitize and dismiss valid scientific work or opinions.
"Scientism" is a classification for what varies from an informal to formal ideological perspective / movement, depending on whether or not it is identified with positivism or is a loose aggregation of tendencies of which positivism is one ancestor. Scientism treats / promotes science as the sole type and medium of knowledge. Since scientism is a philosophical stance itself (a prescription of "what to do" formulated / invented by people -- not "discovered" under a bush, etc), it is contradictory or is trivially not asserting anything meaningful (is a "duh"). I.e., equating to something like
"This school of thought should replace there being such schools of thought."
Some contemporary physicists (infected with the scientism impulse) will occasionally complain about how useless philosophy of science (PoS) is to them. A feat of nescience which misses the whole point that PoS is a formal study and understanding of what science is rather than a council of overseers trying to dictate to them. When scientists define science to the public, they actually recruit assorted interpretations of their field which have been outputted by PoS or bygone eras of general philosophy -- especially from scientists of the past who doubled as philosophers of science. Physicists of the early 20th century and 19th century were more much informed about the nature of philosophy, even publishing their own treatises in that context.
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