Thread: isms

Materialism, Idealism and Dualism.

What does science have to say about these?

Does science have anything to say about any philosophy? How much do they weigh? How long are they? What properties do they have that science can deal with?

I suppose sociology (it has an -ology, so I guess it counts as science) could look at the who and why of various belief systems. Perhaps psychology can add some background for why people believe what they do.

It might be more productive (to the extent that philosophy is "productive" at all) to ask what these, and other, isms have to say about science.

And what about Realism? I'm not quite sure of the relationship between Realism and Materialism...

Originally Posted by Strange

Does science have anything to say about any philosophy? How much do they weigh? How long are they? What properties do they have that science can deal with?

I suppose sociology (it has an -ology, so I guess it counts as science) could look at the who and why of various belief systems. Perhaps psychology can add some background for why people believe what they do.

It might be more productive (to the extent that philosophy is "productive" at all) to ask what these, and other, isms have to say about science.

And what about Realism? I'm not quite sure of the relationship between Realism and Materialism...

Yes but according to some scientists - science itself has become a crusade of materialism.

According to Rupert Sheldrake for the last 100 years western science has been advocating materialism. Ie most scientists claim only the physical exists, that animals and plants are nothing but mechanist machines etc.

The Science Delusion - YouTube

Rupert Sheldrake - Dispelling the Ten Dogmas of Materialism

The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake - review | Books | The Guardian

The unlucky fact that our current form of mechanistic materialism rests on muddled, outdated notions of matter isn't often mentioned today. It's a mess that can be ignored for everyday scientific purposes, but for our wider thinking it is getting very destructive. We can't approach important mind-body topics such as consciousness or the origins of life while we still treat matter in 17th-century style as if it were dead, inert stuff, incapable of producing life. And we certainly can't go on pretending to believe that our own experience – the source of all our thought – is just an illusion, which it would have to be if that dead, alien stuff were indeed the only reality.

Originally Posted by forests

Yes but according to some scientists - science itself has become a crusade of materialism.

And according to others it isn't. That's the trouble with philosophy, everyone can have their own view; there are no right or wrong answers.

According to Rupert Sheldrake ...

Sorry, but I just can't take anything he says seriously. I suppose there might be the occasional word of sense but really, if he said the sky was blue I would have to go outside and check.