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Makes sense.  Somebody called evolutionary anthropology “philosophising with data”.

You cannot say one is the study of this and one is the study of that. You can only say the methods that they use to study their subjects. Both the sciences and philosophy deal with ideas (to different degrees) and mostly science but in many methods of inquiry by philosophers deal with “things”.

In some sciences they use the scientific method…[Read more]

Surely, science is the study of things, and philosophy is the study of ideas.  But since ideas are about things, the two can cross over and inform each other.

I actually think the article is reasonable – it was unfamiliar territory at first, but now I understand it – up until here:

There is also mounting evidence of fine-tuning in evolutionary biology, predetermining the course of the development of life.

God is also required to explain immaterial aspects of the universe, such as consciousness,…

[Read more]

You need “to walk in their shoes” before you can fully criticize their ideas or build upon them. by walking their ideas forward with your own shoes on.

I think it’s necessary to fully understand ideas before we criticise them or build on them.  That’s why a muddled writer is not doing us a gift when they don’t explain their ideas clearly.

@ Davis, I agree with what you say so you have saved me some writing. As I mentioned before it was Hegel who said that the study of philosophy is but the introduction to philosophy.

To be a good physicist who can learn the theory of relativity without learning about the life and times of Einstein or how his thought process worked. Not so with a…[Read more]

Can you find anything wrong with this argument for belief in god being rational?

I don’t think the article really mentions philosophy or philosophers in general. He is disingenuous when he argues that both Plato and Aristotle held that the existence of God to be logically reasoned.

What annoys me with these arguments – as I have argued in ano…[Read more]

There is absolutely NO doubt that there are terrible disaster branches of philosophy. Especially post-modernesque writers. Some (and only SOME) who deal with feminist/LGTB/colonialist/black studies can also defy comprehension. While you certainly don’t find as much stupid writing…you still find it in psychology and economics and even in the…[Read more]

Can you find anything wrong with this argument for belief in god being rational?

When an idea is presented clearly, it’s a thing of joy.  I know there are plenty of clear-thinking philosophers around.  I’m wondering if Will Jones at The Conservative Woman is one of them.  I find his article unreadable, whereas the Patheos article is very clear, ev…[Read more]

 They [philosophers] just seem to talk crap, in other words.

This is something you regularly have to put up with in the study of philosophy. Think of people who say this, as the sort of “far-right” loud mouth know it alls of the hyper-rationalists. It doesn’t matter…you know…that it was philosophers who very well set up the whole concept of…[Read more]

The adversarial culture in philosophy does not serve the truth.

I’m finding the same with this one.  Maybe philosophers are just terrible at presenting their ideas – they don’t know what is relevant to the reader’s understanding of the topic they’re talking about.  They just seem to talk crap, in other words.

Mathematicians, computer p…[Read more]

Can you find anything wrong with this argument for belief in god being rational?

What I find wrong with this argument is that it’s difficult to understand because it uses jargon without proper explanation (e.g., “anti-rational”) – more difficult than it needs to be.  Maybe the audience is professional philosophers who would know these terms…[Read more]

The Catholic Church did not just forget about a few child sex abusers. They forgot about hundreds of them and therefore thousands of their victims. That Church is a disgrace to humanity.