Should a new sub forum...

Pinball1970 said:
We already got some. In the Science sections :)
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Not scientific philosophy? There is general philosophy but I think because of the nature and ethos of the site, a scientific philosophy sub forum makes sense. We can use general philosophy if all else fails.
 
davewhite04 said:
Not scientific philosophy? There is general philosophy but I think because of the nature and ethos of the site, a scientific philosophy sub forum makes sense. We can use general philosophy if all else fails.
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Is that a thing? there is"philosophy of science."
 
Philosophy of science is usually seen as a branch of epistemology. It concerns itself with the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of science. I would say it is the meta-discipline of scientific inquiry. We could have an epistemology forum and then have phil of sci as a sub forum.
 
TheVat said:
Philosophy of science is usually seen as a branch of epistemology. It concerns itself with the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of science. I would say it is the meta-discipline of scientific inquiry. We could have an epistemology forum and then have phil of sci as a sub forum.
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Even better idea.
 
There's no reason why you can't discuss these things in the appropriate Philosophy sub-forum. That's what it's for. Why would it need its own subforum?

Simply state at the top of your thread any thoughts, concerns and provisos that you think are necessary as guardrails for discussion.
 
DaveC426913 said:
There's no reason why you can't discuss these things in the appropriate Philosophy sub-forum. That's what it's for. Why would it need its own subforum?

Simply state at the top of your thread any thoughts, concerns and provisos that you think are necessary as guardrails for discussion.
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I don't know Dave... if adding appropriate forums makes the site better, it's a win win. I don't know how tricky that would be to do. We can use general philosophy but I fear some good ideas/thoughts will get lost in the clutter.
 
davewhite04 said:
be created under philosophy called 'science'?
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If there was a lot of activity transpiring in the Philosophy section, like years ago, then "Philosophy of Science" might be justified, to lighten the load on GP. But those who made hay in it back then have long since been driven off. The overall forum is so dead compared to the past, that it seems uselessly extravagant to refine any section down to an extra sub-category. It's like adding a new skyscraper to one of China's ghost cities.
_
 
davewhite04 said:
if adding appropriate forums makes the site better, it's a win win
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What is inappropriate about the Philosophy forum for philosophical discussions?




The general idea is that the interest/activity in a subject predates the need of a forum to contain it.

In other words, only if a particular subject is seen to become so popular that it is swamping the forum would the mods likely consider a new subforum.

Twenty or thirty years in, you don't create new fora proactively; you create them reactively.
 
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Question answered comprehensively by CC & Dave
Great work

i forward a motion to close the thread as 'Question answered & Job well done'.
 
The philosophy of science already comes up in a lot of discussions we have on this forum, especially when we get people who have mistaken ideas about what natural science is and does. Creationists for instance (esp. cdesign proponentsists), or those who don't understand that their novel hypotheses need to be empirically testable in order to count as science, or that no scientific theory is ever proved true.

I agree that discussions of philosophy of science itself can perfectly well be accommodated in the Philosophy sub-forum without any need to create a subdivision.
 
davewhite04 said:
be created under philosophy called 'science'?
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In principle a "philosophy of science" subforum could be created as a subforum of Philosophy. So could an "Ontology" subforum, and a "Moral Philosophy" subforum and an "Epistemology" forum, etc.

As others have pointed out, there isn't sufficient demand to make such sub-categorisation desirable or necessary at this time.

As exchemist pointed out, the philosophy of science most often tends to come up in the context of demarcation disputes on this forum: arguments as to whether particular claims are scientific or not. Those kinds of debates are fine to have in their own contexts, I think. If people really want to discuss those kinds of issues in the abstract, then the General Philosophy forum is fine for that.

Notice how we already have a separate Ethics subforum. The reason is that these kinds of issues come up often enough in a more general context to justify the creation of an area specifically for those discussions.
davewhite04 said:
There is general philosophy but I think because of the nature and ethos of the site, a scientific philosophy sub forum makes sense. We can use general philosophy if all else fails.
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The key feature of philosophy is critical thinking and careful analysis. This fits in very nicely with our overall site ethos, already.
 
What about a Philosophy of Philosophy subforum, where ‘we’ can debate or philosophise what other subforums are needed.

Can’t remember the name of a film, in which a small community of survivors and their later descendants, all live in a sunken ocean liner, torpedoed in 1939 by a german u-boat. The ship is later found in 1981.
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Found it.

"Goliath Awaits"​

 
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C C said:
If there was a lot of activity transpiring in the Philosophy section, like years ago, then "Philosophy of Science" might be justified, to lighten the load on GP. But those who made hay in it back then have long since been driven off.
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Ruh-roh! Careful with that phrasing--one might be called to account for such a potentially contentious claim.
C C said:
The overall forum is so dead compared to the past, that it seems uselessly extravagant to refine any section down to an extra sub-category. It's like adding a new skyscraper to one of China's ghost cities.
_
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But, yeah. And even then, it was never all that popular--or stimulating. I think when you have a forum that is ostensibly science-oriented, any such philosophy sub-forum is always going to heavily favor certain schools or traditions in philosophy, thereby already limiting what is likely to be discussed.

IOW a lively discussion over whether Foucault's geneological methodology of his later work constituted a disavowal, or simply an evolution, of his earlier archaeological methodology is not likely to be had anyway.
 
C C said:
If there was a lot of activity transpiring in the Philosophy section, like years ago, then "Philosophy of Science" might be justified, to lighten the load on GP. But those who made hay in it back then have long since been driven off. The overall forum is so dead compared to the past, that it seems uselessly extravagant to refine any section down to an extra sub-category. It's like adding a new skyscraper to one of China's ghost cities.
_
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Good point. C C.
 
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