Timeline for When did it become a mainstream stereotype that physicists hate philosophy?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
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| May 4, 2020 at 20:10 | comment | added | Robert Furber | @LuisTavares Concerning your comment, C. P. Snow's essay was well-known enough by the general public to be the subject of a comic monologue and song. However, I don't think it is related to the question, because as far as I remember C. P. Snow was mainly talking about how literary intellectuals are proud of how ignorant they are of science and mathematics. | |
| Dec 5, 2019 at 13:27 | comment | added | Steve | @WillOrrick, certainly a correlation is that the focal point of science moved to America around WW2, and a lot of academia (especially the soft sciences) were considered left-wing and sympathetic to communism. I think the basic connection is that encouraging philosophical enquiry tends to produce an environment in which economic systems and social relations are also examined (and if they are weak, criticised). American science has therefore tried to emphasise mastery of the technical and routine aspects of science rather than development or evaluation of the fundamental concepts involved. | |
| Dec 4, 2019 at 18:19 | comment | added | LuisTavares |
Again, check the definition of mainstream. Anyway, in the majority of European countries philosophy is part of the high school curriculum, so any school dropout is familiar with Kuhn (and Popper, and Bachelard), but since you haven't mentioned any philosopher, physicists only, I'm not sure they can be blamed for "hating" themselves! And 3 comments is too much, this is not a chat.
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| Dec 4, 2019 at 18:06 | comment | added | Will Orrick | ...critics than a rejection of philosophy as a discipline. When it comes to philosophy as a tool for understanding reality, one should contrast the dismissive attitudes of Feynman and Hawking with how things were just a century ago. Einstein, educated in the 1890s, and the founders of quantum mechanics, working in the 1920s, were steeped in the tradition of philosophical inquiry, which informed their science in profound ways. What accounts for the change? If I had a good idea I would leave my own answer. Nick’s answer that he links to in a comment provides a plausible explanation. | |
| Dec 4, 2019 at 18:06 | comment | added | Will Orrick | ...literary, social, and cultural criticism which, while they had considerable influence in the larger world, left little impression-either positive or negative-on the bulk of the scientific community. (Philosophy and literary/cultural criticism do, of course, have some overlap, but it shouldn't be overstated.). The other aspect of the Science Wars was the indignant reaction of the scientific community to the writings of Kuhn and Feyerabend on the history and practice of science, and on its relative worth as a way of knowing. But this seems more a disagreement with a few well-informed... | |
| Dec 4, 2019 at 18:05 | comment | added | Will Orrick | I'm a bit surprised by the acceptance of this answer, which focuses on a narrow and, in my opinion, rather minor aspect of a much larger story. The Feynman clip is from 1979, well before the Sokal affair, and, I think, indicative of a broad trend in post WW2 attitudes of physicists towards philosophy, of which I see Hawking's remarks as a continuation. (The Krauss-Albert exchange, on the other hand, seems more concerned with the old science vs. religion debate than with science vs. philosophy.) Moreover the Sokal-Bricmont critique is directed, not so much at philosophy, as at trends in... | |
| Nov 26, 2019 at 18:12 | comment | added | LuisTavares |
If you think that is compatible with the definition of mainstream of the title, particularly the "mass media bit", then go on!! en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainstream
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| Nov 26, 2019 at 16:39 | comment | added | Dave L Renfro | Have we all forgotten C. P. Snow's extremely well-known and influential (even now [1]) The Two Cultures? [1] In 2008, The Times Literary Supplement included The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution in its list of the 100 books that most influenced Western public discourse since the Second World War. | |
| Nov 26, 2019 at 12:51 | vote | accept | More Anonymous | ||
| Nov 25, 2019 at 22:38 | history | edited | LuisTavares | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Nov 25, 2019 at 22:35 | review | First posts | |||
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| Nov 25, 2019 at 22:33 | history | answered | LuisTavares | CC BY-SA 4.0 |