Of course this isn’t a fully satisfactory theory of normativity since I don’t know what “philosophy” really is (and I’m not even sure it really is a thing).
Empirical approach: first, there is such a thing, because people keep doing it. Second, again, empirically, philosophy, pardon the metaphor, acts like a womb by spawning a natural science from time to time, while not being a science itself. Well, not always natural, sometimes it’s logic, or decision theory or something. But mostly. Which would work fine were this goal made explicit: ponder the big questions, chip a small bit of one, make it into a science and let it loose. Unfortunately the practitioners of philosophy (what an oxymoron...) have trouble letting go, and the baby science has to run away and get disowned more often than not.
It was, but if you insist. Don’t read too much into it. Practice is something of an antithesis to theory, and theorizing is all philosophy does, since it’s not something that can be experimentally tested. Once some part of it is, it becomes an aforementioned spawn.
Empirical approach: first, there is such a thing, because people keep doing it. Second, again, empirically, philosophy, pardon the metaphor, acts like a womb by spawning a natural science from time to time, while not being a science itself. Well, not always natural, sometimes it’s logic, or decision theory or something. But mostly. Which would work fine were this goal made explicit: ponder the big questions, chip a small bit of one, make it into a science and let it loose. Unfortunately the practitioners of philosophy (what an oxymoron...) have trouble letting go, and the baby science has to run away and get disowned more often than not.
I guess this is just an offhand comment, but I missed your meaning here and the point seems interesting. Could you explain?
It was, but if you insist. Don’t read too much into it. Practice is something of an antithesis to theory, and theorizing is all philosophy does, since it’s not something that can be experimentally tested. Once some part of it is, it becomes an aforementioned spawn.
Thanks.