Is this century going to be an era of phiosophical change?
Let us see. 'Philosophy' is from philo ("love") and sophia ("wisdom"). A Greek word meaning 'lover of wisdom' (philosopher) to contrast with another Greek word meaning 'wise man' (sophist). The three divisions of wisdom correspond to the three major sub-sets of philosophy, namely (Meta)physics, Ethics, and Logic. To be wise one need to know what are real things, among them what is good for whatever is one's need, and how to think such that one reaches the answers to those questions. Why should we expect this to change?
Let us see. Humans acquired philosophy from the answers they found. The earliest civilization to need answers happened to be The Greek. Whichever way they acquired the answers, whether by traveling to Africa for studying with the wise men of ancient Egypt, as suggested by some experts, or by their own vision, they created the Greek Golden Era. Many records of esoteric transactions remain, garnering the interest of, mainly, scholars.
Many years later, the changes brought in by industrial revolution made such records universally accessible. Physics kept on going forward, taking us along. And we continued to dwell on ethics, logic, and all, keeping pace with physics. Hence we have distinct concepts of good-bad, light-dark, true-false, etc., and our ideas about the ways to think held on. Philosophy keeping in phase with our observations.
But now, nature of physics is likely to face a change, if quantum effects are to play a part. (which, it will have to, anyway) And, all our observations shall be reflecting that change. Don't we need to rehash ethics, logic, and all, to keep pace with that change? For example, rewrite the entire collection of philosophy, incorporating rather indistinct concepts in all our transactions. Ideas of good-bad, light-dark, true-false, etc., giving place to new, rather hazy entities that are neither good nor bad, neither true nor false, etc.? All our existing ideas about the ways to think, will no more hold.
Let us see. 'Philosophy' is from philo ("love") and sophia ("wisdom"). A Greek word meaning 'lover of wisdom' (philosopher) to contrast with another Greek word meaning 'wise man' (sophist). The three divisions of wisdom correspond to the three major sub-sets of philosophy, namely (Meta)physics, Ethics, and Logic. To be wise one need to know what are real things, among them what is good for whatever is one's need, and how to think such that one reaches the answers to those questions. Why should we expect this to change?
Let us see. Humans acquired philosophy from the answers they found. The earliest civilization to need answers happened to be The Greek. Whichever way they acquired the answers, whether by traveling to Africa for studying with the wise men of ancient Egypt, as suggested by some experts, or by their own vision, they created the Greek Golden Era. Many records of esoteric transactions remain, garnering the interest of, mainly, scholars.
Many years later, the changes brought in by industrial revolution made such records universally accessible. Physics kept on going forward, taking us along. And we continued to dwell on ethics, logic, and all, keeping pace with physics. Hence we have distinct concepts of good-bad, light-dark, true-false, etc., and our ideas about the ways to think held on. Philosophy keeping in phase with our observations.
But now, nature of physics is likely to face a change, if quantum effects are to play a part. (which, it will have to, anyway) And, all our observations shall be reflecting that change. Don't we need to rehash ethics, logic, and all, to keep pace with that change? For example, rewrite the entire collection of philosophy, incorporating rather indistinct concepts in all our transactions. Ideas of good-bad, light-dark, true-false, etc., giving place to new, rather hazy entities that are neither good nor bad, neither true nor false, etc.? All our existing ideas about the ways to think, will no more hold.
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