there is a recurring discourse about appearance vs reality that historically stems from Plato’s Republic book X, I won’t bother with footnotes, nor the subsequent playful repartee in contemporary arts criticism and practise, that most who are interested in art history culturally as I infer would be acquainted with anyway. Just a mention of the artist Gerhard Richter whose opus includes a substantial body of photorealist paintings. They are worth looking if you are interested in philosophical informed artworks involving the complex interplay of photography and painting, he once said it like this: Photography has almost no reality; it is almost a hundred per cent picture. And painting always has reality: you can touch the paint; it has presence; but it always yields a picture – no matter whether good or bad. That’s all theory. It’s no good. I once took small photographs and then smeared them with paint. That partly resolved the problem, and it’s really good – better than anything I could ever say on the subject.

heard that Santa Claus was at a Xmas speed dating event, he pulled a cracker.

happy new year everyone! :smile:

Wittgenstein “On Certainty”

286. What we believe depends on what we learn. We all believe that it isn't possible to get to the moon; but there might be people who believe that that is possible and that it sometimes happens. We say: these people do not know a lot that we know. And, let them be never so sure of their belief - they are wrong and we know it. If we compare our system of knowledge with theirs then theirs is evidently the poorer one by far. (23.9.50)

question/comments prompts me to the famous story of the philosopher Thales (water of all things), who whilst looking at the stars fell into a well (not implying any users here! ). The below abridged passage is the earliest version for all to enjoy, for me it’s a reminder, a caution, at times not to take philosophers or philosophy too seriously.

From Plato’s Theaetetus:
Socrates and Theodorus in discussion…

SOCRATES: Well, here’s an instance: they say Thales was studying the stars, Theodorus, and gazing aloft, when he fell into a well; and a witty and amusing Thracian servant-girl made fun of him because, she said, he was wild to know about what was up in the sky but failed to see what was in front of him and under his feet. The same joke applies to all who spend their lives in philosophy. It really is true that the philosopher fails to see his next-door neighbor; he not only doesn’t notice what he is doing; he scarcely knows whether he is a man or some other kind of creature. The question he asks is, What is Man? What actions and passions properly belong to human nature and distinguish it from all other beings? This is what he wants to know and concerns himself to investigate. You see what I mean, Theodorus, don’t you?

find this quote quite funny (my bold), from Heidegger:
...Nietzsche never did publish what he really thought after Zarathustra something we tend to over
look. All his writings after Zarathustra are polemics; they are outcries. What he really thought became known only through the largely inadequate posthumous publications.
From all that has here been suggested, it should be dear that one cannot read Nietzsche in a haphazard ways that each one of his writings has its own character and limits;
and that the most important works and labors of his thought, which are contained in his posthumous writings, make demands to which we are not equal. It is advisable, therefore, that you postpone reading
Nietzsche for the time being, and first study Aristotle for ten to fifteen years.

…question made complicated because “science” or “philosophy” means different things to different people/contexts. With the shifting and inconsistent definitions it could lead to misunderstanding.
I think it was Wittgenstein, somewhere, who said that one of the problems with philosophy is the lack of consensus of what philosophy should entail, conflicting language games.

My initial thoughts, and I stand to be corrected or further elaborated by those with more expertise, is the relevance of methodology.
Hard science (as opposed to soft descriptive science) is more in the business of doing actual experiments, confirming/rejecting measurable hypotheses, ultimately, at least provisionally to establish casual connections, leading to more predictive power etc.
Otoh, philosophy is not usually lab work, but more to question or to clarity these presuppositions, it could for example examine the latent cultural structures in which these operate, or it could be a non-scientific (not anti-science) endeavour putting the emphasis on “being” back to some kind of primordial, non-dualistic thinking.

roland barthes, in particular: "image, music text" could be helpful,

semiotics combined with psychoanalysis, would be the way i would approach the question, if you wanna be more critical then maybe add modern marxist thought to the mix.

psychological/biological theories tend to be more reductive,

from an arts perspective
check out cindy sherman, her art work addresses "he gaze" critically, too many postmod essays out there to quote, but the work speaks for itself

mostly agree above, but i would say the one way to address this question more deeply is perhaps go to go an art gallery and look at the work of artists. something i miss sooo much in these covid times.

this is my first post not sure if this works