That's a good way of putting it.

So, that's science in theory. But in practice, a lot of evidence is ignored by the scientific community for plenty of phenomena which would constitute science. So, actually science doesn't have this problem. Michel Foucault, Thomas Kuhn and others discuss this in their books.

Sure, that's fair enough. But the arbiter of what makes a scientific theory, model, paradigm, or whatever, true or not, is still evidence, which is objective, or at least strongly intersubjective. Scientific theories have a resource that philosophy does not have. When scientists disagree, they typically go over the evidence, or collect more evidence, or reinterpret the evidence, or question the authenticity of the evidence, or suggest that the evidence needs to be seen in a whole new light, or something. Philosophers don't have that. We have internal consistency, consistency with the broad scientific consensus, appeals to common sense, Ockham's razor, introspection, necessary truths, conceptual clarification, etc. Science has all these too, but it has evidence as well.

I don't agree at all. What determines the alleged "truth" of science is just whatever prevails at the common wisdom of the time. For example, recently a planet "disappeared" from the Universe. Did the planet really disappear? No. It never actually existed. The scientific theory was just wrong. Theories very often do not fully integrate the complete level of human knowledge. And actually cannot by definition, because the level of human knowledge constantly changes and is limited. So what I'd argue is, Evidentialism is not how science actually functions. That's certainly what the scientific ideology is though.

Why would you publish a paper stating that you agree with everything Professor X said?! — jacksonsprat22

Exactly. Literally no one cares about people agreeing or disagreeing with each other.

I agree!

...oh.

So what I'd argue is, Evidentialism is not how science actually functions. — h060tu

OK, but it is more physical-evidence-based than philosophy, no? And that difference is enough to explain why philosophical disputes can and do go unresolved for millennia, whereas scientific questions get actually decided fairly regularly in the light of evidence. That's the question of the thread.

OK, but it is more physical-evidence-based than philosophy, no? — bert1

No. Physical evidence is just a abstract concept. It's not an actual thing. 'Physical evidence' is just as metaphysical as 'God' or 'soul' is.

scientific questions get actually decided fairly regularly in the light of evidence. — bert1

What science are you talking about? Scientific questions are never settled, and can never be settled by definition. Science is based on the current level of human knowledge. Tomorrow that level of knowledge will change. Yesterday it changed. Thousands of years before and after, it will change. Science is never settled. Science is always evolving.

For example, recently a planet "disappeared" from the Universe. Did the planet really disappear? No. It never actually existed. The scientific theory was just wrong. — h060tu

If you’re talking about Pluto, that’s really not an accurate characterization. The classification scheme (not a theory, just an arbitrary convention about how to group and name things) changed, and an object that had fallen into the category of “planet” under the old classification was now categorized as a “dwarf planet” (which is, somehow, not a kind of planet) under the new classification. Nothing about our description of the universe changed or was shown wrong, we just decided to name things differently.

If you’re talking about Pluto, that’s really not an accurate characterization. — Pfhorrest

NASA: ‘Disappearing Planet’ May Never Have Existed

Okay, something different entirely then.

Also, BTW, never heard of your source before and just looked them up:

The National Interest (TNI) is an American bimonthly conservative international affairs magazine published by the Center for the National Interest, which is a Washington, D.C.-based public policy think tank established by former U.S. President Richard Nixon on January 20, 1994, as the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom.[1] Nixon's handpicked executive and current president, Dimitri Simes, was named in the Mueller Report as an agent of the Russian government and has intervened in American politics on direct orders of the highest levels of the Russian government.[2] In light of this scandal, the reputation and fidelity of the publication has suffered as a magazine of record.[3] Simes continues to officially and openly serve as publisher of The National Interest.[4] — Wikipedia

Regardless of their fidelity on this particular mostly-apolitical topic, your appeal to them damages your reputation in my eyes, just FYI.

Regardless of their fidelity on this particular mostly-apolitical topic, your appeal to them damages your reputation in my eyes, just FYI. — Pfhorrest

I just Googled it and pasted it. I never went on that website before now.

You can find a different source. I probably read it first in a scientific paper or article. I hate Nixon, and I'm not a conservative. I think Putin is a decent leader, but I am not Russian, so it doesn't really matter.

Your reply is a fallacy btw. It's poisoning the well. Even if Satan said 1+1=2 it would still be right, whether you liked Satan or not.

It's not poisoning the well to say that a source appealed to is not reputable.

In any case, I'm glad you just stumbled onto them and don't endorse them, that redeems you in my eyes.

Science is always evolving. — h060tu

Verily it evolves. It evolves in light of what?

"why is there persistent disagreement in philosophy?"

I suppose because we haven't got everything figured out yet. And disagreement could be considered part of the process of dialectics.

I'm interested in what you think distinguishes philosophy from science. If you don't think it is reliance on physical evidence, what is it? Are you more comfortable with the concept of observation perhaps?

What science are you talking about? Scientific questions are never settled, and can never be settled by definition. — h060tu

Maybe not absolutely 100%, no, but some questions are pretty settled aren't they? They are settled enough to base life and death decisions on, for example, that converting kinetic energy to heat in a brake will reliably slow a car. There's a whole load of contested scientific claims of course, but there's many more that aren't.

In relation to the people who run the academic establishment. As Niels Bohr said, science progresses one grave at a time. The old gatekeepers died, the old paradigm does with them. New gatekeepers bring in the new paradigm. B.F. Skinner was supplanted by Chomsky. Newton by Einstein, then by Bohr, Plank and Heisenberg. Alfred Marshall by John Maynard Keynes and so on.

Sure, but there's still a fairly clear distinction between philosophy and science, even if it is blurry in places and shifts its ground. Generally, and imperfectly, philosophical questions are not resolvable by making a physical observation. If they are, they tend to cease to be philosophical questions, and become scientific. That's roughly right isn't it? And it's that difference that explains, I suggest, why philosophical solutions do not force agreement in the way that scientific ones eventually do, even if we have to wait for the old duffers to die. Philosophical problems resurface with renewed vigour generation after generation.

Although bizzarely flat Earthism seems to be making a comeback. So maybe I'm totally wrong.

I'm interested in what you think distinguishes philosophy from science. If you don't think it is reliance on physical evidence, what is it? Are you more comfortable with the concept of observation perhaps? — bert1

I think science is about method, about what the Greeks called techne and philosophy is more about theory, what the Greeks call episteme. Science's success is measured on how well it does, on the basis of instrumentalism and reliabilism, not anything objective in the world.

Maybe not absolutely 100%, no, but some questions are pretty settled aren't they? They are settled enough to base life and death decisions on, for example, that converting kinetic energy to heat in a brake will reliably slow a car. — bert1

Right. It's reliabilism. I agree. The theory works sufficiently enough to account for that problem. But that doesn't make it a fact, it makes it a hypothesis that works extremely well, but could change given time and more evidence and so on.

Sure, but there's still a fairly clear distinction between philosophy and science, even if it is blurry in places and shifts its ground. — bert1

I don't know if it is so clear. Paul Feyerabend believed there was nothing that distinguished science from magic. Ironically, Michael Shermer agreed with him.

Generally, and imperfectly, philosophical questions are not resolvable by making a physical observation. If they are, they tend to cease to be philosophical questions, and become scientific. That's roughly right isn't it? — bert1

Well, empirical observation. I wouldn't call it physical, because I don't believe in physicality. But yes, empirical observations would be scientific.

Although bizzarely flat Earthism seems to be making a comeback. So maybe I'm totally wrong. — bert1

Well, I don't agree science forces agreement and philosophy doesn't. I think institutions force agreement, and science and philosophy are both molded by the experience and knowledge of the human beings at any given level of knowledge or circumstances in history. Academic philosophy is very much "forced agreement" as much as science is. But that's because of the academy, not because philosophy as such is that way. I would say the same about science. It's the scientific institutions, wedded to the University system, publishing irrelevant studies in unknown, unaffordable and unreadable journals, corporate and government funding, or whatever that force agreement.

Philosophers agree about almost everything. That shit smells, that the sky is blue, that Trump is an idiot, that murder is wrong, that the egg predates the chicken, and so on.

All that goes without saying; so we talk about, what is uncertain, what is disagreeable, what is just too complicated, and that is called philosophy.