A Brief History of Time

>Up to now, most scientists have been too occupied with the development of new theories that describe what the universe is to ask the question why. On the other hand, the people whose business it is to ask why, the philosophers, have not been able to keep up with the advance of scientific theories. In the eighteenth century, philosophers considered the whole of human knowledge, including science, to be their field and discussed questions such as: did the universe have a beginning? However, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, science became too technical and mathematical for the philosophers, or anyone else except a few specialists. Philosophers reduced the scope of their inquiries so much that Wittgenstein, the most famous philosopher of this century, said, “The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language.” What a comedown from the great tradition of philosophy from Aristotle to Kant!

Was he right?

>science became autistic and humanity followed
>with the soul of humanity dead, philosophers had nothing to do but quibble over words

Sounds about right

In a way, yes. But in a different way, no. I mean he was, a bit. But just a little bit. Other than that, no, not so much. But that tiny bit is everything, in a way. So I guess the answer's yes, kind of. Simply put: pretty much, but not really. The sad truth is: we'll never really know, user, unless we find out one day.

>Philosophers reduced the scope of their inquiries so much that Wittgenstein, the most famous philosopher of this century, said, “The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language.”
Using this one-liner by a controversial philosopher to dismiss modern philosophy as a whole is pretty unfair, I think. People have said all sorts of shit about what philosophy should or shouldn't do for a long time, and it's not like this one line is definitive.

I think epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, social and political philosophy etc. are quite enough to be getting on with even in this "reduced" state of philosophy. Wittgenstein's claim is not indicative of the state of contemporary philosophy, obviously there are many things besides the analysis of language.

No. That is literally a paragraph of him philosophising and he doesn't even realise it. Stephen Hawking is the archetypal nu-scientist; 99 INT, but 0 WIS.

>Aristotle to Kant
Oh it shows!

lol

The branching and specialization of knowledge has made everybody dumb.

He was right on philosophers being pompous retards in general. He was wrong in thinking that science can replace all aspects of philosophy.

>Philosophers reduced the scope of their inquiries so much that Wittgenstein, the most famous philosopher of this century, said, “The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language.”
This is not because philosophers can't keep up with science but precisely because they have kept up with science quite well. They haven't reduced their scope of inquiry. They have merely learned to ask the right questions. Postmodernism is the quantum mechanics of philosophy.

Was thinking of buying this. Is it dated by now or is it still good if you want to have a better understanding of the origin of the universe and physics in general?

Have you at least taken a full year of university physics?

Then, it won't make no sense because you will not be able to understand elementary subjects.

>Postmodernism is the quantum mechanics of philosophy
I bet that sounded really smart in your head

I wonder if we'll ever get to a point where the furthest reaches of a field are so far away that one life time spent studying is still not enough to reach it. Speaking on average, at least.

US law is already beyond that threshold.

Computer legislation soon.

Alot of what philosophers do is synthesize scietific achievement and give you the greater picture.

They do in a way translate the physical and mathematical formulas and try to tell the public what it all means. Which is a language game.
But those formulas themselves are a language game too.
Both of them are useful in their own way. Just some people like to play gin instead of poker.
Philosophy also has to inject humanity back into science RE:phenomenology/existentialism, and ethics.
I mean discovering the life cycle of a star is all well and good but what does that mean for us?
Also philosophy isnt a specialty. Philosophy is an action. Scientists do it but just on a more micromanaged level. Its interesting that he uses Kant who was all about da synthesis. Becuase it seems scientists arent too concerned with synthesing their research into the greater human fabric, they use it as a tool for them to solve a problem.
Current philosophy and science are so out of touch with each other becuase as language would have it they merely created a vocabulary to save time becuase writing out their comprehensive work would take too much time becuase of all the referencing they would need to do. Philosophy also spread off either its own vocabulary. Like all academic pull carts each one travelling futther and further away from common man becuase they all ended up making their own secret language.
You know its true, becuase once you stop using their buzzwords and calling it something less conventional they get all pissy.
Like the negative and positive end on an electrical diagram. What the fuck is that shit about.

im sure he did; but it comes out sounding stupid because he improperly conceives the relationship between science and history. science is a technique: it is an apparatus of tools by which man brings nature under his control. as such it is historically determined—history lies underneath all the concepts of science and their reception, including even so apparently fundamental claims as those advanced by quantum mechanics. postmodernism, meanwhile, is not a style of thinking or a genre of art, but a historical moment of the development of global capitalism. so no, the poster was not correct to say quantum mechanics is "the postmodernism of philosophy;" on the contrary, between the ontological and epistemological uncertainties they respectively introduce, quantum mechanics and language philosophy are historical phenomena in the sciences and in philosophy characteristic of the postmodern moment.

>using postmodernism and quantum mechanics in the same sentence automatically makes you pretentious

>quantum mechanics and language philosophy are historical phenomena in the sciences and in philosophy characteristic of the postmodern moment
I bet that sounded really smart in your head.

>I bet that sounded really smart in your head,
I bet that sounded really smart in your head

Though my understanding of science isn't great, I too have wondered this. I think the only way to avoid this would be to find a way to effectively simplify the previous steps (while still retaining the information of the whole concepts themselves) so learning all the present concepts would be easier. Or perhaps our minds need to evolve to be able to process lots of more information quickly and efficiently

Refining and updating established concepts helps bring everyone up to speed too

We're already doing that to an extent which is why I believe specialization makes people stupid. This is why many otherwise very intelligent people have a very simplistic understanding of philosophy and the role it plays in even the field they specialize in.

This post is the proof that we need to gass humanitiesfags for the good of the world.

He's fucking retarded and probably wouldn't pass a graduate level metaphysics course

I do agree that science has far outrun philosophy in a cultural sense, which is why our society is such a broken, pointless mess.

This is the most Bolañoesque thing I've ever read on this shithole. Nice work, user.

Philosophy, up to the post-structuralists, was and remains extremely important. Many of the global cultural trends present in the current world are in some ways a result of the influence of post-structuralism, as well as moral relativism.

In a sense, he's right, but not really. Philosophy isn't what it used to be, sure, but it's still extremely influential. A more question to ask would be why contemporary philosophy is so pathetic.

Stephen Hawking didn't understand Wittgenstein

This is kind of embarrassing

Physics creates new philosophical problems every day

Whether or not philosophers are up to the challenge is a different matter entirely

>tfw I accidentally conditioned myself to be completely and permanently stupid to science and mathematics because those courses throughout all my life happened to take place in the mornings when I had raging hard-ons, so all the blood was in the wrong place and all I found for compensation was English composition

You're talking out of your ass. It's a popular science book.