#283: There is virtually no issue in philosophy that Plato didn't originally raise in his works. Which explains the statement, "all of philosophy is but a recapitulation of Plato."
And that is one of the reasons I can't get excited by philosophy. Philosophers are still batting the same ideas around after 2,500 years, and are no closer to any resolution than Plato was. By way of comparison, just look at what science has done in just the last 250 years.
#284: I think what Coyoteman is describing when he says that no scientists today pay any attention to philosophy at all simply describes the situation of increasing deculturation that is advancing among many if not most Western intellectuals of our time. The education process is failing in its primary mission: To transmit the culture to the rising generation.
Deculturation? No. When you are doing many of the technical sciences studying philosophy is simply a colossal waste of time.
The education process is failing in its primary mission: To transmit the culture to the rising generation.
The education establishment has determined that western culture is not worth transmitting to the next generation. Science is increasingly ignoring "educators" as well.
And so sayeth the Curmudgeon.
I'm afraid you're right about that, Coyoteman.
Yet culture is the center that must hold if society is not to disintegrate.
You evidently do not appreciate that problems of human existence are what inspire the philosophical questions that are still "open questions" after 2,500 years. 2,500 years hence, they will probably still be "open questions" -- assuming the human race hasn't destroyed itself first.
In short, these are questions that it seems eternally persist, which science has no method to address. Man has always been asking them, and probably always will. The sheer persistency of the questions is evidence in favor of the persistency of human nature as a given thing (i.e., something that doesn't "evolve").