Ok, you clearly want to apply the word philosophy so generically that it ceases to have any specificity. That's fine, but how are we going to have a conversation when you choose to have an idiosyncratic lexicon?

And I again insist that the mere fact that something has an origin in one discipline does NOT make it inescapably and always part of this discipline. So what if western science grew out of western philosophy? It is no longer a form of philosophy!!

I mean our most distant ancestors were single-celled organisms, but that doesn't make us protozoa. If your ancestors came to America on the Mayflower, that doesn't make you a Pilgrim.

The questions that are asked are completely different. The methodology is completely different. The vocabulary is completely different. The training is completely different. And the reasoning process is completely different.

Philosophy is a relatively insular, focused field that is FAR smaller than the variety of academic disciplines that MAYBE at one point in history regarded themselves as part of philosophy. And in fact only in philosophy, a field that paradoxically prides itself on extracting "truth" from unanswerable questions (which is a tad bit of hubris), is it even remotely a question whether science is a form of philosophy.

There is. Go to Public Library of Science, pick a journal, and read the Methods section of any article -- and then ask yourself where in philosophy a problem is ever approached that way.

You seem to be having a conversation with somebody else now. I'm not talking about ultimate forms of knowledge. I'm not even talking about knowledge. I'm only talking about which questions are being asked and how they're being answered. And in this regard, there is almost no commonality between philosophy and science.

... my guess is that he sees phenomenology as a component of another mode of human awareness that can swing us back to a middle ground - one that reconnects us with nature without disconnecting us from our (newfound) selves ...

It thus fell to the tradition of phenomenology to call into question the distinction between space and time ...

In his last work, Merleau-Ponty describes the relation between the perceptual world and the world of our supposedly incorporeal ideals and thoughts: "it is by borrowing from the world's structure that the universe of truth and of thought is constructed for us." These words assert the primacy of the bodily world relative to the universe of ideas; they suggest that the structures of our apparently incorporeal ideas are lifted, as it were, from the structures of the perceptual world. ...

As ground and horizon, (the "past" and the "future") are no more temporal than they are spatial, no more mental than they are bodily and sensorial. We can now discern just how close Merleau-Ponty was to this discovery by reading his aforementioned note of November 1960 in the light of our disclosures:

Quote:

In what sense the visible landscape under my eyes is not exterior to, and bound systematically to ... other moments of time and the past, but has them really behind itself in simulteneity, inside itself and not it and they side by side "in" time.

For we can now understand this behind and this inside in a remarkably precise manner. The visible landscape has the other moments of time "behind itself," precisely in that the future waits beyond the horizon, as well as behind every entity that I see, as the unseen "other side" of the many visibles that surround me. And the visible landscape has the other moments of time "inside itself," precisely in that the past preserves itself under the ground, as well as inside every entity that I perceive. The sensorial landscape, in other words, not only opens onto that distant future waiting beyond the horizon but also onto a near future, onto an immanent field of possibilities waiting behind each tree, behind each stone, behind each leaf from whence a spider may at any moment come crawling out into our awareness. And this living terrain is supported not only by that more settled or sedimented past under the ground, but by an immanent past resting inside each tree, within each blade of grass, within the very muscles and cells of our own bodies. ...

That which has been and that which is to come are not elsewhere - they are not autonomous dimensions independent of the encompassing present in which we dwell. They are, rather, the very depths of this living place - the hidden depth of its distances and the concealed depth on which we stand. ...

It is evident, however, that when our awareness of time has joined with our awareness of space, space itself is transformed. Space is no longer experienced as a homogeneous void, but reveals itself as this vast and richly textured field in which we are corporeally immersed, this vibrant expanse structured by both a ground and a horizon. It is precisely the ground and the horizon that transform abstract space into space-time. And these characteristics - the ground and the horizon - are granted to us only by the earth. Thus, when we let time and space blend into a unified space-time, we rediscover the enveloping earth.

It would seem, then, that the conceptual separation of time and space - the literate distinction between a linear, progressive time and a homogeneous, featureless space - functions to eclipse the enveloping earth from human awareness. As long as we structure our lives according to assumed parameters of static space and a rectilinear time, we will be able to ignore, or overlook, our thorough dependence upon the earth around us. Only when space and time are reconciled into a single, unified field of phenomena does the encompassing earth become evident, once again, in all its power and its depth, as the very ground and horizon of all our knowing.

(David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous)

... in other words, to start with independent time and independent space as axioms of the real world and philosophize from there is a non-starter; likewise, to start with time and space as human constructions for organizing the real world is also a non-starter ... independent time and independent space are ideal abstractions - the axiom of the natural world is the space-time of the earthly ground and horizon; and space-time is not a human construction for organizing the real world - it is precisely how the natural world is organized.

Having touched upon past and future, Abram moves on to the present with a final chapter: The Forgetting and Remembering of the Air ... ... ...

... an interesting article I ran across (some of which was printed in Science magazine in 1967) - http://www.uvm.edu/~jmoore/envhst/lynnwhite.html ...

... if western science can be viewed as being so derivative of the Judeo-Christian tradition, what of western philosophy? ... how many modern philosophical concepts are grounded in the Judeo-Christian belief system? ... and does this grounding call anything into question?

Surely??? Science is not motivated by the love of knowledge???

By the way; My first father in law had MD in medicine and a PHD, which he got before entry into medical school to become a doctor, and actually it was by way of a trick, as getting a PHD in anatomy let him get to know all the staff and take pictures for the year book, and pass out extra 8x10 glossies, of the staff portraits. And I know anatomy is only a branch of medicine, but I have no doubt that their are plenty of of M.D.s also PHDs... My kid, that guy's grandson is like his grandfather, a genius level IQ, but an attorney...And no PHD. But there are PHDs in Law...

there are plenty of folks out there who never take a moment of rest without asking whatzitall4.

You're doing it again. You're taking the etymologic construction of the word philosophy and substituting it for its ACTUAL use and meaning in our language.

Most if not all medical schools have an MD/PhD track in which you can get both degrees, though most MDs who remain in academic medicine can get fully independent reseach funding without a PhD -- you put in the same amount of time developing a research career, it just happens not to be part of a PhD program.

I love medical illustrations. Most people who do it are neither physicians nor PhDs, but it's definitely a very unique art unto itself.

A physician or scientist who is philosophical is simply that. That doesn't make science a type of philosophy.

Having touched upon past and future, Abram moves on to the present with a final chapter: The Forgetting and Remembering of the Air ... ... ...

I do not, however, wish to imply that writing was the sole factor in this process - a complex process that, after all, has been under way for several thousand years. Many other factors could have been chosen. I have hardly alluded, in this work, to the emergence of agriculture at the dawn of the Neolithic era, although the spread of agricultural techniques radically transformed the experienced relation between humans and other species. Nor have I addressed the development of formal numbering systems, and the consequent influence of numerical measurement, and quantification, upon our interactions with the land. ... By concentrating on the written word, I have wished to demonstrate less a particular thesis than a particular stance, a particular way of pondering and questioning any factor that one might choose.

It is a way of thinking that strives for rigor without forfeiting our animal kinship with the world around us - an attempt to think in accordance with the senses, to ponder and reflect without severing out sensorial bond with the owls and the wind. It is a style of thinking, then, that associates truth not with static fact, but with a quality of relationship. ... A civilization that relentlessly destroys the living land it inhabits is not well acquainted with truth, regardless of how many supposed facts it has amassed regarding the calculable properties of its world.

"I exist as a thinking being" - in this tacitly theological conclusion, Descartes believes he has found an indubitable point of purchase against the radical doubt, and undeniable truth about which even an evil spirit could not possibly deceive us.

It is at this juncture in the text that we find the essential arguments on which I want to focus. For with the cogito in place, Descartes goes on to establish his theory that perception as we know it is an internal mental representation of an external world. ... For Descartes, then, establishing that perception is an internal mental representation of external, homogeneous matter is a breakthrough of the first order. Not only does it overthrow these ancient views (of Galen and Aristotle) still dominant in the Schools, but it permits "the great synthesis" between the micro-mechanical and theological domains ..."

... back to the main topic, Lawrence Hass points out what he thinks is a Cartesian element in contemporary thought that most people wouldn't even recognize as Cartesian: that perception is mental representation of an external reality ...

(Lawrence Hass, Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy)

I'd have to say that he's got it largely right, given the immense impact this "given" of perception as internal representation has had in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics ... it is only recently (in the field of behavior-based robotics) that a rallying call that denies the received wisdom has emerged: that the world is its own best model (Rodney Brooks) ...

EDIT: An interesting implication pointed out by Hass is that it was Descartes' (unfounded) assertion of perception as mental representation that caused him to posit a corresponding external reality independent of mental representation (else God would be a liar) ... and while the idea of an external reality led to great discoveries (Newton, etc.), the ontotheological umbilical cord between the ideas of perception as mental representation and a corresponding external reality was never severed, and in fact the great successes of science were eventually taken as proof of the connection - when in fact the assertion of an internal mental representation does not logically follow from the great successes of science ... stated another way, the successes of science do not necessarily imply the accepted unreality of perception!

Philosophy does not take place in a light bulb, or a mens room, or on a web site; but happens everywhere and all the time... It is what people do...it is not less philosophy when a child picks up a rock to see what lies beneath... It is love of knowledge

You know, I would not say it that way....I would agree that conception, the forming of ideas, is a mental representation; but I would say perception is the simple ability to distinguish an object from its surroundings, because all knowledge, conception must have an object to define... Does that make sense to you???

... take note that Hass does not (yet) assert that perception is real ...

I would not doubt that he was considered a sophist, or that he was respected by them, and in a sense feared... He was also incredibly irresponible, and in fact, ignorant...

The Athenians had lost touch with their barbarian roots, and this is no more clearly illustrated than in some of Socrates' remarks concerning Odyssius from Homer, who was living in the Bronze age, which might be properly called the age of honor since it was honor, a mutual pledge that brought all those chiefs to that shore... Money economies destroy honor, and democracy depends upon honor... For Socrates to teach such crap as that one is a better man who does wrong by choice instead of by accident gave moral authority to the Oligarchs and people like Alcibiades... Consider one line from the Oligarchic oath: I will be an enemy of the people... Those who take power over their own, who pervert and subvert their native democracies have always looked to Plato and Socrates for justification... I don't care that he stood outside of the oligarchs and chastised them some, and even there made enemies...

I do not disagree that knowedge is virtue... Moving that thought from the general to the specific is loaded with difficulty because all ignorant people think themselves knowledgeable, but the only true knowledge is what all people know together, so that knowledge is not what divides people but unites people... The only really essential knowlege any one can own is the importance of unity to the survival of society, and how essential is honor and democracy to unity..

If I can explain it another way, it was the division of wealth that Socrates justified that most contributed to the destruction of Attic power... The poor, suffering injustice and at a level near slavery themselves, sought wealth and glory through war, and they pushed the rich who sided with Sparta into war with Sparta, against their will.. Their divison over the line of wealth was no thing a slight difference in individual knowledge between one man and another could justify, or compensate for... You see how we are divided on the same line in this country... If we get to war, serious world war, does anyone think it will not be some ignorant boob who starts it on ideological grounds??? We load up our military with religious ideologues because they make good soldiers, fall in line and do what they are told... But a lot of them are gd nuts and I trust a lot of them have fingers on nuclear triggers... The rich and the educated who seek to divide all the wealth and power between themselves and cut out the rest of their society always weaken their countries before enemies. The Macedononians went through the Greeks like a knife, but as barbarians, they had a healthy, united society...

If we cannot afford war, as the Greeks could not afford war, the proper place for a fight is in ones own land... The Greeks made the fight for democracy overseas, and they did it from a divided base, when, if they had sought unity they would not have let wealth divide them to begin with but found ways of making all equal in wealth or equal in poverty since you cannot make people equal in ambition, or in intelligence...The poverty of the democratic poor drove them to war, but the wealth of the rich could not buy them victory... Considering that the same process drove the Romans into empire and tyranny, should we not take a lesson???

And it was all for money... Wealth is the one true God..