05-28-2024, 01:02 PM
(05-27-2024, 09:44 PM)bert22306 Wrote: Aristotle claimed that heavy objects fall to earth faster than light objects. All the lemmings parroted that same wrong notion for centuries, until finally, one Isaac Newton said, "BS!" And he demonstrated the flaw in the previous "common wisdom." Not just that, he provided everyone with a verifiable set of physics equations, so anyone can confirm what Newton claims, with math and also with experiments.Aristotle wrote many treaties (far too many one might argue) on very different topics. His influence in Logic has been extensive, in some other aspects, like Physics, things have changed radically from his time, but I dare say that things have changed since Newton's time as well. Of the three philosophers I mentioned Mill dealt a lot with political/economical issues, for example, and of course one may say that there is no "hard science" of politics and of the so called "social sciences" (which of course is true), but nonetheless even human behavior shows regularities, correlations and so on, which make it possible to undertake some kind of rational, if not of scientific (in the narrow sense), investigation of it, I think. Even programming a computer, I would say, is an exact science only to a certain degree (but here I'm speaking strictly for myself)
No need to "just believe."
An example of why my personal reaction to philosophy always boils down to this:
"Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, sounds like a personal opinion."
(But yes, even I can enjoy the clever turns of phrase some philosophers come up with.)