Philosophy seems a term generally reserved for the stuff we don't understand yet and so is inherently kind of speculative. Once you have a definite answer it gets called science instead.
> Philosophy (from Ancient Greek philosophía lit. 'love of wisdom') is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, knowledge, mind, reason, language, and value. It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on its methods and assumptions.
It is literally a self-reflective science.
I recommend taking a basic philosophical course at a local community college, or reading some literature or even watching YouTube videos on the subject of philosophy. Or just skim the Wikipedia article if nothing else. It might completely transform how you perceive and act upon the world.
>Physics was originally part of philosophy, like Isaac Newton's observation of how gravity affects falling apples.
like back then people would wonder how apples fall and it was labeled philosophy. Now we understand gravitation it's part of physics for the most part. People launching satellites seldom call a philosopher to calculate the orbit.
It remains to be seen if qualia, which we don't understand very well and are so regarded as philosophical, make the transition to neuroscience.
The fact that we have sharpened our classification of sciences over time does not imply that philosophy is a study of the ill-defined. It implies the opposite: Philosophy is more precisely defined now than ever.
If you read the rest of the article, you will see clear examples of what is considered a philosophical problem and what isn't.
My argument was more philosophy is for stuff we don't understand like how do qualia work, rather then ill-defined. When you get to stuff like how does neurotransmission work which we do kind of understand it gets classed as science.
Are there philosophical problems that have definite answers like what is the atomic number of oxygen type answers?
> Are there philosophical problems that have definite answers
Great question.
Within philosophical and epistemological frameworks, I could ask questions such as, "Can there be a square circle?"
Well, no, these two concepts have conflicting properties. A mathematician might think this a solved problem, but philosophy underpins our concept of concepts. Many philosophers spend a great deal arguing what is is.
For Plato, geometrical entities like circles and squares have distinct, perfect Forms. Forms have fixed essences, so a thing cannot participate in contradictory Forms at once.
Aristotle's law of noncontradiction says the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject in the same respect.
Theophrastus developed hypothetical syllogisms and refined Aristotle’s logic by distinguishing logical impossibilities from physical impossibilities.
Kant calls it an analytic contradiction, false by virtue of the concepts involved.
A mathematician takes these things for granted when working with equalities, logic and axioms, but they stand on philosophical roots. Mathematics assumes the consistency of concepts, but the question of why some concepts are consistent while others are impossible is a philosophical one. It's not a coincidence that so many ancient Greek mathematicians were also philosophers.
> Philosophy seems a term generally reserved for the stuff we don't understand yet and so is inherently kind of speculative. Once you have a definite answer it gets called science instead.
As someone has commented earlier, Philosophy applied is given a name but it's a sub-discipline of Philosophy.
> Understanding the world through experiment?
That's a decent enough definition. Science precludes so much of the world we know which I think people really fail to realise. It's why I think it's important for people to understand what Philosophy is and what Science isn't.
For example logic isn't science. Science presupposes it but it is NOT science. There are many such examples.
