[FOM] Goedel on Philosophy

[praatika@mappi.helsinki.fi]

Harvey Friedman <friedman at math.ohio-state.edu>:

> Many Philosophers that I know do not believe in such a notion of
> "progress" in philosophy.
> 
> I am wondering what FOM subscribers think about this.

I certainly think that there can be genuine progress in philosophy. 

Influential theories become refuted for good (e.g., all the key theses of 
logical positivism),  apparent dichotomies are shown to be non-exhaustive 
(e.g. radical scepticism vs strong foundationalism in epistemology), false 
background assumptions become exposed, etc. 

Sometimes scientific discoveries help philosophical progress (the theory 
of relativity caused troubles for certain philosophical views on space and 
time, Russell's paradox refuted Russell's early ultra-realism and related 
views, etc.)

I take Turing's rigorous analysis of the intuitive concept of 
computability as an important philosophical achievement. 


Best, Panu




Panu Raatikainen

Academy Research Fellow, The Academy of Finland
Docent in Theoretical Philosophy, University of Helsinki

Department of Philosophy
P.O.Box 9
FIN-00014 University of Helsinki
Finland

e-mail: panu.raatikainen at helsinki.fi