[FOM] Goedel on philosophy

[John McCarthy]

Buckner includes


     In what sense did he mean that philosophy now (i.e. then in
     the 20C) is like Bablylonian mathematics?

     He can't have meant that philosophy is a little
     researched
     science in its infancy, since philosophy is probably the
     most researched and written about subject in the world.

I can't say what Goedel did mean, but he could indeed have meant
that philosophy as a science is in a Babylonian state.  That's my
opinion.

A related complaint is that too much philosophical work consists
of speculating about what previous philosophers meant by what they
wrote.  Science isn't like that.