olliebaum on 28/04/2013 4:08pm

I think this debate was unfairly weighted towards philosophy. Having another guest with a different take on science to Lewis would have allowed the debate to more fully explore the issues at hand. The philosophers use the entire debate to refute Lewis's strongly held oppositions to philosophy rather than have a real debate.

Prasad Midya on 25/04/2013 8:15am

I loves for your books. And your reshrs .

jjames on 01/04/2013 9:22am

http://cargocollective.com/Philosopher/Is-Stephen-Hawking-an-Idealist

Kswanwick2 on 30/01/2013 9:09pm

I was disappointed by this debate. There was not enough discussion of the pure context of Hawkings’ statement. More importantly the panelists arguing the “for” points missed the broad side of a barn by failing to adequately discuss or even shortly dwell on the fields of moral philosophy and political philosophy. The nature of governments, economies, political systems and the corresponding ethical and legal systems are derived directly from philosophy and would not exist in a coherent way without it. How would one argue that these very things came from science or that they could have? What kinds of questions ask for the definitions of humanity and its purpose(s)? Are these derived from science and not philosophy? Were the Twelve Tables of Rome, Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights based on science or philosophy? What does science say about how we should organize society and meet individual and collective needs and why? Philosophy has a lot to say about these things and a systematic, logical way of doing so.

How to decide what is important and why? The philosophical sub-fields of epistemology, ethics and morality were hardly addressed. How could one let the good scientist dismiss the philosophy of science with the wave of a hand without discussing Karl Popper and his very specific critiques of empiricism and his development of this important field of inquiry and its application to human affairs?

Lastly, how could this conversation be had without delving into the “why” questions? What ought a person, a people do and why? What are the justifications for these decisions? Two Brits on the panel and not one could cite the landmark work of Philosopher and Ethicist Derek Parfit (Reasons and Persons, On What Matters), who has exhaustively and rigorously argued his points and others' counterpoints back to Kant and going forward to include Sidgewick, Rawls, Williams, MacIntyre, Scanlon and other important contributors? It seems difficult to dismiss these works and maintain a coherent view of a world that just happens without influence (positive and negative) of philosophy.

Perhaps Hawking is right, but only to the extent that he has not been challenged by the right minds outside of pure science.

Footnote:
I would like to hear Dr. Wolpert address the problem of Goedel's Incompleteness Theorems. These were derived through the pure application of logic (and intuition) within the discipline of philosophy, yet they stand as true as the sky is blue (accounting for Rayleigh Scattering)

Steve Green on 26/01/2013 7:15pm

Chistopher Norris published a rather pointed rebuttal to Steven Hawking a few months back, here: http://philosophynow.org/issues/82/Hawking_contra_Philosophy. Much better than Fuller's ramblings.

parkerwsp on 26/01/2013 4:44pm

Philosophy (literally) means love for wisdom, or the seeking of wisdom. This art is not opposed but apposite to science; as has been demonstrated by the ancients from Aristotle to Pythagoras. Man's grasp of science is but yet in infancy and to suggest his puny knowledge a replacement for considered hypothesis of indefinite concepts is as facile as suggesting aspirin removes the need of heart surgery.
From science, we learn how things work. From philosophy, we learn why they work........
.........but here, we have well-known folk debating which end of the egg should first be opened, further to Professor Hawking having speciously suggested the egg is of no value..

SenseAmidMadness on 24/01/2013 1:41pm

Science does not present us with a method of understanding the world around us, but rather more sophisticated ways of modelling its phenomena. Philosophy is certainly capable of asking the important questions science can't.