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Comment by alan-hn | Hacker News Reader

Sure you can argue about the specificity of the question but do you have any examples of pure philosophers?

Jerry Fodor? Noam Chomsky? Hilary Putnam? Patricia Churchland

What is a pure philosopher??!? I'm not arguing the specificity of the question, I'm saying that question is nonsensical.

Someone who does not test hypotheses

The characterization of the scientific method as proposing hypotheses and then putting them to test was given by a philosopher in the previous century. While the hypotheses that this is the character of the scientific method is still very common, it was refuted long ago, both by observations and by logic reasoning.

I didn't say anything about the scientific method though, I'm simply making a distinction about two groups of people who both seem to claim to generate understanding of our reality.

One group can and does test hypotheses, the other does not

-Feynmann -Von Neumann -Say -Frege -Pasteur -Darwin

Like I could literally go forever because most breakthrough practitioners started as philosophers- note the PhDs

“Doctor of Philosophy”

I mean JFC people this is basic science history

But you know I’m sure that won’t satisfy somebody who doesn’t even understand the epistemological distinction between what a philosopher is or does and what somebody who’s actually doing experimental testing that turns into something great is because the distinction is basically zero

The distinction is that one of them actually tests hypotheses

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