> If your point is that merely the act of listening itself is enjoyable, then that seems to apply to reading philosophy as well
Sure. I'm just skeptical that the people reading philosophy for fun are reading Wittgenstein.
> Suppose we accept the view that consciousness can be fully explained by science. Suddenly this means that actually all of philosophy will fall to science?
Of course not. That's an obvious straw man. I'm just saying that the historical trend has been for science to solve philosophical problems at a much faster rate than new philosophical problems arise, and so the remaining pool of philosophical problems is shrinking monotonically, and I see no reason to believe that this trend will not continue.
I will also add that the current state of things seems to be that the extant pool of outstanding philosophical problems that science hasn't yet made a dent in is quite small.
> Usually when people express this kind of, "X idea is wrong, and anyone who argues for it is intellectually bankrupt" will refuse to take seriously any discussion on the matter, so I won't say too much on this topic.
I make it a point to engage with ideas that I vehemently disagree with. I put a lot of effort into studying young-earth creationism, to the point where I can channel their arguments pretty effectively. I even gave a public talk entitled "What I learned from young-earth creationists." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ohY9ALuEfw) So I am not quite so closed-minded as you think.
I also recognize that the actual practice of science in the real world often strays from the ideal. But that doesn't mean that an ideal does not exist. Judging science by what (some) scientists do is kind of like judging Christianity by what MAGA people do. (I'm going to go out on a limb and guess from your user name, as well as the arguments that you are advancing, that you're a Christian?)
> it's difficult to know what particular theory or part of a theory an observation falsifies
Difficult != impossible.
> None of Duhem, Quine, Kuhn, Feyerabend, or really, any philosopher of science disagreeing with Popper is saying science isn't effective.
Happy to hear that. The impression I remember having when I read Feyerabend many decades ago is that his message was that the whole scientific enterprise was bankrupt and needed to be replaced with something radically different.
> But it's hardly a unique view to Popperian falsificationism that things can shown to be wrong, the view that things can be shown to be wrong is something all the thinkers and any sane person agrees on.
Yes, but you left out a crucial detail: it's not just that things can be shown to be wrong, it's that they can be shown to be wrong by experimental data. This is far from universally accepted. Many Christians, for example, believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God and so cannot be shown to be wrong. Muslims believe the same about the Quran. If experimental data conflicts with the Bible or the Quran, it is the data (or the interpretation of the data) that must be wrong, not the Bible or the Quran.
But that is neither here nor there. What matters is that we agree that science is effective, and so we can apply the scientific method to itself and ask why it is effective. And the answer is (I claim) because it uses experiment rather than intuition or divine revelation as its ultimate arbiter of truth. That still leaves a lot to argue about, but another empirical observation one can make is that scientific arguments tend to converge. The atomic theory was wildly controversial in the 19th century. Today not even the most radical flat-earther denies the existence of atoms. Entanglement was controversial, but that argument was settled by Alain Aspect's experiments. Plat tectonics. Helicobacter pylori. Heliocentrism. All of these were once considered flat-earth-kind-of-wrong.
BTW, the problem with flat-eartherism is not that it's wrong. There is nothing wrong with being wrong. Everyone is wrong about something at one time or another. The problem with flat-earthers is that they cherry-pick the data and advance conspiracy theories to explain the parts they don't like.
Sure. I'm just skeptical that the people reading philosophy for fun are reading Wittgenstein.
> Suppose we accept the view that consciousness can be fully explained by science. Suddenly this means that actually all of philosophy will fall to science?
Of course not. That's an obvious straw man. I'm just saying that the historical trend has been for science to solve philosophical problems at a much faster rate than new philosophical problems arise, and so the remaining pool of philosophical problems is shrinking monotonically, and I see no reason to believe that this trend will not continue.
I will also add that the current state of things seems to be that the extant pool of outstanding philosophical problems that science hasn't yet made a dent in is quite small.
> Usually when people express this kind of, "X idea is wrong, and anyone who argues for it is intellectually bankrupt" will refuse to take seriously any discussion on the matter, so I won't say too much on this topic.
I make it a point to engage with ideas that I vehemently disagree with. I put a lot of effort into studying young-earth creationism, to the point where I can channel their arguments pretty effectively. I even gave a public talk entitled "What I learned from young-earth creationists." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ohY9ALuEfw) So I am not quite so closed-minded as you think.
I also recognize that the actual practice of science in the real world often strays from the ideal. But that doesn't mean that an ideal does not exist. Judging science by what (some) scientists do is kind of like judging Christianity by what MAGA people do. (I'm going to go out on a limb and guess from your user name, as well as the arguments that you are advancing, that you're a Christian?)
> it's difficult to know what particular theory or part of a theory an observation falsifies
Difficult != impossible.
> None of Duhem, Quine, Kuhn, Feyerabend, or really, any philosopher of science disagreeing with Popper is saying science isn't effective.
Happy to hear that. The impression I remember having when I read Feyerabend many decades ago is that his message was that the whole scientific enterprise was bankrupt and needed to be replaced with something radically different.
> But it's hardly a unique view to Popperian falsificationism that things can shown to be wrong, the view that things can be shown to be wrong is something all the thinkers and any sane person agrees on.
Yes, but you left out a crucial detail: it's not just that things can be shown to be wrong, it's that they can be shown to be wrong by experimental data. This is far from universally accepted. Many Christians, for example, believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God and so cannot be shown to be wrong. Muslims believe the same about the Quran. If experimental data conflicts with the Bible or the Quran, it is the data (or the interpretation of the data) that must be wrong, not the Bible or the Quran.
But that is neither here nor there. What matters is that we agree that science is effective, and so we can apply the scientific method to itself and ask why it is effective. And the answer is (I claim) because it uses experiment rather than intuition or divine revelation as its ultimate arbiter of truth. That still leaves a lot to argue about, but another empirical observation one can make is that scientific arguments tend to converge. The atomic theory was wildly controversial in the 19th century. Today not even the most radical flat-earther denies the existence of atoms. Entanglement was controversial, but that argument was settled by Alain Aspect's experiments. Plat tectonics. Helicobacter pylori. Heliocentrism. All of these were once considered flat-earth-kind-of-wrong.
BTW, the problem with flat-eartherism is not that it's wrong. There is nothing wrong with being wrong. Everyone is wrong about something at one time or another. The problem with flat-earthers is that they cherry-pick the data and advance conspiracy theories to explain the parts they don't like.