You are begging the question. The design of Bitcoin has a philosophy. The instantiation of Bitcoin, the Bitcoin network itself, does not. Saying that bitcoin has a philosophy because the developers have a philosophy is like saying that air has a philosophy because the developers breath air. No matter what the developers do, the Bitcoin network will continue to exist on its own and act in an exacting way, despite your claims to the contrary. The miners are in control of the network, and not the developers. But no single miner is in control either. If the developers or miners could freely enact change on the network, then there would be a fuzzy line between the design and the implementation, and you could lay the philosophy on the implementation. But interestingly, of all technologies ever created by man, the bitcoin design and implementation may be the most decoupled in history, as bitcoin is built to be resilient to tampering. It is not a representative democracy. Until someone controls hashing power over a certain percentage, or the majority of miners agree to a serious protocol modification, no real change will occur to the bitcoin network's behavior.
From another angle, would you say that a car engine has a philosophy? No. But the designers had a philosophy when they designed it.
edit: Further analogizing with human designed artifacts, such as a towel or a laptop, I think this is a debate on semantics. An object can't have a philosophy, but it can embody or reflect one.
From another angle, would you say that a car engine has a philosophy? No. But the designers had a philosophy when they designed it.
edit: Further analogizing with human designed artifacts, such as a towel or a laptop, I think this is a debate on semantics. An object can't have a philosophy, but it can embody or reflect one.