Stephen Hawking: "Philosophy is dead"

I disagree with Hawking: In the foreseeable future, science is unable to replace philosophy completely, although it may reduce the need for it in some areas.

Here is an interesting critique of Hawkings in this area.

IMO too many people think that Hawkings is the be all and end all when he has spoken on a subject. 

www.timeshighereducation.com/news/is-philosophy-dead/2018686.article#survey-answer


Is philosophy dead?


Leading philosophers took up the challenge of Stephen Hawking’s claim that “philosophy is dead”

"In 2010, Professor Hawking declared that scientists rather than philosophers “have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge”.



Philosophers argued their case at a debate held at the British Academy in London this week. According to Tim Crane, Knightbridge professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge, Professor Hawking himself proved that philosophy is unavoidable, since he put forward a lot of philosophical views. Unfortunately, these amounted to “bad philosophy, because he is unaware of it as a discipline and a practice with a history,” Professor Crane said.



Greg Radick, professor of the history and philosophy of science at the University of Leeds, put the case for cross-fertilisation between science and philosophy.



Three of the most powerful scientific thinkers – Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and Noam Chomsky – were also notably “philosophically literate”, he said. Lesser scientists could easily become “too dogmatic”, as their “teachers shut down access to foundational questions”, Professor Radick told the event, held on 15 February.



Philosophical debate, on the other hand, he continued, ran the risk of nit-picking “scholasticism” if it wasn’t “enlivened by contact with the natural sciences”.".

Please read the rest of the article at the link.