Philosophy Untouched by Science? Zeno’s Runner, Sextus’ Epochē, and More

Abstract

The relationship between science and philosophy is contentious. Quine saw philosophy as continuous with science (broadly understood), but many philosophers see a dichotomy between them. The present paper discusses cases where the relevance of certain scientific findings has been denied (related to Zeno’s Dichotomy paradox and to the appeal of skeptical arguments) or overlooked (one argument related to the frame problem of artificial intelligence and Nagel’s “bat” argument). The results caution against overly quick dismissal of the import of science on philosophical questions, whether the latter be of a more theoretical or practical nature.

Keywords

• Dichotomy paradox
• Zeno’s paradoxes
• skepticism
• pyrrhonism
• intuition
• Nagel’s bat