General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: We should have been colonizing the solar system by now. [View all]tama
(9,137 posts)you are not mistaken about philosophy. Historically it would be mistake to consider Socrates and pre-socratics philosophers, as philosophy was invented and created by Plato. Philosophical discourses in Platonic practice are not wisdom per se, just invitations, lures and hooks to the 'mystery'. Which means in English simply 'undefinable'.
Naturally the post-platonic European history of philosophy is the story of philosophers trying to escape the traps of philosophy by doing more philosophy, as e.g. Derrida was keen to point out. It's all very much like zen koan.
But the situation is that the cat is out of the bag, no carrier of European cultural heritage is innocent of philosophy and metaphysics, certainly not American technocrats, positivists and objectivists with their purported antiphilosophical and purely pragmatist attitude. A famous American physicist partial to reductionistic metaphysics had a whole chapter in his popular book 'Final Theory' with the title 'Against Philosophy', which of course was nothing but philosophy. An attempt to purge heritage of bad philosophy (his enemy was positivism) from science through philosophical discourse.