Most of what you name—physics and mathematics and astronomy—were once considered parts of philosophy, and philosophers were the people who did them. That's no small part of why PhD stands for "Doctor of Philosophy."

What you're complaining about is actually the specialization of certain branches of philosophy into their own separate disciplines. A physicist today no longer thinks of himself as a philosopher, except perhaps if he glances at the diploma on his wall. That does not mean that he is not a philosopher in the same sense in which the ancient Greeks used the word, namely as one who loves wisdom, and in which Plato would have understood the term as he pursued not only moral philosophy but also mathematics: Plato would almost certainly see a physicist as a philosopher. Anyone pursuing theoretical knowledge with no direct utility to daily life (unlike, say, pottery or baking) was a philosopher.

After all the specialization that has happened in academia, the people who still call themselves philosophers constitute a husk of a discipline. They mainly contemplate logic (but not computer programming), epistemology (but not neuroscience or psychology), and morality. Seeing them as the only philosophers, rather than as the one group of philosophers who didn't bother to come up with a new name for themselves, is a mistake.

May I offer the following list, informed by my own interests:

- Ramsey's work on decision theory and subjective probability: https://personal.lse.ac.uk/bradleyr/pdf/Ramsey.dialectica.pd...

- Russell's Paradox and its impact on set theory: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/russell-paradox/

- David Lewis' work on signalling games: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_signaling_game

- Following up on that, Brian Skyrms' work on signalling, information, and evolution: https://www.codebiology.org/pdf/[7]%20Skyrms%20(2010)%20Sign...

One issue might be that when a philosophical debate ends up solving a more applied problem, the debate is no longer considered philosophical.

Well there was that small matter of Nietzsche being taken out of context by his sister that directly contributed to the “world remaking” aspects of totalitarian regimes of the 20th century.

Even your viewpoint that a life should be spent creatively “doing” rather than eg farming and praising God, is a direct outgrowth of Nietzschean philosophy.

Philosophy is often a catch all for hard thinking that hasn’t gotten its own field yet. Newton was a “natural philosopher”. The US government constitution was written by a bunch of philosophy nerds. Rene Descartes “invented” the XY plane that every math student uses to graph functions. The foundation of women’s rights is all based on the work of philosophers. Philosophy is currently very active in the interpretation of quantum mechanics.

I would agree that most philosophy is bunk (including the above article) but most books are bad too. Keeping the tradition alive is important though because your entire worldview is built on philosophies you haven’t read.

Embarrassingly ignorant take. The greatest scientists were themselves philosophers.

Maybe you should look into Francis Bacon a little more closely as regards general science.

Concerning mathematics, the idea that numbers and proof are abstracted concepts from the physical world that we can develop didn't really exist before certain key figures in Greece laid down those concepts.

Francis Bacon created modern-day science with his development of the philosophy behind the scientific method. Your definition of philosophy might be exceedingly narrow and focused on contemporary issues. And even that ignores Karl Popper’s falsifiability

Many prominent philosophies are praxis. Stoicism is meant to be equal parts theory and practice, with the two supporting each other to iterate towards being a better person. Buddha referred to theory as a raft to cross a river; useful to get somewhere, but not to carry forward. Practice is at the heart of true progress, and theory is only a stepping stone to aid in evolving your practice.

I think physicists should appreciate more the question of time series A versus time series B raised by John McTaggart. Essentially it points out that modern physics or math is incapable of describing the notion of time flow. Time in physics is the time series B, which is a static with no notion of time flow. Yet our perceptions tells that the time flow very match exists.

Here is one: how do you determine the threshold of a statistical test? For a parachute, you will want to have a very stringent safety threshold. But how high should it be?

> I yet have to see ONE philosophical argument that made an impact on math, physics, engineering, society, etc

I yet have to see ONE important field like math, physics, engineering, society that is not deeply impacted by philosophical arguments.

> Edit: Typical of HN to downvote unpopular opinions, but it doesn't prove me wrong.

Don't play victim when you are claiming absolute nonsense. It is not the task of HN to prove you wrong. It is your task to prove that you are right.

>I love thinking about stuff, but I don't like the fact that some people's entire lives is dedicated to just "thinking" without ever "doing" anything of substance.

This is likely what's getting you downvoted - your assertion that others doing what makes them happy is somehow "wrong". You may not find value, or whatever, in it, but others do. Good for them, good for you. To each their own.

I think people downvote your answer because its literally wrong. Just thinking about the influence of Plato in the Geometry, Aristotle and his Logic and scientific method, Descartes and Cartesian-plane.. Actually Pythagoras and Euclid were considered Philosophers.. So I guess your downvotes are coming from there.