Scientist use observation and experiments to test theories and hypotheses. Philosophers, on the other hand, rely solely on argumentation, reasoning, and intuition.
Reply to acommonmechanismoftheuniverse Scientists get paid more and are, in general, more useful than most philosophers. There are more people calling themselves "philosopher" now than in all the previous centuries of philosophical activity. Hey, I'm a philosopher! Someone working on new antibiotics for Pfizer is NOT more useful than Heraclitus or Aristotle or Hume or ,,,take your pick. But the scientist investigating bacterial genes Bayer is more useful than the slew of recently decanted philosophers running around university hallways.
Reply to acommonmechanismoftheuniverse Philosophy tolerates a remarkable amount of bullshit rationalisation. Science tolerates a remarkable amount of bullshit measurement.
Scientists get paid more and are, in general, more useful than most philosophers. There are more people calling themselves "philosopher" now than in all the previous centuries of philosophical activity. Hey, I'm a philosopher! Someone working on new antibiotics for Pfizer is NOT more useful than Heraclitus or Aristotle or Hume or ,,,take your pick. But the scientist investigating bacterial genes Bayer is more useful than the slew of recently decanted philosophers running around university hallways.
Actually several Nobel Prize winners have attributed their achievements to following Karl Popper, so philosophers can be useful even in science.
Reply to Rich Strange that we haven't heard of any philosophers chiming in on why there were so many fires in California, just recently, or why there are sun spots.
Reply to Bitter Crank It's been said that science describes, whereas philosophy explains. Steven Weinberg wrote a piece attacking this view, as well as the this quote from Wittgenstein:"At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena. So people stop short at natural laws as at something unassailable, as did the ancients at God and Fate."
I think it's a question of the depth of explanation, and the conventional interpretation of physics, as physicist Lee Smolen would argue, does deserve Wittgenstein's slight.
An updated interpretation of physics that brings it in line with the unidirectional temporality of biological evolution would offer a deeper level of explanation than it does now.
At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena
Actually the quotation is this:
6.371 At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena.
6.372 So people stop short at natural laws as at something unassailable, as did the ancients at God and Fate.
And they both are right and wrong. But the ancients were clearer, in so far as they recognized one clear terminus, whereas the modern system makes it appear as though everything were explained.
Reply to Bitter Crank Philosophers of all types consider the repercussions of the human tendency to consume more and more. Why this propensity toward still-destruction? It is an interesting idea to ponder. Even environmentalists love consuming, e.g. Gore.
6.371 At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena.
It's not really an illusion. It is simple a renaming of God. Says nothing. Means nothing. But with this little problem taken care of, science can go on and observe and report their observations up to the limit of Planck's constant. Below that we must rely on the thoughts of our own minds.
Science reports on what is happening, philosophy tries to explore why it is happening.
"Science reports what is happening"?
What about all of sciences predictions? Do I really have to list them? That would take months, but here are a few:
Gravitational waves (predicted 100yrs before observation)
Gravitational time dilation (predicted 50yrs before observed)
...
Quantum Entanglement (50yrs before observed)
Solid state electronics (predicted only a few years before first device)
Many fundamental particles, notably the Higgs (predicted 50yrs before observed)
...
DNA was a prediction!
How can this happen if science only "reports what is happening"?
On the contrary, it is clear that scientific theories are explanations: accounts of what exists in reality, how it behaves, and why, in a form that permits testable deductions.
"Philosophy tries to explore why it is happening"?
Maybe you could offer a few examples of the success of philosophy in this respect?
Bertrand Russell once quipped, "Science is what we know; philosophy is what we don't know." While I know that this is not only inadequate, but misleading, I think it's funny as a response to the question.
Bertrand Russell once quipped, "Science is what we know; philosophy is what we don't know." While I know that this is not only inadequate, but misleading, I think it's funny as a response to the question.
Fortunately, since the Principle of Demarcation, we now know how to distinguish science from philosophy.
Reply to tom Within very narrow span of universal events, science can make some approximate predictions simply because the universe does develop habits. People tend to get carried away with what science can approximately predict based upon repetitive observations, all if which are still subject to the unpredictable nature of the universe. This idolization of science is just another form of religious worship.
Within very narrow span of universal events, science can make some approximate predictions simply because the universe does develop habits. People tend to get carried away with what science can approximately predict based upon repetitive observations, all if which are still subject to the unpredictable nature of the universe
In 1915, when gravitational waves were predicted, what habits had the universe developed, and what were the repetitive observations?
Reply to tom This what I call idolization. Waves in the universe are ubiquitous. They are literally everywhere. So some scientists got a ton of money from the government (us) to find gravitational waves and if course they found them. So what? Gravity created waves just like everything else in the Universe. I wish they spent the money provided good, nutrious food to children who really need it.
Reply to tom Scientists love to congratulate themselves for corrupting food and health. Helps keep the money coming in.
acommonmechanismoftheuniverseJanuary 04, 2018 at 03:19#1397010 likes
I believe the "deepest possible way" is the closest answer. I believe philosophy deals with the most fundamental issues while sciences deals with the issues that based on the fundamental issues. This means the laws that govern all science issues are based on the fundamental laws that govern the whole universe. The study of philosophy is to look into these fundamental laws.
It can be traced back to the origin. In the ancient Greece, philosophy was defined as "love wisdom" but this term is very ambiguous. Human being uses their wisdom to do all things for example, use wisdom to do cunning things. But this is not philosophy. What the Greeks meant was to perform intellectual activities to search for the answer from environment (external and internal). The whole process of this activity was defined as philosophy, for example, "what compose our world" and methodologies including rhetoric and dialectic. But later, the division of looking into the environment was classified as natural philosophy which now has been changed to the term of science. From the medieval time, Human being's approach to look for answer have developed into the so-called "scientific approach" which is more accurate compared with the ancient time but still falls into the fundamental approach of how to understand the world. When the new approach of looking into the world was formed, many new science developments were achieved. Science as a breakaway division of philosophy left philosophy as a study looking to the most fundamental rules governing our world. That is why philosophy covers much larger system while science only covers their subsystem, a much smaller area. The commonality between these two is they both looking to rules in the universe. The difference is they study different rules.
Comments (22)
That's not the way it works. You need to put more effort into it than that. Lay out how you see it and give your reasons. Put some effort into it.
Aside from that, why do you want to know?
Put the two together and it still works.
Actually several Nobel Prize winners have attributed their achievements to following Karl Popper, so philosophers can be useful even in science.
Popper is still at the core of science: https://arxiv.org/abs/1508.02048
I think it's a question of the depth of explanation, and the conventional interpretation of physics, as physicist Lee Smolen would argue, does deserve Wittgenstein's slight.
An updated interpretation of physics that brings it in line with the unidirectional temporality of biological evolution would offer a deeper level of explanation than it does now.
Actually the quotation is this:
Source
I think what we tend lose sight of, is the possibility that the explanation of phenomena can't be complete even in principle.
It's not really an illusion. It is simple a renaming of God. Says nothing. Means nothing. But with this little problem taken care of, science can go on and observe and report their observations up to the limit of Planck's constant. Below that we must rely on the thoughts of our own minds.
"Science reports what is happening"?
What about all of sciences predictions? Do I really have to list them? That would take months, but here are a few:
Gravitational waves (predicted 100yrs before observation)
Gravitational time dilation (predicted 50yrs before observed)
...
Quantum Entanglement (50yrs before observed)
Solid state electronics (predicted only a few years before first device)
Many fundamental particles, notably the Higgs (predicted 50yrs before observed)
...
DNA was a prediction!
How can this happen if science only "reports what is happening"?
On the contrary, it is clear that scientific theories are explanations: accounts of what exists in reality, how it behaves, and why, in a form that permits testable deductions.
"Philosophy tries to explore why it is happening"?
Maybe you could offer a few examples of the success of philosophy in this respect?
Fortunately, since the Principle of Demarcation, we now know how to distinguish science from philosophy.
In 1915, when gravitational waves were predicted, what habits had the universe developed, and what were the repetitive observations?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug
It can be traced back to the origin. In the ancient Greece, philosophy was defined as "love wisdom" but this term is very ambiguous. Human being uses their wisdom to do all things for example, use wisdom to do cunning things. But this is not philosophy. What the Greeks meant was to perform intellectual activities to search for the answer from environment (external and internal). The whole process of this activity was defined as philosophy, for example, "what compose our world" and methodologies including rhetoric and dialectic. But later, the division of looking into the environment was classified as natural philosophy which now has been changed to the term of science. From the medieval time, Human being's approach to look for answer have developed into the so-called "scientific approach" which is more accurate compared with the ancient time but still falls into the fundamental approach of how to understand the world. When the new approach of looking into the world was formed, many new science developments were achieved. Science as a breakaway division of philosophy left philosophy as a study looking to the most fundamental rules governing our world. That is why philosophy covers much larger system while science only covers their subsystem, a much smaller area. The commonality between these two is they both looking to rules in the universe. The difference is they study different rules.