The relationship between Science and Philosophy

[Dolorian]

When it comes to the relationship between Philosophy and Theology a popular way of describing this relationship is as follows:

"Philosophy is the handmaiden of Theology; Philosophy helps elucidate Theology and prevents it from falling into superstition"

But of course, we can agree that Theology is bunk, so would you agree with a similar statement but with regards to Philosophy and Science?

"Philosophy is the handmaiden of Science; Philosophy helps elucidate Science and prevents it from falling into pseudoscience"

Would you agree with that assessment? Why, why not?

 

[dystopian]

When it comes to the relationship between Philosophy and Theology a popular way of describing this relationship is as follows:

"Philosophy is the handmaiden of Theology; Philosophy helps elucidate Theology and prevents it from falling into superstition"

But of course, we can agree that Theology is bunk, so would you agree with a similar statement but with regards to Philosophy and Science?

"Philosophy is the handmaiden of Science; Philosophy helps elucidate Science and prevents it from falling into pseudoscience"

Would you agree with that assessment? Why, why not?

I would not. Absolutely not, in fact.

In no shape or form does philosophy help elucidate science; it often does the exact opposite by shrouding it in vague mumbo jumbo that not even philosophers themselves understand unless they were the ones who wrote it. Nor does philosophy in any way prevent it from falling into pseudoscience: in fact this statement is laughably absurd. It is again the exact opposite, science prevents philosophy from veering off into metaphysical bullshit. The idea that philosophy could prevent science from becoming pseudoscience is the sort of nonsense that philosophy majors might tell themselves in order to pretend they're pursuing a worthwhile career. How exactly would it prevent such a thing? Pseudoscience is a system, theory, or method that at first glance looks like science but violates the scientific method. Not surprisingly, the notion that Philosophy, instead of Science itself, determines what is and is not pseudoscience, is akin to saying that it is music critics who get to define what a chord is, instead of the actual musicians who use them.

A lot of scientists (as well as people on this board) feel that philosophy no longer has a function in science. Philosophers have a habit of overestimating their own worth and contributions; thinking their questions are deep and important when often they're just irrelevant and needlessly obfuscated. Worse; philosophy has no answers to give, just more questions in response to questions we're not even sure are important to ask. The past number of years, there have been a number of debates in various circles about whether or not science still needs philosophy; invariably these debates are instigated by philosophers who have come to realize that scientists aren't listening to them the way they supposedly used to; or by philosophers who have a new book to peddle. Either way, it feels like carriage sellers arguing that the car industry still needs horses.

Science doesn't need Philosophy with a capital P: scientists are perfectly capable of doing the rudimentary philosophical thinking required to determine where to go with their research.

 

[Kharakov]

"Philosophy is the handmaiden of Science; Philosophy helps elucidate Science and prevents it from falling into pseudoscience"

Would you agree with that assessment? Why, why not?

No. I read a book by a scientific authority figure who dislikes philosophy.

 

[Kharakov]

In no shape or form does philosophy help elucidate science; it often does the exact opposite by shrouding it in vague mumbo jumbo that not even philosophers themselves understand unless they were the ones who wrote it. Nor does philosophy in any way prevent it from falling into pseudoscience: in fact this statement is laughably absurd. It is again the exact opposite, science prevents philosophy from veering off into metaphysical bullshit.

Should I read that in your Monty Python voice or your person who believes sophistry is philosophy voice?

 

[DBT]

"Philosophy is the handmaiden of Science; Philosophy helps elucidate Science and prevents it from falling into pseudoscience"

I don't know how philosophy is supposed to do that. Are scientists prone to falling into pseudoscience?

 

[Kharakov]

"Philosophy is the handmaiden of Science; Philosophy helps elucidate Science and prevents it from falling into pseudoscience"

I don't know how philosophy is supposed to do that. Are scientists prone to falling into pseudoscience?

Social science and its "precise"  scientific controls come to mind.

 

[4321lynx]

I don't know how philosophy is supposed to do that. Are scientists prone to falling into pseudoscience?

Social science and its "precise"  scientific controls come to mind.

Much of Social "Science" is philosophy masquerading as science.

 

[untermensche]

Much of Social "Science" is philosophy masquerading as science.

Give me an example.

It should be easy since it is "much".

 

[4321lynx]

Much of Social "Science" is philosophy masquerading as science.

Give me an example.

It should be easy since it is "much".

Easy it is, almost all of it is named a "science" because it seeks to employ similar methods of investigation to its various branches as the "exact" sciences of physics, chemistry, biology (not yet as exact as the other two), geology. In my definition of science, I do not include all of man's knowledge, or the search for more of every kind knowledge. I regard the self-given title of science of various branches of social studies to be an expression of 19th century status seeking, prompted by the successes of "true sciences" in the 19th century; much as the title of Doctor is now self applied by various groups of health workers seeking status, such as chiropractors, optometrists, naturopaths, osteopaths etc etc . These are prompted by the successes and prestige, practical, social and financial, of the medical men who assumed this title in the past.
Thus medicine is still just beginning to become a science, in as much as advances in chemistry and physics allow it to do so, and economic science, political science, psychology, anthropology etc , although seeking to apply scientific methods are, to my mind, far, far removed from being sciences.

Jf this sort of thinking is counter to present trends, so be it, but I do not think a science is a science just because it calls itself so, any more than a hero is a hero just because he says so.

 

[rousseau]

Science is a tool to acquire knowledge.

Philosophy is a steering wheel.

Philosophy attempts to steer science, sometimes successful, sometimes not.

 

[Kharakov]

Social science and its "precise"  scientific controls come to mind.

Much of Social "Science" is philosophy masquerading as science.

The point is that it might be a bit harder to eliminate variables (control variables) in social science than it is in the physical sciences. Then again, it's hard to eliminate variables at the scale addressed by quantum mechanics as well, which is why QM is probabilistic... and it seems to work well for certain applications.

Did you know that advertising something actually influences the populace? <--social science
Did you know that certain types of advertisements target specific segments of the populace? <-- social science
Did you know that there are potentially far more variables in a social experiment, than a QM experiment?

 

[DBT]

I don't know how philosophy is supposed to do that. Are scientists prone to falling into pseudoscience?

Social science and its "precise"  scientific controls come to mind.

That article doesn't appear to say much about the practicalities of pseudoscience prevention in relationship to scientific experimentation using philosophical means. Who actually needs monitoring? Astronomers? Are they likely to slip in Astrology if they are not kept in check by a Philosopher? Physicists? Biologists?

I don't know what the practicalities of this proposition actually entails. A resident Philosopher to keep scientists on track? Philosophical Journals?....do scientists take notice?

 

[4321lynx]

Much of Social "Science" is philosophy masquerading as science.

Did you know that there are potentially far more variables in a social experiment, than a QM experiment?

Did you know that's precisely why it is not a "science"? And likely never will be until people are like ants or bees. Which might not be too far in the future.

Did you know that advertising something actually influences the populace? <--social science
Did you know that certain types of advertisements target specific segments of the populace? <-- social science

Knowledge, fact, tendency - yes. "Science" - no.

 

[dystopian]

Science is a tool to acquire knowledge.

Philosophy is a steering wheel.

Philosophy attempts to steer science, sometimes successful, sometimes not.

I see it more as;

Philosophy used to be a tool to acquire knowledge.

Then Science came along, and did it far better.

Then Philosophy tried reinventing itself as a steering wheel, with mixed results.

 

[rousseau]

Science is a tool to acquire knowledge.

Philosophy is a steering wheel.

Philosophy attempts to steer science, sometimes successful, sometimes not.

I see it more as;

Philosophy used to be a tool to acquire knowledge.

Then Science came along, and did it far better.

Then Philosophy tried reinventing itself as a steering wheel, with mixed results.

True.

I don't think it's very clear what we mean by philosophy. Do we mean a bunch of intellectual white guys writing books in their university offices, or do we mean people thinking about problems at a high level?

If the former, philosophy stil can be a steering wheel if it wants to be, but don't ask me if it is, and it's definitely not necessary. If the latter, people just thinking about what types of science they should do could be considered philosophy, in which case philosophy is a steering wheel, but is basically just somewhat a part of the scientific method.

 

[Tom in Napa]

Are scientists prone to falling into pseudoscience?

Scientists may be prone to falling back into the pseudoscience:
1) from which today's sciences arose (i.e., the alchemists' efforts to change base metals to gold), and
2) into which some astronomers have returned (i.e., the cosmologists' rejection of falsification).

 

[Togo]

There's a fair bit of science which simply isn't very good - whether or not you want to call that pseudoscience depends on how harsh you want to be. My favourite bugbear is the guys who decided to study reaching movements. They wanted to demonstrate that reaching movements were judged based on the distance from the hand to the object, rather than the distance from the body. Unfortunately they decided to measure this by measuring people using a mouse on a computer screen. Which is an experimental set up that doesn't allow you to measure distances from the body...

Studying philosophy gives you a greater awareness of this kind of problem when planning your experiment. However, you don't need to have studied philosophy to spot the common difficulties, so in practice it really only comes in handy for experiments involving very complicated reasoning.

 

[DBT]

(i.e., the cosmologists' rejection of falsification).

Why do you believe that cosmologists have rejected falsification?

 

[Tom in Napa]

DBT from the land down under, clicking on your screen name reveals no discussion begun by you about cosmology.

If replying to your query to your satisfaction requires me to explain the Big Bang model, I will say little more than that falsifying Alan Guth's Inflation is not possible.

That few if any claims by BB cosmologists are falsifiable has not slowed their claim making, and it is for this reason that I say they have rejected falsification.

 

[DBT]

DBT from the land down under, clicking on your screen name reveals no discussion begun by you about cosmology.

If replying to your query to your satisfaction requires me to explain the Big Bang model, I will say little more than that falsifying Alan Guth's Inflation is not possible.

That few if any claims by BB cosmologists are falsifiable has not slowed their claim making, and it is for this reason that I say they have rejected falsification.

My understanding of Cosmology is irrelevant to the question I asked you.

It was you who claimed that cosmologists have rejected falsification, (i.e., the cosmologists' rejection of falsification), and it was I who asked you to explain your claim.

A simple enough matter, as it happens to be you who has made the claim, it is you up to you to justify the claim that ''cosmologists have rejected falsification.'' Thank you.