12/1/23

Differences between Philosophy and Science

 I wonder if you are familiar with the development of rationalism from Descartes to Sartre, and linguistic philosophy aka the philosophy of logic?Scientific method can be used for sundry applications and is obviously valuable, yet philosophy is more than technical applications of a method. It is interesting to contrast Berkeley's ideaism with the 'Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics' by Immanuel Kant; noumenon with speculations about infinite Multiverses or even being-in-itself of quantum fields. These are philosophical speculations for those that like philosophy, and a waste of time for those that regard empiricism and scientific testing of theories as the sole means of credible inquiry.

I believe philosophy to a considerable extent, is what one makes of it. There is a lot of the inductive side to it, unlike science that is more deductive and methodological. Philosophical inquiries have innumerable potentials and interdisciplinary synthetic recombinatorial potentials yet that is of course contingent upon the philosopher. There is a good reason why doctorates of philosophy are given to scientists too, for they may venture into areas that are interdisciplinary, original and far more than methodologies of plain science. 'Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down' by Robert Laughlin is an example of an approach to science that rises to the level of philosophy. Laughlin won a Nobel for solid state physics I believe it was, and he is obviously an inventive guy.

Philosophical thought is analytical and inductive building synthetic new lines of inquiry. That process has continued since the pre-Socratics Thales and Parmenides, yet philosophers that developed science such that it became methodological had their 'knowledge' aka science, become an ossified technique no longer part of philosophy except as phenomenal tools.

Philosophy isn't a settled technique or method; instead it is a pursuit of wisdom often able to generate new thought with discovery. On the other hand science can be bureaucratized and has millions of ardent defenders placing themselves at the center of the Universe of meaning.

It is comparable to a vast colony of ants defending their empirical turf. If humans can be compared to ants with organizational skills, structures and leaders to a limited extent, rather than more independent polar bears hunting for seals, philosophers are individuals that consider the entire phenomena from numerous angles with various filters, as well as the island Universe where they find themselves living.

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