Empirical scientific methods and philosophical musings absolutely feed into each other! In Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm shift model, philosophy contributes both in the pre-science phase, as you allude to here, and also in the model crisis phase, finding gaps in current theories. I love exploring similar progressions in my writing on this platform. Recently, I’ve been captivated by Sara Imari Walker’s Assembly Theory hypotheses as a pre-paradigmatic field of science. She’s trying to explain the origins of life!
The rejection of Aristotelian physics for Newtonian mechanics is often seen as science triumphing over philosophy, but it’s really philosophy evolving into science. Each paradigm shift, from Boyle’s chemistry to Darwin’s evolution, represents a collaboration between empirical observation and conceptual reasoning. Philosophy sharpens the questions, and science refines the answers, creating a feedback loop that drives human knowledge forward.
I liked the idea that review papers in science often resemble philosophical treatises more than empirical studies. Also, that philosophy excels at framing the "big questions," while science specializes in finding tangible answers.
It seems so plain to me that science and philosophy are continuous with one another is philosophy that I have a hard time understanding why so many people, in both domains, are so keen to demarcate. Or rather, I know full well why they are keen to demarcate, it’s because it’s strategically useful for them, and it pisses me off.
This is excellent. I am working on an issue right now that encapsulates this point perfectly. The debate on free will between scientists and philosophers.
“Both empirical methods and conceptual methods have their complementary places here, and the fact of the matter is that scientists regularly engage in both. And they do so on questions of philosophical relevance”
Yes - the complementarity. Niels Bohr was all in on this, being very “philosophical” about the whole quantum world. Einstein did not like that too much. Bohr wanted to accept that there is a limit to our understanding of our findings, but Einstein would not accept that. He was in that sense a Newtonian physicist. He would never agree to “Shut up and calculate”
But who then, is the philosopher - Einstein who insisted on understanding or Bohr who insisted on the imposibility of understanding?
Like this lime a lot: science is philosophy sort of in the same way birds are dinosaurs. Its also nice to realize I currently live on the land that birthed the founders...
Empirical scientific methods and philosophical musings absolutely feed into each other! In Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm shift model, philosophy contributes both in the pre-science phase, as you allude to here, and also in the model crisis phase, finding gaps in current theories. I love exploring similar progressions in my writing on this platform. Recently, I’ve been captivated by Sara Imari Walker’s Assembly Theory hypotheses as a pre-paradigmatic field of science. She’s trying to explain the origins of life!
The rejection of Aristotelian physics for Newtonian mechanics is often seen as science triumphing over philosophy, but it’s really philosophy evolving into science. Each paradigm shift, from Boyle’s chemistry to Darwin’s evolution, represents a collaboration between empirical observation and conceptual reasoning. Philosophy sharpens the questions, and science refines the answers, creating a feedback loop that drives human knowledge forward.
I liked the idea that review papers in science often resemble philosophical treatises more than empirical studies. Also, that philosophy excels at framing the "big questions," while science specializes in finding tangible answers.
Good post, of course.
It seems so plain to me that science and philosophy are continuous with one another is philosophy that I have a hard time understanding why so many people, in both domains, are so keen to demarcate. Or rather, I know full well why they are keen to demarcate, it’s because it’s strategically useful for them, and it pisses me off.
This is excellent. I am working on an issue right now that encapsulates this point perfectly. The debate on free will between scientists and philosophers.
“Both empirical methods and conceptual methods have their complementary places here, and the fact of the matter is that scientists regularly engage in both. And they do so on questions of philosophical relevance”
Yes - the complementarity. Niels Bohr was all in on this, being very “philosophical” about the whole quantum world. Einstein did not like that too much. Bohr wanted to accept that there is a limit to our understanding of our findings, but Einstein would not accept that. He was in that sense a Newtonian physicist. He would never agree to “Shut up and calculate”
But who then, is the philosopher - Einstein who insisted on understanding or Bohr who insisted on the imposibility of understanding?
Like this lime a lot: science is philosophy sort of in the same way birds are dinosaurs. Its also nice to realize I currently live on the land that birthed the founders...