Philosophy Meets the Sciences

For the first Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftsphilosophie (GWP) Conference, Hannover 2013 1. Three roles for philosophy 2. Critics

""In this chapter, I describe in a concise manner how the Department of Philosophy of the Science Faculty has evolved from 1957 up to the present, and how this evolution has always been intimately connected with and responsive to important developments in science and society. Indeed, the Department of Philosophy has evolved in a triangular landscape, as it were, consisting of three “poles” that closely interconnected with each, namely, science, nature and society, and the challenge of our department, as I see it, is to reflect critically upon the past, present and future of this evolving landscape. After analyzing the vicissitudes of the Department during the third quarter (the “Van Melsen epoch”) and the fourth quarter of the twentieth century, I will focus on the present state of affairsand future prospects for philosophical reflection within the framework of the Faculty of Science.""

Foundations of Science

In this paper I review the problematic relationship between science and philosophy; in particular, I will address the question of whether science needs philosophy, and I will offer some positive perspectives that should be helpful in developing a synergetic relationship between the two. I will review three lines of reasoning often employed in arguing that philosophy is useless for science: a) philosophy’s death diagnosis (‘philosophy is dead’); b) the historic-agnostic argument/challenge “show me examples where philosophy has been useful for science, for I don’t know of any”; c) the division of property argument (or: philosophy and science have different subject matters, therefore philosophy is useless for science). These arguments will be countered with three contentions to the effect that the natural sciences need philosophy. I will: a) point to the fallacy of anti-philosophicalism (or: ‘in order to deny the need for philosophy, one must do philosophy’) and examine the role of paradigms and presuppositions (or: why science can’t live without philosophy); b) point out why the historical argument fails (in an example from quantum mechanics, alive and kicking); c) briefly sketch some domains of intersection of science and philosophy and how the two can have mutual synergy. I will conclude with some implications of this synergetic relationship between science and philosophy for the liberal arts and sciences.

International Journal of Philosophy, 2019

This short paper explores the overall relation between philosophy of science and science such as the influence of one over the other, the major aim of philosophy of science and the contribution of philosophy of science to philosophy itself. A lot of peoples confused of the very meaning and contribution of philosophy in general and philosophy of science in particular so as they believe that as if philosophy is done in the vacuum without basing on any practical evidence in human life. So, the central argument of this paper is to show how philosophy of science, philosophy in general, able to do with science or empirical concern and aware those peoples who have misconception about it. I try to show how philosophy and science are interdependent on each other. Both disciples share common denominators in many ways as they try to understand and influence each other in different epochs of human life. But through the passage of time, people start to doubt as if philosophy has less contribution in human life and only concentrate on playing with words rather than giving attention to tackle practical human problems comparing with sciences. I suggest that philosophy has indirect contribution for human life as it tries to be foundational for scientific theories and practices.

Science and philosophy have a very long history, dating back at least to the 16th and 17th centuries, when the first scientist-philosophers, such as Bacon, Galilei, and Newton, were beginning the process of turning natural philosophy into science. Contemporary relationships between the two fields are still to some extent marked by the distrust that maintains the divide between the so-called “two cultures.” An increasing number of philosophers, however, are making conceptual contributions to sciences ranging from quantum mechanics to evolutionary biology, and a few scientists are conducting research relevant to classically philosophical fields of inquiry, such as consciousness and moral decision-making. This article will introduce readers to the borderlands between science and philosophy, beginning with a brief description of what philosophy of science is about, and including a discussion of how the two disciplines can fruitfully interact not only at the level of scholarship, but also when it comes to controversies surrounding public understanding of science.

A Philosophy of Science-after 65 years, 2020

This is a retrospective and comparative analysis of the relationship of philosophy to scientific endeavors in general, to physics and medicine specifically. I intend it as a comparative and analytic inquiry, focally annotated, into the writings by scientists from several specialities: cognitive linguistics, philosophy and theoretical physics. This is a broad inquiry into the role of philosophy in the work of scientists; given that the origins of science and philosophy share similar intentions, in the opinion of many, the scientists have left the study of philosophy to the philosophers. The discussion is also a lament about the state of theoretical physics today and offers an explanation for this state of being.

The Pantaneto Forum, 2009

In the beginning, they were one. As the social division of labour accelerated and knowledge advanced, philosophy and science diverged further and further from each other, bringing us to the situation today. All disciplines proliferate into sub-disciplines of sub-disciplines. We know more and more about less and less. Who sees the whole picture? The lecture will sketch the historical trajectory of intellectual specialisation, its advantages and its disadvantages. It will focus particularly on the need of science for philosophy and the consequences of lack of philosophical grounding for science.

Companion to the History of Modern …, 1990

Philosophical Problems in Science (Zagadnienia Filozoficzne w Nauce), 2019

This paper presents Michael Heller's notion of "philosophy in science" and reintroduces Michael Heller's classical text that first presented this concept of philosophy entitled How is "philosophy in science" possible?. The paper discusses the historical context of Heller's idea as it emerged from the discussions and works of the Krakow philosophical scene and discusses the basic tenants of this philosophy, its analytic character, the role of intellectual tradition in the development of this philosophy, and the critical role played by an interdisciplinary dialogue between philosophy, science, and theology. Despite the idea of philosophy in science having emerged about 40 years ago, this concept still inspires and fuels innovative research. The notion of "philosophy in science" lies at the foundations of the philosophy published in two journals: Philosophical Problems in Science (Zagadnienia Filozoficzne w Nauce) and Philosophy in Science.

Axiomathes, 2020

This paper examines three cases of the clash between science and philosophy: Zeno’s paradoxes, the Frame Problem, and a recent attempt to experimentally refute skepticism. In all three cases, the relevant science claims to have resolved the pur- ported problem. The sciences, construing the term broadly, are mathematics, artifi- cial intelligence, and psychology. The goal of this paper is to show that none of the three scientific solutions work. The three philosophical problems remain as vibrant as ever in the face of robust scientific attempts to dispel them. The paper concludes by examining some consequences of this persistence.