Re: Can the respective value of philosophy and science be compared?

On Sun, 03 Jun 2012 02:40:28 -0700, marc.tessera wrote:

The term “value” is questionable because it is subjective. However it
is possible to compare philosophy and science on their respective
fertility. In that case there is no doubt about it: science fertility
is incomparably higher.
There is nevertheless an issue is such a comparison because
historically science seems to be the daughter of philosophical
thought. However “the word scientist is relatively recent—first coined
by William Whewell in the 19th century. Previously, people
investigating nature called themselves natural philosophers. While
empirical investigations of the natural world have been described
since classical antiquity (for example, by Thales, Aristotle, and
others), and scientific methods have been employed since the Middle
Ages (for example, by Ibn al-Haytham, Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī and Roger
Bacon), the dawn of modern science is generally traced back to the
early modern period, during what is known as the Scientific Revolution
that took place in 16th and 17th century Europe (Wikipedia “History of
science”).
Some think (like Richard Norman) that “the distinction between well
done science, done by well trained scientists, and well done
metaphysics, done by well trained philosophers, is quite similar and
have equal weight. Mathematical logic done by a philosopher can be
exactly the same as logic done by a mathematician”. However
mathematics can be performed by everybody. PhD in mathematics is not
required because it is easy to show that a mathematical demonstration
is false if the reasoning is wrong. It is not so for a philosophical
assertion because it is much easier to introduce a red herring into
the reasoning, for example by using concepts with no explicit or clear
definitions. Moreover philosophical definitions cannot have the
accuracy of the mathematical ones.

Science cannot exist without a philosophical underpinning. If you want
to gain knowledge on some subject, at some point you'll have to answer
the question "when do you _know_ something". Science began with the
question "are there laws governing the universe, of is everything subject
to the will of capricious gods?". That's a deeply philosophical question.

You, rightfully, point out that science is the daughter of philosophy
and that provides your answer. Since philosophical thought gave rise
to science and math and, through the philosophy of law, influenced
much of our world today, i'd say philosophy has been more fruitful,
hands down.

Yet i have problems with the way you present your question. The many
fields of knowledge, including philosophy and science, are not in
competition, but (ought to) support each other. If they don't, something
is usually wrong somewhere and an investigation is called for.

I'm no scientist, merely an interested amateur, so do not put too much
weight to the above. It's no more than my two cents on a public forum.

.

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