Is Philosophy a science? What is science?

Answer 1

Philosophy is not science. Science is philosophy.

Philosophy literally translates as "the love of wisdom". All aspects of the real world fall under philosophy.

The ancient Greeks divided all human knowledge into three types: Literature, Rhetoric, and Philosophy.
-Literature was the study of one's culture, which included what we know today as literature, and also encompassed what is now known as history. In the days before accurate record keeping and archeology; literature and history were virtually indistinguishable. Poets and archivists studied literature.
-Rhetoric is, to put it in layman's terms, people skills. It deals with communication, debating, and speechcraft. This was the domain of politicians and lawmakers.
-Philosophy was the study of the real world. Science, mathematics, logic, and religion were all part of philosophy. Philosophy is divided into 5 main groups: Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Aesthetics, and Logic.

In the days before the scentific method, as well as before biology and astronomy, religion and science were often regarded as two aspects of each other. However, educated philosophers were not likely to follow a pedestrian form of religion (I.E, that all the gods lived on the tallest mountain in Greece, or that Zeus used to roam the countryside impregnating women), rather, followed a neo-platonic view of the universe that bears a striking similarity to modern existentialism. Regardless, the field that we now call science was at that time called "The natural philosophy", and still is considered a branch of metaphysics. Because knowledge was not as expansive then as it is today, a philosophy might study natural philosophy as part of his overal curriculum, or he might focus on natural philosophy. Similar to how modern business majors can take a concentration in accounting or marketing, or take a general major, for example. The most famous student of natural philosophy was, without a doubt, Aristotle. In fact, he was the first natural philosopher, since modern western philosophy starts with Socrates, Plato, and him. Aristotle pioneered two fields of modern philosophy: Logic, and Metaphysics (Arguably, you could say he pioneered a third branch; Ethics.) Logic to this day is regarded as its own special branch of philosophy, since it is used in all aspects of knowledge (branching out into Literature and Rhetoric).

Metaphysics is all philosophy that deals with the physical world, thus natural philosophy is a branch of metaphysics. This is where the term Ph.D comes from. Ph.D stands for "Doctor of Philosophy", so someone who has a Ph.D in biology or a Ph.D in physics is literally, a Doctor of the philosophy of biology or a Doctor of the philosophy of Physics.

Modern specialized fields make philosophy not necessarily the all encompassing branch that it used to be. Today, philosophers deal primarily with issues that can not be deduced through scientific discourse, such as Epistemology (how do humans acquire knowledge) or Aesthetics (how do you define what is beautiful and what is ugly?)

Answer 2

Science is a subset of philosophy.

The easiest way to describe science is as whatever is produced by using the scientific method. This is a process founded principally upon objective measurement. Something is objective if it doesn't matter who does it, where, or when, as long as the correct steps are followed in the production and observation of the phenomenon. And this requirement of being objective is actually a pretty strict one.

One example of such is that it usually requires some kind of constant, external reference point. You can't just say, "Does it take a long time for the bus to arrive?" - different people have completely different ideas of what a long time is. Instead, you use some kind a timepiece so that anyone who measures with a correct timepiece will get the same answer.

Requiring measurement against objective references is essentially what differentiates science from some other forms of philosophy. There is no yardstick by which we can measure 'ethics' or 'logic' or the 'best way to live'. If we ever develop one, those fields will probably just be tucked into science. This is actually a good proof that all sciences are philosophies - if you go back far enough, you can find times when any of them lacked the proper tools to be objective, and each was universally considered to be a part of philosophy at that time. Many institutions STILL refer to science as 'natural philosophy'.

Both science and philosophy have another characteristic that can differentiate them from other pursuits: they try to be useful and add to or correct the total of human knowledge. Thus new philosophies tend to replace - or at least elaborate on - the old. Argument and peer review are considered essential in both, and even philosophers tend to consider ideas which cannot possibly ever be falsified as belonging more to the realm of fiction writers than actual philosophy.

Art (as an example of a non-philosophical study) may attempt to outshine other art, but each piece is still valid in its own way. You cannot refute the Mona Lisa - that's a non-sequitur. Nor can there ever be a 'perfect' cake except as a matter of subjective opinion. Different people like different things and different formulations serve different purposes. This kind of view is unacceptable for science and it is unacceptable for philosophy.

Answer 3

Personally, philosophy is The science. In philosophy, you simply ask questions (like in all sciences), but the questions don't apply to specific problems like: "if you drop a bowling ball, how fast is it going just before it hits the ground?" Philosophical questions are more abstract and vague like: "what is quality?"
In science, you are seeking knowledge about the world around you. You ask questions and attempt to answer them. So much so is questioning important to science that it is the preliminary step in the scientific method. The reason that I say that philosophy is the top science is based on the system of hierarchies. In hierarchies, you go from general to the specific. Since science the basically asking questions, you should organize it as such. Philosophy asks the most vague of the questions, and other branches of science simply cover in greater detail what these questions mean and imply. Therefore, the top branch of science is philosophy.

Answer 4

Philosophy could be characterized as the science of knowledge - I know that's epistemology specifically, but it's a good definition for philosophy as a whole I think and here's why I think so -

Philosophy asks what we do know or can know about a thing, including our ability to know anything at all. That is the fundamental charge of any science - to amass and organize any confirmed knowledge we can about a topic. Anyone who has formally studied philosophy is aware of the rude awakening when the first semester is math and formal logic and so on - most people think philosophy is a lot of indulgent and comfortable armchair speculation and hash smoking - nothing could be further from the truth -

Yes, it is the fundamental science. As you said.

Answer 5

Philosophy is the FUNDAMENTAL science. How the special sciences are approached depends on philosophy.

For example, if someone is a physicist and follows the philosophy that no objective reality exists and reality is just his own perception, how will his research differ from a physicist that thinks that reality IS objective?

Answer 6

Philosophy isn't a technological awareness, in case you define technological awareness as empirical particularly than organic concept. technological awareness, whether, is a philosophy, and so is each little thing that could be theory-approximately or imagined- by using fact interior the SUBjective human realm of awareness, something interpreted of the exterior international is going via our minds, that are area of this realm, subsequently remaining the circle.

Answer 7

Philosophy is the opposite of science. Science examines what can be experimentally verified. Philosophy examines that which cannot be experimentally verified or measured.

Answer 8

it is a science to think