Before you start reading...
Hello and welcome to my new post discussing philosophy and science. Keep in mind that I've translated this on Google Translate and that it may have some grammatical errors or it would sound unnatural; since all my original research texts are in Serbian. And if you find anything that isn't true or something missing in this blog post, please let me know in the comments, I would appreciate it very much! And now, without further ado, enjoy reading.
The origin of science
Science has its origins in philosophy. Until the Renaissance, philosophy and religion were the only forms of studying reality.
Renaissance - natural sciences are separated from philosophy
Later - social sciences (XIX century - sociology and psychology)
Developing of science - according to Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte argued that there are three different states of human cognition:
- Religious or fictitious - natural phenomena are explained by divine action
- Metaphysical or abstract - modification of the first state, supernatural forces are replaced by abstract phenomena, often identified with philosophy
- Theoretical state - scientific state that is based on facts
According to Comte, science should abolish the first two states (religion and philosophy). This understanding is positivism, positive science is based solely on experiential facts.
The difference between science and philosophy
Science studies one, and philosophy studies the entire reality. For example, there is the science of the living world (biology), the science of the past (history), the science of society (sociology), etc..., and philosophy is found in everything, even in the sciences (philosophy of biology, philosophy of history, philosophy of sociology...) The key specificity of philosophy is not in the subject of study, but in the method of study.
Science most often has some kind of interest (benefit) as its goal, but we do philosophy for the pure joy of knowledge.
General methodology is a philosophical discipline that studies the procedures in our research. In science, the researcher, the method and the object are clearly separated. In philosophy, this separation does not exist because the basic philosophical idea is self-knowledge, so the subject and the researcher are identical.
Also, philosophy does not insist on scientific exactness or final solutions to problems. Setting the problem is more important than the solution. Furthermore, the concept of true and false does not have much significance in philosophy.
Science today
Although Auguste Comte believes that science has overcome philosophy (and religion) with scientific positivism (or just positivism), today science has overcome positivism, so that philosophical research is encouraged in all sciences.
Philosophy of science is a philosophical discipline that considers the problems of science and scientific discovery.
Today, the distinction between philosophy and science is not so obvious, because interdisciplinary research is more and more common. That is why we should always remember the basic criterion according to which we separate philosophy from other sciences.
My understanding
Although philosophy and science have some differences, and although at one time they were considered two completely different things, philosophy still helps science in its development, because it constantly encourages and challenges it to answer open questions, which could become closed, in case science manages to answer.
Because of this encouragement, interdisciplinary research is being created in increasing numbers as time goes on. And that's why it's important to have at least some line between philosophy and science, because there would be confusion and the basic origin of science would be forgotten, which is that science originates from philosophy.