Philosophy Vital To Grasp Science

Philosophy means "love of wisdom" in a broad sense. The title of this article in question form was given to us by a professor assigned to teach us the philosophy of science as a mandatory course before starting our research work. He gave us a task to write our views on the topic, but it was quite a strange subject for us.

I wrote some paragraphs and read them out to a packed classroom the next day. The professor said, "Nice attempt! However, you could add some more aspects to it." Then, I kept that piece as it was. Our classes continued, and we became very busy with other activities. The mid-term exam schedule was out, and again, we threw ourselves into preparing for the exam. Still, the same question leapt to mind amid examination preparation: Why is philosophy needed in science?

Philosophical books

I started to turn the pages of books that delve into the philosophy of science, the philosophy of technologies, and the philosophy of the subject of our research. I read as much material as I could get and went through the books suggested by our professors. I enjoyed reading the book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman. I recently listened to summaries of books, including Nothing: A Very Short Introduction by physicist Frank Close. After many years, I also revisited the audiobook of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, which I had read before. This time, I understood it differently. The article "More is different” by Philip Anderson also enabled me to understand the philosophy of science to some extent. The following paragraph I wrote previously.

“Philosophy is very important in understanding and making others understand. To find the answer to questions such as how I know what I know or who we are, knowing philosophy is needed. That is possible. When we search with evidence or logic or by doing experiments, it is science. To question and think differently to get an answer, knowledge of philosophy is essential. It leads us to convince ourselves of what we did and how we reached the result.”

Socrates is considered the father of Western philosophy, while Aristotle, another famous Greek philosopher, has contributed to diverse fields of knowledge from logic to criticism, rhetoric, politics, and ethics to physics, biology, metaphysics, mathematics, and psychology. He started empirical studies on scientific methods, which are the cornerstone of modern science.

In his book, “Nothing: A Very Short Introduction," Frank raises elemental issues—if there is nothing in the space, we would not be able to listen, and we need a medium to communicate. He writes about so many situations of having nothing; the result will make everything different. We couldn't get anything normal as it is now. If there is no pressure in the tyres, no vehicles can move. Nothing has significant value when we think philosophically.

Science has concrete answers to many questions, and its theories are proved logically, yet all the theories we have studied till now have limitations and modifications. What is done in science has some place to be falsified. Karl Popper, a philosopher of science, talks about this. In his seminal work, ‘The Logic of Scientific Discovery,’ he states that falsifiability (or refutability) is a deductive standard of evaluation of scientific theories and hypotheses. The philosophy of science helps define what exists and provides a logical or empirical foundation, acting as a ladder to understanding human existence and universal phenomena.

To survive, we need to eat, which is why we cook. Sometimes, the food may be tasty and healthy, but it may lack in both aspects, too. Yet, we continue to cook and eat. Similarly, we experiment, and some experiments may prove useful, while others do not. But the search is conducted continuously for the sake of nature and humanity. This is the motive of any philosophy, whether it is the philosophy of science or any other.

While doing research, we must not rely on others' data; we may be misguided, as mentioned in the McNamara fallacy. The fallacy talks about how the U.S. government was misguided in the war in Vietnam. McNamara was defence secretary at the time of the war, and the U.S. was defeated due to belief in others' data. They didn't verify in the field. We should always think of validity. Philosophy of science gives us the idea to understand knowledge, measurements, and the tyranny of metrics while handling research.”

Having classes on the philosophy of science for months, our perception broadens immensely. The topic "assumptions of science" taught us determinism, materialism, causality, uncertainty, inseparability, conservation, complementarity, irregularity, infinity, relativism, and interconnection. These all took us to different worlds of conceptualisation of matter and motion, macroscopic and microscopic views of matter, and their relations.

Questions about existence

Philosophy is the study of questions about existence, knowledge, value, reason, mind, and language. It is needed as science explains how things occur while philosophy explains why things occur. It helps science, scientific research, and knowledge innovation precisely because it illuminates how to enquire and how to search. Philosophy is the art of thinking, whereas science is a product of thinking. I found the value of philosophy more appealing. It teaches to reflect on reflection itself, to continually question well-established faiths, to verify hypotheses, and to find conclusions. Concepts, ideas, analyses, and critical and creative thought are the creations of philosophy. It may answer difficult questions, even if it takes a lot of time.

Science is one example where philosophy became very successful (natural philosophy). Even if philosophy couldn't give clear answers, it may still be able to give certain answers. That are better than others, and if it seems to be going nowhere, just the act of doing philosophy can still be very useful. It opens our minds and gets us out of our rut, as Bertrand Russell says, "Liberating doubt." We are becoming more precise, clearer, and more rigorous after being the learner of philosophy. After going through much literature on this subject, this pen pusher has gathered some insights to answer the very question: "Why is philosophy needed in science?"

(The author is a chief lecturer of chemistry at Manmohan Technical University and currently a PhD scholar at Tribhuvan University.)