Have you ever wondered why there is still philosophy prevail and even flourish in the era of science? Undoubtably science have advanced in the last few centuries beyond earlier predictions and expectations giving answers to many of our questions, yet philosophy which is just imaginators science of humans still prevail. Why?
From Aristotle to Plato to Friedrich Nietzsche, from western to eastern, philosophy still flourish. What function does it fulfill which science cannot?
As a great admirer of science, I would go back to the scientific method to bring about answers to this question. As the scientific method is the tool which we use to build up our knowledge about the truth of nature.
In science we deal with facts. Scientific method can be summarized in following steps.
You find the question or a problem.
Gather current information related to the problem to develop a hypothesis.
Conduct an Experiment.
Observe outcomes.
Analyse outcomes and develop new conclusions to accept or reject hypothesis.
It seems pretty clear. But when we do this kind of analysis there is a fundamental problem. There is a built-in error on the scientific method which science cannot answer and that is the why philosophy and religions still exist. It is not a scientific "error" as we find in experiments but an unavoidable problem. If I attempt to word that problem, it will be like following.
The core part of scientific method is observing the outcomes. These observations are made by humans. Science assumes that observer is fixed when we measure outcomes. But the observer is never fixed. Observer is unique to each and every one of us and even animals. There is no way we can get away from this problem as we are separate from each other.
Imagine we are measuring outcome of an experiment as Height of a cohort of people. Science assumes that the measurements made by a 'meter' is correct and that represents the true height of each person. But now think about two people thinking about a 'meter'. Clearly what length is meant by a meter is different for these two individuals and there is no way we can compare these two as we would never know they are thinking about the same thing when they talk about height. We can only assume they are talking about same thing.
By definition scientific method assumes this is true, hence there is the problem of scientific method. "Scientific method itself include an assumption."
By convention we are agreed about these scientific norms that nobody find this a problem to have a normal conversation. But when it comes to deeper level of understanding philosophy try to answer these questions and Will flourish and even take over science at some point in the future, when science starts to turn its experiments into human nature.
Thank you for reading: Role of Philosophy in the era of science - scientific method.
You may also like to read: How new inventions are made a philosopher's point of view.
Comments