• Question: Is philosophy the mother of sciences, why? And how closely is philosophy linked to science?

    Asked by monique to Alison, Artem, Caroline, John, Gunther on 20 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Artem Evdokimov

      Artem Evdokimov answered on 20 Jun 2012:

      Philosophy and science diverged when scientific method began to become the way to perform experiments. Philosophy and science are related because both rely heavily on our ability to *reason* and derive conclusions – the difference is in the subject matter of study.

    • Photo: Matt Gunther

      Matt Gunther answered on 20 Jun 2012:

      I suppose, to some extent, philosophy is the grandfather of modern science. Both were bred out of a need to understand the world we live in. Although, Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras and Archimedes were labelled as such, they definitely demonstrated logic and reasoning, which is present in science to this day.

      Other Greeks, such as Socrates could be regarded as the forebears of modern anthropology. Nowadays, philosophy is not so deeply ingrained in the workings of science but they still pose some fundamental questions about who we are. For instance, there are philosophical theories at the heart of quantum mechanics, which is regarded as the most robust theory in modern physics (a fundamental science).

    • Photo: John Short

      John Short answered on 20 Jun 2012:

      Before people did experiments they had to imagine what experiments to do and why… Einstein himself said that “imagination is more important than knowledge” and philosophy encourages people to think and create new ways of doing things, how the world works, new experiments etc.

      I would argue that science is the application of philosophy, putting creative minds, our quest for knowledge and understanding into practice with experiments in the quest for new knowledge.

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