Scientific Philosophy

Scientific Philosophy

Is philosophy a scientific subject? I don’t mean barroom bromides (“My philosophy is live and let live”); I mean academic philosophy. Here I intend to include the usual subject areas including ethics and aesthetics. The best way to answer this question is to ask what the word “science” is taken to contrast with. And the answer is surely religion: religion is not scientific, nor is it meant to be. What then are marks of religion as it contrasts with science? These are not difficult to enumerate: religion is (or is taken to be) supernatural, superstitious, faith-based, dogmatic, authority-bound, tradition-oriented, and fantastical (miracles etc.); whereas science is naturalistic, unsuperstitious, evidence-based, tolerant of agnosticism, undogmatic, egalitarian, skeptical of tradition, and resolutely nomological (nothing miraculous). Judged by these criteria, philosophy is scientific, since it rejects those features of religion. It is truth-directed not beauty-directed or goodness-directed. Nor is it anecdotal or idiosyncratic; it needs consensus and generally applicable methods. Philosophy is undertaken in a scientific spirit not a religious or artistic or ethical spirit. Notice that this is not say that philosophy is an empirical science, or should be; we have said nothing about methodology. Mathematics is done in a scientific spirit, but it isn’t an empirical science. History may be done in a scientific spirit (not, say, a political spirit), but it isn’t an empirical science in the mold of physics, biology, etc.  A subject can be scientific without being one of the empirical sciences. Sherlock Holmes works in a scientific spirit, but his work isn’t one of the empirical sciences. If philosophy consists of conceptual analysis, it can still be scientific (not religious or aesthetic); and similarly for ordinary language philosophy, phenomenology, and process philosophy. Philosophy does not need to be, or to mimic, the recognized empirical sciences in order to qualify as scientific. So, it is wrong to castigate it as non-scientific because it isn’t one of these sciences. Philosophy can be scientific in its own way not assimilable to the way other subjects are scientific (like mathematics and logic). I happen to think (and have argued at length) that philosophy already is a science though not beholden to other sciences[1]; the point I am making now is that philosophy, as currently practiced, is also scientific. It would be possible to pursue a science unscientifically, if one were to lapse into the supernatural, anecdotal, or superstitious; my point here is that philosophy is both a science and pursued scientifically (though not by everyone calling himself a philosopher). Being a science and being pursued scientifically are different questions, though obviously related. Philosophy was pursued scientifically from its earliest days in Plato and (especially) Aristotle, long before science and the word “science” were ever invented. The Socratic critical method is itself a scientific method by the standards outlined above, arguably the prototype of all subsequent scientific inquiry—it is all about clear formulation and rigorous falsification. Socrates had a highly scientific attitude (think of the Euthyphro argument). Back when myth and religion were dominant, he blazed the scientific trail in opposition to anti-scientific attitudes (not unlike Galileo). Philosophy (the Western kind anyway) is the original scientific discipline, contrary to the opinion of many contemporary self-proclaimed scientists. These characters are really scientistic scientists, trying to impose their methods on domains to which they are not suited; but this is not scientific, being a kind of quasi-religious dogma founded on faith and ignorance (“Ultimately physics will explain everything!”). Philosophy is a science, pursued scientifically, but it is not a scientistic science (“excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques”: OED). Not all scientific knowledge properly so called can be revealed by the operation of the human senses. But you knew that, right?[2]

[1] See my “The Science of Philosophy”.

[2] It is really a kind of scandal that I have to enunciate this truism. Just consider first-person introspective knowledge, mathematical knowledge, political knowledge, ethical knowledge, knowledge of literary intention, aesthetic knowledge, knowledge of where you left your keys, etc. Knowledge and science are not coextensive concepts.