My view entirely. I do notice that occasionally some scientists are rather dismissive of anything that is not expressed in quantitative terms. It is very disappointing especially since the dictionary definitions of science and philosophy are almost identical. The 'search for' is what makes science exiting.

Historically, philosophy is the mother of all sciences. Newton referred to himself as a "natural philosopher", while the term "scientist" did not emerge until the 19th century through the writings of William Whewell.

However, I think today science and philosophy are two roughly dividable cultures of epistemic activity. Some divide them by calling science more "empirical", concerned with a field of experience, while philosophy is more "reflective" - concerned with the conditions of our experiencing. Like always - things are much more complicated.

An interesting take on the topic is the difference between science and philosophy of science. When someone asks "Is science a part of or seperate from philosophy?" - that is a question of philosophy of science.

A good book on the subject is Alan Chalmers "What is this thing called science?"

I think that we oversimplify many terms. We also need to be cautious in our use of terms when they start taking on multiple different meanings. In academia, for example, we differentiate between scientist and philosophers. These terms are however often used as titles and not descriptive of an individual's activities. Many scientists do not practice "science". If one were to follow the tenets of science rigorously, we would find that very little research actually takes on this form.

Philosophy is the study of knowledge. How it is acquired, the form it takes, and the its limits. Philosophy is much more than reflection. It can be extremely formal and may include subfields such as formal logic.

Science is a research methodology by which knowledge is acquired.

Philosophy allows us to study the nuances by which knowledge is acquired using scientific methods. Science is the execution.

Philosophy allows us to identify different methodologies, other than science, by which knowledge can be acquired. It helps us understand what makes a method consistent and robust.

Philosophy also allows us to differentiate between methods. It helps us understand why practitioners of different methodologies don't always see eye-to-eye. It explains why different practitioners may disagree on different research approaches and even differences in the interpretation of what constitutes knowledge.

I would not like to say it is part but that they need each other. In science theories are expounded based on observable consequences that can be tested. Also the theories must agree with previous theories in the domains where they had been successfully tested. While in philosophy, new theories must comply with existing theories, there may or may not be clear testing/retesting.

Here is a talk given by Sebastian de Haro at University of Amsterdam where he argues that the natural sciences need philosophy and that scientists need philosophy.

Do you know many professional scientists without a PhD (Philosophy Degree)?

... but it is still a PhD in "something"... not simply PhD... :-) ... When I fully understand the relation if these are degrees in natural sciences, chemistry, physics, biology. etc., it is not so intuitive to accept, e.g. a PhD in sports management , but it does also exist

:-)....

Philosophy is the base of Science.

But this Philosophy must be logical, Not Hypothetical...

And Logic expressed in Scientific language (Math)...

There are philosophies that apply to all sciences (e.g. how to define, design and conduct a field experiment to test a hypothesis X, whatever the research domain; e.g. Hurlbert 1984; Ecology, Psychology, Human Sciences, Ethology, Political Sciences, Behaviour, etc.....) and there are philosophies that are specific to each research domain (e.g. how to define, design and conduct a playback experiment to test the messages and meanings of bird song in a single model species; Behavioral Ecology, Ornithology).

As soon as the applications of Artificial Intelligence will be mature enough to make quite complex the computation of robotic/artificial thoughts, a science called "computational philosophy" will shatter the dilemma, disassembling in modules, and resolving in favor of performing and quantitative philosophic models (something different from philosophic-al).

It's already happened with other non-sciences or soft sciences, such as psychoanalysis, medicine, social sciences and the sciences of organization.

In this sense, it is not a coincidence that Google hired Kurzweil for the well known Brain project.

—g

Dear Marcel,

PhD alone is not a degree in philosophy as a medical doctor generally has nothing to do with teaching. PhD is only a traditional title or acknowledgment for scientific achievement from an age when publicly science had a modest importance.

According to my experiences many professional scientists have studied but a few of philosophy and their knowledge on philosophy is rather poor.

Dear All,

Working in a scientific field will necessitate to deal with philosophical questions. If this is not the case, there are some troubles with the imagination and sense of responsibility of the given scientist. Generally, original scientists are originall thinkers. Originall thinkers cannot resist to deal somehow with philosophical questions.

Scientists were often distinguished philosophers like Aristotle, Plato, Avicenna, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, David Hume, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz.

Philosophers studied and formulated ethics, logic, metaphysics which play a central role in scientific theories and methodology. Philosophy has been always attached to the theoretical solving of humanistic and general troubles during the history of mankind.

Here you can find some more information : https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_a_PhD_a_PhD

As history shows it clearly, science without philosophy is dangerous, for it can easily be driven towards undesirable decisions and actions.

And correspondingly, philosophy without science is empty.

With one addenda: nearly all great names of the history of science appear in the history of philosophy, although the contrary is not the case. Not all great names in the history of philosophy appear in the history of science.

It is a delicate and interesting question. I believe, YES science is a part of philosophy. But those who have argued it's negation also have valid points. In my opinion, research is required to establish this hypothesis or otherwise.

The phrase "that is not science, it's philosophy" is very derogative. Science and philiosophy are not contradictory: you need scientific method in order to reflect philosophically and you need philosophy in order to question scientific findings. So, I would say that both are need and none is superior to the other.

Interesting discussion. Barry, I know it has been a while since you posted this, but perhaps you might want to also list it under "Ancient Philosophy," and some other topics.

It appears to me that there is a consensus here that "philosophy" is a broader term (and older) than "science," but is science a subset of philosophy, or are they complementary? Perhaps represented in a Venn diagram, there would be a large portion that would be the intersection of these two sets.

Historically, logic did develop as a part of "philosophy," long before the "scientific method," yet today, the study of logic is considered to fall under philosophy as well as mathematical "science," which is a vital part of most "hard science."

Perhaps some of this may just be semantics exacerbated by time and language translations. But I was taught that the Ancient Greek philosophers failed to meet scientific method standards because they only observed (consider the 'four elements'), and did not experiment. No doubt, however, 'modern' science would be in bad shape without keen observation. In statistics we talk about "modeling," which sounds a bit like ancient philosophy, and "exploratory data analysis," which sounds like experimenting and observing, both.

The question posed is of a multi-level nature. On one level, there is a spectrum of a perhaps partially qualitative/quantitative composition, running from philosophy to social sciences to 'hard/natural' sciences. On another level, 'philosophy' and 'science' might be considered something like 'theory' and 'application,' respectively, though I am certain that many "theoretical chemists/physicist/etc" would not think of their work as "philosophy." (They may not always approve of hearing "All scientists are philosophers; you are a scientist, therefore you are a philosopher," even though it could be argued that theory is philosophy.)

I think logic ties it all together. I may have been taught that logic isn't enough to be science, but it is clear that science would be nowhere without it.

There remains an additional job for philosophy that many scientists may feel is not their concern, as scientists, but hopefully remains their concern as people: the field of ethics.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Turner et al,

I'm not much inclined to think of science as part of philosophy, but it is not entirely separate either. Philosophy has its distinctive, traditional and more recent, sub-disciplines and themes: metaphysics, epistemology, logic, ethics, political philosophy, etc., and also includes philosophy of science. In consequence a specialized knowledge of philosophy, which usually includes its history and periods, is quite different from a specialized knowledge and competence in science or in particular sciences. As academic disciplines and categories of library books and journals, philosophy and science are surely different; and I don't think this broad strokes differentiation is unimportant. It reflects differences in the basic competencies of people in the distinct fields. 

Philosophy of science belongs to philosophy, though many scientists are quite interested in it. Likewise, philosophers, when interested in the nature of knowledge or of the sciences, will naturally take up the history of science and even developments in contemporary science. As has become evident in recent years, history of science is of considerable interest both to philosophers and to scientists. Partly in consequence of that fact, philosophers and scientists often find themselves engaged with the same questions, though their approaches may be different. 

When people in science are inclined to say, about some topic or discussion or claim "that's not science its philosophy," I find myself sometimes sympathetic sometimes not. I find myself most sympathetic when the scientific claims are excessively speculative and without much chance of empirical testing. Its not that I think that something distant from the prospect of empirical testing could not be science; and it is, in general terms, a difficult matter to say exactly what should count as "excessively speculative."  Still the complaints are worth hearing out --though sometimes mixed with a bit of the experimentalists' schadenfreude over the disappointment of theoreticians' large-scale or over-sized ambitions. These complaints may encourage alternative theoretical developments or greater concentration on theoretical developments which facilitate empirical testing.  

I am least sympathetic to the charge that something is "not science but philosophy" if this is used to suggest that philosophy is simply a repository of unanswerable questions and metaphysical puzzles. On the contrary, I think that philosophy is at its best, in relation to science, when it takes scientific results and developments seriously and does not attempt to impose some a priori or skeptical scheme upon the sciences. Philosophy may include a catalog of unanswered questions and puzzles, historical or contemporary, but it is not at its best if it simply glories in our ignorance and quandaries. 

On the contrary, philosophy of science may aim to systematize what is best in the sciences and detect its basic norms and cognitive processes: "This is what science at its best is doing and how it does it." Subsequently, the sciences may introduce new variations, and it is always interesting to try to understand the significance of this. But I suppose that neither philosophy nor epistemology in particular can give any absolute laws to the sciences. It is more a matter of weighting and balance of judgment. If someone proposes a pure a prior method for the natural sciences, then I think the philosophers should be shocked. But this is basically in light of the past success of science in insisting on empirical testing. 

 H.G. Callaway

Dear HG

Cheers for that!

A lot of food for thought there so I will probably get back to this later.

i  am very impressed for your pertinent answer  (H.G. Callaway ).In any exact science , we need philosophy to justify ( or  convince ) our findings.

Martha  서 

I tell my students that philosophers are the referees calling scientists out when they've run afoul of logical constraints for explanation.

Both science and philosophy assert that truth is the highest virtue. Philosophy studies wisdom and asserts truth through arguments and reasoning while science studies physical world through search, test and validate truth of nature through principles of science and deductions using rules of logic. There is no inclusion or containment in between them but twin fields of study which are supported each other to their better test and wider application. 

To me the science & philosophy cannot be totally separated although the science has its roots in laboratory ,where the participant gets deeply involved in a finding out the reason & research of their working this calls for a deep concentration which may also generate the process & power of intuition .

In the above line ,the philosophy also speak in the same direction .

This is my personal opinion 

It depends on the conception or idea of science that you assume from the beginning. I propose two main starting points.

You can consider a science either from the point of view of the goal that it pursues or also from the importance of the instruments and method that you use.

1.       We have the classical definition of science (from Aristotle and very common for Scholasticism) “cognitio certa per causas”, in which the reaching of the knowledge of the causes is the main point, and so Philosophy and specifically Metaphysics has the first place (in which the substance or the being is the first cause). The other experimental sciences are included in this definition, but deserve only a secondary place in the research of causes, because all they reach multiple and manifold causes, but without a unique cause that unifies all the rest (e. g. the four fundamental forces).

2.       If you consider the science as most of people consider it nowadays, you shall assume it from an empirical and experimental point of view;  its definition could be “a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe” (from English Wikipedia). The word “testable” underlines the priority and relevance of empirical (sensible things) and experimental (experienceable testability) knowledge. In this case all the experimental sciences are in the first place and philosophy has only a secondary role (in the organization and interpretation of science).

So, the answer is twofold:

1.       If you follow the first definition, philosophy is not only not separate from science, but it is on the top of it.

2.       If you assume the second one, philosophy strictly speaking is not included among the sciences, because it doesn’t fulfill the most important condition of any science: experimentation, since it is just part of the wide list of human sciences that are all susceptible to interpretation, and so depend in some measure not on experiment but on the subjective assumptions of any scholar.

i am agree with dr Luis Fernando Hernández

The direct opponent of philosophy is math. While Math is universally abstract Philosophy is universally concrete. Each one of the empirical sciences deals with a special segment of our Human-World-relationships while philosophy encompasses all empirical (natural, social and individual [psychology medicine]) and non-empirical (i.e. math, geometry, logic) disciplines. All empirical measurement judgements (equations) are synthetic expressions (represented by numbers and dimensions) that are quantitative and qualitative and require extensional and intensional logical reasoning for a proper explanation of their content. None of the empirical sciences can operate without philosophical assumptions (i.e. in physics perpetuum mobile). Philosophy is a science sui generis not a worldview. Seven new philosophical disciplines started during the European Enlightenment show this drive for absolute thought determinations: Philosophy of history, philosophical Anthropology, transcendental (philosophical) perception, political economic reasoning, philosophy of science, intensional logic (with Leibniz as founding father). Based on many new insights deriving from these new endeavors since then older disciplines like philosophy of language (via philosophical grammar), ontology, epistemology and dialectical reasoning after Hegel where grounded anew and Peter Ruben showed that the proposition of real contradictions (in our relationships with nature, communities, societies, others and with ourselves) and the proposition of contradiction-free reasoning are dependent on each other. The whole universe of developing empirical and non-empirical disciplines are dependent on each other’s theories and practices. But philosophy is the science of the totality of our historically developing human-cosmos existence and behavior. http://www.peter-ruben.de/ https://arxiv.org/abs/1504.03571v2

https://arxiv.org/abs/1307.0499v2

Philosophy and science will be interconnected once again. My research and discovery of one Fibonacci-based mathematical structure underlying all phenomena of nature, and directly linked to a fundamental object of the Bible, the 7-branched Menorah, which represents this mathematical structure, will soon reestablish the relation between philosophy/religion and science. The research correlates the Menorah Matrix to empirical data in physics, biology and much more.

For more checkout my research of which I published on Research Gate: The Menorah Matrix. It's a condensed version (42 pages) of the 500-600 pages book that I will publish hopefully in 2021.