It is actually the opposite. The more we know about the world, the more science has explained the more philosophical questions there are. It is also impossible to do any science without philosophy as any scientific theory is based on multitude of philosophical assumptions, it is just that most scientists don't need to concern themselves with them. 

To give you simple example - a mathematician working in functional analysis does not need to think about the theory of proofs, the logical assumptions, or the ontological stance on the objects he is manipulating. Yet the building that we call mathematics is dependent on all those assumptions and more as well as our interpretation of the results of the said mathematician is dependent on yet more philosophy. 

I had the luck to attend the lectures of Tomasz Bigaj years ago - he is here on RG - you can check his publications on philosophy of physics. It is clear that progress in physics theories produces ever more questions for him.

All that being said there is whole other area of philosophy that relates to entities that cannot be properly investigated by science / natural philosophy - that is values / meanings / intentional objects. Those are one of the many proper domains of philosophy. It's not going anywhere. Some even say it is a golden age of philosophy!

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tomasz_Bigaj

Dear  Debajyoti,

Philosophy, i.e. human thinking on the big questions that concern its condition and the cosmos is obviously not a process that can reach an end.  It is so obvious that I do not think it is worth debating this.  Maybe a giant meteorite will blow the earth into pieces and put an end to humanity and its thinking but until then human will continue to think.  They seem to be stuck with this propensy to think and philosophy is the part of this thinking that deal with the more important questions.

''

Philosophy as a  grand  enterprise  , which could compete with  the science to give  definite  answers about the Nature of  Reality as a whole , had come  to an end !''

First philosophy is not competing with science and has never been competing with science.  In fact science is a sub-branch of philosophy, the part of philosophy whose expression is clear enough that it empirically investigated and that is expressed objectively.   Many scientists like to venture into thinking about important problems which cannot yet be expressed scientifically.  Thinking about science itself is not science but philosophy and some scientist like to reflect about their practices and this is philosophy.   I do not know of any philosopher who have claimed to have provided a definitite answer about the Nature of Reality.  I wonder who Rorty is thinking about?  

''Almost during the same time Stephen Hawking also wrote a Paper entitled ‘Is there any and in the sight of Theoretical Physics?''

I did not read this paper but I guess that Hawking is only searching for how to progress from here.  Is'nt it not a non ending question.

''what would constitutes Progress in context of  philosophical knowledge dynamics in Asian context  as a whole  which would assure  possibility of  getting beyond simple elucidation of  Past  for the modern audience and at the most showing some  superficial analogy with science ..?''

I do not understand your question.

''Whether  , the future philosophical  activities should be more about  attempts to engage philosophers  as much as possible  in  DIALOG  with Science … , OR , Philosophy can still claim an exclusive domain for its own  which  , can’t be made sense  , at least  in terms of the  existing parameters of  understandings developed  in Physical science ?''

Philosophers were the only scientists not so long ago and any philosopher will welcome relevant scientific information.  And scientists are always concerned with all kind of relevant philosophical questions.  As I said above there is no conflict of domain between science and philosophy.  Philosophy will always welcome the answering of some of its question through scientific empirical method when it is possible.

"As long as humans have unanswered questions about existence, philosophy will remain a vital science/tool of scientific reasoning and thought."

It should be so; the question is how much has academic philosophy contributed to the relevant thinking during the last hundred years. Not much, I am afraid. I once wrote that philosophy should explore and try to develop a "new poetic of existence". I am not sure that this is what academic philosophy has been doing.

Mario,

This is a top secret project they are working on. 

Dear Debjyoti,

By "philosophy" we shall here refer to a more restrictive conventional meaning than the all-inclusive "natural philosophy".

Philosophy cannot compete with science as an alternative framework for explaining phenomena. But it plays a complementary role to science in that it is required today in order to talk about science, in particular, to elucidate the scope and limits of science. Thus I think it is important for philosophy to engage in a dialog with science.

Does a putative Grand Unified Theory (GUT) signal the end of theoretical physics? Would such GUT constitute the deepest explanation about physical phenomena? And finally, what would be called the "deepest explanation"? All these three are proper philosophical (rather than scientific) questions.

Philosophy lies in the root of everything. Science too unknowingly works on the principles of philosophy; for every thought is derived from a philosophical mind. It is human mind that cannot relate philosophy and science together and therefore consider them as separate. If we can break this barrier we can achieve a lot with insights from  these two disciplines   

Whenever individual takes a stand on the side of anti-' Political Correctness' , I consider them engaging in the 'doing' of philosophy.  Those who broadcast and publish regulatory rules for the short term political gains are also engaging in philosophical activities.  Even if we wish more materialistic actions towards betterment of human societies,  philosophical activities can't be prevented, but they are 99% cloaked in  political activities these days.  The balance isn't pretty.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Facing_the_Galilean_scientific_acquisitions_of_objective_truth_what_Galileo_defined_the_paper_work_is_having_problems_Why

Where death is, I am not; where I am, death is not.

Epicurus

Dear  Debajyoti,

If you want to study philosophy at a university in Sweden you first have to choose between theoretical- (e.g. logic) or practical philosophy (e.g. moral theory). I decided to try both, but ended the theoretical alignment after one semester in favor of the practical branch. This choice made me a practical philosopher (at least that is my mayor discipline due to my BA diploma). Additionally I have always been more attracted to the practical parts of life then the philosophical ones. Nevertheless, I truly believe that philosophy and philosophers always will offer precious contributions to science - not least when it comes to research ethics. 

It is actually the opposite. The more we know about the world, the more science has explained the more philosophical questions there are. It is also impossible to do any science without philosophy as any scientific theory is based on multitude of philosophical assumptions, it is just that most scientists don't need to concern themselves with them. 

To give you simple example - a mathematician working in functional analysis does not need to think about the theory of proofs, the logical assumptions, or the ontological stance on the objects he is manipulating. Yet the building that we call mathematics is dependent on all those assumptions and more as well as our interpretation of the results of the said mathematician is dependent on yet more philosophy. 

I had the luck to attend the lectures of Tomasz Bigaj years ago - he is here on RG - you can check his publications on philosophy of physics. It is clear that progress in physics theories produces ever more questions for him.

All that being said there is whole other area of philosophy that relates to entities that cannot be properly investigated by science / natural philosophy - that is values / meanings / intentional objects. Those are one of the many proper domains of philosophy. It's not going anywhere. Some even say it is a golden age of philosophy!

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tomasz_Bigaj

 Dear All

Thanks for your responses!    Indeed I agree with  many of you  , that  human concerns about the Big Questions regarding  our existence  and origin  is not a process that can come  someday to a conclusive  End . But  , my point  is to take care at the same time  the general problem of  What  can/should we expect from Philosophy Today .?  Only to offer access to the huge storehouse of perennial Questions formulated time to time during the developments of human civilizations ? The wide spectrum of these perennial Questions includes famously the issue of origin as well as our place within this grand scheme..., and like.   But this will soon engage us in a comparison between the Answers offered (or which  can be expected yet in principle) to these Questions by Philosophy and Science. Stated more precisely ,  say , in question of  an account of Reality  , should we   accept  , for example  , the existing quantum mechanical version( though there are many unsettled ingredients !) .. or should we try  something else  originating  in  any philosophical literature  without any reference to science after 17th century  ? Please note, I am not talking   anything about the relative superiority of Philosophy or Science..  Of course, any account of Reality offered so far  by science is epistemically open  in the sense of being flexible enough to support many interpretations !! And the doubt mechanism owes a lot to what we learnt  from the Philosophers.. 

 But still the Question of choice between the Answers offered doesn’t lose relevance. In fact the Question of proper choice is a formidable task …  ; and we are presently engaged in such a Project  which is almost all about  formulating Questions for the traditional Indian Philosophers to  get them engaged  as much as possible in a Dialog with Science . This seems to be pretty difficult as  the Questions ,  though  motivated by some ‘difficulties in science’  ,  should be  at the same time  meaningful  to the traditional Philosophers so that they can share the best possible portion of their understandings .. In fact , this is intended to make a better sense of choice after all .. .. , and at the same time ,  this is  also a question of making  better sense of the possibility of epistemic extension of our traditional understanding  in view of the present / modern  issues .

I will get back soon with other aspects of this issue of comparing  Philosophers accounts with those of the  Physicists , and  the consequent notion of assessing  Growth of Knowledge ..

For any further details of this Project , you can visit –http://sciencephilosophydialog.wordpress.com

Science in general, and Physics in special, will traverse a situation of acute crisis caused by too many assumptions hidden in different subtheories and by resulting inconsistencies observed when trying to combine different subtheories. About Philosophy, there are two possible scenarios:

1. That it proves not adaptable enough and dies hit by the starving monster Science in its crisis, OR

2. That it keeps a cool blood and helps for restoring science and for the end of the crisis, by pure critical reasonment and common sense.

I hope and I suppose that Philosophy will know how to constructively act and to help Science to overcome the coming crisis. But even if not, when Science comes out, Philosophy will reborn also. So in both cases, I cannot see any end. Sorry for the missing Apocalypse.

Dear Debajyoti,

I think the mistake is to think that philosophy should ever have tried to provide an alternative to science. Philosophy is just the fundamental grounding of science. If it is separated it becomes nothing more than a rotting tree stump  in a flooded valley. There is, I perceive, a particular problem with people who want to resuscitate ancient Indian texts as an alternative to science.. The texts are intriguing because they show how far back certain insights go. But as an alternative to science - dead wood. Of course a lot of scientists have a very naive metaphysic and they can learn about the ancient insights either from the Vedas or from more modern material like good scientific reviews. If readers of the ancient texts want to be more than mere librarians they need to educate themselves in modern science as see how the insights have been refined.

Jonathan,

You probably would agree that one can learn a lot about life and human character if one see  Shakespeare's theater play. These plays do their job of education without much of science.  They are to a large extent not interested in science but they teach us a lot.  The same for most ancient religious or ancient philosophical texts.  They can teach us without them being scientific texts.  The peoples that have created these ancient texts passed to us their experience of what is important in a human life.  It has not much to do with science but it is filled with another type of wisdom .  It is not opposed to science, it is not an alternative to science, it is not science but another type of wisdom that science cannot teach us.  Is Shakespeare opposed to science.  No but his theater can nonetheless teach us with another type of wisdom.  

I never learnt anything from Shakespeare to be honest, Louis, I was just entertained by his perceptive description and poetry. If you look at the Sadhu Sanga website you will see torrents of posts from enthusiasts for the ancient Indian texts who use them very much as an alternative to science. They deny evolution, argue about consciousness being prior to matter (whatever that is). They insist that science is effete, limited and wrong. And it is all done by using words in ambiguous ways very much as Wittgenstein warned against. 

I have nothing against the authors of the Vedas. That was not my point. They are good, like Parmenides and Montaigne. The point is that there is a large community of people of Indian origin both in India and outside that claims that the Vedas are in direct competition with science and are right where science is wrong. The thread poster was asking about philosophy as an alternative. My argument, which I think you would agree with is that only very poor philosophy sees itself as in competition with science.

Jonathan,

I was a very religious kid that grew up into a very Irish like catholic society.  The catholic church was almost our state.  So I grew up with a biblical religious lens and at the same time totally immerse with the Appolo space program and the exploration of space.  I was totally enthusiastic of both world but unfortunatly even though I was just a naive kid that knew almost nothing of both world, their history, but I knew that inside me these two worlds clash and I can tell you that it would have been much more simple for me to choose one and hell with the other.  No I made a commitment around 1969 that I will stick with both in spite of their repulsivity to each other.  A lot of water have passed under the bridge and that committment I would discover much later has guided a lot of the important choice I made in my interested, mostly subconsciously.  I today know that if I would have chosen to stick with science only, then I would have fall into religious denyer scientism and that If I would have chose to stick with religion only, I would have become like these science denyer religious folks.  Since I kept both but always in ways that I found mutually compatible.   I am trying to articulate this philosophically with my notion of multiple access to reality where each mode of access make use of certain practices and language style and art.  Science is one mode of access, an objective one.  It has its strenght and its limitation.  It is limited like all mode of access by its methodology and type of language.  It is a very large program. It has to do with the evolution of mammals and humans, the type of human imagination and how human language and arts are based on that.  Each one being a mediation field.  I locate religiosity at the core of social dimension of human imagination and it is also central to language and art.  

''My argument, which I think you would agree with is that only very poor philosophy sees itself as in competition with science.''

Totally agree.

Regards

Dear Jonathan

 Nice to see your response  here ! Agreed fully that , it is misleading  to expect  a direct comparison  between Philosophy and science  after 17th Century . This will not lead us anywhere of much help other than  to show , as you rightly pointed out , " how far back certain insights go". This is of course important historical insight ... , but comparing Science with Veda is something of our colonial origin   when people here felt  almost compelled to retell the story of a glorified  Vedic Past with everything present there  which could compete with the-then Western science .  That was almost a necessary outcome of a period of constructed Nationality ..!  It was a period when Myths about Past were more possible to be socially accepted ..; and that was exactly what happened here .. But unfortunately those Myths had hardly been reassessed ..till date . Most curious to note , that  , it was the conservation principle of Energy which provided  a good deal of confidence in favor of the then Vedanta -Physics  equivalence claimed by  the Indian  ( mostly non-Buddhists )respondents of Western Science ..!  But  the American audience of late 19th century   also  can't deny  responsibility  for all these  Veda Science hocus posus .... , as  Chicago Religious conference  ( 1893) was the first international   meeting where this Agenda of  Veda -Science Equivalence was aired for the first time ( 19th September ) categorically by Vivekananda . And as we heard , this was wildly accepted  at least by a good majority of audience .. I  feel surprised  to see this lecture - so naive and full of overarching claims  even for the standard yardstick of 1893 American audience .. Perhaps this is how  Myths are substantiated as Truth and continue indefinitely ! 

                          However , the long tradition of Indian Philosophy is still left with   much to offer even if this colonially originated ( but still popular !) Veda-Science Analogy is completely reverted . And that is exactly what we are trying in our ongoing Science - Philosophy  Dialog mission ..

Scientific theories which are not verified experimentally and Philosophies which are not based on the experiential proof are nothing more than speculations which die out over a period of time. Scientists obtain their experimental proof with the help of five senses. Philosophers base their philosophy on the direct experience which is not based on the five senses used by scientists. But first they develop their body mind complex to make it a fit instrument for the extra sensory perception and then they write their philosophies based on what they perceive. Most of the scientists are not capable of undergoing such practises nor have they any faith in them.

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