True or false: Science cannot confirm philosophy. Because science is approximately derived from philosophy and not vice versa.
If science proscribes a certain kind of reality: yes. If it doesn't, then still yes.
Essentially depends how you define philosophy. I tend to think of science as just a philosophy with emphasis on observation.
Clearly science relies on logical and mathematical underpinnings. And scientific interpretations is largely informed by our a priori metaphysical framework. But the same works vise versa… our metaphysics is a result of science as well. There’s just no clear answer for the priority of one over the other.
Stanley Wilkin Mark Slomp Respectfully both Professor Wilkin and Professor Slomp, Epistemology is the branch of philosophy to interpret reality. Of course, scientific findings provide empirical evidence that should be interpreted epistemologically. However, philosophy of science and or epistemology is needed to conduct scientific experimentation and research in the first place. Hence this article of mine: Data The Modeling Differential Equations
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Philosophy is philosophy. Have you read the philosophy of Niels Bohr?
One of the main reasons why science cannot confirm a philosophical position is that science itself is based on certain assumptions, such as the assumption that we can rely on our senses for knowledge. We cannot use science to ascertain this because then we need to rely on the principle that we intend to verify, leading to an infinite regress. So the assumption cannot be verified or proven by science and must be assumed. This is precisely the domain of philosophy.
I would have thought that philosophy is when you are seeking to understand truth or knowledge while science is (to quote) '. . . observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena.'
Ref: https://explorable.com/definition-of-science#:~:text=Science%20is%20defined%20as%20the,theoretical%20explanation%20of%20natural%20phenomena.
Philosophical questions cannot be answered by qualitative or quantitative methods because of the structure and designs of both of them. There is an approach called Philosophical Inquiry that are used to answer philosophical questions like Who am I? for example. There is a caution, though. Opinions about philosophical questions, but not the answers to the question, can be studied using traditional research methods.
Rene Descartes is credited with being the father of philosophical inquiry. His famous say is Cognito, ergo sum; I think, therefore I am. Most disciplines and the Jesuits, have descriptions of methods of philosophical inquiry. Here's a rather comprehensive book on the topic. https://hackettpublishing.com/philosophical-inquiry
Good luck with your project!
It's a complicated relationship. However, the explanation of Brownian motion was strong evidence for the existence of atoms and molecules, and nowadays we can even see them with purpose-built devices. So arguably the gist of Greek atomism was scientifically confirmed as providing an account of the constitution of matter, albeit at what subsequently turned out to be a nonbasic level.
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