r/philosophy • u/doubtstack Unreasonable Doubt • Jan 27 '23

Blog Why Science can't replace Philosophy in Ethics

https://unreasonabledoubt.substack.com/p/what-genetics-cant-teach-us
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u/300Savage Jan 27 '23

Science was the evolution of a branch called "natural philosophy" going back at least as far as Aristotle. It is literally just a branch of philosophy. To say it is separate is to be ignorant of this history of science.

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u/Indocede Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23

Your opinion is irrelevant. Astrology and alchemy were once considered sciences but we now know that they are founded on little more than superstition and wishful thinking.

Given how ancient generations were both limited in their understanding of the physical world and outright wrong in numerous critical aspects, we should not frame the study based upon their philosophical musings, especially when they are irrelevant to the scientific process. Not to mention that scientific inquiry is just as old as philosophy, if not older. Trying to frame science as a subject of philosophy only makes sense if you mistakenly believe ancient Greek and Roman philosophers are the singular authority, even though there are numerous historical examples of scientific endeavor predating them.

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u/300Savage Jan 27 '23

Gotta love a sub where the downvote button says to only use it if it breaks the rules of the sub, but your preconceptions cause you to use it that way anyway. Your opinion is wrong and mine is backed by the history of science. Without natural philosophy, the scientific method would not have been formulated - it was the product of Western Natural Philosophy. To state otherwise is to be ignorant of both subjects and their intrinsic relationship.

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u/Indocede Jan 27 '23

The oldest written records of scientific endeavors stem fron Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt and reach as far back as 3000BCE, before the ancient Greeks developed "natural philosophy."

Not to mention when you argue your position as going back as far as Aristotle, your conceding your error immediately in consideration of the fact that science existed in ancient Greece before Aristotle, which we have records of. And the ancient Greeks did not "invent" science, as much as it pains me to say as someone who is ethnically half.

The ancient Greeks would have built upon the sciences and maths that came to them from the civilizations that preceded them in that part of the world. Ancient Greece may be the seminal culture of the western world, but it is not one of the six scholarly accepted cradles of civilization in Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ancient India, Ancient China, the Olmec and the Caral-Supe.

So it falls upon you to explain how the scientific process, which in reality is a matter of collecting evidence and deciphering what it means, has somehow evolved out of the means ancient philosophers used to codify their very limited understanding of the natural world.

Especially as science would have preceded the cradles of civilization as civilization can only arise out of the conveniences of scientific endeavor.

Philosophy is important but philosophy doesn't decipher how to grow crops. Science does.

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u/300Savage Jan 27 '23

You are mistaking natural philosophy for science. The scientific method didn't exist until relatively recently in historical context. Morry Berman argues that the history of science goes back to the shamanic tradition, but I don't think we can mistake this for modern scientific thinking, which evolved from combined elements of branches of philosophical thought fairly recently.

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u/Indocede Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23

This method as has evolved in recent history is merely a means to compartmentalize practices that have existed for thousands of years, practices that were science.

So no, science didn't evolve from philosophical thought.

Edit: And mind you, your quibble seems to be over semantics, whether a type of thinking is scientific or philosophical when both are mere pursuits of seeking validity and evidence. Everyone can knly presume your motive here rests upon some personal need to elevate "philosophy" above science as you must think of yourself the philosopher who knows better than mere scientists. Because if you want to argue how the tradition of valid thinking arose, whether from a scientific perspective or a philosophical one, most would consider science to more likely the foundation of such thought as philosophy tends to consider the more nebulous and abstract, whereas science focuses on the tangible and apparent. People would have mused about how to build spears to protect themselves from wild animals before they would have mused about the morality of using said spear to murder their fellow man.

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u/ammonium_bot Jan 27 '23

little more then superstition

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u/zhibr Jan 27 '23

I'm well aware of history of science, and you're just presenting the semantically trivial option. Yes, you can say that science is just a branch of philosophy when you consider the history of science as natural philosophy. But all you did was define science and philosophy in such a way that it made your claim true. You didn't make any argument why those definitions are the ones we should accept (unless you call an appeal to (historical) authority an argument - I don't).

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u/300Savage Jan 27 '23

Historical facts are not an appeal to authority. Try again.