This entry and its proceeding one will be two of the most interesting posts I’ll ever publish in my weblog. The reason is that these posts aim to clarify the crucial criteria, one needs to consider when he wants to decide between becoming a scientist or a philosopher when he is young; say in the age between 18 and 22. Nevertheless, despite my career in science, these criteria have never become clear enough even for me! Here I have asked Amyr Anvary, a friend in philosophy side, to write an article describing why he is more interested in philosophy. In the next post I’ll explain the reasons I preferred science for myself.
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I have always been more drawn to Philosophy than Science. That is because I find philosophical cognition more authentic and genuine. in order to explain my viewpoint and this make this post easier to read I decided to talk about what I think Philosophy is (Part One), discuss Science in contrast with Philosophy (Part Two) and name two reasons why I think scientific cognition is neither complete nor satisfying (Part Three) separately.
1.
Although people usually define Philosophy by its ‘subjects of concern’, I am more comfortable with my own definition (which is of course a work in progress). Philosophy is a unique way of talking about potentially everything using reason and intuition and coming to a result with which one can rest satisfied. I purposefully use the word ‘talking’ –and not thinking or study- because I believe Philosophy is a form of discourse. This does not necessarily mean that a philosopher is talking -directly or indirectly- to someone. What I want to imply is that Philosophy is a language-dependant phenomena and it happens with motives of communication. The uniqueness that I pointed out in my definition of Philosophy is because of doubt. Same as Science and unlike engineering, Doubt is a crucial method in Philosophy and since you don`t have a ‘unified reality’ -in a philosophical sense- to measure yourself with, doubt plays a more important role in Philosophy than Science.
2.
Science and Philosophy have more in common. They are both concerned with understanding of Nature, the difference is that in order to understand Nature Science tries to understand how it works but Philosophy takes a more ‘ontological’ approach. Meaning that while the main objective of Science is to understand Nature, Philosophy tries to use what is so far grasped about Nature and talk about concepts like existence and reality. Especially in recent decades Philosophy has been influenced by Science more than ever. Philosophical ideas also play a big role in evolution of Science; since many of scientific assumptions are backed up by huge philosophical backgrounds. Let us discuss this further.
Any scientific cognition takes place in a well defined consistent and arguably complete axiomatic system. Meaning there are fundamental and mostly philosophical concepts on which our further definitions and theories depend. How are these propositions, which we label as axioms or assumptions, philosophical? To answer this let me point out the difference between two kinds of axiomatic systems. In a mathematical axiomatic system such as Euclidean Geometry or Group theory axioms are interchangeable with other proposition within the system. These axioms have been selected from a bunch of basic propositions because they contain all the information we need in order to define the structure of our system. They can be replaced by other propositions. Galois came up with most of fundamental definitions and statements of Group theory without even formalizing axioms of Groups. But in Newtonian mechanics, for example, existence of space without quantification is assumed. ‘Existence of space without quantification’ is a statement which cannot be replaced by any proposition within the Classical Mechanics. Beside axioms, in a scientific axiomatic system, some other propositions are assumed (consciously or not). Even though this sort of assumptions might look like physical statements but they are backed up by many controversial philosophical ideas, some of these assumptions include determinism, causality and existence of mathematical discipline beneath any physical phenomena. Any scientific revolution happens exactly by challenging these philosophical assumptions. That is why I think any scientific cognition evolves in a world provided by philosophical ideas.
3.1
How is reducing a phenomenon to mathematical formulae providing us with some sort of satisfying cognition? Science has proved to be successfully able to predict and use Natural phenomena. But how is this helping us understanding Nature?
3.2
In 17th century René Descartes used the term res extensa (thinking subject) in opposite of res cogitans (read physical reality); although his intentions were towards discussing individualism somewhere along the way he formalized something much deeper and more profound, by separating the thinking subject and the physical reality, Philosophy and Science became two separate entities and went their separate ways. As a result Science became incapable of knowing itself and even scientifically understanding itself. This is the main reason behind the creation of some schools of Philosophy such as epistemology or phenomenology.


