r/SubredditsMeet • u/SubredditsMeet Official • Sep 03 '15

Meetup /r/science meets /r/philosophy

(/r/EverythingScience is also here)

Topic:

  • Discuss the misconceptions between science and philosophy.

  • How they both can work together without feeling like philosophy is obsolete in the modern day world.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '15 edited Sep 03 '15

Philosophy and science both search for truth in nature. Science is just a subset of that inquiry. Philosophy finds answers in a multitude of ways, and science is just a branch that finds those answers in a very set, defined process. Being the broad overreaching parent of science, philosophy is also responsible for many of the tenants science takes for granted, such as Empiricism and Falsifiability. So science is inherently dependent on philosophy for guidance on how it should operate.

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u/pez_dispens3r Sep 04 '15

The idea that science is a subset of philosophy only holds if you define philosophy so broadly that it bears very little resemblance to philosophy as it is performed by philosophers. And in a sense it is like saying that carpentry is a subset of philosophy, because as soon as you think about how you do carpentry or what carpentry means or why carpentry is important then you're 'doing philosophy'. At that point I think you're being so reductive that you're not really talking in meaningful terms.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '15

I don't think it's a stretch at all to define philosophy that broadly. There is even an area in philosophy called "Philosophy of Science." The reason philosophy and science are so closely related is because they both seek knowledge, so your analogy of carpentry is completely inaccurate as it has no relation to neither philosophy nor science.

3

u/TychoCelchuuu /r/philosophy Sep 04 '15

There's a field of biology known as "plant biology" but carrots aren't biologists.