There is no room for ambiguity or misunderstanding in scientific publications because you have to place your work in an extremely large and rigid context. — Kenosha Kid

Yes, and I was never talking about papers, which is why I said, in my first post :

When it comes to publishing papers, I have the feeling that the boundaries are much clearer. Each discipline has its own rules, so in that sense, they are easy to distinguish from each other. However, to me, science could use a bit more of philosophy of science (as in the study of its method), to set the boundaries straight, even in texts that are not papers. — Avema

All I want to say is that scientists are so rigorous and rational when it comes to concepts that are close to experiments, but when it's about a more global concept (that is often studied in philosophy), they often lose all the rationality and don't define concepts anymore, and of course, these are never published as scientific papers. If we have a part of science that focuses on that, it won't have the same rules as for publishing papers but I don’t see why it couldn't be a part of science.

Okay then, can you give an example? Text books are subject to the same rigour as papers. Popular science articles such as in New Scientist or Scientific American are typically based on specific papers with dumb questions like 'Was Einstein wrong?' or 'Does God eat peas?' bolted on for sex appeal. What texts do you have in mind that discuss time dilation, that are written by scientists, and yet are lacking the sort of rigour you demand? And do you generally find that philosophical discussion of e.g. time dilation is more rigorous (examples would be useful)?

The word on that is science straying into philosophy is that it's reciprocal - philosophy too has strayed into science - and what I expect to emerge out of this exchange of views, opinions, criticisms, is an interference pattern that's mutually beneficial. Science can, if all goes well, find a good foundation to build its theoretical/experimental structures on and philosophy will become more empirically oriented and thus giving itself the much-needed boost to its credibility.

Science can, if all goes well, find a good foundation to build its theoretical/experimental structures on — TheMadFool

Philosophy has always provided this benefit to science: natural philosophy, empiricism, Popper, Latour, ontology, phenomenology, ethics, and countless more. And the entirety of mathematics. It always puzzles me that some philosophers and philosophy students think that science closes it's ears to philosophy; I suspect this is because philosophy is more forgiving of whack ideas and those accusing science of antipathy toward philosophy hold some of those whack ideas :D

those accusing science of antipathy toward philosophy — Kenosha Kid

There a whole bunch of scientists who have a dim view of philosophy which I suppose they regard as nothing more than wool-gathering. I can't name them but if you survey the scientific landscape as it were you will come across a few science bigwigs who don' take too kindly to philosophers. That's not to say they're right of course.

I'm probably talking out of my hat when I say this but it's probable that some, not all, scientists aren't aware that science is just one branch of philosophy - empiricism - taken to its natural conclusion and even if they are in the know about it, their grasp is likely to be superficial and unlikely to include the intricacies and subtleties that lie at the heart of objections to empiricism. Thanks :smile:

There a whole bunch of scientists who have a dim view of philosophy which I suppose they regard as nothing more than wool-gathering. I can't name them but if you survey the scientific landscape as it were you will come across a few science bigwigs who don' take too kindly to philosophers. That's not to say they're right of course. — TheMadFool

After almost ten years in a physics department, I haven't come across it. The nearest I can muster are: 1) the phrase "it's just philosophy, not science" which I don't think is meant to belittle philosophy so much as reflect the fact that some things do not meet the criteria of scientific theory (which doesn't stop scientists thinking about them ALL THE TIME (viz: the long-running discussion on the interpretation of QM); 2) if you do philosophy, you're not kidding yourself that it's a great career move, whereas if you're doing physics you probably either want to be an experimental physicist, a theorist, an astronomer or work in industry in some physics-related way, so those are the usual routes taken. I guess to that extent, studying philosophy is seen as more luxurious, more hobbyist, and less vocational, so there might be some resentment at feeling obliged to do something more vocational. I imagine that's even worse in the UK now after the tuition fee hike. But it's not a judgment on the philosophy itself.

I'm probably talking out of my hat when I say this but it's probable that some, not all, scientists aren't aware that science is just one branch of philosophy - empiricism - taken to its natural conclusion and even if they are in the know about it, their grasp is likely to be superficial and unlikely to include the intricacies and subtleties that lie at the heart of objections to empiricism. Thanks — TheMadFool

That's true. I was originally answering the point that science itself is deaf to philosophy, but science can absorb philosophy and pass it on as methodology, without science students necessarily being taught the reasons behind it. You do learn all this stuff if you do Physics with Philosophy for sure. And I guess that's the problem. I won't speak about chemistry and biology, but physics students have to specialise. You can do experimental physics (what I did, to my regret), computational or theoretical physics, physics with mathematics which does the equivalent of what you suggest for the mathematics underlying physics, physics with astronomy, physics with industry, or physics with philosophy. It would be nice to do more, and one can elect to do so depending on how structured your course is, but you can't do everything and, because as I said above, science timetables are very full, there's not much room for extra-curricular reading except for the least social of us. :)

:up: :ok:

After almost ten years in a physics department, I haven't come across it — Kenosha Kid

I was thirty years in a math department, and I cannot recall any sort of serious discussion condemning philosophers for meddling in our subject. Occasionally someone might bring up intuitionism or Platonic ideals, but no one paid any attention to academic philosophers dissecting mathematics.

We see more and more that science, mainly physics, has strayed into the realm of philosophy and thought experiments. Seeing this what is your opinion on the subject? Do you believe science has become no longer the study of the world as it is, but as it may be? or do you see science as simply the persuit of knowledge no matter the form? — CallMeDirac

Straying a little from this OP, and given we do have philosophy of science (Kuhn, etc.), there has been a slow chipping away of the subjects of philosophy by science, though I don't begrudge science taking its place, nor believe that philosophy does not benefit from the lessons of science and that philosohy must be accountable to scientific advances.

However, the feeling of satisfaction with the method of science to provide certainty, predictability, universality, necessity, etc. has lead to an expectation that everything should meet that standard. Beginning with the Renaissance with Descartes and Kant dividing us from the "world", we've tried to sew that seeming distance back together with true knowledge, even logically necessary rationality. It reached a peak with the positivism of Comte, Carnap, Popper, and recently, even Stephen Hawking--the idea that only true/false empirically or logically-verifiable statements offer real knowledge of the world (the descriptive fallacy). This leads this scientific outlook (or its corrupted philosophical cousins) the feeling it can (and has more authority to) speak to the original and remaining purview of philosophy--aesthetics, morality, how to lead a better life, the investigation of our unreflected concepts, etc.

Even after Nietzsche, Emerson, Wittgenstein, Austin, Cavell, we still believe that science is the standard, and knowledge/theory the solution for the answer we demand. Despite its inability to teach us what we want to know about our moral realm, the problem of the Other, our skeptical doubt, etc., we still desire an answer of its certain form, thus its criteria for a valid solution are set in our cultural unconscious before even beginning to look. We want DNA and have forgotten how to (or fear to) assess the credibility of a witness and convict on circumstantial evidence. We follow the same desire to remove our responsibility in the face of the limitations of knowledge and the need for judgment, or assertion of ourselves, our acceptance of the other. This is science's belief its success allows its knowledge and standard to address our problems, "no matter the form".

The reason why physics, in particular, has had an impact on philosophical thought is that physics, probably more than any other branch of science, has yielded empirical results which are directly relevant to philosophical questions about such things as the nature of reality, the concepts of objectively and subjectivity, what it means to accumulate knowledge via observation (epistemology), the place of humans in the universe, and so on.

All in the name of 'interdisciplinarity'

As already mentioned by others here, science was not distinguished from philosophy until the mid 19th century. Prior to that it was all more or less "moral philosophy" or "natural philosophy", more or less the humanities and science as we know them today. As for physics and philosophy, well some physicist like Sean Carroll or David Albert certainly are well informed philosophically, others like Lawrence Krauss or Neil deGrasse Tyson aren't, and usually say dumb things about philosophy.

The thing is, what we now call philosophy focuses on issues in which almost nothing is known, which is why we can talk about consciousness, language, ethics, perception, etc. The other topics in modern day philosophy haven't changed much either. So we can talk about the nature of self, free will, the ideal state, the nature of ideas, the problem of knowledge and so on. Either way, philosophy is trying to make some sense of mysteries. Physics has been lucky enough to advance to a significant degree in comparison with other sciences, that they have more than enough to deal with without having to worry about other disciplines. Yet, despite the amazing advances in physics, we still don't know what 95% of the universe is made of, even if we have a name for them in "dark energy" and "dark matter."

Another issue altogether is to ask if any science benefits from thinking philosophically about any particular issue, for example, will a neuroscientist benefit from thinking about the "mind-body problem", or would a biologist have use for, say, Schopenhauer's idea of the "will" and so on. Some might, many won't. There's just too much stuff, too much information, to uncover.

What magritte describes just under the OP is a symptom of what CallMeDirac is getting at.

Here is the problem as I see it.

Science is fine. Physics is great. Experimental Physics is ultimately like a Philosophers toolkit. Theoretical physics can be thought of as a Philosophers brainstorm kit.

The problem is politics and technology.

Let's look at just one majorly volatile issue. Climate Change
Regardless of your take on climate change, there is no doubt that politics and technology has spilled into and corrupted the argument.

1 thing you will probably never hear from a fossil fuels zealot: "It's better to harness energy from a renewable source."

1 thing you will probably never hear from a green new deal type: "Humans exhale CO₂. Trees breathe in CO₂"

Both know that the statements are true but both are so polluted by gas lighting from their own side that they allow political posturing to color their argument.

This gas lighting distracts also from the really important issue with climate change. How?
How do we move to a sustainable way of living without first laying everyone off? Or a zero carbon future where we immediately question your breathing output or the output of a cows flatulence. We can just shut off everything, but I would argue that its highly politically charged to suggest there should be no attempt to transition to alternatives before you do that and the fighting begins ..
On Mars right now there is an instrument called Moxie which will attempt to convert Mars' CO₂ to O₂.
i.e. to essentially mimic what a tree on earth can do, but due to the political gas lighting we don't talk much about solutions. The aim of gas lighting is not to come up with solutions, but to force agendas. To dumb down the argument away from finding mutually acceptable solutions or paths to change and to instead lower ourselves to gutter fights about why all these fossil plants need to be shut down. It's aggressive and that is the intent.

Technology is the other problem. We can agree Technology ≠ Science.
Technology itself is a broad sweeping term but many of us place trust in it as being based in science. Very often it is the bastardization of the application of science.
It entails modern administration of discourse, communication, emotion conveyance, censorship, practically everything. Too many place too much faith in anything once it simply becomes the digitization of the same old thing we had before.

The argument could be made that the CEO of a tech company is essentially a modern unelected political tsar, but for those low on self esteem, they can be looked up to seen as someone who is wise in science. So its a very dangerous and false deduction to make.

For me, physics is an essential tool we should leverage to learn more about the nature of our universe and as often happens, it sparks us to ask even more meaningful, deeper questions the more we get answers. So you could see it as a catalyst for philosophy.

Politics, business, and technology are entirely different things and come loaded with a lot more subjective baggage.

Not physics, but the physicists. They're as big know-at-alls as we are here at TPF. I don't even see any physicists with a glimmer of understanding of the philosophy of their own field. — magritte

regarding what magritte said, I would put that in the category of politics in science. It's most probably in the realm of what we call the military industrial complex.

Let's assume I want to develop a weapon. But I don't want my enemies to know exactly what it is I'm developing. I have a physicist doing research on A, and any number of physicists doing work on B - Z. I have an engineer above them all managing and influencing their research objectives though DARPA grants etc. I can see the big picture on what I'm building but my enemies cannot. Unfortunately, this compartmentalization of work nowadays comes at the cost whereby physicists are unaware and deliberately kept in the dark about the useful and enlightening aspects of their work are, in favor of maintaining secrecy about certain applications of the whole of these parts to be implemented later on.