Can you consider the scientist as philosopher

Huemer, Michael. Ethical Intuitionism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kornlibth, Hilary. Knowledge and its Place in Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Loux, Michael. Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction , 3 rd ed. New York and London: Routledge. Papineau, David. Zalta ed. Grube, Rev. In John M. Cooper ed. Indianapolis and Cambridge, UK: Hackett, pp. Quine, W. Quine, From a Logical Point of View , 2 nd ed.

Quine, Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. For philosophy of science itself builds on discussions in other parts of philosophy—not only the history of philosophy, but also ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics, to name a few. Thus, although my main argument is geared towards the relevance of philosophy of science, one should not lose these broader aspects of philosophy of science of sight.

Subdivisions within philosophy are drawn for practical reasons, but when analysing specific problems they can also be artificial—as we will see in Sect. Thus metaphysics, once banned by the logical positivists in the heyday of their youthful excesses, now thrives happily in analytic philosophy in ways that would have made Carnap, and even Quine, frown. But never mind the old glories—philosophy will never obey all your commands and prohibitions, and it will use whatever tools it can get hold of.

I now get back to the response to the anti-philosophy arguments given in Sect. What can one answer to these arguments, which seem to echo our most endearing notions and intuitions about the nature of science? Can we really deny that science and philosophy are two different worlds; that their subject matters and methods differ?

Can we deny that science seeks to explain brute matters that are quite independent of human life? Can we deny the fact that unquestioned philosophical preconceptions have at times been hampering factors of scientific progress? As I will argue, the doctrine that philosophy is useless for science is not only false: it is also harmful for education, society, and ultimately science itself.

I will do this by advancing three arguments for the usefulness of philosophy for the natural sciences. These arguments include refutations of the misconceptions presented in Sect. They are neither wholly original nor exhaustive, but they should be a first step towards the development of a synergetic relationship between philosophy and the natural sciences.

Given the tensions between science and philosophy, vividly expressed by physicists such as Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss in recent works, trying to gain some clarity in this confused subject is by itself an important and urgent task. Let me start with a simple contention that responds to a small, logical, part of the previous arguments: what I have called the fallacy of anti-philosophicalism and its refutation.

To declare categorically the uselessness of philosophy for science is therefore to have complete knowledge of the goals, method, and subject matter of science. But one can only argue about what those goals and subject matter should be by doing philosophy—more specifically, philosophy of science. Furthermore, we can only infer general statements about the usefulness of philosophy for science, from the study of a limited number of historical cases, by appending that study with a philosophical argument: hence by doing philosophy, in the way that historians and philosophers of science do it.

Does this debunk the argument about the death of philosophy? I submit that it does. For he who wants to insist on philosophy being useless for science must not try to rationally argue for this conviction, but must keep it as a matter of private opinion: for as soon as he starts to rationalize his view, he must start philosophizing.

Indeed, training in philosophy has at least this use, that it prevents us from being bad philosophers. But, when arguing for the usefulness of philosophy, a logical argument is not necessarily the most convincing one. It might lead us to the idea that perhaps there is some genuine value in philosophy which is useful or even necessary for science and for scientists after all. I will defend the view that philosophy is useful to scientists, and that some amount of philosophical activity is necessary in order to construct a theoretical framework for doing science.

The necessity of philosophy for science can easily be understood from a Kuhnian perspective on how science develops. Thomas Kuhn explicates progress in science not as a linear process of theoretical formulation and experimental verification or refutation of scientific theories, but in terms of revolutions and changes of paradigm Kuhn A paradigm is for Kuhn not a cookbook recipe about the mathematical laws and mechanical workings of the universe or a set of equations and technical terms and procedures.

Paradigms include ways of looking at the world, practices of instrumentation, traditions of research, shared values and beliefs about which questions are considered to be scientific. Nowadays we might want to stretch this concept even further to include institutional conditions, governmental constraints and market stimuli that may be supportive of particular paradigms.

Footnote 4 Scientists working in different paradigms view the world in different ways, Kuhn has emphasized. Their basic assumptions about the kinds of entities there are in the world differ, as do the kinds of primary properties they attribute to those entities.

Scientists working in different paradigms may disagree, as did Einstein and Bohr, about what makes a good theory or a good explanation; or about what it means to understand a problem. In other words, there are a wide range of ontological, epistemic, and ethical presuppositions weaved into any given scientific paradigm for some examples of this, see Sect.

If it is the case that a paradigm cannot come to birth, gain support, defeat its competitors, consolidate, and eventually die without such a set of explicit or at least tacit presuppositions, then presuppositions must be an intrinsic and necessary part of science regarded as a pursuit of truth. Such philosophical presuppositions are contributory to scientific theories, even if the theories are formally independent of them, because axioms cannot even be formulated without an agreement, taken from common and technical language, and justified within a wider paradigm, over what the terms mean and what kinds of entities they apply to; without implicit or explicit assumptions about how the terms relate to experimentally measurable quantities; without prescriptions for how the results of the theory can be verified or falsified.

Paradigms also suggest meaningful goals and open questions for the theory. Thus philosophy plays a heuristic role in the discovery of new scientific theories de Regt : paradigms can function as guides towards the formulation of theories that describe entities of one type or another.

As de Regt has cogently argued see also the examples in the next Section , many great scientific innovators have at some point studied the works of philosophers and developed philosophical views of their own. This did not always happen very systematically, but the interest in philosophy developed by these scientists was at least above average and in turn had an important heuristic function in the formulation of new scientific theories de Regt Implicit in the heuristic role of philosophy is also an important analytic function, as I stressed in Sect.

Footnote 5 One task of philosophy is to scrutinize the concepts and presuppositions of scientific theories, to analyse and lay bare what is implicit in a particular scientific paradigm. It is a philosophical task—one which is often carried out by physicists—to clarify the concepts of space, time, matter, energy, information, causality, etc.

This analysis is philosophical in so far as it makes explicit the implicit assumptions in the uses of these concepts: assumptions that scientific theories do not themselves normally state. Hence it moves beyond the point where the concepts appear as irreducible elements in the postulates of a theory. This analytic function should ultimately allow for a further step of integration, where the concepts of one science are related to the concepts of another.

The analytic function of philosophy might not only feed back into science, but become a starting point for philosophy itself: discovering what entities science assumes there to be in the world can be a useful starting point for philosophical reflection on nature. It seems key that philosophical stances on nature and science be compatible with the kinds of objects and relations that science finds. Footnote 6. To allow for, indeed to naturally incorporate into its own framework and build upon, the kinds of entities that science encounters in the world, and their properties and relations; Footnote 7.

To scrutinize the terms and presuppositions of science, i. To discover standards for what good theories, valid modes of explanation, and appropriate scientific methods are: to offer an epistemology that does not thwart, but stimulates scientific progress;. To point out and articulate the interrelations between concepts that are found in different domains of the natural sciences as well as the social sciences and the humanities;.

To explain how observations fit in the broader picture of the world, and to create a language where scientific results and broader human experience can complement and mutually enrich each other. This list is neither exhaustive nor unique. Some of these general ideas will be instantiated in the two examples given in the next section. The above points to a necessary relationship between science and philosophy.

Science needs philosophy, as we have seen, in its two functions: heuristic, and analytic. Especially during changes of paradigm, philosophical debate will be part of the activities of science. None of this is to say that scientists need to be philosophers: most of them are not.

So, philosophers may be drawn in at that point. But it is also not to say that professional philosophers should be doing all of the above tasks. Part of those tasks—surely 1 to 4—are often performed by scientists. Thus what I envisage here is a collaboration between scientists and philosophers.

Indeed, I think we should be careful in distinguishing the disciplinary differences from the professional or individual ones. Saying that science, as a systematic theoretical and experimental study of the natural world, needs philosophy—which I have defined, in the analytic tradition, as the study of all the results of the sciences and humanities using the method of conceptual analysis—is not to say that each scientist requires philosophy.

Philosophy may be merely a useful tool for scientists. In this section, I give two examples where philosophical discussion has been genuinely contributory to science, along the lines discussed in 4a ii. Working from 4a ii we can now easily see that these examples in fact become a case in point: they illustrate the importance of philosophy for science.

They make clear the need for having the right philosophical framework when doing science. If a conceptual enterprise such as philosophy were completely neutral, or indeed useless, to science, it could not be harmful to it in any important way either. But the fact is that: A some philosophical doctrines have been harmful for science while others have been productive; B it is impossible to have no philosophy at all as I argued in 4a ; C the reason philosophy was harmful in some cases is because it was used in a positive way, according to its heuristic function from 4a ii.

And this heuristic function can indeed also be used positively. It follows from A to C that philosophy must be relevant to science in its own specific way, even if it is only in the manner of setting necessary intellectual preconditions of freedom of mind, of trust in the power of reason and of experimental observation, etc. History shows that it is hard for scientists to free themselves from outdated philosophical modes of thought.

This highlights the importance of investing in having a philosophical framework that allows for the kinds of entities that science encounters in the world. Specific tasks for philosophy are as listed in 4a ii.

Next we will study positive historical examples where 4a ii is at work, thereby refuting the historical argument formulated in 2b. To refute the historical argument, it suffices to show one example where philosophy has been genuinely contributory to the progress of science.

The example will be interesting in so far as it also sheds light on why it was that philosophy contributed to science, thus instantiating elements of 4a ii. There are many such examples. Kepler Footnote 8 and Sommerfeld were both inspired by Pythagorean philosophical ideas when working out their models of the harmonies of the solar system and of the atom, respectively. Let me here concentrate on another, more recent, example.

It concerns the current revolution in quantum information technology. In the past ten years we have seen the first commercialization of quantum randomness: the first bank transaction built on the basis of a code encrypted not by the usual algorithms of classical cryptography which rely on unproven mathematical assumptions such as the difficulty in factorizing large prime numbers , but based on the new field of quantum cryptography: a technique for encoding messages based on the notion of entanglement between particles at long distances.

Quantum cryptography has been successfully developed and commercialized by several groups over the past twenty years or so. As it turns out, the quantum information revolution is rooted in the efforts of scientists who saw philosophical enquiry as a necessary step in their quest for knowledge.

There are two key moments in the history of quantum mechanics when physical progress crucially depended on asking the right philosophical questions.

In , conflicting views on quantum physics started to crystallize. In doing so, Heisenberg was voicing the shared feelings of his colleagues Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli, and Paul Dirac, also present at the conference.

Among those properties was the lack of determinacy in physical quantities and events. Also, Heisenberg and co. A few years later, in , Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen made the nature of their discomfort with quantum theory explicit in a famous article that came to be known as the EPR thought experiment. They considered pairs of correlated particles separated at long distances. The possibility to measure a property for example, the momentum of the first particle automatically gives information about the value of that property for the second particle, without measuring that property for the second particle, since the particles are in a state of correlation.

And the possibility to measure the complementary property for example, the position of the first particle would as well determine the value of that quantity for the second particle. But because of the assumption that measurements done on the first particle cannot affect the properties of the second particle after all, the particles are well-separated , the second particle must have had the values of its position and momentum determined before any measurements were done on the first particle since, according to the formalism of quantum mechanics, a measurement of the first particle determines the value of that property for the other particle, in both cases.

Since, according to standard quantum mechanics, a particle cannot simultaneously have determinate values for both its position and its momentum, this means that quantum mechanics is an incomplete theory: for it does not predict properties for the second particle that, according to the argument, it can clearly have.

Reading, studying and evaluating philosophical arguments as premises and conclusions has shaped my ability to scrutinize evidence and conclusions in research reports. Philosophical arguments have often led Rasha Shraim to explore creatively stimulating edge cases, she says. Credit: Devin Quinn.

Beyond methods and data, philosophy pushed me to inwardly and outwardly examine the values and ethics behind science. Researchers are human, and our subjectivity and values inevitably influence our work. We might discuss glaring historical examples of unethical experiments or rogue scientists, such as He Jiankui and the gene-edited babies.

But we rarely teach and discuss how everyday choices of everyday scientists can have serious ethical impacts: choices of colours on published figures; genotyping only populations of European descent; researching vulnerable groups without offering protection or help; or even the questions that we choose to pursue.

Studying philosophy taught me to take both grand and smaller choices seriously. Collection: the PhD. Through philosophy, big questions grew familiar and it became easier to ask them in everyday life. During my PhD programme, I took a class on Mendelian randomization a genetics research method that aims to identify modifiable risk factors for diseases , and we discussed how socioeconomic factors need to be accounted for statistically. I wanted to push this discussion past methodology, so I asked: if socioeconomic factors are significant predictors of health outcomes, why not divert medical research funding directly to food programmes, or schools, or income support, to fix medical problems before they occur?

In thinking through such challenges, I form a clearer idea of my motivation and goals in genetic health research, and of which opportunities I should pursue. If it can help us to think critically about science and our goals, and to recognize that scientific progress is rooted in creative philosophical enquiry, and if it can prompt us to ask important questions, then I think we could all benefit from reading more philosophy.

Logic and inference. Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, offers an introductory online course in logic and critical thinking that covers the basics of argumentation, including induction and deduction. LK In fact, I've got more sympathy with your position than you might expect. I do think philosophical discussions can inform decision-making in many important ways, by allowing reflections on facts, but that ultimately the only source of facts is via empirical exploration.

And I agree with you that there are many features of human life for which decisions are required on issues that are not scientifically tractable. Human affairs and human beings are far too messy for reason alone, and even empirical evidence, to guide us at all stages.

I have said I think Lewis Carroll was correct when suggesting, via Alice, the need to believe several impossible things before breakfast. We all do it every day in order to get out of bed — perhaps that we like our jobs, or our spouses, or ourselves for that matter. Where I might disagree is the extent to which this remains time-invariant. What is not scientifically tractable today may be so tomorrow.

We don't know where the insights will come from, but that is what makes the voyage of discovery so interesting. And I do think factual discoveries can resolve even moral questions. Take homosexuality, for example. Iron age scriptures might argue that homosexuality is "wrong", but scientific discoveries about the frequency of homosexual behaviour in a variety of species tell us that it is completely natural in a rather fixed fraction of populations and that it has no apparent negative evolutionary impacts.

This surely tells us that it is biologically based, not harmful and not innately "wrong". In fact, I think you actually accede to this point about the impact of science when you argue that our research into non-human cognition has altered our view of ethics.

I admit I am pleased to have read that you agree that "why is there something rather than nothing? But, in this regard, as I have argued that "why" questions are really "how" questions, would you also agree that all "why" questions have no meaning, as they presume "purpose" that may not exist?

JB It would certainly be foolish to rule out in advance the possibility that what now appears to be a non-factual question might one day be answered by science. But it's also important to be properly sceptical about how far we anticipate science being able to go.

If not, then we might be too quick to turn over important philosophical issues to scientists prematurely. Your example of homosexuality is a case in point. I agree that the main reasons for thinking it is wrong are linked with outmoded ways of thought. But the way you put it, it is because science shows us that homosexual behaviour "is completely natural", "has no apparent negative evolutionary impacts", is "biologically based" and "not harmful" that we can conclude it is "not innately 'wrong'".

But this mixes up ethical and scientific forms of justification. Homosexuality is morally acceptable, but not for scientific reasons. Right and wrong are not simply matters of evolutionary impacts and what is natural. There have been claims, for example, that rape is both natural and has evolutionary advantages.

But the people who made those claims were also at great pains to stress this did not make them right — efforts that critics sadly ignored. Similar claims have been made for infidelity. What science tells us about the naturalness of certain sexual behaviours informs ethical reflection, but does not determine its conclusions. We need to be clear on this. It's one thing to accept that one day these issues might be better addressed by scientists than philosophers, quite another to hand them over prematurely.

LK Once again, there are only subtle disagreements. We have an intellect and can therefore override various other biological tendencies in the name of social harmony.

However, I think that science can either modify or determine our moral convictions. The fact that infidelity, for example, is a fact of biology must, for any thinking person, modify any "absolute" condemnation of it. Moreover, that many moral convictions vary from society to society means that they are learned and, therefore, the province of psychology.