Not the philosophy of science. That’s another subject entirely.
No, what I am going to discuss in this article is my assertion that there is no dividing line between the sciences and philosophy, and hence no hard line between the sciences and the arts at all, and that any such assertion is nothing but rank prejudice and the most ludicrously laughable small-minded provincialism.
In fact, I will state it thus : philosophy is merely the most theoretical of sciences.
Now, a lot of people on both sides of the entirely artificial science/art divide will immediately leap to their feet to object to this statement before they have even formulated a reason why.
“But… science is a science and philosophy is just… some silly people wasting time in mental masturbation by talking about things that can’t ever be decided scientifically and which don’t really matter compared to the big issues of how the Universe works!” rant the engineers, chemists, and mathematicians from their ivory perches.
“Libel, slander, and lies!” retort the artists, writers, and poets. “It is science that is just a bunch of squint-eyed stiffs in lab coats mucking about with test tubes and funny looking devices obsessing over how many quarks are in a pint, or some such nonsense, when they could be pursuing the Truth, Art, Beauty, and Meaning!”
(“Just leave us out of this!” quietly mumble the psychologists, archeologists, and sociologists caught somewhere in between. )
And all just because people have this pathetic inborn need to imagine that what they are just happens to be the best thing there is to be. That’s an unworthy and disgustingly tiny minded attitude for either a scientist or a true artist.
And truly, philosophy, long roundly abused by nearly all contenders, is the foundation of all science. Before science can set foot on what it calls new ground, the philosophers have been there first, breaking new ground, testing the boundaries, and most importantly, paving the way for a new kind of thought.
That bears repeating for clarification : only the pursuit and discipline of philosophy can possible allow human beings to think new thoughts.
This is evident when you look at the sort of people who are considered giants in the field of science. Freud, Darwin, Einstein… every one of them considered to be unparalleled geniuses whose contributions to science are inestimable and every one of them far more a philosopher than a scientist.
Not a one of them did serious, laboratory science under controlled conditions with suitable controls, strict double blind conditions, and a crisply formatted study submitted to prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Mostly, they just observed the world, and thought about stuff. The same as any philosopher.
Admittedly, in Einstein’s case, some of this thinking involved a certain amount of math. He used the developed system of logic (logic = philosophy) known at mathematics as an aid to his speculations about the nature of the universe.
But he also spend a lot of time simply sitting in his patent office or riding his bicycle, simply thinking about wild notions like “What would it be like to ride a beam of light?”.
What a silly, frivolous, and pointless thing to do. What was he, some longhaired hippie of a philosophy student destined to ask “Do you want fries with that?”
But because his thoughts happened to be about the natural world (what used to be called, quite correctly, natural philosophy), he is considered a “scientist” (and hence, a very important guy) instead one of those useless airy-headed “philosophers”.
Darwin took boat trips and drew pictures. Freud just talked to people. Neither of them ever set foot in a laboratory when doing the work we quite rightly remember them for.
Mostly, they just thought about stuff.
Now I am not running down either the arts or the sciences. I am a writer who loves science, and so I am firmly in both camps. That is what has led to my frustration with the prejudices and vitriol between the two sides of this highly artificial and microcephalic coin.
My point is that the sciences and the arts are one, and the place where they meet is called “philosophy”. Philosophy is, at its base, the purest form of the search for the truth, just like theoretical, speculative leading-edge science, and like most theoretical speculation, most of it will turn out to be false or misleading.
By the same token, however, the pursuit as a whole will be extremely important, for it is only the dreamers and thinkers of humanity who will discover the doors to entire new worlds to explore, whether those worlds are those of ethics or nanotechnology.
And it is within these new worlds that the future of humanity will be found.
