Abstract
The earliest Greek philosophers – the “pre-Socratics” – laid the foundations for Western science by rejecting stories that posited super-natural beings (the deities) as the causes of earthly events and sought, instead, to explain the world in terms of its own inherent principles. The works of the pre-Socratics are distinguished above all else by their appeal to reason and observation. This is the crucial element that these early scientists shared in common with the philosophical tradition they helped shape, and indeed which philosophy continued to share in common with science in the millennia that followed: an effort to uncover truths about the world and the beings that occupy it, and an emphasis on reason in doing so. But there are also important differences between philosophy and science. In my paper, I will amplify on at least five important differences: (1) Philosophy does not attempt to offer reductive analyses of the concepts it seeks to clarify; (2) Philosophy focuses on normative, and not merely descriptive questions, and the way approaches descriptive questions differs from the way science does; (3) Philosophy doesn’t merely discover but creates answers to the questions it seeks to answer; (4) There is no standard method that is employed by philosophers to answer philosophical questions as there is in science (the scientific method); (5) We don’t find the same kind of progress in philosophy as we do in science. In my paper I explain and expand on each of these important differences.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Past and Present in the Humanistic Education
KEYWORDS
Socratic method. Scientific method, Normative vs descriptive questions, Progress
