Introduction: Today Science appears to independently advance and single-handedly solve the mysteries of Universe.  And the Queen of all Sciences- Philosophy, “just like another Lear, has been turned outdoors” by her children- the Sciences, who feast on her inheritance. In the write-up, I’ve endaevoured to bring out the interrelation between Science and Philosophy since the pre-Socrates times with an aim to show that the interdependence between the two is not only mandatory but also inevitable. The conclusion that I intend to draw is that: without Science, Philosophy becomes more and more dishonest, a bit deficient in mathematical certainty and empirical concreteness and is tempted to ‘fall into futility of scholasticism’. But without Philosophy, Science is not merely as helpless as chaotic sensations that come to a disordered mind but also destructive and devastating.

(Certain ideas in the last two paragraphs have been borrowed from Will Durant’s essay- ‘The Lure of Philosophy’, his introductory note in the ‘Story of Philosophy’ and from Prof. Stumph’s ‘History of Philosophy’. Discussions with Prof. Barua also inspired some of the ideas)

Had Philosophy divorced Science…

In the whole of New Testaments, the deepest and the profoundest question ever to be asked was asked by a solitary figure- Pilate, a Roman Viceroy. Nietzsche, in his usual offensive way, said that the Roman Viceroy is worthy of honour greater than even Christ for he had enriched the scripture ‘with the only saying of any worth’- ‘What is Truth?’ Philosophy is the quest for Truth. In its divinely love for the modestly elusive Truth, Philosophy fearlessly ventures in the unknown through observations, introspections, deduction and induction (Logic); purifies the processes of knowledge and perception itself when our feet lag in weary paths of logic and eyes are rendered useless in the dark mysteries (Epistemology); engages in the study of ideal form and beauty (Aesthetics); devotes itself to the pursuit of ideal social life and to the questions of liberty, democracy, monarchy, socialism and feminism (Politics); concerns itself with the study of ideal conduct, of the highest knowledge as Socrates said- the knowledge of good and evil, of wisdom of life (Ethics); and then its insatiable thirst for Truth ushers Philosophy into the realm of the ‘ultimate reality’ of all things, where it engages itself in attempts to coordinate the ‘real’ in the light of the ‘ideal’ and interrelates mind and matter (Metaphysics). So intense is its lure for Truth and such diverse is mansion of Philosophy. In the sanctum of its mansion lives its dearest child- Science. Science studies the physical world and gives ‘information’ just like Philosophy gives the majestic ‘wisdom’. Science is the study of ‘experience’ just as Philosophy is a study of the “experience as a whole or in relation to the whole”. ‘Physics’ is the subject matter of Science and ‘reasoning’ its specialty. For Philosophy, complete world is the subject matter and entire Universe is its specialty.

Science began as a window through which Philosophy saw the world. It peered down the complexities of the physical world through the eye or a telescope, through a microscope or a spectroscope; and reported what it saw. Philosophy sculptured that mosaic of empirical perceptions carefully collected by Science into a meaningful design that could benefit the society as a whole. Without Philosophy scientific knowledge is simply chaotic plethora of sense perceptions like helpless sensations bereft of the guidance of an ordered mind. Science had realised its inevitable dependence on Philosophy in its very inception. Pre-Socrates mathematicians, scientist and thinkers daring to think beyond the overwhelming theology, clamoured for some space until Socrates lifted the veil of unfounded religious beliefs and dogmas had drawn over the Greek society. Science blossomed in the sanctuary of Philosophy. Contemporary mathematicians and scientists of the likes of Zeno, Democritus, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Aristotle (as a biologist), and Plato (as a mathematician) marched on the path cleared by philosophy through the jungle of superstition, dogmas and mythology. But while Science was feasting, Philosophy was still worried. Of course, Democritus had showed that ‘life’ is not a gift from a Roman God and that it springs out of a particle- ‘atamos’- but he could not visualise that if that Roman God does not exist what will the society- which has been so much dependent on the supernatural for its judgment of good and bad, right or wrong- look up to for guidance. The society that has turned into a cosmic orphan shall break all sanctions of morality, all social taboos and everything and anything that impedes its instincts on the pretext that- ‘If God does not exist everything is permitted’. The job of Science was over for it had used the microscope and figured out the atom. But job of Philosophy was half done. Socrates concerned himself with one of the greatest problems of Philosophy- how to develop natural and secular ethics to take the place of supernatural ethics that Philosophy had destroyed. Ethical code was necessary for Plato envisioned that no ‘Polis’ (State) could survive without a concept of morality since “it was easier for a city to survive without territory than for a State without a moral code.” Plutarch could not allow Science to march unharnessed devoid of Philosophy for “reasoning individuals make bad citizens” and States and societies shall decompose in anarchy. Philosophy did not rein in Science for Science was its dearest creation. Philosophy simply channelised its course. Plato envisaged the concept of an ideal State. He called it Utopia. In the Utopia each individual was trained in sports, music and above all in mathematics (the Science of the time). To guide those rational individual, Plato conceptualised a person with special knowledge not only of mathematics (and hence Science) but also of ‘Ideas’. He had a special attribute- wisdom- that implied an elevated vision in which knowledge is lifted up to a ‘panoramic view of the whole’. He was called the ‘Philosopher king’. The underlying aim was to encourage Science to prosper to the fullest- not as an anarchist but as a reformist under the auspices of the most generalised knowledge- Philosophy.

After the Greeks sinned the second time against Philosophy and just like Socrates they condemned Aristotle to death, Philosophy lost its way. It went down the abyss of the Middle Ages where the skies hung low suggesting a close bond between the theological heavens and the mundane earth below. Theology overwhelmed the human psyche. Philosophy had now detoured into theological territories and had nothing at its disposal except to provide theological dogmas rational a legitimacy. Derailment of Philosophy meant an inevitable death of Science. So it did. Science had died; for Europeans, like the Asians, had grown habitual of ‘forgetting their wits in their shoes outside the temple’.

But Science was resurrected, now in England, as Philosophy again found its path. Hobbes and Bacon pointed it out that it was not the supernatural force that moved things but it was ‘mechanics’. Enthused successors of the Greek mathematicians, began probe the mysteries afresh through their telescopes and microscopes. Galileo, Copernicus and Newton imported the scientific spirit to England that had been buried in the graves of Aristotle and Democritus the time since Greece had melted form the horizon. Science now knew no fetters. It marched ahead explaining almost everything through its sacrosanct faith in senses and reason. Philosophy left no stone unturned to exhort Science. Descartes, Spinoza and Leibnitz reverenced methodic doubt and attempted to address the philosophical problems with the precision and certainty of mathematics and Science. Science grew to a size it had never dreamt of in the past until its progenitor- Philosophy- grew suspicious of its methods. A creed of philosophers was born in England who questioned the basic method of Science itself. They called themselves Empiricists and believed that all knowledge, including mathematics, is uncertain until senses stamp them with approval. Definitely Science begins with empirically verified knowledge or at least should begin with facts approved by senses, but soon ventured into territories which had no empirical sanction. Newtonian mechanics, which had stirred the debate, was founded on a mathematical syllogism of which almost each stage may be verified by sense perception but the ‘connection’ between those stages had no empirical legitimacy. Causality, apriorism and space-time were such ‘connection’ which, according to Hume, had no empirical evidence. If these elements were ‘uncertain’ (going by the principle of Berkley- ‘essi est percipi’- Nothing exists beyond perception), Science was almost all false. But Science had to be rescued by Philosophy for Science was its window. Answer came from Germany when Kant legitimised causality, space-time and synthetic apriorism as ‘forms of intuition’. He proclaimed that our minds are so structured that they superimpose certain intuitive elements like causality and space-time to harmonise different sense perception. Though none of our senses tell us about the space-time but space-time has to exist in our minds so as to distinguish and harmonise different sense perceptions. Though Kant had attempted to save Science but as Bertrand Russell pointed out, Hume’s intense scepticism was irreconcilable. Science was still in jeopardy.

But Science is the dearest child of Philosophy.  Philosophy rescued its child not by negating British Scepticism but by dropping the subject matter itself. New age of philosophers rejected epistemology as philosophical harlotry and epistemologists, who once were the vestibule to the mansion of Philosophy, were delinked from the philosophical studies. Debates over causality and apriorism were definitely intellectually stimulating but hardly affected the human life. Anything that is not productive to the society at large should be curtailed and everything that concerns itself with the largest interest of man should be encouraged. Science had already proved its credentials as the most productive subject matter. Hence the likes of Bentham and Mill, supported by Nietzsche rescued the dearest child of Philosophy once again.

And just like all children, Science was an anarchist. A biologist set out to tour the world in a ship, examined fossils, observed different species and on his return to England proclaimed that a law exists in nature which all species obey and that was the law of natural selection- ‘the survival of the fittest’. Definitely, Darwin’s theory of evolution was a great feat for Science but Philosophy, in its quest to view things (especially great scientific theories) in its holistic perspective achieved much more from the theory of evolution of species than what Darwin must have ever thought. The long philosophical pursuit of ‘secular moral code’ that began with Socrates gained new energy after the appearance of Darwinism on the philosophical scene. If evolution is a struggle for existence and survival of the fittest, then survival is the test of fitness of everything- not excepting morals. So the only good man is the man who succeeds, proclaimed Nietzsche. The conservative moralists were terrified. If natural selection is the natural morality, said Tennyson, then nature is “red in tooth and claw”. Huxley attempted to negate Nietzsche, saying that morality is meant to defend the weak. “The ethical progress of a society depended not on imitating the cosmic process but combating it.” But how could a moral code, without the force of fables and revelations, be secured against the natural law? So if morality opposes nature, morality is doomed. The philosophical debate continues till date. Philosophy, which undoubtedly is the most generalised knowledge, had explored the widest possible ramification of ‘natural selection’, which Science alone could have never done.

The age biology ushered man into an age of determinism and laws of Science taken from the world of matter began to be artificially applied to mind. Science had begun to dominate the every sphere of human life. It procreated another anarchist- ‘technology’ which enslaved man and metamorphosed him into a machine. The noxious smokes of factories intoxicated all those instincts that made humans human and differentiated them from machines. Industrial moral code broke down the families which were the last evolutionary vestiges man’s social association. Liberty, freedom, leisure and aesthetics were lost as the mechanised life could ill-afford these luxuries of the previous age. Morals were based on nothing but material productivity. Wars were being fought during the 20^th century and millions of lives were lost thoughtless clashes. Human life had lost its dignity and meant no more than a machine. New discoveries kept dehumanising the human. An issueless American couple filed a case in the federal court against a woman who refused to honour the deal she had earlier signed to bear the child of the couple conceived into her womb through artificial insemination in lieu fifty million dollars. The surrogate mother refused to part with her child as she had developed an attachment natural to a mother that did not exist at the time of her signing the deal. It is a simply a product of this age of machines that just like the trade of commodities, natural human emotions and instincts have been assigned dollar values. Outsourcing pregnancy is one of various glaring examples of the amount of dehumanisation we have undergone since we allowed Science devoid of Philosophy to govern and subdue us as a totalitarian.

Like a good mother, Philosophy returned to chasten her belligerent child. If science eclipses everything else on the pretext of determinism, it shall go astray from its path of probing the physical world for philosophy. Science cannot rule; for Kingship is the prerogative only of the Queen of all Sciences- philosophy. Like all fashions, a philosophical fad emerged from Paris. No one had imagined that this philosophical fad, whose practitioners professed not in Universities but in French cafes, would invade every form of human thought- poetry, art, theatre, theology and science; end the age of determinism; humanise the human; deliver that humanly human from determinism into the age of subjectivism and ‘Existentialism’. Existentialism deified the human being and Existentialists were humans who specialised in humanism. Any philosophy, any religion and above all, any science, that did not contribute positively to the instincts, traits and qualities that make human a human, was futile. Science has a meaning only in the context of human life and determinism was doomed because it fails to distinguish a human from a stone that obeys laws of mechanics. ‘Human nature’ cannot be ‘determined’, because there is no universal human nature. There is subjectivity in human nature and each ‘individual’ is what he makes himself. This element of subjectivity in human nature provides him dignity that the stone or a machine does not possess and hence rescues the human from the subservience to science and technology. Human nature is independent of the realm of science and the purpose of science lies only in servitude to the human being.

Existentialism had emerged as an afterthought following the world wars which had blatantly showed how unhumanly humans had become under the tyranny of determinism. Indeed science tells us how to heal and how to kill; it reduces the death rate in retail and then kills us wholesale in wars. It is only the ‘wisdom’ of philosophy that tells us ‘when’ to heal and ‘when’ to kill. Science observes the empirical ‘fact’ but philosophy is never content to describe the fact. It wishes to ascertain the relation of the fact to the experience in general and thereby to get at its meaning and worth. Philosophy combines things in an interpretive synthesis which the inquisitively analytical science had torn apart. Often “Science seems to advance always while philosophy seems to lose ground. Yet this is because philosophy devotes itself to the hard and hazardous task of dealing with problems not yet open to the methods of science- problems of good and evil; of beauty and aesthetics; of freedom, life and death. Science is simply the captured territory of the vast unknown universe that the philosophy attempts to explore. Philosophy seems to stand still, perplexed; but only because she leaves the fruits of its victory to her daughters- the sciences, and herself passes on, divinely discontent, to the uncertain and unexplored.” Philosophy is natural to human mind for it concerns itself with the study of the ‘whole’ in whose light we clarify the ultimate choices in our lives.

Without science philosophy is impotent for how can wisdom grow without the knowledge fairly acquired. Without science philosophy becomes more and more dishonest, a bit deficient in mathematical certainty and empirical concreteness and falls into futility of scholasticism. But without philosophy, Science is not merely helpless but also destructive and devastating. Philosophy is the Queen of all science and like a wise queen she “assigns various provinces of her kingdom to skilled governors- greatest of them being the sciences”. But howsoever skilled the governors may be, they cannot survive if ‘they divide the inheritance of the benevolent Queen and turn her outdoors, like another Lear, with ingratitude unkinder than the winter’s wind.’

                                                                                                                                                                                Suyash Saxena

St. Stephen's College