Does philosophy help us to find the truth? Or science? Or both? [closed]

Question

1. Which field is closer to the truth? Philosophy or science?

2. What is the position of philosophy in human civilization now? Is it something like classical music now — we never invent, we just play the previous guy's works?

3. If 2 is true, then why? is it because we are relatively incapable of developing new philosophy now? Or we no longer have time to think of them?

Answer 1

Both will help you to find the truth. Science will help you to find conventional truths. Philosophy will guide you to find the Ultimate Truth. But the path must be right. Even Philosophy can only show you the path. For the Ultimate Truth you should help yourself.

See the Bhagavad Gita 6.5

Though the verses in this link is science as per the Gita (I also like to treat so), for the main question, it is better to consider them as part of philosophy. The implication of the main question compels me to treat so.

I don't know, but believe that the words of Jesus Christ — “Knock and the door will be opened to you” convey the same meaning.

1. Philosophy can make up (or it is for making up) the limitations of science. So philosophy is closer in finding the Ultimate Truth (as well as conventional truths).

2. I don't know the present state of classical music in all countries. But it is perfect in some countries (Eg. India). In India, "the previous guy work" was scientific and precious. So I would like to say 'Yes'. I have heard about its miracles. For some basics, read about Indian classical music.

3. It is not because of lack of time. Some philosophers have termed that knowledge as Vedanta — means "the end of knowledge".

So one who realizes it knows that it is the end of knowledge. Otherwise some great philosophers of that category would have changed that term.

Answer 2

Hegel in one of his books mentioned that in his time there was a 'rage' for poetry, and then a 'rage' for philosophy; strangely enough, in his Phenomenology there is a good deal of theorising about chemistry; interesting too, because Newton pursued Alchemy; which suggests that it was a bearer of philosophical thought in way that it isn't today.

Intellectual pursuits are as much beholden to fashion, as fashion is; except of course in different ways ie modalities.

Having said this, there has been a break in the Western tradition (according to Adorno and Arendt), and philosophy (and science) as a result has suffered; Heidegger thought philosophy would be pursued with a small p.

Much science today, is Big Science; pursued with a big S; its end is practical rather than theoretical - which is no bad thing as we live in a Big Society; I mean, complex and sophisticated. Science, in the sense of going behind that appearances of things has always been fraught and difficult (what is the appearance of things in every age and epoch is different).

Answer 3

Caveat

Philosophy.SE is a strange place. Many people seem to come here with a certain preconception about what it is that philosophers do. Many people come to SE sites like Stack Overflow or Mathematica looking for answers, and so they come here to Philosophy.SE expecting the same. That's often a mistake.

I Get Grandiose

Philosophy isn't in the business of giving answers. It's not even in the business of asking questions. It's really no business at all.

All philosophers (well, most— there are exceptions to every rule) started out as a subset of the many people who, at some point in their lives, saw something, or were told something, or read something, and immediately thought to themselves "that can't be right." The ones who are in the business of philosophy, took that nagging feeling and made it their career. We're not happy with letting things being stated we feel are wrong or incorrect go unaddressed. We get so irritated that we argue with everyone about it and write about it and do our damnedest to prove why that just can't be true.

Sure, it may seem like Spinoza or Wittgenstein have tried to explain the whole world from the bottom up, but what they were really trying to do was to refute ... well, everyone. This is why, by the way, most 101 classes like to begin with Descartes. He's really good at giving people that same itchy feeling that he's dead wrong, and (supposedly) reasonably easy to refute, as bait for new students.

What Was Your Question, Again? Oh, Right.

In the respect that philosophy is taught, what education focuses on is understanding two things:

First, how that feeling of being misled could be the result of your simply having failed to grasp what set you off in the first place.

Second, having confirmed you understand the opinion or situation that seems wrong, how to prove it.

Does this help us get at the truth? Sort of. It may help us recognize that when we think we've grasped the truth and we're wrong, we (ought to) know better how to disabuse ourselves of the notion. It may improve our ability to express why some ideas or opinions are incorrect. If there is a truth "out there" in the world, then chances are that by rejecting everything wrong, we'll get there eventually. Or not; it depends on the assumption that there is some grand truth in an absolute sense which could possibly be revealed sometime. It's also entirely possible that the hunt is endless, and we'll be whittling away at our conceptual mistakes until the end of time, or at least the end of us.

But "science" and scientists are, by and large, concerned with a very different sort of itch. Rather than being led by the sense that something's wrong, they're led by wanting to know how the world works. The scientific method measures this knowledge in a clearly defined and very reasonable way: by making predictions. If you can make predictions based on reasons, and abandon your reasons when the prediction fails, you're doing science. If you think the reasons aren't credibly connected to their predictions— that would be philosophy again.

Too Long, Didn't Read

So which pursuit is more concerned with the truth, Science or Philosophy, based on all that? There's the answer to your question.

Yes, the header was false. Sorry about that.

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Some Parting Advice and Supporting Materials

If you want to understand how the universe works, study astrophysics. How government and power works? Study political science. How to live a good life? Find a mentor. What the human condition is? Anthropology and economics. Business? Entomology. (I kid)

If philosophy can be categorized a study at all, I happen to like Paul Redding's definition best (published in that bastion of academia, The Guardian 16 Dec 2013):

As a first, crude attempt, I’ll describe philosophical work as work with and on "concepts". Philosophers are concerned with concepts in the same rigorous sort of way that, say, a pathologist is concerned with diseases, or a mathematician with numbers. [..]

Concepts are not the contents of so-called thought-bubbles. They are the hinges or links of reasoning processes. They describe those aspects of thought that enables it to make the right connections: connections with the rest of the world; with other thoughts; and with actions. I use the word "right" here to indicate the possibility of getting these connections wrong. (emphasis mine).

That Second Part of Your Question I Nearly Glossed Over

The reason we see so much prior philosophy in training isn't because we make no progress, but because they're proven training materials.

There is no yardstick to measure what counts as progress in philosophy by. We're not really in the business of inventing new ideas (that would make us artists), and certainly not in the business of making new predictions. If there's any progress in philosophy at all, it's individual. Progress for a philosopher can best be measured by every new perspective he or she can bring to bear on any concept.

But insofar as humanity comes up with new false concepts, such as linking race with behavior, or justice as the majority opinion, or pain and joy as unreal— we'll be there. Not so much defending something known to be true, but tearing down everything false.

Just don't blame us if we pull down everything wrong in the world, and then find out there's nothing left behind it.