WHAT IS SCIENCE?

Now the word science, as all good students know – comes from the Latin word scientia, which means to have the knowledge of something acquired through study and analysis. But in modern times, all science seems to get confused solely with empirical science itself. It is as if people nowadays think that all science is empirical. Even the hypothesis concerning the existence of black holes has been treated largely as a so-called empirical observation, though when we come to think about it at some great length, we soon realize that the hypothesis of a black hole is very speculative in nature, and not as empirical as people would like it to seem. Yet on and on the great edifice of science progresses; moving boldly as it were, with its head held up high, and hoping that its pride will not make it fall. Meanwhile, for students of philosophy: definitions, claims and terms are very significant, and are some of the ways in which the world is understood by philosophers. So how are we to start describing science in all of its manifestations? Perhaps we should begin by elaborating on the three main types of sciences that are  known to us since antiquity: namely the speculative, the demonstrative, and the empirical modes of inquiry. Hence alongside this, we know that every science has a "thing" or "object-domain" that it studies, and that it focuses on exclusively. For in ancient Sumer man looked up at the stars and other celestial bodies, so as to tabulate their observations into a coherent form of science that was combined with other mystical and primitive beliefs. And in so doing this, they created an empirical science of a certain kind. In other words, their observational methods became an empirical science – because both the observational and experimental modes of science are empirical in nature. Yet the experimental mode of inquiry, I must add, would have to wait for many more years before it was pursued and practised properly. Though before all of this had occurred, mathematics, quite rightly, had already began its long tentative climb towards becoming a demonstrative science in its own right alongside logic, whereas logic itself, in a sense, had become a science quite quickly, being as it was, conceived under the bright light of the Greeks, whom we know were very great and passionate lovers of wisdom and truth. And ever since Thales, philosophy has aspired to the status of a speculative, and empirical science, although many a cynic will flatly deny this, not on any rational grounds, but because philosophy has a dual meaning. That is, it also has a meaning synonymous with the notion of a person having a world view of their own, which that same individual, or someone else pursues, and that informs his or her behaviour in life.                                                                   

However, not all sciences can be neatly fitted into one of the three modes of inquiry that have already been mentioned. For example, psychology and sociology are sciences that are empirical and speculative – in so far that it is not possible to find many things that are more speculative than Jung's collective unconscious, or many of the ideas of Freud. And so it will be observed also, that several empirical sciences tend to rely on demonstrative science to support itself, such as the use of mathematics in physics. Yet plainly the arts soothe and console us, whereas the empirical sciences make us realize that nature does not reveal herself clearly to us without a great deal of effort on our part. Now science, has four main ways of testing knowledge: it can test it through demonstration, experimentation, observation, or by a combination of different forms of empirical and theoretical evidence that has been collated together. Though when we think about it carefully, a theory that so much of us accept: namely evolution, has been tested through this fourth category of scientific testing. And even many philosophical claims are tested under this fourth category, albeit unofficially and implicitly. But some scientists: such as Feynman and Hawking and a few others, have had a sort of elitist, cynical and narrow-minded view of anything that is not cold, hard, empirical, mechanistic science. For empirical scientists sometimes get too proud of their discipline, and end up thinking that it is superior to all other disciplines. Then also, one sometimes comes across silly people who claim that science is a religion of sorts; it is as if they have never looked up the meaning of the word religion and compared it to what science means. Otherwise why would they make such a nonsensical claim? Now I do not personally think that the meanings of words should be ignored, because if one chooses to ignore the meanings of words, one is reduced to supporting feelings and biases that cannot be located to any objective meanings or standards that constructively lead anywhere. And I also think that all science stems from language, knowledge, and from a common sense understanding of the world. For example, if something in a theory, or piece of knowledge can be experienced or observed in reality in the world in some way, and yet cannot be disproved, then it certainly should be considered a scientific truth: in other words, it is a foundation for science.                     

Hence science should be a body of knowledge, so solid, that one is able to make predictions with it, which are later confirmed by observations and tests, because knowledge that cannot be tested, verified, or observed by experience, or evidence is doomed to fail as being true knowledge; though all knowledge that is known to be true, should continually be re-examined, and redefined. And so when we combine what has already been stated about the nature of science, we realize that there is a science of many things that match the criteria of what a "science is" by definition; for instance, going back to the example of philosophy that I mentioned earlier, which I will now continue, seems to me, to be a science that studies "wisdom, knowledge, and truth" in an analytical, rigorous, systematic, empirical, and speculative manner, as a means to enable us to live more wisely, because we love wisdom, knowledge, and truth. For I have never heard an argument that convinced me that philosophy was not a science in the way I have described. In fact, most of the people that argue against philosophy being a science, nearly always argue from the false, and conflated argument, which assumes that all science is empirical in nature; they suffer from a lack of having a proper analytical rigour, in regard to definitions, words, and concepts of things.

Thus the science of phenomenology has taught us that our minds need to be studied and analyzed in such a manner as to prevent us from fooling ourselves into accepting things in a prejudiced, self-serving way. It has also made us realize that we need to question all the wrongheaded things that we have inherited from our culture and upbringing, so that we can verify things for ourselves, and allow those things to speak for themselves to us directly. But to convince others of our position, we need to begin with common sense, evidence, as well as rigorous arguments, otherwise we will never find common ground amongst one another and the things we talk about.

Yet some people also state that the discipline of science uses methods of finding out about things, or how they work, by observing and measuring them in some way; so that for something to be considered a science, it must have a quantitative element of measurement to its methodologies. Now this quantitative element of measurement, I must add, can come in the form of statistics, or surveys, especially in regard to philosophical matters in particular. But measurement is always limited in accuracy, even in physics, which means that in science, one has to rely on the law if identity, consistency and approximations, rather than on accuracy for good results.

And so when we ponder the matter carefully, we come to realize that the discipline of science, as well as its methodologies in general, tend to be connected with a belief in it as "being an authority in whatever field" of study it is connected to, and this is because its methodologies are considered to be the most effective and useful. Yet because of the speculative nature of some aspects of the discipline of science, and because of the difficulties of conclusively proving its many hypotheses and theories, means that it will become increasingly unsure of itself. In fact, natural science, in my estimation, will in the future be aimed more towards technological breakthroughs, rather than in the proving of speculative theories.

Now a common criticism that is usually directed at science in general, concerns the fact, of whether it really explains the inner nature and essence of reality or not; seeing that some people will say that it only loosely describes what it does not fully understand. For even Richard Feynman himself, once claimed, that no physicists really knew what energy was. And Aldous Huxley, in his essay called "Education," mentions that we use electricity all the time, but do not really know what it is. In addition, Nietzsche was also known to have thrown this type of criticism at science too. But what are we to make of this? Is this not a philosophical problem? I think it is, and will remain so, because explanations of the inner nature of the world, will always be viewed as speculative and metaphysical. So we can claim, with much humility, that the natural sciences cannot fully extricate itself away from philosophy; though many scientists have tried and failed. One could even say that natural scientists are like curious, optimistic children trying to uncover the nature of the world, but are continually ignoring how incomplete and limited seems their endeavour. And like the children that they are, they cannot help denigrating, and poking fun at philosophy and philosophers for pointing out these limitations.

Indeed, for something to be a science, one must be able to observe, test or demonstrate its claims at any point in time, which is one of the reasons that Schopenhauer points out that history cannot be considered a science, because it does not have the ability to do this.

Thus Thomas Reid mentioned that all philosophers needed to use self-evident axioms and clearly defined concepts for their discipline to be more scientific and unambiguous. Obviously concepts need to be based on real things in the world to have any profitable use. Yet concepts are very rarely useful when used in too general a manner. Hence to use concepts well, one has to explain and define how one is going to use them, and in what context. The particular meaning of the concept also has to be defined well, so as to eliminate ambiguity.

However, anyone who doubts that philosophy is a science, should take into account that many of the sciences like physics, biology, and logic were developed by philosophy in the first place. In fact, they were once thought of as philosophy itself. Nevertheless "a truth is still a truth, whether you call it science or not" is what I tell myself. Of course, historically "philosophy" and "science" have been synonymous terms. And even Newton, referred to himself as a "natural philosopher," whereas the word "science" for him, as well as for others, was a general word for any demonstrable knowledge, whether acquired by a philosopher or some other type of truth seeker. Furthermore, a change in language and convention have separated the two terms and robbed them of their original synonymity, which in my opinion, has created a great deal of confusion and negativity as a result.

So science as a discipline is always ready to correct the prior false conclusions that exist in its knowledge base when any new information arises that disproves it. There is even a belief that systematic knowledge distorts our view of reality because it is able to exist and be used for long periods of time with unnoticed errors in it. Yet it is all the changes and corrections to errors that in the long run makes a systematic body of knowledge more consistent and true, though they are not noticed initially.