Science, Philosophy, and Religion

I have blogged a few times about the differences between science and philosophy. I was educated and trained as a scientist, and have found it a struggle to comprehend the philosopher's way of thinking. Since retiring to the country to follow a simpler life, I no longer professionally practice science, so it's given me an opportunity to turn to philosophy to work at trying to grasp some of its concepts. It ain't been easy! It's like moving to another country as an adult—after your inherent language-learning skills have drastically declined from when you were two years old—and struggling with a very different language in a very different culture. But thanks to several online courses in philosophy, I'm beginning to be a bit conversant with it.

Just as a little background (and to remind myself of the contrast), here are the dictionary definitions of the two disciplines:

• Science: “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the natural world, through observation and experiment” Root meaning: “to know.”
• Philosophy: “the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence.” Root meaning: “love of wisdom.”

So science is an activity, while philosophy is a study. Science is an objective examination of the natural world (which includes humans), while philosophy is a subjective examination of what we humans know or can come to know. While the ancient thinkers believed that we can arrive at truth and knowledge through sheer reasoning, science conducts experiments to develop knowledge. The difference is sort of like the study of the properties of the external world (science) versus the study of the internal world or of our mind's ability to grasp the external world (philosophy).

While today's science is partitioned into many disciplines, philosophy has also grown to be categorized into several branches. One of my online courses defined four subdisciplines in philosophy:

1. Metaphysics—What is there? What's it like?
2. Epistemology—What can we know? How do we know?
3. Value theory—What's good/bad? How can we be good/bad?
4. Logic—Which links it all together. (I quickly become swamped when reading logic. It's yet beyond me.)

When we delve into these four branches, we find ourselves facing moral, aesthetic, and value questions. We get into questions of what we should do, and what is right or wrong.

Science, on the other hand, is amoral (not immoral, as some people would say)—it is by and large unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of what it studies. Thus, for example, many scientists engaged in the development of the atomic bomb in World War II, with little moral examination. That is not to say that scientists ignored the moral questions. For example, even though he had a hand in initiating the US's atomic bomb program, Einstein later came to regret his role. The point is that science does not include moral evaluations as part of its activities. That's philosophy's business.

I find it interesting how differently many religions approach and interpret these scientific and philosophical questions about the nature of the world and the nature of human knowledge. Religions have a very different perspective. Yes, humans can reason, religions say, but truth comes from the gods, or the one God. Thus, truth (as well as morality and values) is found in scripture or possibly through mystical insight, but not through human reasoning.

This religious perspective is often taken to an extreme by religious fundamentalists, who contend that everything known or worth knowing can be found in scripture. This approach does not really seek understanding through the gradual acquisition of knowledge, but by locating finality (fixed and complete answers) in scripture. This difference is a source of most of the conflict between religion and the disciplines of science and philosophy. This conflict is largely absent, however, with nonfundamentalist religious people—people who may revere scripture, but do not contend that it is the sole repository of knowledge and wisdom.

With every online course I take, my appreciation for both science and philosophy grows. I also gain better understanding of the basis of conflict between how these two cognitive ways of looking at reality clash with religious fundamentalism—and realize that there need not be conflict with all religious belief.