When did it come to the point where science and philosophy were not the same thing, or at least in search for the same goal. An experiment here, a theory there, both being created by the thought of how to complete the experiment, or checking the pros and cons of a theory until it is as sound as one mind can allow. Are they not both in search for truth, thus intertwined for a singular outcome?

Comments

When? I think it was June 15, 1412 at 5:22 in the laboratory of... (just kidding!)

I don't think such questions have very definite answers. "Philosophy" means "love of wisdom," and originally, any thoughtful example of truth-seeking counted as "philosophia"--the Greek word for philosophy. As you say, both are examples of our search for truth, and in that sense, both continue to interact, at various levels.

However, one thing that distinguishes science is that it has a methodology tied to observations and experimentation, whereas much of what philosophers debate has not (yet, at any rate) lent itself to empirical resolution through observation and experimentation. We do "thought experiments" a lot of the time, but these results are not as reliable, as universal, or always replicable, in the ways that actual empirical experiments (which can be performed by anyone anywhere, with suitable equipment) are.

Read another response by Nicholas D. Smith

Read another response about Philosophy, Science