Question As science progresses, it seems that it starts to infringe more deeply on philosophical questions - things like the anthropic principle in physics or neuroscience's discoveries about consciousness. What are things that scientists can take from philosophers? Also, do philosophers have an obligation to look into the science if it impacts their area of expertise?

Accepted:
October 13, 2005

Comments

Perhaps philosophers can offer the scientist clarification of some of the concepts or claims in play in his or her theories. For the most advanced sciences, like physics, such insight typically does not lead to any change in the practice of the working scientist. (That said, some philosophers believe that philosophical illumination of the foundations of mathematics, the most advanced exact science, might lead to a revision of our mathematical practice.) For less advanced sciences, like psychology, such clarification can have far greater impact on how the subject matter is understood and the research is pursued. Philosophers can also offer scientists help in thinking about issues that cut across particular sciences, for instance questions about how to understand claims about unobservable objects, the nature of explanation, the goals of science, the rationality of science, the nature of scientific laws, and so on.

I think most philosophers would agree with the conditional claim that if some empirical inquiry is relevant to their work then they should pay attention to it. Philosophers will divide about how often the "if" part of that conditional holds. Some philosophers are prepared to see much scientific work as relevant to what they do, while others believe that many philosophical concerns, properly understood, are quite independent of such empirical issues. The relevance and significance of empirical work to philosophical questions is itself sometimes a substantive philosophical issue.