Assessment 1: Philosophy and the Sciences

In what way can philosophy or philosophical thinking contribute to the physical

sciences?
It might not seem clear the relationship between the sciences and philosophy due to our
postmodern approach to reality. In a popular level, philosophy has been disregarded as an
elder instrument of pure speculation with the solely purpose of the enjoyment of the mind,
the pure abstraction of concepts over concept with no apparent practical use. The problem
lies on the difference between what is seen and whats beyond, subtle. The reasons I give
to sustain the conclusions will be ordered in the following way: first, I will define philosophy
and introduce it in the physical science context; then I will provide an explanation about its
particularities as a tool; finally, I will develop what philosophy is likely to bring (and already
is bringing) to the field of sciences. The conclusions will sum up the argumentation and
answer the question in a concrete final statement.
Philosophy is the exercise of wonder about the nature of reality. And what bigger wonder
might we find than on the pure speculation about our cosmos through the potent tool of
cosmology science. But lets not mix it yet. Philosophy is not only an exercise, as stated, but
also a tool. Is the tool that allows thought to be built and shared, contrasted and compared,
in a rational way. Part of the subtle structure of the temple of Philosophy we have logics as
a guide.
It is a tool that works with conceptual problems, instead of empirical ones, as the Sciences
do, especially the Physical Science. Yet, as it has been proved along these first weeks of
study, the particular branch of Cosmology is born from the same wonder that gives birth to
philosophy, this is, our magnificent Cosmos. This, together with the will of applying the so
called scientific method has led Cosmology a science of its own right. Its particularities to
be solved from evolving from metaphysics were given solution by philosophers of science,
working with the philosophical thinking manners and attitude. Is this wonder about what is
what surrounds us and which way is the best one to give an answer to such an enquiry
what makes philosophy deeply connected to, in this case, the physical science (yet
extendable to any other branch of knowledge).
What the physical sciences gain through these tool provided by philosophy is, indeed, a
more detailed and perfected method of work. By philosophical enquiry, or thinking
following closer the question to be solved, we can deal with the entire conceptual corpus of
the physical sciences and outline its strengthens and weaknesses when it comes down to
theories and arguments. By critically examining the results of researches philosophy aids
the interpretation making sense of the numerical achievements, providing efficient grounds
on which to base further experimentation and suggesting different approaches that
numbers by themselves might not induce to. Ambiguities of concepts, derived from an
inaccurate use of language and its consequences in the scientific quantification of variables
is more likely to be detected by a philosophically trained mind-perspective. Which leads us
to our last point.
Critical thinking is developed, as pretty much everything, by practice. And philosophy
encourages anyone who enters its field to think creatively, or as it is usually said, out of the

box. It is precisely through an open mind how new discoveries and approaches are born.
Only speaking of physics, you need a big amount of imagination to try to start picturing
what it really means that only a 4% of our universe is ordinary matter, and getting a bit
further (or a lot) how that affects how do we see our world.
It is the difference between knowing how things work, and understanding and integrating
that knowledge into the complete corpus of our (limited) perspective of the Universe. So, in
conclusion, I think that the way in which philosophy can contribute to physical sciences,
gathering all that has been exposed, is by providing an insight of the conceptual powers
and limitations of the methods employed, and its consequent perfectiveness, a trustworthy
tool for examining conclusions providing the cautious of upholding any statement as
definite, and broadening the scope of its applications into the realm of the primordial
questions that humans formulate since the first time they looked up at the night sky.