On the relationship between science and philosophy: knowledge, understanding, and wisdom

Here is one possible take home message of this essay: science is our best source of knowledge about how the world works. Philosophy is our best source of wisdom about how to navigate the world. And the intersection between science and philosophy is what produces understanding.

Now let me explain why I just wrote what I did. For much of my life so far my concern has been with the complex relationship between science and philosophy. My first academic career was in the sciences (evolutionary biology) and my second and current one in philosophy (of science). And during both careers I developed an interest in the practical applications of both disciplines: fighting pseudoscience as a scientist, popularizing practical philosophy as a philosopher.

Naively, I thought I was going to be taken seriously by my new colleagues in philosophy on the ground that I had done the hard work of getting a PhD in the field and publish a number of papers before even considering applying for a job as a philosopher. Just as naively, I also imagined that my old colleagues in the sciences were going to be sympathetic, on the ground that I was reasonably well established as a scientist. Instead, fairly often what happened was that philosophers looked at me suspiciously as a scientist who plays the role of a philosopher without really being one, and scientists regarded me almost as a traitor to their discipline, one who unashamedly walked over to the other side of campus.

No matter, other people’s opinions are up to them. What is up to me is to do what I think is my best. So I continued to explore the complex boundaries between science and philosophy. This kind of exploration, however, cannot even get off the ground unless we agree on what we mean by “science” and “philosophy.”

For my purposes here science is what scientists do, that is deploying a combination of observational and experimental methods whose application is guided by some sort of theoretical framework and aims at further improving (or, occasionally, overthrowing) such framework. Likewise, philosophy is what philosophers do, that is using analytical and argumentative methods to arrive at a better understanding of whatever subject matter one happens to be interested…