PHILOSOPHY AND OTHER SCIENCES

1.0 INTRODUCTION

We have just seen the various approaches and methods in studying philosophy. You don’t need to worry which of the methods you are going to use. All you need to remember is that philosophy is a reflective exercise. It is now time to know not just the relationship that philosophy has with other fields of study but also the differences that exist between philosophy and other sciences. But we must first of all show that philosophy is a science and a s a science, we must point out its object of study.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit, you should be able to:

1.  demonstrate that philosophy is a science and consequently 
2.  demonstrate that philosophy has its object of interest 
3. compare philosophy with experimental science 
4. analyse the relationship between philosophy and theology. 

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Philosophy as Science

The question here is: Can philosophy as a discipline be called a science? The answer is truly yes. Philosophy is a science. But it is not a science in the limited concept of experimental sciences. It is science in its original signification of the word science - knowledge of things attained by an investigation of their causes. The word science comes from the Latin word scire which means to know. But a mere knowledge of things does not qualify one to be called a scientist. A man has science or can be called a scientist only if he has the knowledge of the causes of what he


knows. In other words, it is not just enough to know a thing without knowing its cause. Such knowledge is knowledge of the fact but not the reason for the fact - knowledge of the reasoned fact. So it is very easy then to distinguish a man of experience from the man of science. A man  of experience is a practical man, he knows that a combination of certain things work in a certain way, but a man of science in addition, has the understanding of the reasons “why” the combination of those things work. He has knowledge of the “why” of things. This is why Aristotle is of the opinion that it is only a man of science who can teach, a man of experience cannot (Aristotle, Met. 1,I 981b 5-10).
This is the sense in which philosophy is a science because it is a knowledge of things together with their causes. Philosophy is not only interested in the fact that things exist, but it goes further to ask: Why do things exist when they could as well not exist? Thus philosophy is a science because it is a knowledge when followed to its conclusion results in certitude. However, it must be said that like every other human science, philosophy is still developing. It has not reached its perfection or final stage. Inasmuch as it has arrived at some indubitable truths there are still many philosophical conclusions that are probable.
Philosophy is not only a science, it is a universal science. There is always a tendency to think that philosophy deals with mere speculations and abstractions that have nothing to do with or no bearing on reality. And this probably accounts for the reason why many people are afraid or are intimidated by the mere mention of the word philosophy. Many people stay away from philosophy because it is dry. The truth is that philosophy studies beings that are real and concrete things of our experience but not limited to the beings of our experience. Philosophy

seeks to understand the ultimate structure of reality and why it is at all. There is no doubt that philosophy uses abstract concepts in order to understand concrete facts. But the facts themselves are not abstract but those of our experience. Thus philosophy is concerned with contingent things, that is, beings that exist but do not have in their very nature to exist; beings that stand in need or require explanation for their very existence. Since everything, but God is contingent, then the whole material world and the world of spiritual creatures, fall under the broad range of philosophy. So philosophy is a universal science. This brings us to the specific object of philosophy.

3.2 The Object of Philosophy

Every science is defined or specified by its object and there are as many sciences as they are objects to be studied. In every science, there is a material object and formal object. The material object of a science is the concrete object which a particular science considers, whereas the formal object of a science is the particular aspect of the object which it studies, that is, the point of view from which the science looks at the object. Philosophy is not left out in this common characteristic of every science. Philosophy has a material object as well as a formal object. The material object of philosophy is every being in an unqualified sense and including all reality whatever it may be, in whatever manifestations or modes, whether material or immaterial, sensible or not sensible.
The formal object of philosophy then is being simply and precisely as being. That is being insofar as it is being and that which pertains to being as such - its principles and causes, its attributes and modes. We know for sure that all knowledge is knowledge of being, but at the same time all knowledge is not philosophical knowledge. Other sciences study beings in their limited and particular aspects but philosophy abstracts or disregards all the limited aspects of being and considers being in general, that is, being simply as being. Obviously, it demands a great intellectual effort to focus one’s mind on being in this fashion. It means simply to allow one’s mind to be saturated by being disregarding its mode, quality or quantity.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

1. Why do you think that philosophy is a science? 
2. What is the formal object of philosophy? 

3.3 Philosophy and Experimental Sciences

I am sure you still remember the definition of philosophy as a science of things by their first causes. This means that philosophy asks the question “why?” In other words, what is it that explains a particular being? In doing this it is the aim of philosophy to obtain or find the ultimate answer or to push the mind as far as it can go. For example, philosophy would want to know what “B” is if it discovers that “A” is contingent upon “B”. And if “B” is contingent upon another, for example “C”, philosophy will ask for the why of “C”. This process can continue until

it ultimately discovers something that requires no explanation for its being. It is this search for the ultimate cause that makes philosophy merits the name “wisdom”. This is not just a certain knowledge but a profound knowledge. It is not just the knowledge of causes but of the first and highest causes. This is what distinguishes philosophy from empirical sciences like physics, biology and other sciences of phenomena. These sciences do not carry knowledge beyond the knowledge of the immediate secondary causes. The goal of empirical sciences is to describe reality in its measurable terms or its observable features. But the goal of philosophy is not merely to describe but to explain contingent being; it seeks to find the ultimate explanation or cause of the actual existence of contingent reality.
While the empirical sciences are preoccupied with the description of how the beings of the universe act and interact with the others to bring certain result, philosophy is preoccupied with why there is being at all rather than nothing. Moreover, since the sciences of phenomena do not


pursue the knowledge of the highest causes, they definitely do not have answers to the questions of ultimate significance, for example, the meaning and purpose of life or what is morally good or evil. These are philosophical questions that can only be answered by reference to the ultimate purpose of human life or human existence. If philosophy is different and distinct as it is, from the empirical sciences, it means that human knowledge is not only knowledge of the sciences of phenomena. There are other objects of knowledge beyond the visible and the material.

3.4 Philosophy and Theology

Philosophy and theology are two autonomous sciences. But there is an interesting relationship between the two in that there is a point at which the two sciences meet though from different perspectives. The word theology comes from two Greek words: theos and logos meaning God
and science respectively. Literally speaking, theology means the science or the study of God. But at its summit, philosophy becomes theology - the science of God. However, we must say that there is a distinction between this philosophical theology and the theology proper, that is, revealed theology. We shall try, on the one hand, to draw the line of distinction and on the other, establish their harmony.
As we have said, theology and philosophy have the same material object namely God. But they differ fundamentally both in the manner in which they find this object and in the way they perceive it. Philosophy finds its object only at the end of a long process of systematic reflection. As all


sciences, philosophy begins from the data of experience and climbs the ladder of causes until it comes to realize that the only conceivable explanation of things which exist, whose existence is not their nature, is a supreme cause - First Cause or God. In other words, philosophical speculation reaches its climax when it affirms that there is a God. Philosophy perceives God merely as First Efficient Cause of being. According to Karl Rahner, “For metaphysical perception God is seen as

the absolute cause of existent things …. He remains knowable only as the remote cause of that which is” (Hearers of the Word, p.8). This is an indirect knowledge of God. It is the crowning achievement of philosophy and it is proportionate to the natural capacity of human intellect and does not exceed it. The truth of philosophy culminates in the Supreme Cause -that God exists. It is based on insight, that is, on understanding. This is to say that philosophy depends solely on human reason.
Theology, on the other hand, proceeds the other way round, it starts from Divine Revelation. It begins in God as he has chosen to reveal himself in human history and goes on to consider created things as related to God. “By Divine Revelation God wished to manifest and communicate both himself and the eternal decrees of his will concerning the salvation of mankind” (Dei Verbum, ch.1,6). Theology attains God as God, it is oriented to God’s knowledge of himself in contrast to philosophy which perceives God as first cause. The inner life of God utterly surpasses the natural capacity of the human intellect. It can only be known and assented to when human reason has been informed by the gift of faith. This assent is based not on insight but on the authority of him who reveals. Theology presupposes faith and is itself the science of the truth known by faith.

From the above, it is clear that there is a distinction between theology and philosophy or put it differently, there is a distinction between faith and reason. But the distinction does not place them in opposition or that they are unrelated. There is a harmony between them - a harmony which is founded on the unity of truth. The truth of reason does not oppose the truth of faith. But we can say that the truth of reason falls short of the truth of faith. If God is the highest truth, which he is, then it is impossible that what he enables man to know by reason should be contradicted by what he enables him to know by faith. If reason contradicts faith then one would have to be false, and the other true. But this is absurd because they both come from God and that means that God would be the author of falsehood, which is impossible. We all know that man has limitations and so also his reason. That means that his truth about God is a limited truth. Reason can attain truth, even though limited, it does so because reason itself is a faculty of truth, it was made to know truth, and as soon as it knows being, it naturally knows the truth of the first principles. Reason cannot contradict faith because they are harmonized or united in one truth. They attain the same goal though from different angles.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

1.  What kind of causes does philosophy seek? 
2.  Where do philosophy and theology meet? 

4.0 CONCLUSION

You can now see that philosophy is interesting. If all the sciences seek for truth then philosophy, which seeks for the highest truth must be the mother of all the sciences. That is why philosophy is the universal science as distinguished from particular sciences.

5.0 SUMMARY

In this unit, we have established the fact that philosophy is a science with its specific object. We have also distinguished philosophical science from the empirical sciences. Finally we have shown that even though philosophy reaches its climax when discovers the existence of God, which is the proper object of Revealed Theology, yet still, philosophy is different from theology.

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

1.  What are the differences and similarities between philosophy and theology? 
2.  How philosophy different from empirical sciences?