HOW IS PHILOSOPHY DIFFERENT FROM SCIENCE? - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

There are clear differences between philosophy and science. Philosophy uses speculative rather than observational means to achieve a general understanding of values ​​and reality. Science refers to the knowledge obtained and tested through the scientific method.

These two branches of knowledge maintain a relationship of interdependence. From scientific knowledge, philosophy can make broader generalizations. For its part, science gets a better perspective on the methodological limitations of its universal principles.

Some of the most influential philosophers in history.

Philosophical thought was the germ of many of the general ideas on which modern science is based. Today science has a greater value for society in general.

Differences between philosophy and science regarding their origins

The word philosophy comes from the Greek terms philo and sophia which mean love and wisdom, respectively. This love of wisdom was born in Ancient Greece with the thinker Thales of Miletus and spread in the Western world with the work of other great philosophers.

With philosophy, inquiries about the functioning of the cosmos and the human being began to have less theological and more logical explanations. This new reasoning opened the doors to critical points of view, to observation and experimentation.

The word science comes from the Latin scientia which means knowledge. Science has its origins in philosophy, but it departs from it towards the seventeenth century with the so-called Scientific Revolution.

At this time there were a series of changes in beliefs and thinking that gave rise to modern science.

Differences in their purposes

Science seeks to understand the nature of phenomena and the reason for their behavior. Your intention is to control reality and manipulate it.

On the other hand, philosophy seeks to understand what is reality, what is knowledge, what is morally correct and what is good reasoning.

Differences in their methods

Science uses the scientific method. This method is based on observation and experimental hypothesis testing for the acquisition of knowledge. Obtaining and analyzing empirical evidence supports the reasoning process.

On the other hand, philosophy uses speculation and analysis:

• Speculation refers to the use of imagination and logic to offer new possibilities, especially about those things that have not yet been understood by science.
• Analysis involves inspection and definition of concepts for a clearer understanding.

Science makes an object of reality. The investigator is required to remain outside the investigated object. On the contrary, philosophy must be subjective, in the sense that the philosopher must consider himself part of the reality he is investigating.

Differences in their approaches

Science has an atomistic, or analytical, approach in its approach to the object of study. That is, it divides it into parts to analyze it.

Instead, the approach of philosophy is integrationist insofar as it studies the phenomenon as a whole.

References

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