Science and Philosophy
Modern science has achieved so much that many believe it will one day answer every question, and that philosophy and religion are merely leftovers from the time before science. Yet the deeper science goes, the more it runs into questions it cannot answer by itself: What is a law of nature? Why is the world intelligible at all? What is the essence of matter, of life, of consciousness?
This series is written for scientists, researchers and everyone who thinks seriously about science. We explore how science relates to philosophy and religion. All three seek the truth, but each grasps it in its own way: science studies particular laws through observation and experiment, religion grasps the Absolute through imagery and faith, and philosophy grasps the whole and its essence through conceptual thought. They do not exclude one another; they are different moments in the human spirit’s knowledge of the truth.
We will also discuss the limits of science: the presuppositions and boundaries of scientific method, the limits of induction from experience, the relation between mathematics and reality, the gains and losses of reductionism, the philosophical questions raised by quantum mechanics and relativity, and why science needs philosophy to reflect on its own concepts. This does not belittle science; it honours it. Only a science that knows its own limits can go further. It is no accident that Einstein, Bohr and Heisenberg were all serious readers of philosophy.