Science rests on philosophical assumptions around concepts of what exists, what counts as evidence, what an explanation is and how inference should work.
Studying philosophy helps physicists most when those assumptions become the bottleneck, for example foundations/interpretation problems and cases where multiple theories fit the same data.
There’s “bad philosophy” in a scientific context when you start with an untouchable premise and reverse-engineer the model to force the science to conform (e.g., insisting cosmology must fit a literal 7-day creation timeline).
“Good philosophy” does the opposite. It makes the assumptions explicit (ontology/epistemology/method/values) so empirical work like predictions, measurements, and error bars can be applied and cull what doesn’t survive.
I think its kind of backwards from what you said. Science does its own thing and philosophers watch to try to figure out what science is. If science rested on philosophy then we would have never gotten anywhere after scientists started following Francis Bacon’s model of science. And likewise philosophers never would have gotten anywhere after Bacon because Bacon’s work would have become indisputably what science is.
Scientists sometimes consult philosophers, for example like you said when they run into problems with foundations of their theory and then they want help
figuring out what they should do to continue to accept their theory or throw it out. But 99% of the time scientists don’t care what the philosophers are saying and the philosophers watch what the scientists are doing in order to decide themselves what counts as evidence, what kind of inferences scientists use, etc etc
I’m not saying science takes instruction from philosophers. I’m saying science rests on philosophical assumptions about what counts as evidence, what an explanation is, and how inference should work, usually implicitly, and what I believe is what philosophy of science studies.
Bacon is a good example. if his methodological ideas (e.g thinking about method, evidence, explanation, and inference) helped, that’s philosophy shaping scientific method. If Bacon didn’t matter historically, science still relied on methodological assumptions…whether they were examined depends on the scientific community’s own debates and practices, not on Bacon’s influence.
Either way, the fact that method debates exist and matter shows that this journey travels philosophical terrain by making assumptions explicit so they can be defended, revised, or rejected based on how well they actually guide a successful inquiry.
I totally agree. I’m not in physics, but it’s quite funny to think about including philosophical discussion in a lot of highly technical papers. Unless of course we are playing the game of defining philosophy in the broadest possible sense so that literally anything qualifies.
I value philosophy in general, but by the time you’re writing some ultra-niche experimental paper, everyone broadly agrees on ontology and methodology, at least implicitly. Discussing super high level stuff is just totally out of scope, particularly in paper where you’re already worried about brevity and conciseness.
I would go as far to say formal discussions of epistemology in any scientific paper are rare, at best. You will see discussions of methodology, which perhaps you could shoehorn into calling epistemology on some level. But those discussions would also generally fit the description of “doing science.”
You certainly won’t see discussions framed in the typical language you would see in epistemology paper. Your average scientist likely hasn’t been formally trained on epistemology at all.
It need not be found there if you’re simply letting your data speak for itself, but otherwise, yes. Most often around definitions or frameworks. I’m reading a paper right now presenting findings on using fMRI to study neuro correlates of empathy and compassion. It is largely a replication of a pre-existing German study, so it’s data heavy, and mostly interpreting new data against a pre-existing data set. But, even so, the paper starts like all papers on empathy by advocating and defending the definition of empathy that the research is working from. A lot of times people will skip doing their own conceptual analysis and just reference some pre-existing definition, but ultimately that definition is a philosophical point, not a scientific one.
I really don't think you have ever read a physics paper. What are you talking about?
"... if you simply let the data speak for itself ..." What?
"...otherwise, yes." (there is a philosophical discussion in experimental papers). No, there is not, and should not be. I am not saying philosophy and physics don't have a place for discussion, but in physics publications, let alone "every research paper" as you state is not the place. If there are infinite universes, there still wouldnt be one where what you are saying is true.
OP let this be a lesson to be skeptical of everything you read on the internet. You should go read some physics papers your self and see their general format and content.
True. But that being said, science would be MUCH better off 99.99999% of the time if the scientific method was strictly adhered to. Bad science occurs MUCH more often than "stuck" science.
Science doesn’t only speak on what is measurable and observable. It’s ultimately distinguished by its primarily line of evidence, which is empirical observations. Otherwise, it attempts to construct true explanations and determine what actually is. It does not exclusively deal with the observable and such misunderstandings are harmful. Instead, the observable is the primary means to attain truth.
The practice of science should not be muddied however. An experiment/hypothesis could be inspired by philosophy, but conclusions and derivations of evidence should be free if any such conjecture.
Depends on your definition of observable. On a strict definition, black holes are not observable, only their gravitational consequences which allows us to infer that there is a black hole.
On a more lenient definition, which you seem to suppose, black holes ARE observable since we can observe their gravitational consequences.
Irrespective of definition, I would say it doesn't make much sense to only speak of direct measurements without inferring beyond them. It's necessary to construct simple theories.
If you agree that you must have a measurement to make an inference, then you agree with my original premise: we cannot know things that cannot be sensed or measured.
To answer your original question:
>does science only talk about, or should it only talk about, what is observable and measurable?
Yes, it should, and it does.
I understand what you are getting at when you say science must "infer beyond" direct measurements to construct theories, and you are correct that science builds theoretical models about underlying mechanics we often can't "see" directly (like gravity or a black hole).
The confusion here is treating "direct observation" and "measurement" as two different things. Direct visual observation is simply a measurement where the instrument happens to be the human eye detecting photons. A telescope detecting gravitational effects is doing the exact same thing.
Science can absolutely talk about theoretical or invisible concepts, but it can only do so because those concepts provide a mathematical model that makes predictions about measurable phenomena. The theories themselves are anchored to measurable data. If a concept has no measurable effects whatsoever - meaning no instrument, biological or mechanical, can detect it - then there is nothing to infer from.
I am not OP. I was merely trying to mediate a perceived miscommunication between you and OP. You used a different concept of observation than OP was using.
On your definition, it makes no sense to ask the question OP was asking, as the answer is indeed clearly yes.
On OP's definition, the question is still meaningful, as it could have been argued that scientific theories should only operate on the level of phenomenology: that what appears to our sensors (human or artificial). I do not believe this myself, hence my third paragraph, but it is not a trivial question.
Science is intertwined with philosophy at every step.
Choosing what science to fund is applied philosophy. Choosing how to study a given phenomenon is applied philosophy. The goodness of the test methodology is applied philosophy. The validity of discussion and conclusions is applied philosophy.
From my experience studying and working in physics in academia a lot of physicists have no idea what philosophy is so they do not realise that they are applying philosophy to many of their decisions every day and in every paper they write.
Yes (and yes).
Neither; it’s necessary.
Since the positions you indicate are not coherent as constructed, no.
And finally, maybe (and maybe). It depends.
It seems when you drill into "How?" far enough, you are going to be confronted with "Why?" eventually.
The majority of scientists are in fields that don't drill very far into "How?" as they are researching solutions to problems in other areas. It's the theoretical sciences that have to side-step the "Why?" question and decide it doesn't matter to them. (Because "Why?" isn't very decidable.)
Science is political, so it is philosophical. What Richard Feynman quoted was true to nature only with the assumptions a great physicist needs to think beyond the concrete and has to have a grasp of philosophy.
Unfortunately for the world, the integration of disciplines such as philosophy and physics, it is not only imbalanced but also in an imaginary competition with each other which is causing so much harm to the present and the future of Nature including humans.
The two disciplines shouldn't change at all. Both adrenaline fine as they are, because they each answer separate questions. I do think that it would be valuable for scientists to learn philosophy but that is a separate issue
Well, science no longer cares for philosophy and physics is most definitely a modern science. I might call it the greatest engineered science. Everything is just engineering these days.
But I'd argue the greatest discoveries came from philisophical insight. Everyone since the 1920s is just engineering the same math and pretending its new. Not too many care why we're doing it.
The only philisophical physicist around these days are also the only physicist making any real attempts at further progress. The physicist that engineer the science... well they do good things too and stuff gets done and the world moves on, I guess.
Reddit_wander01 | 8 hours ago
Science rests on philosophical assumptions around concepts of what exists, what counts as evidence, what an explanation is and how inference should work.
Studying philosophy helps physicists most when those assumptions become the bottleneck, for example foundations/interpretation problems and cases where multiple theories fit the same data.
There’s “bad philosophy” in a scientific context when you start with an untouchable premise and reverse-engineer the model to force the science to conform (e.g., insisting cosmology must fit a literal 7-day creation timeline).
“Good philosophy” does the opposite. It makes the assumptions explicit (ontology/epistemology/method/values) so empirical work like predictions, measurements, and error bars can be applied and cull what doesn’t survive.
-Wofster | 3 hours ago
I think its kind of backwards from what you said. Science does its own thing and philosophers watch to try to figure out what science is. If science rested on philosophy then we would have never gotten anywhere after scientists started following Francis Bacon’s model of science. And likewise philosophers never would have gotten anywhere after Bacon because Bacon’s work would have become indisputably what science is.
Scientists sometimes consult philosophers, for example like you said when they run into problems with foundations of their theory and then they want help figuring out what they should do to continue to accept their theory or throw it out. But 99% of the time scientists don’t care what the philosophers are saying and the philosophers watch what the scientists are doing in order to decide themselves what counts as evidence, what kind of inferences scientists use, etc etc
Reddit_wander01 | 3 hours ago
I’m not saying science takes instruction from philosophers. I’m saying science rests on philosophical assumptions about what counts as evidence, what an explanation is, and how inference should work, usually implicitly, and what I believe is what philosophy of science studies.
Bacon is a good example. if his methodological ideas (e.g thinking about method, evidence, explanation, and inference) helped, that’s philosophy shaping scientific method. If Bacon didn’t matter historically, science still relied on methodological assumptions…whether they were examined depends on the scientific community’s own debates and practices, not on Bacon’s influence.
Either way, the fact that method debates exist and matter shows that this journey travels philosophical terrain by making assumptions explicit so they can be defended, revised, or rejected based on how well they actually guide a successful inquiry.
MoralApothecary | 10 hours ago
Philosophy has a place in the discussion section of every research paper.
lowerfidelity | 9 hours ago
I would expect this comment on this subreddit, but that is just false.
E-2-butene | 8 hours ago
I totally agree. I’m not in physics, but it’s quite funny to think about including philosophical discussion in a lot of highly technical papers. Unless of course we are playing the game of defining philosophy in the broadest possible sense so that literally anything qualifies.
I value philosophy in general, but by the time you’re writing some ultra-niche experimental paper, everyone broadly agrees on ontology and methodology, at least implicitly. Discussing super high level stuff is just totally out of scope, particularly in paper where you’re already worried about brevity and conciseness.
MoralApothecary | 9 hours ago
What a compelling argument.
Combosingelnation | 4 hours ago
As if the comment which they replied to, had a compelling argument. Had lots of upvotes though, at least.
MoralApothecary | 4 hours ago
🏆
[OP] PortoArthur | 10 hours ago
even an experimental paper has a section where philosophy (or epistemology) can be found?
E-2-butene | 6 hours ago
I would go as far to say formal discussions of epistemology in any scientific paper are rare, at best. You will see discussions of methodology, which perhaps you could shoehorn into calling epistemology on some level. But those discussions would also generally fit the description of “doing science.”
You certainly won’t see discussions framed in the typical language you would see in epistemology paper. Your average scientist likely hasn’t been formally trained on epistemology at all.
MoralApothecary | 9 hours ago
It need not be found there if you’re simply letting your data speak for itself, but otherwise, yes. Most often around definitions or frameworks. I’m reading a paper right now presenting findings on using fMRI to study neuro correlates of empathy and compassion. It is largely a replication of a pre-existing German study, so it’s data heavy, and mostly interpreting new data against a pre-existing data set. But, even so, the paper starts like all papers on empathy by advocating and defending the definition of empathy that the research is working from. A lot of times people will skip doing their own conceptual analysis and just reference some pre-existing definition, but ultimately that definition is a philosophical point, not a scientific one.
lowerfidelity | 8 hours ago
I really don't think you have ever read a physics paper. What are you talking about?
"... if you simply let the data speak for itself ..." What?
"...otherwise, yes." (there is a philosophical discussion in experimental papers). No, there is not, and should not be. I am not saying philosophy and physics don't have a place for discussion, but in physics publications, let alone "every research paper" as you state is not the place. If there are infinite universes, there still wouldnt be one where what you are saying is true.
OP let this be a lesson to be skeptical of everything you read on the internet. You should go read some physics papers your self and see their general format and content.
Mono_Clear | 9 hours ago
I think this is missing the point of both the disciplines.
Physics, or science as a whole, is not in opposition to philosophy. They are partners in the pursuit of understanding.
Philosophy developments abstract thinking while physics ground you with logic based on observation.
What you get is the ability to make logical leaps based on intuition that we explore without bias based on knowledge and expectation.
You need both or you run the risk either living in pure fantasy or getting bogged down by your own ridged interpretation of the evidence.
FlyingFlipPhone | 6 hours ago
True. But that being said, science would be MUCH better off 99.99999% of the time if the scientific method was strictly adhered to. Bad science occurs MUCH more often than "stuck" science.
Themoopanator123 | 4 hours ago
It is generally thought by philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science that there is no such thing as "the" scientific method.
-Wofster | 3 hours ago
and even if there was science still benefits from creativity and innovation
Mono_Clear | 6 hours ago
Agreed
PlatformStriking6278 | 9 hours ago
Science doesn’t only speak on what is measurable and observable. It’s ultimately distinguished by its primarily line of evidence, which is empirical observations. Otherwise, it attempts to construct true explanations and determine what actually is. It does not exclusively deal with the observable and such misunderstandings are harmful. Instead, the observable is the primary means to attain truth.
Few_Peak_9966 | 10 hours ago
Philosophy should be practiced by all.
The practice of science should not be muddied however. An experiment/hypothesis could be inspired by philosophy, but conclusions and derivations of evidence should be free if any such conjecture.
Skopa2016 | 9 hours ago
> The question is, does science only talk about, or should it only talk about, what is observable and measurable?
My question is, what does it mean to say that something *exists*, but is *not* observable nor measurable?
How can we know something that cannot be sensed?
Semantic_Internalist | 9 hours ago
Depends on your definition of observable. On a strict definition, black holes are not observable, only their gravitational consequences which allows us to infer that there is a black hole.
On a more lenient definition, which you seem to suppose, black holes ARE observable since we can observe their gravitational consequences.
Irrespective of definition, I would say it doesn't make much sense to only speak of direct measurements without inferring beyond them. It's necessary to construct simple theories.
Skopa2016 | 8 hours ago
> Irrespective of definition, I would say it doesn't make much sense to only speak of direct measurements without inferring beyond them.
But it is neccessary to have a measurement to be able to infer beyond them.
Without measurement, there's nothing to infer from.
Semantic_Internalist | 8 hours ago
Sure. I don't think my statement denies this
Skopa2016 | 7 hours ago
If you agree that you must have a measurement to make an inference, then you agree with my original premise: we cannot know things that cannot be sensed or measured.
To answer your original question:
>does science only talk about, or should it only talk about, what is observable and measurable?
Yes, it should, and it does.
I understand what you are getting at when you say science must "infer beyond" direct measurements to construct theories, and you are correct that science builds theoretical models about underlying mechanics we often can't "see" directly (like gravity or a black hole).
The confusion here is treating "direct observation" and "measurement" as two different things. Direct visual observation is simply a measurement where the instrument happens to be the human eye detecting photons. A telescope detecting gravitational effects is doing the exact same thing.
Science can absolutely talk about theoretical or invisible concepts, but it can only do so because those concepts provide a mathematical model that makes predictions about measurable phenomena. The theories themselves are anchored to measurable data. If a concept has no measurable effects whatsoever - meaning no instrument, biological or mechanical, can detect it - then there is nothing to infer from.
Semantic_Internalist | 7 hours ago
I am not OP. I was merely trying to mediate a perceived miscommunication between you and OP. You used a different concept of observation than OP was using.
On your definition, it makes no sense to ask the question OP was asking, as the answer is indeed clearly yes.
On OP's definition, the question is still meaningful, as it could have been argued that scientific theories should only operate on the level of phenomenology: that what appears to our sensors (human or artificial). I do not believe this myself, hence my third paragraph, but it is not a trivial question.
Skopa2016 | 6 hours ago
I did not realize you were not OP.
Nevertheless, even with OP's definition, the question is absurd, because to talk of something beyond human perception is absurd.
FlashSteel | 9 hours ago
Science is intertwined with philosophy at every step.
Choosing what science to fund is applied philosophy. Choosing how to study a given phenomenon is applied philosophy. The goodness of the test methodology is applied philosophy. The validity of discussion and conclusions is applied philosophy.
From my experience studying and working in physics in academia a lot of physicists have no idea what philosophy is so they do not realise that they are applying philosophy to many of their decisions every day and in every paper they write.
knockingatthegate | 8 hours ago
The answers to your questions are:
Yes (and yes). Neither; it’s necessary. Since the positions you indicate are not coherent as constructed, no. And finally, maybe (and maybe). It depends.
kogun | 5 hours ago
This is "How?" vs "Why?".
It seems when you drill into "How?" far enough, you are going to be confronted with "Why?" eventually.
The majority of scientists are in fields that don't drill very far into "How?" as they are researching solutions to problems in other areas. It's the theoretical sciences that have to side-step the "Why?" question and decide it doesn't matter to them. (Because "Why?" isn't very decidable.)
The_Dead_See | 4 hours ago
This is like asking if the head of a hammer should get closer to or further away from the head of a wrench.
Aurorax0-0 | 4 hours ago
Science is political, so it is philosophical. What Richard Feynman quoted was true to nature only with the assumptions a great physicist needs to think beyond the concrete and has to have a grasp of philosophy. Unfortunately for the world, the integration of disciplines such as philosophy and physics, it is not only imbalanced but also in an imaginary competition with each other which is causing so much harm to the present and the future of Nature including humans.
dallas470 | 3 hours ago
The two disciplines shouldn't change at all. Both adrenaline fine as they are, because they each answer separate questions. I do think that it would be valuable for scientists to learn philosophy but that is a separate issue
ipreuss | 7 hours ago
Science only deals with things that are falsifiable. And it should, because that is the only known reliable way to come to knowledge.
That doesn’t necessarily exclude all gods, only those that are not falsifiable.
[OP] PortoArthur | 7 hours ago
Falsificationism is insufficient for several topics of contemporary physics
ipreuss | 5 hours ago
Insufficient in which way?
TrianglesForLife | 6 hours ago
Well, science no longer cares for philosophy and physics is most definitely a modern science. I might call it the greatest engineered science. Everything is just engineering these days.
But I'd argue the greatest discoveries came from philisophical insight. Everyone since the 1920s is just engineering the same math and pretending its new. Not too many care why we're doing it.
The only philisophical physicist around these days are also the only physicist making any real attempts at further progress. The physicist that engineer the science... well they do good things too and stuff gets done and the world moves on, I guess.