Three levels of interaction between science and philosophy || Mariano Artigas

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The question about the intelligibility of science can be partly translated into the question about the impact of science on philosophy. Indeed, empirical science aims to provide a knowledge which can be submitted to empirical control, and philosophy deals with problems about meaning and intelligibility; therefore, we will obtain a good insight into the intelligibility of science if we determine which is the impact, if any at all, that scientific knowledge has on philosophical matters.

Empirical science consists of three inter-related levels: it is a human enterprise directed towards well defined goals; it employs some characteristic methods in order to achieve these goals; and it produces results that are the objective contents of scientific knowledge. I will consider the impact of science on philosophy in these three levels, that roughly correspond to anthropology (goals), ontology (contents) and epistemology (methods). I will argue that, in each level, science is grounded on some philosophical presuppositions and that, in its turn, has a feedback on them, so that it retro-justifies, refines and enlarges them.

Presuppositions in empirical science can be scientific, if they belong to a discipline and are used as a presupposition of another one, or philosophical, if they are considered as a basis of the entire scientific enterprise. *(1) I will focus on the second kind. Furthermore, it should be noted that a philosophical presupposition is not a part of the concrete scientific knowledge as it is expressed in an explicit way; therefore the study of such presuppositions is a philosophical task. We can consider them as conditions that are necessary for the possibility of the scientific activity as such, although they can be ignored by particular scientists. The judgement about their scientific retro-justification, refinement and enlargement obviously requires philosophical insight.

There are general and particular presuppositions in science. Particular or specific presuppositions are, for instance, those related with the use of instruments, the choice of languages, or the frameworks and models of a theory. I will focus on general presuppositions, which are involved in the entire scientific enterprise and are rooted on ordinary and philosophical knowledge. *(2) And I will concentrate on those presuppositions that serve to show that scientific progress provides a hindsight about knowledge and truth (epistemological level), nature and natural order (ontological level), and human activity (anthropological level).

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