Commentary on the use of philosophy in physics

July 14, 1:51 PMFort Worth Philosophy ExaminerBenjamin Mullikin

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Often when discussing philosophy with others in an academic setting the question arises about the distinction between philosophy and physics. The argument most often presented is that anything which lies in the field of physics is knowable outside of philosophy, while that which is outside of physics cannot be really known or proved. It does not take a strong mind to see where this line of reasoning fails, but to show, in some way, the usefulness of something known outside of physics can prove difficult. Of course the avid philosopher, knowing the method in which physics operates points out immediately the necessity of logic in physics, for certainly it would be impossible to do any science without any sort of philosophy. But what those who criticise philosophy mean when they say this is more practical; what they mean to say is that what we need are more physicists who can use philosophy to know the physical realm, and less philosophers who do not rely on physics to know the nature of things. The realm of being, they are claiming, is fundamentally materialist, and any attempt to know or explain the world outside of physical experimentation is not only futile, it is meaningless.

Before we move any further in the discussion I would like to point out the esoteric and philosophic nature of most advanced physical theory, where we claim to know, through logic and reasoning, things that we cannot actual test. This is concretely philosophic with no reference to physics except as an assumption. Beyond this, however, even our simple management of Newtonian physics supposes a deep philosophic heritage -- that is, they assume the knowledge of the thing which they describe when they attempt to know its characteristics. When we reduce a falling ball to a mass, velocity and acceleration we are still assuming the existence of the ball and that somehow the characteristics that we observe belong to the ball and not something else. This is important to consider because while what may be important to most physicists is what can be measured, the most important and more fundamental thing that must be distinguished is the seperation of one thing from another. Only in this way can they be measured and compared to each other. As Ayn Rand suggests in her novel Atlas Shrugged, we study philosophy so that we may know how to think, and we study physics so we may know what to think§.

In an interesting twist I would like to argue as a solution to the original problem that the methods in which we intuit physical reality -- those very sensations we interpret so that we may know physics at all, is primarily a philosophic operation even if it is often overlooked. As I argued earlier, the operation of physics rests on the assumption of substance defined philosophically, but it is much deeper. The way that physics operates is upon a defined level of metaphysical principles. We may measure this thing and compare it to that thing because we have assumed that both things exist and that both things are knowable. The defining of a thing through only its characteristics becomes a lowbrow way of distinguishing substances per divisiones et absentiam non per quod rerum†. The usefulness of physics is then dependent upon a firm and solid philosophic foundation which adequately defines the nature of existence and how we come to know it. When most scientists claim that they do not need philosophy to do physics what they are claiming is that they do not need to explain what it is they are describing because through their describing they have already assumed such an explanation. As a crude comparison we could say that we do not need to explain the existence of words when we speak english, but we must assume that words do indeed exist and that they are knowable; to say that when we study physics we do not need philosophy is to say that when we speak english we do not need words.  It is just plain untrue. Instead, let us acknowledge the duality of science and philosophy in abtaining something true about the world around us, and let us not attempt to reduce the one to other. Both science and philosophy are aimed at the same thing: verifiable knowledge.

§ as far as I remember because I am unnable to locate the passage.

† through divisions and absence not through what things are.