by Henry Piper (all rights reserved)
The practices of science, philosophy and religion constitute a big part of what makes human beings different from other animals: no other animal that we know of engages in a systematic effort to understand the physical universe, or to ask why we are here, or to contemplate and appeal to an ultimate Being. These three broad areas of human activity are clearly very different, but they share some concerns and methods; in fact, the lines between them are frequently blurred, thus it is indispensable to have a good idea of what each one is and how to distinguish them from one another. It is also important to note that there is no intrinsic conflict among them, indeed they should properly be mutually supportive. If science and religion, in particular, seem often to be at odds, and if the relevance of philosophy is today largely overlooked or dismissed, this is due to a misunderstanding of what the meanings and values of each of these activities really are.
So in what follows, we shall consider and try to define each in turn.
What is “Science”?
By the term “science,” which derives from the Latin word for “knowledge,” we today standardly refer to the study of the material world using our physical senses; indeed, we often use the term “the physical sciences.” Sometimes we might use the term “natural world” as well as “physical” or “material,” but this might be misleading, since nature may well include elements that are not material, but spiritual. This term “spiritual” does not necessarily refer to anything religious, but means, simply, non-material; thus it may be, for example, that certain human emotions, such as love, or human behaviors, such as free will, have a non-material basis or follow rules different from those of ordinary physical matter, though they also frequently manifest and express themselves in concrete, physical actions.
The material entities that make up the subject matter of science include, in principle, everything that is material, everything in the physical world; in particular, various branches of the sciences focus on the miniscule particles of particle physics and quantum mechanics, the motions of electrons which constitute electricity, the motions and formation of stars, galaxies, planets and black holes which concern astronomy, the elements and molecules of chemistry and the living bodies of biology, including of course human beings and their brains.
It may well be that all that exists in the universe is material: this is the claim of a philosophical point of view called materialism, and is also at least implicitly the view of atheism, which denies the existence of God and presumably of anything supernatural or spiritual. It should be noted that a scientist, though she limits her study, as a scientist, to the material world, does not have to be a materialist or an atheist: an individual scientist might study the material world and the laws that govern it and also believe in God or in the existence of spiritual reality as well. But science itself covers only the material world, and does so according to methods involving physical experiments and observation with the physical senses; therefore, science does not and cannot either deny or affirm the possible existence of a spiritual reality or God, because such things, if they exist, being non-material, could not be observed with the physical senses and would be impossible to observe by the scientific method of physical observation and experiment. So science must simply leave them alone (though again, individual scientists may believe in or not believe in such things).
Two Key Points about Science: Universality and Fallibility
Because the physical sciences are based on the physical observation of the material world, and because this material world is one we all share, the knowledge gained by science is universal, meaning that it is in principle equally accessible to and the same for all people. Science is based on experiments which can be repeated, and the results of which observed, by everyone, everywhere, anytime. So if there is a question about whether the law of gravity is true, for example, I can drop a series of objects to observe that they fall to earth, thus verifying, with my own eyes, that there is clearly some "force" that draws things to the earth, which we call "gravity," even though we do cannot see gravity itself; and this is true, in principle, of any scientific law.
The most advanced accomplishments of scientific knowledge are referred to as “theories,” such as the theory of quantum mechanics in particle physics, the theories of general and special relativity in the physics of astronomical bodies, and the theory of evolution in biology. In the case of evolution, the subject matter is the development over time of the earth’s innumerable varieties of life forms, many of which are extinct or have not even been discovered yet, over millions of years. The term “theory” is used because the subject is highly complex and involves a wide range of different but similar kinds of things, namely living things; the theory constitutes a set of principles which seek to explain, on the basis of repeated observations of many different things, by many people, over many years, the way life forms develop and behave over time. This particular theory, like the others mentioned above, is universally accepted by the scientific community because all such observations tend to confirm the reliability of the theory: in other words, while there may be no reasonable, scientific doubt about the general outlines and principles of the theory of evolution, we must continue to refer to it as a “theory” because its complexity means that there are still many gaps of knowledge that biologists continue to work out and because there are many life forms we haven’t even been able to observe yet, but which, experience indicates, will tend to follow the same evolutionary principles as other life forms that we have observed. And the same can be said for the theories of quantum mechanics and relativity: these theories are continually verified by physical observations, and thus universally accepted by scientists, though they are so complex, and involve so much that we have not yet been able to observe, that there is continual room for refinement even as the basic principles of the theories remain the same. We might add here, at the risk of complicating things still further, that physicists have long faced the problem that their two most basic theories--general relativity that deals with the universe on the large scale of stars and galaxies, and quantum mechanics that deals with the universe on the scale of its tiniest, subatomic pieces--seem to contradict each other, i.e. they cannot both be true even though all observation to date affirms that they are!
So, again, scientific laws and theories are universal, that is, accessible to and verifiable by all human beings who care to do the experiments or look at the results. However, it is also the case that all the knowledge of science is fallible: this means that the knowledge of physical science is never and can never be absolute or perfectly certain, though it can be very, very reliable. We have already implicitly acknowledged such fallibility in the case of scientific theories, since we noted that they are subject to continual refinement and they can never account for everything because we cannot possibly observe everything. Amidst the dazzle of modern technology and its seemingly “miraculous” progress, it is easy to overlook the limits of scientific certainty, but it is vital not to. Science proceeds by observation of physical events, that is, it is limited to observation of the material world, and we can never be absolutely certain that the way things happen here and now, under present conditions and circumstances, are or have been or will be the same everywhere and always under all conditions and circumstances; moreover, there can never be perfect reliability in our method of physical observation, since even when we directly see something with our own eyes, we must acknowledge that our vision is limited in what it actually sees and is by no means perfectly reliable, and, indeed, the very process of observation tends to affect, and render the more uncertain, the things we observe. Thus, for example, Newton’s Laws of Motion have been observed to govern, with an extremely high degree of reliability, the movements of material bodies in space; however, we have learned, since Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, that Newton’s Laws are not absolutely correct, which can now be observed, with very highly advanced instruments, when bodies are extremely massive or are moving at extremely high velocities. And as a more simple and immediate example, consider the uncertainty, or fallibility, of so simple a scientific prediction as that the sun will rise tomorrow. Based on a long experience of observations over time, which has resulted in a high degree of reliability in our knowledge of astronomy, we can indeed predict, with near certainty, that the sun will rise tomorrow; but this scientific prediction, however reliable, is, like any scientific knowledge, not absolutely certain. [For more on this example, see the first chapter on Plato, entitled “How Do We Know that 2+3=5?”; for a more technical and detailed consideration of the issue, see the chapters on Hume and Kant.]
However, it is important to note that the limitations of science do not make the accepted theories and laws of science any the less “true.” Thus, for example, the fact that scientific theories and even laws are “fallible” does not mean that they are no better than any other theories or laws; on the contrary, science is rigorous in its insistence on repeatable, physical evidence, i.e. "facts," thus we can say that the theory of evolution, like the law of gravity, is “scientifically true” in a way that, for example, religious claims about the origin of life are not. This is so because the facts that support a scientific theory are based on physical evidence that is universally accessible to all of us with eyes to see, whereas the faith-based claims of religion are accepted only by adherents to that religion and are denied by those with different religious faiths or no faith at all. This does not make the religious claims any the less valuable in their own way, as mythical means of understanding the inexplicable or as moral guidelines to human action, for example, but it is crucial to be aware that the religious value of such faith-based claims is not scientific, nor can it ever reasonably be claimed to be (for more on this, see my Epilogue on evolution and religion).
What is “Philosophy”?
Philosophy literally means “love of wisdom.” For centuries, starting perhaps sometime prior to the first millennium B.C., the term refers to all study of the universe, including what we now refer to as “science.” And for centuries, it seems, philosophers were concerned primarily with observing the material universe and trying to understand the reasons that make it the way it is and that govern the way it moves. Starting decisively with Plato, however, in the 4th Century B.C., philosophy began to concern itself with ideas that were themselves not material objects. Another revolutionary development came with the first systematic organization of rational thought as set forth in the logic of Aristotle. These were revolutionary developments because they turned philosophy toward a theretofore overlooked dimension of reality, namely human thought and reason and ideas, as an independent natural reality and subject of study.
Today science, which is limited to the study of the material world, is studied separately from philosophy. Philosophy, as practiced today, by no means ignores the material world: most if not all of philosophy presumably begins in some way with curiosity about the material world, as implied, perhaps, by Plato’s statement that “philosophy begins with wonder.” Philosophy, however, unlike science, does not end with the observation of the material causes of events in the material world; rather, philosophy, while taking account of those, goes beyond the causal chains of physical events to explore the deeper meaning behind them. When science asks why a particular event occurs, it is looking for a material cause to explain the event, a prior event that directly motivated, that is, physically moved, the event in question; by contrast, when philosophy poses the question why?, it is typically asking a deeper and broader question that seeks to understand, among other things, the origin of the laws themselves. Such questions of origin essentially belong to the branch of philosophy called metaphysics (not to be confused with physics, which is limited to the physical world): this study begins with the material, or physical, world, as the name implies, but it goes beyond merely observing the purely material happenings and causes to try to understand the underlying reality that initially motivated them and continues to perpetuate them. A traditional statement of what metaphysics is about is the question, “Why is there something and not rather nothing?” Or we might define metaphysics as the study that asks, “What is, and why is what is the way it is?”
So, whereas science is concerned with the material and the ordinary, it is left to philosophy to speculate, or theorize, in rational and universally understandable terms, about what exceeds the bounds of everyday observation, which might be referred to as the “extraordinary,” that is, beyond or outside of the ordinary. In many cases, philosophical speculation might serve as a precursor to later scientific observation and experimentation; indeed, the process of formulating scientific theories, prior to their experimental testing and verification, is akin to philosophical speculation, though of course scientific theorizing is designed to lead to physical observations and material explanations, whereas philosophical speculation is an effort to make rational and persuasive sense of things that might never be the basis of physical observation. But much of advanced scientific theory today, particularly in physics, would seem to be indefinitely limited to speculation since much of its subject matter is at least impossible at present to verify, and some of it may be categorically and in principle impossible to verify; for example, since all physical observation takes place in space and time, it would seem that it must be left to philosophy to speculate about the cause of the origin of the universe in the "Big Bang," since it seems that there was no space or time before that occurred and thus literally nothing to observe!
Another branch of philosophy is epistemology, the study of knowledge, of what we can know and how we can know it. Without epistemology, no other study of anything could reliably occur, because no matter what we are studying, we need to be able to agree on what “knowledge” really means. Just because you say you “know” something because you can “feel it in your bones,” perhaps, does that mean it constitutes reliable “knowledge”? No, surely we need some greater evidence than a mere “hunch” by one person at one particular time. So all branches of human knowledge are built upon some accepted epistemology. The physical sciences of biology, chemistry and physics employ “the scientific method” of hypothesis and repeatable experimental verification; the study of history depends upon methods of distinguishing the relative reliability of different kinds and sources of information; all fields of knowledge depend upon the rules of logical and mathematical reasoning. In short, to say that an area of study is founded upon some sort of epistemology is simply to say that the practitioners of that study have over time discovered and agreed upon certain methods and rules that assure a substantial degree of reliability when it comes to what they all agree to call “knowledge.”
Still another branch of philosophy is ethics, which is concerned not directly with how the world is, or how we know it, but with how the world, as determined or affected by human action, ought to be. Here, as in metaphysics, science has an important role to play, since we need a firm grasp of the material conditions of our existence, how they got that way and how they might be materially transformed; but it is left to philosophy to speculate about and discuss what changes we ought to make, for philosophical ethics is substantially alone in identifying and considering the values that might and should motivate what human beings do with the things that are, and what goals we ought best to pursue (for more on ethics, see the chapters on ethical relativism and on the ethical theories of Mill and Kant, as well as the chapters on human freedom).
In sum, philosophy, no less than science, constitutes a means of understanding and developing knowledge about the world, but whereas science is limited to what we can physically observe, philosophy also considers what we cannot see: science considers what is or may be actually before our senses, whereas philosophy goes beyond the actual to consider what is possible. Both science and philosophy must take care to be rigorous in their adherence to truth; thus science must adhere to material verifiability, and philosophy must adhere to rationality. In short, both science and philosophy, in their unique ways, individually and collectively contribute to our understanding of and knowledge about the world we all share, using the physical senses and the faculty of reason common to us all.
Two Key Points about Philosophy: Universality and Speculation
Like science, philosophy is, in principle, universally accessible to and available for all to understand. The basis of the universality of science, as we saw, was the fact that we all share the same material world and the same faculties of physical sensation. The basis for the universality of philosophy, however, is the fact that we all share the same faculties of mental reason and logic. It is notable in philosophy that different philosophers assert radically different and opposed metaphysical views, that is, views of reality―of what is real, of the underlying forces that move our mental world of ideas and physical world of things; however, in principle, all these views are equally accessible to all of us as long as they are rational and logical―as long, that is, as they make sense. The wide disagreement in philosophy is due to the fact that philosophy relies on the method of speculation rather than, as in science, physical observation. As a matter of fact, there is a great deal of disagreement in the most advanced and technical areas of science as well, where there are competing theories and where the physical observations and experiments have not yet been able to verify or disprove them; but in science, once a reasonably comprehensive series of observations have been made, there promises to be universal agreement (within the limits of scientific fallibility) about what is true (e.g. that there must be such a thing as "gravity"). But because it is the nature of philosophy to speculate about matters that go beyond or behind the material world, and matters that categorically defy universal agreement, such consensus is much more difficult to achieve and may be impossible, leaving the "big questions" of philosophy ever-open.
Thus, for example, it seems likely that we shall never conclusively be able to prove or disprove the existence of God, yet this is a vital issue in our understanding of reality, and a question that cannot help but fascinate and engage us; and we shall surely never be able conclusively to identify the meaning of human existence, but what could be more important to us than that? What we can do, when we subject such matters to philosophical speculation, is to do our best to make sense of them in a way that all other people can understand, limiting our speculation to the reality that all human beings share. In other words, if philosophy is to be valuable, it must limit itself to terms and conditions that are shared universally by all human beings. Specifically, unlike theology, which is the study or exposition of a religious point of view, philosophy does not base itself on any claim to divinely revealed truth but limits itself to what is equally accessible to all; that is, philosophy, unlike religion, does not depend on faith or any sort of subjective cultural belief system. Like science, philosophy makes no assumptions, and in order to do philosophy honestly, one must start with a “blank slate,” so to speak, leaving all prior convictions, religious or otherwise, out of account, sticking only, that is, to what all human beings universally share.
Apart from leaving our religion, or non-religion, at the door, so to speak, in doing philosophy we must be open-minded in our consideration of the possible existence, and significance, of things that are unfamiliar to us, or things we cannot see at all; after all, the five senses with which nature has endowed us enable a great range of physical perceptions, but clearly for every thing we can see there are clearly innumerable things that we cannot. Thus, even in science, if we limit ourselves to what we can directly observe, we can be sure that we will be closing ourselves off to most of what is! Having said that, we must maintain a healthy skepticism to prevent our accepting things for which we lack good reasons, a vital test of which is our ability to explain them persuasively to, and discuss them rationally with, other people. In this regard we would do well to recall that Socrates, one of the earliest ancestors of western philosophy, eschewed all writing to insist that philosophy be conducted always in open conversation and dialogue to assure the vitality and reliability of its convictions; therefore, we must always endeavor to be scrupulously careful in our reasoning so that we can be answerable for our assertions. To assure the value and reasonableness of our own understanding of things, we must be able to explain our points of view clearly and persuasively to others.
So, in a nutshell, both philosophy and science, unlike religion, are based on universally accessible “systems”: for science it is the system of physical sensation, for philosophy the system of rational thought. Religion, by contrast, which we consider next, is founded upon a system of belief accepted only by its own adherents, and based not on physical observation or human reason, but on faith.
Distinguishing Theology and Philosophy
We noted above that the word “philosophy” literally means “love of wisdom”; by contrast, the word “theology” means “study of God,” and in general refers to the study of a particular religion or religion in general.
Philosophy and theology share a great deal in terms of method, but their respective points of departure are radically different. We have already seen that philosophy starts with a “blank slate,” takes nothing for granted and is based on evidence and reasoning that all people universally can make sense of based solely on our shared faculties of observation and rational thought; by contrast, though theology employs all the observational and rational tools of science and philosophy, it begins with or is founded upon some assumed truth or truths. In other words, the ultimate basis of religion is neither physical observation nor rational speculation but faith, which derives from a conviction that a God has revealed certain truths on which believers base their understanding of the world and from which they take guidance in their lives. Thus the Western monotheistic religions trace their origins to documents which purport to record the revelations from the God in which those religions’ adherents believe―Torah, Bible, Koran; but each religion disagrees with the others on who God is or what God said, and there is no reasonable way to decide who may be right, if any, because their convictions are based not on reason but on faith. And there may be no God at all.
Thus Christian theology, for example, begins with the purported revelation by God of the Old Testament and the further revelation as set forth in the New Testament of the appearance on earth of God as a human being in the person of Jesus Christ. Armed with these faith-based convictions, Christian theology goes to work understanding what they might mean, using the tools of logic and philosophical argumentation that philosophers have developed; in addition, theologians are interested in observing the physical world to see how the accepted truths might be revealing themselves there and what practical importance they might have--for example, a physical event that seems scientifically impossible might be considered a "miracle" that only God or a Saint could be responsible for.
So to repeat, the difference between philosophy and theology has to do with their respective starting points: theology begins with certain revealed truths accepted on the basis of faith, whereas philosophy effectively begins with nothing. So when we do philosophy, and look for genuine philosophical knowledge, we must always limit ourselves to the acceptance of what anyone, regardless of religious conviction or lack thereof, can, in principle, accept. It must be based on our observation of physical events that all can see, by virtue of our common powers of physical sensation, in combination with rational thinking, the reasonableness of which all can understand and analyze by virtue of our shared power of reason. So philosophical claims to truth are accessible to the reasoning of all; in philosophy, we all start with the same assumptions, that is none at all, but we are able nonetheless to discuss philosophical ideas among ourselves, despite religious or other differences, because the tools we use in philosophy, of reason and observation, unlike religious belief, are universal. By contrast, theological claims to “truth,” the origin of which is purported to be divine, ultimately depend upon the assumptions that only believers accept. Philosophy simply tries to make sense of what all of us can see and what all of us can think, whereas theology expounds upon doctrines that only believers accept.
It is important to note, however, that the theologies of the various religions can be both intellectually informative and spiritually uplifting for non-believers as well as believers. For the non-believer, however, the lessons remain philosophical, that is, they are only true to the extent that they are philosophically sound, that is, consistent with general observation and logic. Thus, for example, for philosophical reasons one might accept certain of the ethical pronouncements of the Ten Commandments, such as that one should not lie; however, the philosophical justification for this would simply be that it makes sense or offers practical benefits (see the chapters on ethics for more on this), whereas the religious believer relies for primary justification on the belief that it is a command from God. Theology is also of universal intellectual interest, historical and cultural, in helping non-believers to understand how other people feel about things and the origins of their cultural practices, whereas for the believer, in addition to any cultural or historical information theology might provide, theological insights assume a deeper meaning, since they are supported by the believer’s faith, which attributes the origin of such insights ultimately to the absolute truth of God.
What’s the Point of Philosophy?
All of us can think, can’t we? Philosophy teaches us and trains us to think effectively. Even if we are not ultimately concerned with the specific content of philosophy, its problems and arguments, we will still benefit immeasurably from studying philosophy since we are bound to improve our reasoning and communications skills, and in general our ability to think, clearly and coherently and in a way communicable to others. Sure, you could probably get by most of the time without thinking, since plenty of people are willing to do your thinking for you, for a price; but why would you, given that nature has given you this power? Since you can be thoughtful, would you really rather be thoughtless?
We often say, perhaps facetiously, that philosophy is about “deep thoughts,” which it is; but you might assert that you don’t want to think deeply, that you don’t like it, that you aren’t “cut out for it,” perhaps. But, again, we all, as human beings, are equipped with the extraordinary, and indeed mysterious and wonderful, powers of reason, consciousness and thought. If you say you don’t want to think deep thoughts, do you mean that you want to spend your life sticking to shallow or superficial thoughts? Or perhaps the question of "the meaning of life" seems like a joke; but does anyone want to live a life that is meaningless?--and if you can't give any account of what the meaning of life might be, then how can you expect your own life to have any meaning, or purpose, or value?
So the study of philosophy today, as it has always done in the past, offers a peerless foundation in rational thinking and expression for any other endeavor, scientific, professional or otherwise, we might engage in. But philosophy has its own subject matter as well, its own questions, questions that go to the very basis of why we are here, where we are going, what it all means, what’s the point, what I should do, who I am, what I am. One might exclaim, “who cares?--really? Look at those questions again: can anyone sincerely assert that they don’t matter? I suggest that they do matter if for no other reason than the fact that we can, and do, pose them; if it means anything to be a human being, rather than just another animal, then one sure indication of it may be that we can and do entertain these questions while other animals cannot. Nature has given us the power to think, generally, and to think these “deep thoughts,” in particular; it is not at all clear how that is, or why, but it does seem clear that it would be a tragedy if we fail to make the most of it.
Finally, the near universal desire of human beings to leave a world for their children better than the one they inherited indicates strongly that people do think there’s a point to it all, that it does matter. And philosophy is the name of what we do when we are ready to think about that.
Distinguishing Empirical Knowledge from A Priori Knowledge
Empirical knowledge is the knowledge of science, as it is based on what we observe in the material world through the physical senses; it is knowledge that derives from our experience of the material world. Empirical knowledge is commonplace, such as what I personally witness; but inferences that I make from what I or others have seen is also empirical knowledge. Thus I call it an empirical fact that the sun rose today because I see it now and can infer that it “must have” risen. Moreover, from my memory of the reliable pattern of sunrises in the past witnessed by myself and others I can predict that the sun will rise tomorrow, even though I cannot use my physical senses to verify that since it hasn’t happened yet. Indeed, it may of course not happen, though, based on my additional astronomical knowledge about the solar system, the rotation of the earth and the Newtonian principle that what is in motion tends to remain in motion, I can conclude that tomorrow’s sunrise is a very likely event, if not absolutely certain.
By contrast, knowledge that is entirely independent of the experience of the physical world is known as a priori knowledge. Such presumably is mathematical knowledge, such as “2+3=5.” This truth is clear on the basis of pure thought, thus for example you don’t need to have 5 apples in front of you to know that when you put 2 apples with 3 you’ll have 5 (for an extensive discussion of this issue and its implications, see my chapter, “How Do We Know that 2+3=5?: Plato’s Theories of Recollection and Reality”).
Philosophers and scientists have throughout history struggled with the distinction between these two types of knowledge and the relation between them, and continue to argue about it. The mere existence of a priori knowledge, if conceded, might imply the existence of some sort of non-physical, thus “spiritual” (again, meaning simply “non-material”) reality; then again, some might claim that a priori knowledge is simply a human invention, though even then it appears indisputable that its character is radically different from the purely empirical knowledge of sense experience, which could always be other than it is and is subject to constant change.
More on Empirical and A Priori Truth
Having distinguished the empirical from the a priori, a little more vocabulary is in order.
The truths of mathematics are presumably a priori truths, as we noted above in the case of 2+3=5. In addition, certain kinds of logical rules, those of deductive logic, clearly have no dependence on the physical, sensible (done with the physical senses) observation of material reality; the rules of deductive logic are basically mathematical in character. Thus the conclusions of deductive logic, like those of math, are absolutely certain. They could not be otherwise, so such conclusions are not merely probable or contingent, as is for example the rising of tomorrow’s sun, which is contingent upon the continued occurrence of the earth’s rotation; rather, such truths are necessary.
Here’s an example of deductive logic: if you are given certain premises, that is, propositions known to be true, such as, 1) “If A is true, then B is true,” and 2) “A is true,” you can conclude with absolute, necessary, “deductive” certainty, by putting those two premises together, that “B is true.” It doesn’t matter what A and B are: the very form of the premises leads us to be able to draw the conclusion without any doubt at all, just as when we know the “form” of 2+3=5, we know that this will be true of 2 and 3 of anything. Deductive logic is akin to mathematical formulas like the following: “if A is greater than B, and B is greater than C, then necessarily A is greater than C.” So logical deductions, like mathematical truths, are not true simply because of the occurrence of some event in the physical world; rather, they are true in themselves. In other words, they are true a priori, that is, their truth is prior to and independent of the physical world; they are true no matter what happens in the physical world, and nothing can happen to make them not true, because they are themselves not “happenings”―they just are.
Another branch of logic is called inductive logic, which is a sort of logic that applies only to empirical knowledge, that is, knowledge we gain through our sensible experience of the material world; so inductive logic is the primary tool of science. Unlike the rules of deductive logic, the rules that govern the matters of inductive logic do not claim absolute, mathematical certainty and necessity. We use induction when we are making claims about events in the material world that do depend on the occurrence or happening of physical events, and inductive conclusions thus do no more than claim some degree of probability. Thus I can easily construct an inductive argument to argue that the sun will rise tomorrow, and it would be a strong argument, presumably, because the likelihood of my conclusion is presumably very great; but I could not reasonably assert that my conclusion would be necessary or absolutely certain, because the occurrence of the sunrise is, to repeat, not necessary but contingent upon, that is, it depends upon, the occurrence of certain events that could conceivably not happen.
What Do We Mean by “Facts” and “Opinions”?
In brief, an “opinion” is a claim by anyone that some proposition is true, based presumably on that person’s own observation and analysis. A “fact” is something universally accepted as true, based on general observation in the present time or by reliable sources in the past.
It is commonly accepted, and justly so, that we all have a right to our own opinions; this is the guarantee of “free speech” as set forth in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. As a result, we all agree in principle to be tolerant of the views of others. But in a world in which people are “free” to express their opinions wildly and in countless media forums, some of which command millions of listeners or readers, we might be tempted to conclude that the proposition, “everyone has a right to her own opinion” is equivalent to “all opinions are equally valid.” Is the latter statement true: does your right to form, hold and express an opinion make it equally as valid as any other opinion?
Clearly it does not. For example, it is my legal right to believe that 2+3=6, and I am legally entitled to post or publish that opinion more or less without limit; but is my opinion as good or true as your opinion that 2+3=5? No, clearly in this admittedly simple case my opinion is wrong and yours is right. Thus opinions are only as good, or valid, as the reasoning upon which they are based, along with the accuracy of the physical facts they concern and the reasonable interpretation of those facts. In the case of the math problem, as in the case of all deductive arguments, we are dealing with pure, a priori reason without the need for any factual support, so presumably we could clear up any dispute we might have about such a thing with a little careful thinking: if I look at the problem again, using the power of reason nature has given me, I’ll surely see that I was wrong and you were right about 2 and 3. Disputes that most often concern us, however, in the practical concerns of daily life, such as decisions of ethics, politics and economics etc., almost invariably involve physical facts and events in the material world; so though math and deductive reasoning will be indispensable tools in considering them, ultimately we shall be dealing with inductive arguments concerning which there is always room for at least some degree of reasonable dispute—the less certain and more various the facts, and the greater the extent to which our argument attempts to predict future events, the less strong the argument is likely to be and the greater the room for reasonable disagreement. Moreover, in such matters it is a grave challenge to get the facts straight and to get all the facts relevant to the matter at hand, as well as to construct rational arguments so that we don’t make fundamental mistakes in reasoning known as “fallacies.”
Conclusion: Science, Religion and Philosophy Are All Valuable, but They Are Also Distinct
Science concerns the material world, which may or may not be the only world, and it proceeds using observation of that world by means of physical sensation; the laws of science are the same for all of us, and though much has been settled to universal satisfaction over the ages, other matters, where we lack sufficient evidence or rational theories, remain open to continued debate, investigation, experimentation and discovery.
According to religion, there is another world, another dimension of reality of which science takes no account, distinct in some way from the physical, namely the “spiritual” world; the “laws” of that world depend on the divine revelation, and its theological interpretation, peculiar to each individual religion, so these “laws” are only accepted by the adherents of the particular religion in question. Such religious principles, as expounded upon and developed by theology, can prove highly persuasive and beneficial even to people who do not accept the religion as such, but the basis of such persuasion and benefit would of course not be faith but rather reason and practical experience.
All of us, religious or not, share the same physical world and the same powers of physical sensation and logical reasoning with which to observe and interpret it; these common faculties of sensation and reason are what we employ when we engage in science and philosophy. Philosophy is like science in that it accepts no “truth” that cannot in principle be verified by everyone, universally, but unlike science, philosophy does consider, especially in that branch of philosophy called “metaphysics,” the supernatural and extraordinary, to the extent, that is, that it can be reasonably discussed and analyzed by purely rational means excluding any reliance on faith. So, just as we all can observe the factual evidence on which scientific laws and theories are based, se we can all reason about and understand the sense of philosophical claims, along with conflicting claims; as noted above regarding "opinions," there is a great deal of room for disagreement about philosophical questions, but we can analyze and judge philosophical claims on the basis of whether they make sense or not--whether they are rationally likely or possible as well as whether they comport with empirical observation. In addition, as we have seen, we require philosophical reasoning to discuss ethics: whereas science is limited to explaining how things are, ethics concerns how things ought to be--that is, given that we human beings are free and thus participate in shaping our own futures, we require ethical reasoning to determine what our values are--what is good or just--and then to reason about how we can best attain the good and avoid the bad. Philosophy also permits us to explore and discuss things that science may be unable to reach--things the senses cannot observe--such as human consciousness and freedom. As in all human activities, notably in ethics, faith may well offer guidance and ideas to a philosopher, and equally to a scientist; but science and philosophy, in their respective ways, and unlike religion, are fields open alike to all, in the sense that no prior adherence to any faith is required.
