Philosophy versus science

 

looking to the present situation of science and technology, why philosophy is still important, when science is playing a perfect role in making lives better and dealing with natural laws, providing systems, and also investigating matter and body for the betterment of society, science is day by day advancing and discovering matching the pattern of human life and on other hand, philosophy that created confusion in human minds since hundreds of years and leading to rivalries in groups, cannot be found one and perfect, like of science, whose theory of gravity is similar at all places.

Then why not philosophy can be, like science, with the nature of homogeneous, perfect and similar, after all, Just and Reason have to be alike at every time, like science, that prevailed similar and constantly same in different societies at different times. Science came as a rescuer for human beings and therefore the dependence of man on science is the remarkable example. Factually, present science is the outcome of philosophy and in west those who marched towards reasoning and logic reached the abstract principles of nature which was obstructed by religion.

And only philosophy helped to generate scientific attitude in present generation. But contrary to the advancement of science, even today the faith and superstitions are growing in almost every society with different pace. Christopher Hitchens in his book, God is not great, called, “religion had poisoned everything.” He further stated on page 53 that, “The connection between religious faith and mental disorder is, from the viewpoint of the tolerant and the “multicultural,” both very obvious and highly unmentionable. If someone murders his children and then says that god ordered him to do it, we might find him not guilty by reason of insanity but he would be incarcerated nonetheless.” The important issue that philosophy is variable and never remained constant result in disputes in human minds asking many questions. Why reasoning is lacking similarity at all time and contradicted within itself at similar place at different times.

 And when science is making strong footmark in lives of mankind, then where philosophy stands and what is the use of it. People have scientific method to understand why earthquake occurred and why high tides destroy the coasts and why solar and lunar eclipse happen but even after the eclipse thousands and thousands of devotees went to temples in India seeking blessing from gods against the aftereffect of eclipse, from an anger of god. Even when driving is depended on skills, traffic and roads, people demanded blessings from gods for safe journey before lightening an ignition. At this very upsetting situation, it can be assert that, at present too, philosophy is having sturdy stepping in society and in mankind, just because, science has not succeeded in everything as like of science, the science that came out from the thousands of years efforts of philosophy still unable to answer worrying questions of consciousness and thoughts which are looming since thousands of years.

Philosophy is in demand because of its nature of reasoning that fulfills the thrust of knowledge and the thrust of knowing ‘Self’ which is similarly burning almost in every heart and science is still investigating the metaphysics of consciousness, from where it comes and where it goes. Science is unable to come up with anything with certainty on the subject related to what is consciousness and how it works. And therefore, even at present time, philosophy seems important because large number of people looks towards it to get solace of those questions which science is unable to provide in black and white and even unreasoned faith is asking reasons to solve the problem like religion, ethics and theories of another world.

 Questions which were unreciprocated at the time of Plato are standing in front of present society and questions which Gautama Buddha skipped after getting Nirvana are still finding the answers from science. Science is providing principle of natural science and how to mould such principles for betterment of mankind but how these natural laws came up are still to be answered. For philosophy, time has changed and so the method of explaining those reasons and introspections need to be change to prove and make people understand ‘what is Just’ but questions are still same which cannot be kept closed in books and in bindings into researches of interpretations. It is the duty of philosophy, as what Socrates realized,

‘Let philosophy serve the human kind.’ And philosophy, still working with the slow pace on the validity of language and providing logical approach to minds preparing those genius minds to work out on topics which are regular affair of mankind in society. Hence, it can be said that philosophy has to play a major part in the society still this time but not in the style as of medieval Europe or tenure of Buddhist era, although like specific as like of science and technology. As sometimes, during discussion on philosophical treaties, an idea flashes in mind that even different and contrary theories are acceptable at similar time but cannot be admitted at large. The philosophical thrust cannot be completed with diversity or even by rebuffing the theories of each other.

The world prevails in the sense of humanism and now turned to globalization. Everything is repeating the same in a different way; the more things change the more they remain similar. In philosophy, it cannot be held that all are right or all are wrong or some are right or some are wrong, the marvelous contributions of genius heads have atleast auxiliary to create the stratum of fine ideation. The final goal of philosophy is the betterment of mankind and this could be attained by living a life with the true knowledge, the basic theme of this subject philosophy. “There is a pervasive unity of human thought however great the geographical and historical distance which separate people” said B. Russell on Greek. The unity in this diversity of philosophical thought brings us back on the concepts which we left behind sometime in the past, “We read always our own mentality into that of these ancient forefathers and it is therefore that we can find in them nothing but imaginative barbarians” Sir Arbindo on Vedas Philosophy is very old and carries its past in whose sequence no progress can be discerned, for a number of reasons, it does not revolve in a circle and secondly, it makes every mind moving.

The basic theme of philosophy is that knowledge is one and perfect but the methods are different and like culture, music, custom and atoms, an experiment is required for a fusion of ‘philosophical thoughts’ to get the real essence of philosophy to enlighten every mind of humankind.