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Old 06-27-2007, 04:49 AM  
yodasminion
 
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Absolutely! There are many places where philosophy can intersect with science, and in some places philosophy has helped science along.

Take mathematics, for instance. Before the 20th Century, mathematicians were basing arithmetic, the foundation of all mathematics, on certain "self-evident" axioms, like 1+1=2. If you assumed certain things, they argued, math can be built from the ground up.

Several philosophers, like Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell, came along and asked the very relevant question "Well, if it's so self-evident, why should we have to assume it? Why can't it be proved?" In response, Russell (a philosopher) and Alfred North Whitehead (a mathematician) wrote Principia Mathematica in 1910. In it, they proved that arithmetic can be built from the ground up using logic. Math basically has a sound foundation in logic; it is derived from logic, in a sense.

There are many other cases where science and philosophy have intersected. In general though, they are two completely different subjects that ask different questions. Science asks "Why does gravity work the way it does? How does a star work? Where is the edge of the universe?" Philosophy asks "What is the nature of right and wrong? How do we know if something is sentient? Where is God, if there is one?"

These are, for the most part separate questions, which sometimes intersect.
 
 
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