1 Common roots of science
and philosophy
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Common roots of science and
philosophy
Ancient times:
• Physics - part of philosophy
• “Physikoi” (Physiologoi) – physicists
• Search for ARCHÉ
• Milesians (Thalés …) – material ARCHÉ (water, air,
apeiron?)
• reductionism
• Pythagoreans – COSMOS – order, juvel, harmony
• Empedokles – questions concerning physics, air
• Aristotle – biology, methodology of science
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Social sciences and philosophy
Separation of particular scientific branches from philosophy
• Medicine (?, rather practice, nursing)
• Matematics (?, practical mathematics – business,
finance, building houses, temples, pyramids,
architecture)
• Geometry (praktical aplications, measuring land, …)
• Astronomy - astrology
• Socrates exclusion of “speculative science“
• Aristotele, aristotelics… logic, psychology, ekonomy …
• Stoics – the term „logic“
• Metaphysics
• Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626), idea of „modern science“
• Physics (Galileo, Newton,…)
• Sociology (A. Comte, M. Weber, …)
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Common roots of science and philosophy
What remains for philosophy?
Mixture of various subjects which science do not profess?
Disciplines without meaning, signifikance?
Foundations of science? (physics, mathematics, biology …)
Foundation of (personal) world view?, of ethics? theology? …
Metaphysics
Philosophing in the framework of art (literature) Myths
(Parmenides, Empedocles, Plato, … Heidegger, Kundera,
Sartre, Camus, …, painters - Bílek)
Pure „scientific“ philosophing (Aristotle, … analytical philosophy)
Art and technology
TECHNE – the way of making work, art, skill, craft,
(stonemasonery, carpentery …)
Joint of functionality and aesthetics
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• Social demand of technology ? - Slavery
• Neglection of technical sciences and technology
• Slavery – advocated even by Aristotle (However:
Scientific methodology, logic, …)
• Archimedes – inventor
• Alexandria …
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• Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626) – science – force
„violation of nature“, denial of aristotelism,
aristotelian Methaphysics, reference to Chinese
science:
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China
From 600 BC to 1500 AC the most advanced society (from
technological view)
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Seismology
Compass
Gun powder
Rockets
Paper, paper money
Printing
Porcelain
Tradicional medicine: blood circulation (2nd cent. BC, Yellow emperor, in
Europe G. Bruno, Arabs, Harvey 1628), but no autopsy
Steering wheel in ships
Hot-air balloon
Barrow (push cart) – Sechuan 1.st. Cent. BC, Europe 12. cent AC (Chartre
cathedral)
Chain pump (1.cent. BC)
Principle of paralactic mounting of astronomical telescope
Parachute, Chinese and Siam acrobates (in Europe Simon de la Loubere,
siam ambasador of Ludwik XIV (1687 – 1688))
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From Philosophy to Science and
Technology
• Nicolaus Cusanus (1401- 1464) – discovery
of (importance) of measurements
„Idiota de staticis experimentis“
(density of urine – fitness of person …)
• René Descartes analytical geometry
• Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) – laws of
mechanics, astronomical telescope
• Newton “Mathematical Principles of
Natural Philosophy” (1687)
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Philosophy and social conditions – Utopien
(visionary) political systems, “scientific philosophy”,
comunism
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Plato: rule of philosophers (journeys to Sicily), Atlantis, “The Republic”,
“Laws”
Zeno of Cytium
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Technological and scientific revolution
Abolition (recall) of serfage (here in Austria by emperor Joseph II,
1.11.1781)
Industrialization – rise of industrial society
18. cent. England, bad condition for workers, emergence of socialism and
comunism
Thomas More “Utopia” (1516)
Thomas Campanella “The Sun state”
Fourier François Marie Charles (1772 - 1837) - falangs
H. Saint-Simon (1760 – 1825) sect, „exploitation of man by man“ is
organic defect of society
Paris commune (1871)
Marx, Engels, Lenin … scientific socialism
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