Why You Can't Have Science without Philosophy

How Two Disciplines Intersect

Sometimes people wonder what in the world philosophy has to do with science. The answer to that is very important for Christians to understand. Firstly, science makes a whole host of assumptions, and every one of them has been criticized and rejected. It is actually the task of philosophy to state—and defend or criticize—the assumptions that science needs for it to do its work. Science cannot defend its own assumptions. That falls to the field of philosophy.

Science cannot defend its own assumptions. That falls to the field of philosophy.

The other thing that’s important is that philosophy can show that there’s knowledge outside of science. Many people today think that science is the only field that gives us knowledge, but philosophy can show that there are limits to science and that there are things that we can know like certain moral, mathematical, or logical truths that aren’t scientific.

So philosophy is important to place limits on science so that it doesn’t gobble up the entire intellectual landscape in a culture.

J. P. Moreland (PhD, University of Southern California) is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Biola University. He is an author of, contributor to, or editor of over ninety books, including The Soul: How We Know It's Real and Why It Matters.