What Is The Difference Between A Philosophy, Science and Religion? LiptonCambell: I think it may be possible that some of the challenges face individuals in communicating with others may be that the same words can have different meanings to different people. This can make it hard to come to a meeting of the minds on various topics when we are thinking of more than one meaning to the same word. Can anyone give me in their own words, the difference between the words philosophy, science and religion?  CoIin: It's a good question, Lipton. Do you know of Thomas Kuhn's ideas about "incommensurability"? He made the (perhaps overstated) claim that those belonging to different "paradigms" would inevitably be at cross purposes, not merely disagreeing, but something akin to speaking different languages. He famously claimed that even scientists working in different paradigms would be talking past each other. Eg. Newton and Einstein would not simply be disagreeing about the nature of, say, mass; they would be talking about totally different things. If Kuhn is to be believed and competing scientific paradigms are "incommensurable", we shouldn't be surprised that religious believers and scientists or philosophers seem to be like "the chicken talking to the duck", as the Chinese say. Tee hee. Discussions on the religion forum seem to bear this out. Debates between the more spiritually-oriented and the more rationally-oriented seem to never achieve anything more than "agreeing to disagree". LiptonCambell: Lol i had doubts whether I should have posted this in Philosophy section, or Religion, or science, or all three.....  StuckInTheSixties: Um ... science is the coolest, philosophy isn't as cool, but it's okay ... and religion is stupid. ** **remark is not meant to be taken seriously  Ms Aryaa: Philosophy in Sanskrit has two meanings - "Darshana" that is Vision (here meaning to see and contemplate) of Ultimate Truth and Reality "Tatva" that is Nature of Reality. Simply put.... Philosophy is mainly related to observation and contemplation of Life, Mind, Self, Language and things like that. Science is inquiry into Material world and gaining knowledge of it and applying it for different purposes. Religion, ideally, is a way of living, charted out, based on good and profound philosophy. All three - Philosophy, Science and Religion should be progressive in nature.  Geoff: Science needs proof. Philosophy needs argument. Religion needs a few thousands years to give its ideas any credence. smoke4ever: Philosophy= the branch of learning that includes the liberal arts and sciences and it excludes medicine, law, and theology. Science= the study of the physical world and its manifestations, especially by using systematic observation and experiment. Religion= an object, practice, cause, or activity that somebody is completely devoted to or obsessed by. smoke4ever: dictionary= a file used as a reference by a word-processing program for correct spelling and hyphenation. lol CoIin: Perhaps one difference between science (and philosophy) and religion is that science is susceptible to refute from within, i.e. a scientific theory/paradigm can conceivably be overthrown by its own internal mechanics. The scientists often accuse religious doctrine of being unfalsifiable. The theists often respond that evolutionary theory (for example) is likewise unfalsifiable. This would seem an unfair criticism; the standard reply from the scientific community is that the discovery of a pre-Cambrian rabbit fossil, by those involved in the very paradigm, would instantly debunk the theory. In theory at least (Tee hee) It's hard to see any way that a closed-belief system like Christianity/Islam etc could be overturned from within. Such a belief system is almost impregnable even from without. Even supposing archaeologists were to turn up a skeleton of Jesus, say, I've little doubt that the theologians would furiously burn the midnight oil, conjuring up a Procrustean solution which keeps the core ideas of the system more or less intact. (Edited by CoIin) harlett: OOPS..guess who found the thread............................. Philosophy: love for the search for wisdom or knowledge. logical analysis of the principles underlying,conduct,thought,knowledge and the nature of the universe. Science: to know,to discern,distinguish, to separate. systematized knowledge derived from observation.study,and experimentation carried on in order to determine the nature or principles of what is being studied. Religion: to gather logic wisdom and knowledge: discovering the cause of ignorance StuckInTheSixties: It is a laughable comment. It appears that kosmik is saying: "Religion is philosophy, science and religion." StuckInTheSixties: I did. Those are strange definitions. From where did they come? Your definition of "religion" is particularly bizarre. By that definition, stamp collecting can be a religion. So can nymphomania.  Corwin: Philosophy is the practice of exploring the concept of "the truth of all truths", Science is the practice of exploring the Physical truth of the Universe.... and Religion is the practice of believing something you know darn well isn't true. Corwin: No, that's just something I came up with on the spur of the moment.... but thank you very much... that is one heck of a compliment. | Philosophy Chat Room 17 People Chatting Similar Conversations |