Philosophy of Science or Scientific Philosophy? :: Philosophical Essays

Philosophy of Science or Scientific Philosophy? ABSTRACT: Pursuit of Ultimate Reality forms the foundation of philosophical inquiry. The present paper represents a pursuit of this sort. Here I make a humble effort at making philosophy scientific— an effort which is based on the revival of Atomism initially formulated by some ancient philosophers of the East and West: Jainas, Vaisesikas, Democritus, Beucippus and others. Every material particle, however minute, is composite and divisible; naturally, the original 'stuff' of the Universe is required to be 'non-particular.' Modern physicists have reached the terminal point of the method of analysis and succeeded to transform a very little part of a nuclear mass into an enormous kinetic energy by way of fission and fusion. The 'energy' as such, being the 'power' of activity dormant in the nuclear mass of every atom, is obviously 'non-particular' and original. Thus 'mass' is continually being transformed into 'energy' and conversely, resulting in the evolution of everything that makes up the universe; so that the original power is amenable to transformation and alien to annihilation. The present paper is an attempt to explore a possible reply to the query inserted in the very title. Here I shall make a parochial use of the term "Science" to mean the physical or Natural Science, and present only the prà ©cis of the whole thing for the sake of brevity. I The world is a big zero. The Earth and all other planets move round the Sun, satellites move round the planets, the negativity charged * electrons move round the positively charged nucleus to constitute an atom ; even each of the elementary particles in the nucleus (nucleons) has a spin of its own, like the Earth; the orbits may however, be circular, elliptical, angular or the like. Whatever be the type or form of the orbit, the circumference described by any body moving round its centre (nucleus) can never come to an end. Man is therefore apt to consider the universe to be eternally present. II The living cell has a nucleus; two human beings of opposite sexes constitute a unit, i.e., a family in which any one of them normally acts as the nucleus; because the society may be Patriarchal or Matriarchal; each such family, again, serves as the nucleus of a larger family, the largest being the human society as a whole; and 'a society' in 'The Society' found in every habitable part of the globe is governed by a person or a group of persons that 'the society' centres round.