I once heard this from my philosophy professor. Philosophy is trying to answer questions you can't answer with current knowledge, or better put : science is what you get when you answer questions with the right answer, philosophy is all other answers.
Given that no important scientific advance has ever originated from philosophy ... (ie. the ones by accomplished mathematicians that were -usually posthumously- declared philosophers don't count)
It's like the "we have to redesign the methodology, find the lessons for the company" discussion at the end of every software project. It takes time and effort, makes management and project managers and even customers very happy, it involves programmers listening to the "good" advice of everybody who can't program and is about as productive as suicide, without the satisfaction at the end.
Science is when you try to answer questions about evidence, with evidence.
Philosophy is when you try to answer questions about definitions/language, with definitions/language.
That doesn't make philosophy useless. It just makes philosophy one part of the system -- a lot of times philosophy generates questions and ideas which are later addressed in a scientific way. It's a useful tool; be careful not to either overvalue or undervalue it. (Likewise, AFAIK no important scientific advance has ever originated from a grammar instructor, but coherent language is an important tool for allowing science to be performed and communicated.)
> That doesn't make philosophy useless. It just makes philosophy one part of the system -- a lot of times philosophy generates questions and ideas which are later addressed in a scientific way.
There is some truth to this. It is what I mentioned before : "Given that no important scientific advance has ever originated from philosophy ... (ie. the ones by accomplished mathematicians that were -usually posthumously- declared philosophers don't count)", specifically by the don't count part.
So two points :
1) this definition actually excludes most parts of philosophy [1]
2) This part of philosophy can only be exercised productively by people who also have extensive credentials in at least one other field (otherwise the "later addressed" part doesn't work). Which brings the question, is this philosophy ? Or is this logic ? (taking one example field that's well represented in philosophy's claims).
And to be honest, this is the same argument Religious studies makes. With one huge difference. Most important researchers were actually learned in Religion (vast majority were very learned in Christian religion, and they did credit or at least reference their religious knowledge with part of important discoveries, with Newton and Einstein as 2 very well known examples. Even though nearly universally learned in Christianity, I should probably mention some of them were Jews (including Einstein, of course). But there's examples of people of other religions further back. Weird part is that there seem to be very large differences between religions on this point. From the large majority of islamic scientists, for instance, it is well known that they weren't muslims, but rather non-muslim slaves at some court [2]. For Hinduism the reverse seems to be true. Like Christians, many Indian scientists credit their faith with pushing them to research nature (and like with Christians, the general population did not always agree with that assessment and killed a number of them for it))
I have actually seen this at university. There were several (about to retire, or even emeriti) professors that were monks. Given how they lived, I can understand how that would help with scientific research. One should take a look at, say the Jesuit atlasses of the sky, and you'll be impressed with the quality and quantity of their work. They are not just credited with lots of discoveries, but also with absolutely incredible amounts of grunt work, and with keeping knowledge of science spread throughout western culture.
For philosophers you can say the exact opposite. There are many "pure" philosophers. None, to my knowledge, have been credited with large amounts of grunt work.
And sadly, like Christianity before it, philosophy can be credited with inhibiting science as well. The big current example is research into human races, but there are other examples. From the closely related "bon sauvage" incidents, the "green" morality (believe it or not, nature is what might be termed chaotic neutral, it is decidedly NOT "lawful good", but we're repressing knowledge about this). The same thing is true for research about humans themselves, where lots of things are repressed (e.g. the reason that Freud is so fixated on sexual experiences during early age is understood to be that a significant portion of his patients were victims of paedophilia, but again I'm told you can't say this directly in papers). Humans must be good, especially scientists themselves (e.g. Galileo Galilei was deservedly a famous scientist ... who then decided to become a politician and a horrible, horrible human being. Which of those 2 things got him in trouble with the church (and with the state) ? Let's be honest here : the second (otherwise the timing becomes very hard to explain). General lesson to be drawn here : no matter how you are, if you start sending letters to every politician and priest how "their kind" will all get tortured and hanged as soon as he can make it happen, you'll be in serious trouble if it appears you are getting a following).
[2] For instance Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwārizmī al-Majousi al-Katarbali, who was instrumental in helping Greek and Roman algebra survive the Dark Ages was very likely a Zoroaster
Didn't Science used to consider all sorts of weird things as true and therefore the "right answer"? Wasn't phlogiston the right answer at some point? Wasn't aether? And so on? How do we know we've finally arrived at the "right answer"? Try answering that without using the philosophy you so diminish.
The problem with your point of view is that you get blinded by what can even be a Science. I think that's why we need philosophy. It asks hard questions and directs the investigation.
Given that no important scientific advance has ever originated from philosophy ... (ie. the ones by accomplished mathematicians that were -usually posthumously- declared philosophers don't count)
It's like the "we have to redesign the methodology, find the lessons for the company" discussion at the end of every software project. It takes time and effort, makes management and project managers and even customers very happy, it involves programmers listening to the "good" advice of everybody who can't program and is about as productive as suicide, without the satisfaction at the end.