Metaphysics and Science

Abstract

What we now call science appeared in its primitive form as early as the period during which the first Western civilisations flourished. By collecting observational data, elaborating upon them and employing them as a guide for gaining control of things, Babylonians and Egyptians started the study of astronomy, mathematics and medicine. In ancient Greece, knowledge began to be pursued for its own sake and not just for practical purposes. But while it is legitimate to say that the distinction between what one may call the ‘pure’ and the ‘applied’ — i.e., between abstract knowledge on the one hand and technical/practical knowledge on the other — was clear already in the Greek culture, the separation between science and philosophy was at that time far from sharply drawn. As a matter of fact, for the Greeks, all those seeking knowledge for its own sake were to be classified as ‘philosophers’ (lovers of wisdom). And the later Latin term ‘scientia’ — from which ‘science’ originates — corresponded to the Greek ‘episteme’, a concept referring to certain, reliable knowledge in general. Even in the Middle Ages, when philosophy and metaphysics were more precisely defined and systematically developed, those of science and philosophy continued to be more or less interchangeable notions with a rather broad meaning.