I’m not sure whether to post this topic in the philosophy or the science, as I think it’s both actually. So I’m going to copy it and repost it in philosophy as well, and the admins can place it where they place it.

Apparently, before science and philosophy became two distinct things, each with all its compartmentalizations, there was natural philosophy.

Terence McKenna and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, though speaking about different domains, sort of drew me to discovering natural philosophy. I also found a book by Lee Smolin and Roberto Mangabiera, called “the singular universe and the reality of time,” which seems to be a punch in the gut of the standard model of cosmology. The book expressly intends to revitalize natural philosophy.

A google search with pdf after the title should find the entire book. Some of the book reminds me of at some of Rupert Sheldrake’s ideas.

So I basically created this post to begin a discussion here on the nexus about natural philosophy.

Natural philosophy was a very broad term that encompassed what is now considered science (empirical, phenomenal matters) as well as a few other studies like mathematics and metaphysics. It was all concerned with what was perceived as "natural;" plants, animals, minerals, their traits characteristics and properties, etc. Aristotle was one of the first Western philosophers to start making certain distinctions within natural philosophy that molded it to become science. Science is the application of particular axioms set in empirical studies from particular formulations of philosophic thought (see scientific philosophy as well as philosophy of science).

Because specialization is occurring at faster and faster rates within fields all the time, with subfields and subsubfields, we seemed to have moved away from the starting nexus of natural philosophy and are perhaps moving towards a new nexus of unified understanding.

And I see this as a philosophic discussion more so than a scientific one, so will probably move the other

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What drew me to natural philosophy was that philosophy and science have been separate lately, but weren’t before modern times, and perhaps no longer need to be.

I think the separation was completely natural and to be expected as knowledge and thought broadened. All the arts need specialists to push the field. Practicing everything and still remaining on the cutting edge becomes harder the more we attempt simultaneously.

Science is popular because it appears to grant a lot of irefutable answers. A result that satisfies a deep human need to organise and file reality.

Philosophy is less popular now as it generally appears to create more questions, an unsatisfying result for most people.

I agree perhaps. And perhaps the coming together again of the two are natural as well.