Once we get a better grip on an area, then, finding more proper definitions for its concepts, we branch it off as a subject of its own.
Also, any particular field you study has philosophical assumptions, like about the reliability of sense data. The reason modern science is so fabulously successful is the philosophers who established it got rid of the supernaturalist assumptions of previous science, and added the assumption that reality is mathematically describable.
What Smolin and Unger are saying is that the particular philosophical assumptions behind string theory and a lot of related physics are mistaken. This would seem to be at least possible.
Indeed, or the practice of asking questions about the nature of questions, ie. what questions are meaningful, well-formed, yield knowledge, etc. in any given subject.
When you understand the nature of the questions in a particular subject, then you're no longer practicing philosophy, you're gathering knowledge of that subject, ie. math, physics, chemistry, etc.
The word "scientist" was only invented in 1834. The scientist who coined it, William Whewell, also thought up "phycisist" and a whole bunch of other modern terms. [1] Interestingly enough, "naturalist" still survives as a legit term, as does "natural history".
[1] http://etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=Wh...
> Boltzmann's kinetic theory of gases seemed to presuppose the reality of atoms and molecules, but almost all German philosophers and many scientists like Ernst Mach and the physical chemist Wilhelm Ostwald disbelieved their existence. During the 1890s Boltzmann attempted to formulate a compromise position which would allow both atomists and anti-atomists to do physics without arguing over atoms. His solution was to use Hertz's theory that atoms were Bilder, that is, models or pictures. Atomists could think the pictures were the real atoms while the anti-atomists could think of the pictures as representing a useful but unreal model, but this did not fully satisfy either group. Furthermore, Ostwald and many defenders of "pure thermodynamics" were trying hard to refute the kinetic theory of gases and statistical mechanics because of Boltzmann's assumptions about atoms and molecules and especially statistical interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics.
> Around the turn of the century, Boltzmann's science was being threatened by another philosophical objection. Some physicists, including Mach's student, Gustav Jaumann, interpreted Hertz to mean that all electromagnetic behavior is continuous, as if there were no atoms and molecules, and likewise as if all physical behavior were ultimately electromagnetic. This movement around 1900 deeply depressed Boltzmann since it could mean the end of his kinetic theory and statistical interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics.
> After Mach's resignation in Vienna in 1901, Boltzmann returned there and decided to become a philosopher himself to refute philosophical objections to his physics, but he soon became discouraged again. In 1904 at a physics conference in St. Louis most physicists seemed to reject atoms and he was not even invited to the physics section. Rather, he was stuck in a section called "applied mathematics", he violently attacked philosophy, especially on allegedly Darwinian grounds but actually in terms of Lamarck's theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics that people inherited bad philosophy from the past and that it was hard for scientists to overcome such inheritance.
> In 1905 Boltzmann corresponded extensively with the Austro-German philosopher Franz Brentano with the hope of gaining a better mastery of philosophy, apparently, so that he could better refute its relevancy in science, but he became discouraged about this approach as well.
> And since his work became the map used by generations of future explorers, he sent them off in the wrong direction as well.
Aristotle was highly specific and highly empirical. His ethics, for instance, is an elaborate study of the various ways individual go right or wrong in their decisions. His politics was based on extensive studies of the constitutions and political histories of nearly a hundred Greek states. And of course there was his biology, based on empirical studies of over a hundred different animal species.
And as for his physics, according to this astounding article by Carlo Rovelli (yes, that Carlo Rovelli), his physics is accurate for the phenomena he was studying. Rovelli even converts his ideas into equations.
That is a good example. I was trying to think of others since then. That was 500 years ago or so. What are some more recent ones for physics?
I imagine if logic is considered part of philosophy, perhaps boolean and propositional logic had a hand in helping computing...
Then if ecology or sociology is considered I can see how philosophical ideas about class, society, environment would be incorporated into practical fields or be used to start societal transformations (Marxism perhaps?).
But I can't think much for physics recently? I have read and seen known physicists dable in and use philosphy to explain what they accomplished or observed. Bohr, for example, was fond of Kierkegaard. It would be good to have examples of philosophers who changed the course of physics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method#P...