5. Philosophy

5. Your teacher argues that philosophy done well is science and philosophy done poorly is. . . well, philosophy. What advantage is there with doing a philosophy predicated on science (Edward O. Wilson's Consilience) versus a more traditional route? What are the drawbacks to a purely scientific endeavor in this regard?

Philosophy based on science has many different advantages over traditional philosophy. The sciences shows humans are affected by taboos, or prohibition. In his Consilience, Wilson stated, "if children are reared apart during the first 30 months or more of their lives and then brought back together again, they would have no barrrier to forming sexual bonds, except being told that this is prohibited by custom and law." Humans do not perform "illegal acts of conduct" only because we are prohibited to doing them. If there were no law to prevent us from committing such cruel acts, we would definitely act as our D.N.A. tells us to. The philosophy states social animals behave according to their D.N.A, not their mind, which is congruent with the sciences proving this ideology. Because of this reason, by using science, we may be able to eliminate some factors of bias actions. For example, since science is able to prove certain ideals, we can use proven theories to use against traditional philosophy that seem very illogical. For example, philosophy based on science contradicts free will. Traditional philosophy states free will affects your decisions, not D.N.A. You want to do something, you are not programmed to do so. Another example is that traditional philosophy supports racist ideologies which then say that they are born to be homo or bi-sexual. The theory states some groups are biologically superior to others. Science then may be used to provide an answer to the question, "are they really born that way?" and prove this philosophy as wrong. Through the use of science, philosophy can be enhanced and become more efficient.

Edward O. Wilson's Consilience proposes an idea that the way the world thinks should be based on the physics. The laws of physics would evolve with time with the law of evolution. Edward O. Wilson stated in his Consilience, "[17th and 18th century Enlightenment thinkers] assumed a lawful, perfectible material world in which knowledge is unified across the sciences and the humanities." He believed that this Consilience would explain about everything in the world, a way to unite all sciences.