How philosophy and science came to differ
pp. 37-50
in: Edna Ullmann-Margalit (ed), Science in reflection, Berlin, Springer, 1988Abstract
In this paper I shall be concerned with the peculiar nature of philosophy. One way, inter alia, to contribute to this theme is to relate philosophy to science. This approach recommends itself in particular because philosophers, including the most prominent philosophers through the entire history of Western philosophy, believed, or hoped to show, that philosophy itself could and should be turned into a science. We are thus confronted with the question: "Is philosophy a science?" And this in turn implies an additional question: "If it is, what is its distinctive character with respect to all other sciences?"