The Need to Understand: A Philosophical and Scientific Inquiry
The Need to Understand
One thing seems clear: unlike the animals that consume their lives procuring the means of subsistence, humans will not be content with mere survival. We have found that we need meaning in life; we need to understand how we live and the best way to do it. We want to live well. Animals live completely submerged in the present, driven by stimuli that trigger predictable responses. We, however, are not content to simply accommodate ourselves in the present. We are often pulled back to a past we miss or projected forward toward a future we envision. Thus, unlike animals, human inadequacy is characterized by a constant dissatisfaction with the world, which leads us to constantly correct and redo our individual and collective existence.
Reasons and Facts
Science does not offer foolproof knowledge, but the systematic application of the scientific method allows us to detect and eliminate errors. The result is the constant improvement of theories, which are corrected and refined continuously, leading to the undeniable progress of science. Until the Renaissance, science and philosophy constituted a rational and theoretical understanding of the world. But this knowledge was qualitative, imprecise, and based on theoretical speculations. Reasoning was prioritized over experience. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the scientific revolution radically changed our image of the world and of humanity itself. Given the inadequacies of the deductive and inductive methods, the hypothetical-deductive method introduced a new way of practicing science. When a problem or fact needs to be explained, a tentative explanation or hypothesis is formulated and then tested through experimental trials. If the hypothesis withstands these tests, it is considered corroborated and becomes a scientific law. If there is a contradiction between theory and facts, adjustments must be made. This is what happened, for example, when the facts showed that the Earth revolves around the Sun and not vice versa, as previously believed. Through the scientific method, we can create increasingly precise descriptions of phenomena. However, describing the world is not the only function of science. Predicting future events, as meteorologists and economists do, is equally important. Method, goals, and attitudes are the three main differences between scientific and philosophical inquiry. However, the fact that philosophy and science are different does not mean they have nothing to do with each other.
Beliefs and Reasons
Philosophy and religion share a common aspiration: to offer serious answers to the fundamental questions that humans raise. However, while religion provides dogmatic answers, philosophy relies on critical inquiry. Therefore, philosophy is the realm of critical reasoning, where questioning is a valid approach to any claim. In philosophy, what matters are arguments, good reasons, and well-founded ideas. Doing philosophy means living with uncertainty and seeing doubt as an invitation to reflection, not as a flaw in thought. It leads to a mistrust of easy answers, typical of advertising slogans and political rhetoric that are constantly repeated by the mass media as if they were indisputable truths. In any case, the philosopher is closer to the truth than those who believe they know everything but actually know very little, having false perceptions of things. The only requirement for philosophical opinions is that they be rational, reasoned, and consistent. Nothing more, nothing less. There is no place in philosophy for truths or dogmas of faith, as in religion. The most important thing is to understand that no single philosophy has the final answer. In philosophy, questions always remain open, ready to be revisited in light of new methods and discoveries. Therefore, we cannot speak of philosophical progress in the same way we speak of scientific progress. Philosophy’s role is twofold: to analyze the foundations of science and to ensure that science serves human purposes.