Citizens cannot relate well to the complex world by factual knowledge and logic alone. The third ability of the citizen, closely related to the first two, is what we can call the narrative imagination. Sympathy cultivation has been a crucial part of the best modern ideas of democratic education in both Western and non-Western nations. (Why Democracy Needs Humanities by Martha C. Nussbaum)
The global south is filling the gap between science and philosophy created by the north following the wave of materialism in the natural sciences. In Pakistan, we have two monumental institutions in which science and philosophy are coming close. The first is the Ink Forum, founded at Punjab University. Second is the Two Culture Initiative (TCI), launched by the Lahore University of Management and Science (Lums). The Ink forum analyzes the knowledge critically and decorates it with indigenous culture and native roots. It scrutinizes Euro-centric knowledge and connects it with its actual anthropology. The latter, TCI, is an interdisciplinary forum that organizes one-on-one debating presentations among physicists and humanists on science, society, and culture.
Ink Forum and TCI are challenging Western-made political and educational philosophy. After the demise of communism, Francis Fukuyama, an American civil servant, wrote a famous thesis, The End of History, in which he argued that now the world had only liberal political ideology led by the US. In response to the thesis, a social scientist said that now, there will be two mainstream forces: colonization and decolonization. So, the ink forum is decolonizing the knowledge production factories, and the TCI is trying to philosophize and humanize the scientific discourse.
I will highlight the reasons to humanize and philosophize scientific discourse in the following lines:
First, philosophy can purify science. The former head of the Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II, famously said that science can purify religion from error and superstition, and religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. First is the case of scientism, an opinion that regards the scientific method as the only way to render reality. In mathematics, a differential equation can’t provide practicable knowledge without boundary conditions. Only philosophy can tell that a kind of external knowledge from outside the boundary of science, like human decision-making, is required for science to meet its actual objective and make predictions. Like the preacher of scientism, Harari argues that scientific progress will eventually lead to the death of religion. In 21 lessons for the 21st century, he says that in the past, all religions came out of the Middle East; in this century, new religions are emerging from Silicon Valley. The point is that a true philosophical discourse can filter science and technology from these utopias.
Second, history and philosophy can humanize the scientific discourse. Neil Postman says you can give humanistic value to almost anything by teaching it historically. In computational physics simulation class, we’re discussing the Butterfly Effect, an idea that small changes can have substantial consequences, devised by Edward Norton Lorenz in his 1993 book On the Essence of Chaos. Academically, we had instructions to simulate the model on computers. The history of chaos theory showed me that Lorenz was a weather forecaster in the United States Army during World War II. He studied climate science and chaos theory for the troops. Afterward, Lorenz pursued his research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and obtained his doctoral degree there in 1987. The point is that the study of the history of technology, along with philosophy, can lead learners into multiple dimensions.
Technology has roots dating back to times of crisis. The California Institute of Technology established an institute for research in artificial intelligence during World War II and subsequently named it Silicon Valley in the following years. Open AI is the latest product of this technological hub. Shortly, my point is that if we urge scholars to delve into the history of technological inventions, it might be a feasible way to understand inventions in a humanistic framework.
Third, philosophy and history can help us to understand the context of scientific knowledge production. By definition, science is the production of convincing knowledge in modern society. This knowledge is highly context-specific. Jonathan Marks argues that it is unlikely that natural selection could have been discoverable outside the context of a competitive, industrial, and complex world. It is not just a coincidence that Herbert Spencer derived the concept of social evolution from the ideas of Darwin, who supported the colonial conquests morally.
Biology has racial roots. A geneticist, Dr. Adam Rutherford, said that the knowledge of life sciences emerged from the study of eugenics. Eugenics is the practice or advocacy of improving the human species by selectively mating people with specific desirable hereditary traits. It stresses the idea that some races are superior while others are inferior genetically, like African Americans and Asians. In subsequent years, the findings of eugenics gave support to mass slavery. Bruce Lahn, a biologist at Chicago University, decided to delve into the mysteries of human evolution in 2004. He chooses to study two genes (in black and white males) associated with microcephaly, a pathological condition of premature cessation of brain growth. Lahn concluded that the genes of Africans and Europeans produced different phenotypic outcomes in the brain. Lahn was proving the axiom that Africans suffer from intellectual deficiency and have inferior minds. The point is that the critical study of science can confront racial science and its claims.
Fourth, the highly compartmentalized nature of science disciplines has led to meaningless science education. Neil Postman says in The End of Education that our genius lies in our capacity to make meaning through the creation of narratives that point to our labor and give direction to our future. In this case, philosophy can provide meaning for our science education.
Furthermore, the directionless science education undermines our graduate capabilities to avail of opportunities. A few days ago, a fellow asked me to write a motivation letter (SOP) for her scholarship form. Unfortunately, she couldn’t determine even the physics research area for higher studies abroad. Neil Postman says that without a narrative, life doesn’t have meaning. Without meaning, life has no purpose. Without a purpose, schools are houses of detention, not attention. In this case, too, philosophy can equip the learning process with direction.
Fifth, science is merely a laboratory job, and mathematics is a play of numbers without philosophy. As Rabindranath Tagore said, while using material possessions, man has to be careful to protect himself from their tyranny. If he is weak enough to grow smaller to fit himself into his covering, then it becomes a process of gradual suicide by shrinkage of the soul (c. 1917). My point is that philosophy is required to create sense in scientific and mathematical discourse.
To conclude, we need creative scientists to solve the complex problems of our planet. It is only possible through inclusive education. Ironically, the definition of science as a medium of knowledge production in modern society refers only to the euro-centric societies and their satellite colonies, which developed today’s science. It is required to philosophize and humanize the science to make its narrative more human-friendly.
