The Interdependence Of Science And Philosophy Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Hawking (1988: 174-5):

Up to now, most scientists have been too occupied with the development of new theories that describe what the universe is to ask the question why. On the other hand, the people whose business it is to ask why, the philosophers, have not been able to keep up with the advance of scientific theories. In the eighteenth century, philosophers considered the whole of human knowledge, including science, to be their field and discussed questions such as: did the universe have a beginning? However, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, science became too technical and mathematical for the philosophers, or anyone else except a few specialists.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, 'why' interrogates two distinct types of cause: reason-result versus purpose, which frequently become blurred when physicists engage in philosophy (e.g. the Anthropic Principle).

As this blog demonstrates, the failure of physicists to make sense of the implications of Quantum Theory results from ignorance of philosophy, specifically: ignorance of the epistemological assumptions that form the foundation of Galilean science, and the assumption that meaning is transcendent of semiotic systems ("out there" to be discovered), rather than construed of experience of the non-semiotic domain by the processes of consciousness.