People rely on science and humanity to understand the nature of the world and how things happen that define their lives in the world. Currently, there are different attempts to explain the natural occurrences in the world through the use of religion and philosophies. The implication was that humanities were the superior disciplines as many philosophers, such as Kant, Descartes, and Aristotle, relied more on philosophy and art to explain their minds concerning many aspects of the world and human behaviors. However, the emergence of science came with new revolutions that posed a significant threat to the field of humanities. With science, the assumption was hypothesis until they were experimentally proven to be correct. Unlike understanding, science brought more factual evidence and empirical data to explain the world's phenomena and the nature of human beings. Science was, therefore, becoming a great enemy of philosophy. Since then, there are arguments between the scientists and the philosophers about the superior discipline between science and the humanities. The latest version of the argument was between Pinker and Wieseltier. The core of the debate was to draw the borderline between humanity and science with one side, claiming that the other side is inferior. Though their arguments are valid and they all have credible points, Pinker's viewpoint that humanities and science can coexist and can borrow from each other seems to be the point that is worthy of addressing in a debate.
Comparison of the Authors' Viewpoints
Pinker and Wieseltier have a different argument concerning the relationship between science and humanity. From the three articles, Pinker tries to unify philosophy and science, while Wieseltier claims that humanities are superior to science. From Pinker’s viewpoint, science and humanity should not exist and cannot exist as different entities ( Pinker, 2013). During the period of Descartes and other philosophers like Emanuel Kant, their reasoning based on science. However, the philosophers did not understand science because its invention was around that time. Therefore, philosophers created a link between science and philosophy. Also, there are science concepts that people can understand better from a philosophical perspective. For instance, a philosophical point of view can prove a scientific idea, which remains a hypothesis until an experiment proves it right.
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The implication is that science can add knowledge to humanity concepts, and humanity can also add knowledge to science. Pinker, therefore argues that despite the huge success and massive contribution from science in explaining most things in the world, people have scientific knowledge. Pinker also claims that such success does not apply that a person with scientific knowledge is brighter than a person with humanity knowledge ( Pinker, 2013). From his point of view, there are many things, such as moods and feelings, that science is yet to explain. For instance, science cannot explain World War I, but human knows what happened during the period. In the same manner, there are things that humans cannot explain, but science can explain them better.
While Pinker sees a possible peaceful coexistence between humanity and science, Wieseltier is brooding a war between the disciplines. According to Wieseltier, the extrapolation of science into humanities by attempting to explain many issues concerning life should not be justified ( Wieseltier, 2013). From the Wieseltier viewpoint, science should stick to its concepts and should not attempt to interfere with humanity’s world view. The implication is that science cannot justify its methodologies. In Pinker’sopinion, the humanities can incorporate methods from science, and scientists should also borrow ideas from the humanities ( Wieseltier, 2013). In this sense, this author claims that there should be no superior side between science and humanity. However, this is contrary to Wieseltier’s opinion. Generally, Pinker and Wieseltier's argument about science differs considerably ( Wieseltier, 2013). Though they both defend their sides, Pinker is lenient and thinks that finding common ground between science and humanity could be the best ideas. However, such an idea is non-appealing to Wieseltier, who sees the two disciplines as different and should stay within their borderlines.
Analysis
"Science is Not Your Enemy : An impassioned plea to neglected novelists, embattled professors, and tenure-less historians" by Pinker reveals that the author's main interest is to explore the possible mutual relationship that can exist when there is freedom between scientists and humanitarians to borrow knowledge from each other. The intent is to disregard the idea that science is superior to humanities. The author wants to disapprove of the notion that “science is all that matters” or that “people should entrust scientists with solving all problems” (Pinker, 2013). The author also touches on the normal technique that science uses to investigate the order of life and term them as normal. Therefore, the author request those who are seemingly opposed to science to look at science as a discipline that is normal and uses normal principles and practices such as open debate, peer review, and double-blind methods, which are all explicitly designed to circumvent the errors and sins to which scientists, being human, are vulnerable.
Besides, "Crimes against humanities" by Wieseltier reveals that the intends to exhibit his discontent with how science is encroaching into areas that are meant for philosophy. The article, therefore, tries to show a huge rift that exists between science and philosophy. From the beginning, the author makes it clear that science and philosophy are two different things operating in two different worlds. Therefore, the author distinguishes the two fields by stating that Philosophy is non-empirical, while science is empirical. Another idea from the article is that people cannot mix science and philosophy. From the article, the author claims that even though philosophy has been lenient to work with science, it does not give science licenses to explain philosophical concepts in scientific terms. The article also pinpoints the claim that individuals think science dominates the world, which to the authors is wrong. The claim that science is also under attack by religion and philosophy are also ideas that cover a huge part of a discussion in this article. The author gives many reasons to justify the limitations of such claims. Lastly, the author finishes the discussion by attacking Pinkeron some of the allegations made in the article Science is Not Your Enemy. Leon claims that the article is nothing but undeserved praise to scientism.
The article "Science vs. the Humanities, Round III” by Pinker and Wieseltier reveals an epic battle between the two scholars. It is an article that addresses the two sides. In this article, both authors are responding to one another based on the article they had published earlier on their thoughts about the relationship between science and humanity ( Pinker & Wieseltier 2013). In this article, the following are key points from Pinker. First, good ideas can come from any place, so the origin of scientific or humanitarian ideas should not be the central question. No subject or discipline should stay isolated ( Pinker & Wieseltier, 2013). Science needs to borrow from humanitarian and humanitarian can borrow ideas from science while keeping their unique traits. Scientific methodologies and ideas can support humanity as people, such as Kant, did. Lastly, the author tries to explain more distinguishing features between science and humanities, such as the presence of a laboratory test. On the other side, Leon Wieseltier is not getting carried away by such ideas. He claims that such a relationship will mean that one of the disciplines must disperse.
Higher Education
In higher education, students sometimes face a dilemma of choosing the best discipline that suits their passion and that which is marketable in the job market. The argument, therefore, is critical for higher education in that it can help a student to choose the field to venture. The reason why each of these authors defends their side is that they need to create a good impression for each of these disciplines. They understand that such messages have a massive impact on those who are selecting courses and people already pursuing them. Also, such a topic is vital to higher education, where students are taking varied courses ranging from humanities to science interact. Such a debate can dictate students' engagement with other students who take different courses from theirs. If the science side wins the war, students taking science may not be willing to share knowledge with those taking humanities. The same can be possible for those who take humanity if the humanity side wins the war.
Also, the debate on superiority between science and philosophy is important in higher education since this is the place that produces the innovators. It is a rivalry that is critical for higher education as it urges each side to maintain the top spot. For instance, after going through the debate, those who study science can strive and do more to preserve its threat to philosophy. Also, those who study philosophy can strive to make more effort to boost discipline. This debate is therefore healthy as it brings a lot of competition between the students taking each of these areas of study.
Conclusion
Knowledge sharing is critical in everyday life. In most cases, science and philosophy contribute to human knowledge and changing the world. Hence, I think it is good to limit the barriers between science and philosophy. These disciplines depend on each other while explaining various phenomena in the world. Therefore, creating an unnecessary obstacle to knowledge sharing may not be the best thing to do for academic development. The best thing is to allow unconditional, mutually beneficial interaction between the two disciplines.
References
Pinker, S. (2013). Science is not your enemy: An impassioned plea to neglected novelists, embattled professors, and tenure-less historians. New republic , 6 .
Pinker, S., & Wieseltier, L. (2013). Science vs. the humanities, round III. New Republic
Wieseltier, L. (2013). Crimes against humanities: Now, science wants to invade the liberal arts. Don't let it happen. The New Republic , 3 .
