When Philosophy and Science Collide: Unnecessary division

Stephen Hawking, acknowledged by crowds as one of the greatest mind who every lived in this planet once declare, "Philosophy is dead". The word dead here is no joke. Not faint, nor sleep. Dead is dead, fervently. He uttered this word to Google 's Zeitgeist conference and of course, this word will eternally be reminded as he put this word in his book, A Brief History of Time as he argued, philosophy as an art of reasoning has not kept up with the blazing fast development of science. After his utterance, many critiques has responded to his claim with a confusion or even disappointment. 

The easiest way to understand his word, is to say, Hawking bring Philosophy and Science in collision. Is it true? Can we say that perhaps, the word 'philosophy'', expressed by Hawking is limited to some branch of philosophy. It's actually quite difficult to tell. If what he mean by philosophy in general as a 'method', some has pointed out how Hawking is contradicting himself because of the statement he uttered.  He indeed need a kind of philosophical language to explain science he elaborated for it is inescapable (unless he wrote an equation) as he also he set in his writing. In his book The Grand Design, especially chapter 3, Hawking bring bring idealism and some sort of realism to explain his idea. His book is very philosophy nuanced. So does in his book A Brief History of Time. 

Soren Overgard and Paul Gilber Stephen in his book An Introduction to Meta-Philosophy interpret Hawking's word and statement about philosophy is dead as describing the ancient Metaphysical-philosophical question in particular. Philosophy in the past has always asked, why does the universe exits? or to put in another way, why something exits rather than nothing (this is one of the most oldest metaphysical question of philosophy). In other word, to conclude what Hawking  when he says that the philosophy is dead is that the old metaphysical question of philosophy regarding science has no relevance whatsoever to the recent development of modern physics. Hence, Sciences are not wasting their time to answer why question,  modern science need to focus more into how. Modern Physics has goes up into the next level very rapidly (Quantum Mechanics, Evolutionary biology, modern cosmology), up to the point it has not left any gaps to the philosophical question why or perhaps even how the universe exits and works. The questions of philosophy has been answered by science. Or maybe for the worst case, philosophy has a question that is cannot be answerable by science at all hence it makes philosophy irrelevant. In addition to that, Prince Louis de Broglie, the founder of wave theory of matter writes that philosophy often very speculative, and bring just to a vain-soluble problems. 

So, it is not odd that bringing the possibilities above, many scientist just leave the ancient question to be ancient by itself, or to put frankly using Hawking's own word, "dead". The similar tone like Hawking come from Laurence Krauss and Neil Degrasse Tyson. The rapid development of science has made philosophy so much irrelevant. Following this line of interpretations of Hawking regarding Philosophy, maybe Hawking is right in some extend. Hillary Putnam a philosopher and Mathematician  two decades ago, as Soren Overgard pointed in his book, was already complaining regarding what's happening in philosophy in general, today. Putnam says that philosophy has now live in an anticipation mode, waiting science to propose a problem as science is getting more and more independent, the subject that best explained reality is science not never philosophy. Can we say that slowness and inability to cope with science as almost equal to dead?(As practical implication, philosopher need to have a new set of questions then!)

Despite which previous interpretations above are true, this issue has open an interesting discussion for us, and it is on the relation between philosophy and science. I personally argue that both are actually linked together. To put them in collision is actually an unnecessary division (was assumed starting in 19 century). Raphael's famous painting The School of Athens has shown to us this ideal. Back in old days, there is no separation between philosophy and science indeed science as branch of knowledge started in the philosophy's womb. Science even its more technical in nature, especially physics still need not just a mathematical language but of philosophy. Philosophy can clarify the conceptual issue in the science or perhaps can set a track or even open to a new things in science to be discovered further. 

Moreover, science as descriptive as it is need a support from philosophy to promote its result because people not need more facts but also an understanding on how the facts is important to them, true and also useful. These three things philosophy can help to clean the job for science. Indeed, without the philosophical foundation in every scientific progression and proportion of its visible result, the result is almost meaningless and has no meaning at all. For if not, what's the point? Every scientific discovery will ended merely in a "'show-case mode". Science need to be communicated dynamically to convert the ignorance mind through its principle, so in doing so, science cannot stay to be a hard cold facts but  moving dynamically to interact with ideas, principles and of course philosophy, is the friend in need.  

At the end, science cannot be exclusively stay to be a closed system, as many scientists desire it to be. Hence, I am in full agreement with Phillip Frank when he propose, "we need a coherent system of concepts and laws within which the natural sciences, as well as philosophy and humanities, have their place". And to bridge the gap between the philosophy, humanities and science is  to foster what Frank called as "Philosophy of Science". By the help of this branch of knowledge, science can now relate to other subjects: religion, ethics, social, law and so on for at the end the day, the best knowledge is not an exclusive knowledge but the knowledge that can relate and share a deep conversation with other branch of knowledge. Nonetheless, the primacy of the word philosophy in philosophy of science, does not and never shows that philosophy is more important than the former. It present the close connection between them. Philosophy and science, and they should be not in collision, for it is unnecessary division that will diminished the potential power inherent in science, to convert and also enlightens every living mind since philosophy is a good rhetorical tool for that very purpose! Moreover, If science is assumed to be logical in it's foundation, then it should not be stay independent out of philosophy or ceased to be anti-philosophy for as Russel once says, the essence of Philosophy is logic. So we can say, logic, is the middle ground that perhaps can bring them close together in very tight connection.