




































ON THE PHILOSPHIC FOUNDATION OF SCIENCE 

Charles C. NWEKE 

 
Abstract 

This paper comes as an attempt to restate the place of Philosophy in the evolution of 

human development and history. It represents the bid to address seeming, subtle and vocal 

moves to denigrate Philosophy amidst the reckoned progress of science and technology 

and more worrisome, deny it of an age long title- Mother of all Sciences. The paper 

reechoes, by tracing the origin of Science, the fundamental role of the mother Philosophy 

by being and begetting Science as its ancient offspring. It equally articulates the time and 

circumstances that informed the independence of the basic disciplines of Science from 

Philosophy. The paper‘s synopsis is the position that all the fields of science have their 

remote foundation in Philosophy. 

Keywords: Philosophy, Science, Ancient Era, Modern Period 

 

1. Introduction 

The attempt to reaffirm the philosophic foundation of science, at the present era of 

seeming over glorification of science based on its huge advancement would portend a 

sought for intellectual trouble especially of science scholars. Nevertheless, the place of 

philosophy as the crib of human knowledge, development and civilization remains an 

undiluted fact hinged on known and recorded history. Science and the fields with which it 

is currently known, this paper posits, did not begin as independent area/s of knowledge. It 

was rather birthed much after initial philosophers‘ endeavours at wondering to understand 

the universe and the fundamental element/s with which it is constituted. 

 

There have been concerted and subtle attempt to denigrate this historical fact, thereby 

denying the place of philosophy in foundation of human knowledge inquiry. These 

attempts present either as arguments that the known foremost philosophers of ancient time 

were basically scientists or that philosophy is part of science. There are even claims by 

individual fields of science to be the harbinger of all knowledge. 

 

The content of this paper begins with a concise articulation of the origin of science tracing 

that history from the time of ancient Greek thinkers. This is followed by a section on how 

some basic areas of science were studied as philosophy. The section on the philosophy as 

the mother of all science was preceded by an exposition of period of independence of 

science from philosophy. 



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2. Origin of Science 

History of science cannot be objectively chronicled without reference to its philosophical 

origin. That science has philosophical foundation is not a product of mere philosophic 

speculation, but a historical verifiable fact. What is today known as science and  its 

specific areas began with the ancient and foremost known philosophers‘ attempt at inquiry 

into the universe in the bid to uncover the basic elements that constitute reality. The 

reckoned beginning of philosophy around sixth century BCE saw the emergence of the 

known first scientists of Western history. The ancient Greek thinkers such as Thales, 

Anaximander, Parmenides, Heraclitus, etc popularly known as the Pre-Socratic 

philosophers, presented the first recorded basic element of nature- water, air, fire, earth. 

Apart from proposing these basic elements, they provided the initial direction for the 

definition, meaning and future of the entire corpus of human knowledge based either on 

reason or/and sense data. Study of Classical Philosophy is insightful in this regard. 

 
Classical philosophy studies the fundamental problems concerning human 

existence through the eyes of our intellectual ancestors. Many thinkers from 

Classical times were pioneers of our modern philosophical and scientific 

ideas. The earliest beginnings of philosophy are traced back to the sixth 

century B.C.E., when the first scientists of Western history, the  Pre-  

Socratics – among them Thales, Heraclitus and Parmenides – advanced 

revolutionary theories concerning the natural world, human knowledge and 

humans‘ relationship with the gods. (www.classics.pitt.edu) 

 
It is very important to note that the ancient philosophical thoughts and works of preceding 

thinkers especially Pythagoras, Democritus, Euclid, etc led to discoveries which informed 

many known and surviving scientific theories and fields. After the discovery of the four 

basic elements initiated by Thales, the next point of enquiry was the question of ‗form‘ 

which saw Pythagoras propounding a theory about number which gave birth to 

mathematics. In his ―History of Science‖, Williams(2018) submits that: 

 
The problem of form was first attacked systematically by the philosopher and cult 

leader Pythagoras in the 6th century BCE. Legend has it that Pythagoras became 

convinced of the primacy of number when he realized that the musical notes 

produced by a monochord were in simple ratio to the length of the string. Qualities 

(tones)  were  reduced  to  quantities  (numbers  in integral ratios).  Thus   was  

born mathematical physics, for this discovery provided the essential bridge 

between the world of physical experience and that of numerical relationships. 

Number provided the answer to the question of the origin of forms and qualities. 

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pythagoras
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Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 1(1), 2021 

 

One of the most popular mathematical theories, the Pythagorean theorem credited to 

Pythagoras, the first person to identify philosophy as love of wisdom, ranks among his 

other discoveries. The five regular solids, sphericality of the earth, the theory of 

proportions, the Pythagorean tuning, division of the globe into five climatic zones and the 

identity of the morning and evening stars as planet Venus are equally notable scientific 

discoveries of Pythagoras. 

 

In further response to the primary element the universe is constituted, Democritus 

championed the invention of atoms and proposed that matter is governed by atomic 

principles. Thus: 

 
 

 Everything  is  composed  of  ―atoms‖,  which  are  physically,  but  not  geometrically, 

indivisible 

 Between atoms, there lies empty space 

 Atoms are indestructible 

 Atoms have always been, and always will be, in motion 

 There are an infinite number of atoms, and kinds of atoms, which differ in shape, and 

size. (Williams, 2015) 

 

Matt Williams(2015) captured the invention of Democritus in these words: 

 

And along the way, many names stand out as examples of people who achieved 

breakthroughs and helped lay the foundations of our modern understanding. One 

such person is Democritus, an ancient Greek philosopher who is viewed by many 

as being the ―father of modern science‖. This is due to his theory of universe that is 

made  up  of  tiny ―atoms‖,  which  bears  a  striking  resemblance  to  modern  atomic 

theory. 

 
A critical lens on these submissions could engender the argument tilting towards 

negating the philosophic claim of origin of science. It could be thought that those 

pioneers of science were only coincidentally philosophers whose scientific 

discoveries and theories were independent products of their scientific thinking 

without any recourse to and different from philosophy. It could be argued that they 

were doing science without calling it science. However, to the disappointment of  

such thought inclination, scientific outputs of the thinkers were products mainly of 

their metaphysical, cosmological and  epistemological enquiries about what is,what  

it is like,the universe, truth and knowledge. In fact, the basic areas of science like 

mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy, medicine were studied in the ancient 

Greek  era  as  part  of  philosophy.  Spirkin  avers  to  this  effect  that,  ―Many  general 



Nweke On the Philosophic Foundation of … 

 

guiding ideas that lie at the foundation of modern science were first enunciated by the 

perceptive force of philosophical thought.‖   In fact, ―Hellenic science was built upon the 

foundations laid by Thales and Pythagoras. It reached its zenith in the works of Aristotle 

and Archimedes.‖(Williams, 2018) 

 
3. Science was studied as Philosophy 

The ancient philosophers of ages were not only inventors of science; they established 

avenues for cross fertilization of ideas and imparting of knowledge. They created 

academies and became foundational teachers of known history. In that era, Greek 

academies were terrains mainly for study of Philosophy. In fact, ―The latest theories of the 

unity of matter, motion, space and time, the unity of the discontinuous and continuous, the 

principles of the conservation of matter and motion, the ideas of the infinity and 

inexhaustibility of matter were stated in a general form in philosophy.‖(Spirkin) Aspects of 

science including mathematics, geometry, and medicine were studied as Philosophy.Dr. 

Alannah Freer in writing ―A History of Science‖ captures this point succinctly. He stated 

that: 

 

Pythagoras was the first scientist recorded to have taught the science of the 

Ageless Wisdom through mathematics, astronomy, geometry, harmonics, medicine 

and numerology in a form that has survived the test of time and is still recognisable 

today. 

 

After the time of the early ancient Philosophers, one of the most popular Greek 

philosophers of Socratic period, Plato emerged with popular philosophic and scientific 

achievements. He is known to have established an academy in quest for truth and 

propagation of knowledge. Reflecting on his contribution to science, 

SaugatAdhikari(2019) notes: 

 

Plato played   a   vital   role   in   encouraging   the   Greek   intelligentsia   to 

regard science as a theory. His Academy taught arithmetic as part of philosophy, as 

Pythagoras had done, and the first 10 years of a course at the Academy included 

the study of geometry, astronomy, and music. 

 

The philosophical thoughts and works of Aristotle, after Plato, provided a redirection for 

human inquiry using scientific means. He invented logic and observation as crucial tools 

for the knowledge of the natural world. His other achievements in the areas of science 

reverberated so vigorously that he is considered by many scholars as the main inventor of 

science as well as the first real scientist. In the work, The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented 

ScienceArmand Marie Leroi (2014) posits that: 

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Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 1(1), 2021 

 

Aristotle is considered by many to be the first scientist, although the term postdates 

him by more than two millennia. In Greece in the fourth century BC, he pioneered 

the techniques of logic, observation, inquiry and demonstration. These would 

shape Western philosophical and scientific culture through the Middle Ages and 

the early modern era, and would influence some aspects of the natural sciences 

even up to the eighteenth century. 

 

Anselm H. Amadilo and Anthony J.P. Kenny(2020) also hold the view that: 

 

Aristotle‘s intellectual range was vast, covering most of the sciences and many of 

the 

arts,including biology, botany, chemistry, ethics, history, logic, metaphysics, rheto 

ric, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, physics, poetics, political 

theory, psychology, and zoology. He was the founder of formal logic, devising for 

it a finished system that for centuries was regarded as the sum of the discipline; 

and he pioneered the study of zoology, both observational and theoretical, in which 

some of his work remained unsurpassed until the 19th century. 

 

In the time of Aristotle, science did not exist with the name ‗science‘, rather it existed as 

natural philosophy. Its fields as they are known today were studied as philosophy. Steve 

Joyce (2018) philosopher and writer captured it thus: 

What   we   now   call   ―science‖   was   predated   by   something   called   ―natural 

philosophy,‖ which attempted to infer what is true about the natural universe 

mainly by means of reasoning based on casual naked-eye observation. In the 4th 

century BCE, Aristotle believed that all the universe‘s secrets could eventually be 

deduced using logic based on the knowledge of his time. He then went on to 

deduce that the earth stands motionless at the center of the universe, while the 

planets (including the sun and moon) and stars were embedded in rotating, 

concentric, hollow crystal spheres, with the earth at their common center. 

 

4. Modern Period 

Apart from the foundational contributions of ancient philosophers, philosophy/science 

relations continued to reflect in the thoughts of many modern thinkers. Rene Descartes, 

the father of modern philosophy, and other notable 17
th

 and18th century philosophers 

contributed some popular scientific theories. Descartes, for instance, proposed the 

universal conservation of motion. Baruch Spinoza‘s substance monism contains in his 

theory of monads, basis for universal scientific determinism. Galileo is known for his 

popular theory of the shape of the earth. In the preceding times of the enlightenment, 

https://www.britannica.com/science/biology
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https://www.britannica.com/science/psychology
https://www.britannica.com/science/zoology
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Newton and Einstein‘s theories of absolute space and relativity respectively are responses 

to the philosophical inquiry about space and time. In the words of A. Spirkin: 

We may also recall the Cartesian reflex and the philosopher's proposition on the 

conservation of motion in the universe. On the general philosophical plane Spinoza 

gave grounds for the universal principle of determinism. The idea of the existence 

of molecules as complex particles consisting of atoms was developed in the works 

of the French philosopher Pierre Gassendi and also Russia's Mikhail Lomonosov. 

Philosophy nurtured the hypothesis of the cellular structure of animal and 

vegetable organisms and formulated the idea of the development and universal 

connection of phenomena and the principle of the material unity of the world. 

Lenin formulated one of the fundamental ideas of contemporary natural science— 

the principle of the inexhaustibility of matter—upon which scientists rely as a firm 

methodological foundation. 

 
5. Independence of Science from Philosophy 
Various studies have shown that disciplines of science, from antiquity continued to be taken as 

philosophy for many centuries. The point of independence of science commenced with the gradual 

coming of the enlightenment age. Modern science was actually born in 17
th
 century with the 

invention of instruments like microscope, telescope, barometer and clock. Modern Biology and 

Chemistry began to be developed as independent fields in 18
th
 century. Steve Joyce (2018) 

philosopher and writer holds that, ―…the improved discipline continued to be called ―natural 

philosophy‖ until the 19th century, when the word ―science‖ was adopted to replace it.‖The 

acknowledgement, among scholars of science, of the philosophical foundation of science 

is not in doubt. American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS) maintain in 

their ―History and Philosophy of Science‖ that: 

 

Until the 19th century, natural science was primarily known as ―natural 

philosophy‖, and contemporary philosophy still maintains deep connections with 

science. Some of the greatest intellectuals of all time were both scientists and 

philosophers. In the 17th century, Descartes, Leibniz, and Pascal developed 

modern science and articulated its philosophical foundations. 

 
 

6. Teaching History of Science in Institutions 

The teaching of history of science in any institution of learning cannot be complete 

without the basic crucial account of how the initial philosophic endeavours of ancient 

thinkers shaped science. Department of Classics, University of Pittsburg, USA, for 

instance, presents in its study course ‗History of Science‘ that: 

The ancient Greeks were the first mathematicians and scientists of the West. 

Thinkers such as Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras and Empedocles 

attempted to make sense of the world by studying the evidence they found in 

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Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 1(1), 2021 

 

it. Anaximander proposed that the earth was  a  solitary body,  floating free 

and unsupported in the universe, and produced one of the first maps of the 

world. Empedocles was among the first to  believe that the world consisted   

of diverse material elements acted upon by forces of  attraction  and  

repulsion. The atomic theory of matter begins with the Greeks. Euclid  

remains one of the most influential mathematicians of all time. His 

contemporary Archimedes was a famous inventor and is also credited with 

discovering a geometrical technique which anticipated calculus and the fact 

that  the surface and  volume  of  a  sphere is 2/3  that  of  its 

circumscribing cylinder. Through early astronomy, the Greeks developed the 

idea of mathematized science. In the field of medicine, they began with case 

histories and folk remedies, and ended up with an understanding of the  

nerves, the ability to patch up wounded gladiators, and even the ability to 

remove cataracts with eye surgery. They invented the first steam engine, 

vending machine, automatic doors, and more. And they sustained glorious 

cities with over a million inhabitants without using electricity, fossil fuels, 

gunpowder or nuclear fission as sources of energy. 

 
 

In articulating ‗A Brief history of Science‘, The Open University, Scotland 

submitted that: 

 

The first people to try and develop the theory behind their observations were the 

Greeks: people such as Pythagoras, who concentrated on a mathematical view of 

the world. Similarly, Aristotle and Plato developed logical methods for examining 

the world around them. It was the Greeks who first suggested that matter was made 

up of atoms - fundamental particles that could not be broken down further. 

 
 

7. Conclusion: Philosophy as the Mother and Science of Sciences 

The exposition so far has shown how philosophy birthed science. Thus it should not just a 

mere claim when people hear the expression, ‗Philosophy is the mother of all sciences‘. 

Philosophy indeed is! Not only did Philosophy lay the foundation for the existence of 

science, it nurtured science to some level of maturity before its various disciplines 

sprouted independently. Nevertheless, it is to be noted that even at independence, 

development and advancement, disciplines of science have not actually departed from the 

basic philosophic nature of inquiry into reality. In other words, studies of science are 

remotely studies of philosophy. The area of sciences‘ departure from philosophy is the 

method of science. While philosophy maintains its central character of criticality together 

with sometimes being speculative, science thrives on empirical explorations. 



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Philosophy is also reckoned as science of sciences in its role of keeping the reins of 

sciences in continuous rational check. Philosophy understudies every field of science and 

with its critical essence and other methods, understands the possibility of those fields 

operating outside their essences and expectations. In other words: 

Philosophy may be called the "science of sciences" probably in the sense that it is, 

in effect, the self-awareness of the sciences and the source from which all the 

sciences draw their world-view and methodological principles, which in the course 

of centuries have been honed down into concise forms. (Spirkin) 

Thus, there is philosophy of virtually every other discipline with the task of questioning 

their fundamental assumptions and in its normative or prescriptive nature, multiplies 

options for those other disciplines. So in the academic field of philosophy, one sees areas 

like philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of medicine, etc. 



Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 1(1), 2021 

 
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