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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Importance of the Problems of World View Chapter 4 : Philosophy and Science By the way of an introduction we would like to remind the readers that there are many words which have a number of meanings. At times one of them has a wider and more general signification than the others. Sometimes the use of such words may lead to misunder­standing, and it is necessary to make sure that one understands the exact sense in which a word is being used.

In philosophy, there are a number of such terms; for example, `potentiality,' `possibility,' `soul,' `reason,' and so on. Among the terms that share common significations are the words `philosophy' and `science.' In the past the word philosophy (lit. `the love of wisdom') was applied to all branches of knowledge, including the natural sciences, mathematics, divinities, ethics, and politics.

Every branch of knowledge had a special methodology of its own, although sometimes it happened that inappropriate methods were used; for example, a problem belonging to the natural sciences was investigated through a purely rationalist approach, whereas it should have been studied through the experimental method. In the Middle Ages other branches of learning were added to the aforementioned list, until it came to include almost all the thinking of that age.

After the Renaissance, and specially from the seventeenth century onward, those sciences whose method of enquiry was experimental, gradually separated from philosophy, and the term eventually came to be applied exclusively to that branch of learning the problems of which lay outside the realm of experiment and could be solved only through a purely rational, theoretical method. This branch of learning is called "metaphysics" or "the first philosophy".

The term "philosophy" is also used to refer to the process of explaining the basic principles necessary for investigating the problems of a particular science, such as the philosophy of science and the philosophy of ethics. The word "science," which literally means "knowledge," is technically used to mean systematized knowledge of problems dealing with a particular subject. According to this definition, the term "science" could also be applied to metaphysics.

In recent centuries, however, the usage of the term has become more limited, and has come to refer to the experimental sciences alone, in opposition to philosophy.