Leo Strauss: Science without Philosophy ?

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Oliver Cromwell and John Milton receiving a deputation seeking aid for the Swiss Protestants -- http://hoydensandfirebrands.blogspot.com.es/2013_04_01_archive.html

It was during the 1600s that Galileo and Newton founded modern science, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke started modern political theory.

"The distinction between philosophy and science or the separation of science from philosophy was a consequence of the revolution which occurred in the seventeenth century." 

 Leo Strauss “An Epilogue” http://tinyurl.com/orcskgb Google books

Descartes marks the beginning of a new era in the history of European thought, when he [.......] inaugurates the great anthropocentric shift in philosophy:
"I think, therefore I am,"  is the motto of modern rationalism.

John Paul II at
http://tinyurl.com/pyzge5r

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Originally, there were

"Aristotelian physics, Platonic physics, Epicurean physics, Stoic physics; to speak colloquially, there was no metaphysically neutral physics."  --  Leo Strauss “An Epilogue” http://tinyurl.com/orcskgb Google books

Notice in passing what Strauss ironically calls "colloquial".  It is in fact the language common to professionals everywhere, universities, industry, military, government and media,  language meant primarily for written use, but has by now become dominant in spoken English as well. Strauss  uses it, but says

“this is, of course, my bad, modern lingo, but I must make myself understood”.

Leo Strauss 1967 Kant Seminar transcript .... context: "While happiness is radically subjective - this is, of course, my bad, modern lingo, but I must make myself understood - there are conditions of  happiness...." 

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And then there emerged

"..... a physics which seemed to be as metaphysically neutral as, say, mathematics, medicine, or the art of shoemaking."   --  Leo Strauss “An Epilogue” http://tinyurl.com/orcskgb Google books

Notice he says "seem". I don't yet know what the precaution means.

Alongside medicine and mathematics, which were at the time the most prestigious fields of study, Strauss mentions  "the art of shoemaking" which "in the general consideration"  is of lesser rank.

It is another tiny little sample of Strauss's elitism, and he must take the heat for it,  though he only meant to prevent your fast reader from assuming that metaphysical neutrality is itself a university degree or otherwise somehow highly respectable.

Hence from Leo Strauss “An Epilogue” http://tinyurl.com/orcskgb Google books

"The emergence of a metaphysically neutral physics made it possible for "science" to become independent of "philosophy."

"It paved the way for an economic science which is independent of ethics, for political science independent of political philosophy, ..."

"allowing people to be studied like rats, which went on in all seriousness though with negligible results"

 Leo Strauss “An Epilogue” http://tinyurl.com/orcskgb Google books

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Conclusion

Science without philosophy has a hard time establishing a difference between sense and nonsense.

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