'Defining Science, Relation between Science and Language, and the Indian Rational Tradition' by Prof. Sundar Sarukkai

What is science? Why is it so difficult to define? Why is it such a matter of contention? We may define science as objective inquiry, as empirical, as experimental, as observational, as rational, as determining cause and effect, as demanding verifiability, as prediction, as hypothetical-reductivist. Problems arise (1) because each science within the sciences privilege one over the other - astronomy privileges observation while chemistry privileges the experimental and (2) when we try to fit these terms to areas of study ... from cooking to astronomy or from mathematics to social sciences. Scientists themselves define science differently; at times as that which is ahistorical, apolitical and acultural (as against the human sciences which have all the above attributes). Most often, science has been defined not by what it is but by what it is not. It's definition is in that sense exclusionist, not only of those areas of study that it cannot legitimize, such as metaphysics but it is also exclusionary within itself. There has traditionally been a hierarchy within the sciences. Mathematics reigns at the top as the science that is necessary to all other sciences. Then comes physics, then chemistry and lastly biology.

Prof. Sarukkai then starts to clearly state the foundations of the Institution of science. First of all, it is about membership and about associations such members form. Science is defined as what scientists do; science is what scientists say it is. This understanding does not allow for engagement with science by the perceived outsider. Also it is about title-giving. The title is an acknowledgement of authorship and of the authority it bestows upon one; it confers the identity of being an expert in science. Thus, the institution of science protects its own terrain - in terms of both state support and funding.

We next come to the the relationship between science and language. Ultimately science is about description and making that description as accurate as possible; it is about presenting the real as real. Language is the tool science requires to carry out its task but herein lies a problem. Language is imprecise and ambiguous. Worse, it is used by ordinary people to describe the world ordinarily scientists describe it must be scientific and pure (pure in the sense that it must approximate the real as closely as possible); it must be better than 'natural language'. Better still, it must be mathematical. Galileo recognised this relationship between science and language. He recognised the necessity of description in measurable quantities and terms of primary qualities, and in mathematical terms. He felt that mathematics is the language of Nature as it eerily allows the scientist a precise linguistic method to describe the world. Nonetheless language, although metaphorical, even verbose and perhaps unreal itself can also describe reality. However to describe the real, you need to transcend it. You need to engage with the imaginary. And it is mathematics that allows you to do that.

At this point we make some qualifications. Who decides if you are doing science? Why did Europe and modern science decide that India had no logic, no rationality and thus no science? Indian science, that predates Western science, in all its branches (except Charvaka) is based on logic; it has a system of inferences. There is an argument that because modern science has come from Europe, only a European tradition of philosophy should be used to evaluate it - hence the 'philosophy' component of philosophy of science would need to be western; here Prof. Sarukkai would say that Indian philosophy could also be used to evaluate science - only the terms of evaluation would be different. All the more because while modern, western science struggles with the problem and the divide of the empirical and the theoretical, Indian Science (and philosophy) travels somewhat with ease from the empirical to the theoretical. This is because the separation of the empirical and the theoretical is according to Prof. Sarrukkai a Greek problem, not an Indian one. Critiques of Indian science ask then why was the origin of Modern Science not in India. Prof. Sarukkai answers that the rational tradition of Indian thought did not create modern science (the way it got created in the west post-Galileo) because it did not need to modify language and mathematics to understand the real the way the West needed to.