The first step to explain the meaning of the concept of science is to go down to the terminology of this concept. The word science is derived from the Latin root to know (scire) and means “the thing known (scienta)” or knowledge. In this respect, it is possible to define science as a set of knowledge based on its terminological origin. In the modern sense, science has come to the fore as a way of thinking that replaces tradition in understanding and explaining nature and society as a result of the important social and political changes that emerged in the Western world in the 16th and 17th centuries. Scientific activity has been intertwined with philosophy for ages. Scientists were called “natural philosophers” until the word “scientist” was first used by physicist and science historian William Whewell in the 1830s.
Science, one of the most prestigious institutions of modern society, is first of all a systematic set of knowledge. This information is logically and factually related to each other and forms a whole. The point to be considered here is that not every branch of knowledge is science. In this case, the first question to be answered is what knowledge is.
Being a conscious and intelligent being, human beings want to know the objects they encounter in the world with the different types of information they have. At the end of the interaction process between these objects and people
The resulting product is called knowledge. In this sense, science, philosophy, daily knowledge, literature, art, religion, fortune telling, and magic are types of knowledge. However, the most important criterion that distinguishes scientific knowledge from other types of knowledge such as magic, fortune telling, literature and art is that the subject of science is objective (empirical) reality. Objectivity means that the events or objects that constitute the subject of knowledge are observable.
When the philosophy of science is mentioned, it should be understood the effort to understand and interpret science by reconciling the process and knowledge phenomenon, which occurs in the scientific process, and by approaching the necessary structure and functioning through logical analysis. The aim of philosophy of science is to try to understand science through various approaches and pursuits.
