STEM displaced philosophy, which for a while went from queen of the sciences to the whore of Babylon. AI has put philosophy back into its right relation with STEM. That relation is neither autonomous, as modernity had it, nor bad, as antimodernity had it, nor trivial, as postmodernity had it. Nature is healing.
Five pictures of how philosophy and the sciences have stood toward each other. Choose one, or play them in order.
| Relation | When | Where philosophy stands | What the sciences need from it | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Queen | Before modernity | In the middle, crowned | Their principles, and their place in the whole | Hortus Deliciarum, c. 1180; Newton’s Principia, 1687 |
| Autonomous | Modernity | At the foot, clearing the ground | Nothing they can’t supply themselves | Locke, 1690; Kant, 1781 |
| Bad | Antimodernity | Outside the wall, opposed | Nothing. The sciences are the danger | Blake, 1802 |
| Trivial | Postmodernity | One voice among many | Nothing in particular | Lyotard, 1979 |
| Nature is healing | AI | In the middle again, uncrowned | Answers to its oldest questions | Turing, 1950; the value documents AI companies publish for their models |