Some contemporary philosophers think that it is the job of philosophy is to provide a unified picture of how all the different sciences hang together:
"Scientists tend to compartmentalize knowledge, even while continuing to award high prestige to general and elegant theories, leaving philosophers with the possible role ... of showing how the compartments jointly make up a single building." (Don Ross: Will scientific philosophy still be philosophy? 2013)
"I think of the integrative role as a relatively permanent one for philosophy, but it is one that is especially relevant now, because of specialization in intellectual life. Maybe as late as the mid 19th century, a person could know a large fraction of what there was to know without greatly sacrificing their pursuit of detailed work in one field. This is probably no longer possible; now it is necessary to specialize in generalism" (Peter Godfrey-Smith: On the Relation Between Philosophy and Science, 2013)
"Philosophical generality is especially crucial for an interdisciplinary field such as cognitive science, in that it can attempt to address questions that cross multiple areas of investigation, thereby helping to unify what otherwise appear to be diverse approaches to understanding mind and intelligence." (Paul Thagard: Why Cognitive Science Needs Philosophy and Vice Versa, 2009)
This is, of course, an old idea. Here is Wilfrid Sellars in 1962:
"What is characteristic of philosophy is not a special subject-matter, but the aim of knowing one's way around with respect to the subject-matters of all the special disciplines." (Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man)
In my view, there are two reasons why this idea is absurd.
First, philosophers are hopelessly unfit for the job. They lack the scientific training and tools that would allow them to truly understand the complex interconnections between the different sciences. It is true that scientists specialize. But at least they specialize in a science, not in the latest scientifically empty puzzle in analytic philosophy. Furthermore, scientists don't have to waste any of their time on philosophy so they have more time to learn about science in general.
Second, even if philosophers were competent enough to unify the sciences, it wouldn't be philosophy. It would be simply theoretical science, completely disconnected from contemporary analytic philosophy.
My first point had already been made long before Sellars wrote his article:
"it is the traditional business of philosophy to look into the concepts and assumptions of the sciences and to put the results of their inquiries together into one intelligible whole. Someone must undertake this, and the philosopher seems to be the person. But can we say of the flesh-and-blood philosopher who actually exists that he is qualified for the job. Here there are doubts. If the philosopher is to act as critic and co-ordinator for the sciences, he must have a firm hold on their distinctive nature, concepts, and methods. ... How much mathematics does the philosopher commonly know? ... philosophers often undertake to discuss them without such knowledge." (Brand Blanshard: Philosophy in American education: Its tasks and opportunities, 1945)
A. d'Abro made the point already in 1927(!):
"there is room for a more general type of philosopher - a super-philosopher, as it were - whose facts would comprise all the spheres of human knowledge
...
[Scientists] alone, in view of their wide knowledge of facts and their mastery of the rigorous mathematical mode of thinking, are in a position to co-ordinate the apparently disconnected results furnished by experience and by reason. If, then, a super-philosophy is to be attained, it would appear that the most successful results would ensue from a work of collaboration between the scientists of the various branches of knowledge." (The Evolution of Scientific Thought, 1927)
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