What Use was Science to Philosophy & What Use is Philosophy’s History to Science?

What Use was Science to Philosophy---and What Use is Philosophy’s History to Science? 

It is widely, though not universally believed that philosophy from certain periods is best understood by studying it in the context of the scientific discoveries and hypotheses that preoccupied its authors.  I will give a few examples of how to read and misread classical texts in the history of philosophy –Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant, who were essentially philosophers of nature-- by taking their scientific context into account.  It is also widely, though not universally believed that scientists do not benefit from studying the history of philosophy. I would next like to challenge this view. After professional philosophy (inevitably) detached itself from professional science, many scientists lost the ethical orientation that had guided their predecessors. This orientation must be recovered if we are not to enter a scientific-technological dystopia. 

Catherine Wilson - Prof. of Philosophy Emeritus, University of York (UK)