But what is philosophy? To say that physics excludes philosophy is philosophy. Physics, at its core, is based on a philosophical statement. To choose empiricism

But what is philosophy? To say that physics excludes philosophy is philosophy. Physics, at its core, is based on a philosophical statement. To choose empiricism as physics' main epistemological method is philosophy. Then there is physicists' discussions of the oldest scholastic and philosophical subjects of time and space. And physicists' love of cosmogony, another tradional philosophical topic. So why physicists claim that physics is not philosophy while the evidence shows that physics studies old philosophical topics? The reason is simple. To hate philosophy is a tradition of the profession. Why? Because physics became a profession when people who used to call themselves "natural philosophers" became "physicists". People like Faraday objected to this change because he thought this reduced physics to a profession like "pharmacists." Like most natural philosophers at the time Faraday considered himself a philosopher. And there is also the textbook story that physics was born as a "scientific revolution" against those scoundrels and enemies of science called peripatetic Aristotelian philosophers. Since most physicists' knowledge of history of science comes from sidebars in physics textbook they studied at school, they still fight this old fight: physics is the opposite of philosophy because philosophy is nothing but writing yet another commentary on Aristotle. Therefore physics cannot be philosophy.