Abstract: 

Stephen Hawking claimed in Grand Design that “philosophy is dead”, and what does “philosophy is dead” mean anyway? By examining Hawking’s philosophical thoughts, this paper points out that Hawking took the “scientific determinism” which holds that nature is governed by natural laws as the basic principle, and tried to answer such questions as ontology, causality and the nature of the universe within the framework of science. However, Hawking’s “solutions” were not successful, and philosophy is actually not dead. On the other hand, it is a meaningful and inspiring attempt that Hawking had provided a new solution possible in trying to explore the fundamental problems of philosophy based on the latest advances in physical science.

Key Words: 

Model-dependent realism; Scientific determinism; Causality; Sum over histories; Anthropic principle