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PLS2607 EXAM PACK 2022
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PLS2607EXAM PACK
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,UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS
Oct/Nov 2020
PLS2607
Philosophy of Science
100 Marks
Duration 3 Hours
This paper consists of 2 pages.
General instructions:
1) This is a “take home” examination. You have 3 hours to complete it.
2) Complete all the questions that follow.
3) Ensure that you follow the individual instructions given for each question.
4) Number your answers correctly.
5) Provide both in-text and bibliographic references in your answer, where necessary and where you
have used them.
6) Do not copy work from anyone else or from any other source.
7) If possible, please type your examination.
8) Your examination script should be uploaded in PDF format.
9) Your examination script should be submitted within the allocated time, on the e-Assessment Tool
on myUnisa.
10) Please submit only one version of your examination script, and ensure that your examination
script comprises of just one document (multiple submissions will override the original submission
of your script).
11) Take a screenshot of your confirmation of submission as evidence of your submission should you
require it at sometime in the future.
12) You are reminded that an Honesty Declaration should be submitted with this “take home”
examination.
The text for the declaration should be as follows:
ACADEMIC HONESTY DECLARATION
1. I understand what academic dishonesty entails and am aware of Unisa’s policies in this regard.
2. I declare that this “take home examination” is my own, original work. Where I have used
someone else’s work I have indicated this by using the prescribed style of referencing. Every
contribution to, and quotation in, this examination script from the work or works of other people
has been referenced according to this style.
3. I have not allowed, and will not allow, anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it
off as his or her own work.
4. I did not make use of another student’s work and submitted it as my own.
NAME: …………………………………………………………………………....
SIGNATURE: …………………………………………………………………....
STUDENT NUMBER: …………………………………………………………..
DATE: …………………………………………………………………………….
, PLS2607
October/November 2020
Please ensure you adhere to the instructions on P. 1.
1. David Hume was a critic of induction. Explain and critique his position. (50)
2. Paul Feyerabend questions the absolute reliance upon Western empirical
science. Considering his anarchist epistemology, critically discuss its
overlaps with an African Philosophy of Science. (50)
3. Compare the place of universals in the falsificationist theory of Karl Popper
and the empiricist theory of Francis Bacon. Ensure that your comparison
includes an explanation of each theory and some critical discussion. (50)
4. Reflecting upon his stages of theory development in science, Thomas Kuhn
notes:
The developmental process... has been a process of
evolution from primitive beginnings – a process whose
successive stages are characterised by an
increasingly detailed and refined understanding of
nature. But nothing has been or will be said makes it
a process of evolution toward anything (2009:508).
Outline the Kuhnian stages of theory development, and critically explore
the likelihood that they do not lead anywhere. (50)
Total: 50 marks x 2 = [100]
©
Unisa 2020
CONFIDENTIAL
Page 2 of 2
, David Hume and the Problem of Induction
Introduction
In this paper we intend to concisely describe what induction is in an effort to elucidate
David Hume’s induction problem through probing the 3 utmost mutual complications of
induction. There are the problem of reliance upon historical familiarity, of influential
reasoning and of the homogeneity of nature.
As recommended by Bacon, induction is characterized as a portrait of scientific logic
and procedure subsequent to which researchers arrive at illuminating hypotheses by
producing reflections and preparing generalities on the foundation of their particular
reflections. Induction is deemed a particular method of interpretation that draws us outside
the boundaries of current indication to inferences about the anonymous. According to my
analysis, the statements an inductive reason suggest certain intensity of encouragement to the
decision, but do essentially involve the conclusion. The assumption of an inductive claim is
considered as a supposition since the assumption is stated to pursue with possibility. When
we argue inductively, we deduce rather away from the innards of the properties; hence this is
m
described as the inductive surge. Inductive logic changes from individual instances and
er as
interpretations to more common fundamental values and theory that describe them, for
instance, Einstein’s theory of relativeness. Inductive logic is furthermore open-ended and
co
eH w
descriptive than rational reasoning. Currently, David Hume’s problem of induction
questioned a misconception in which all knowledge is established as given in the 18th
o.
rs e
century. Why do previous encounters provide us any justification at all to think that
ou urc
upcoming encounters will be in a unique way, such as the principles of nature that seem to be
continual and could induction move to understanding and what is the reasoning for it?
Let us contemplate the dilemma of the uniformity of nature. Corresponding with
o
David Hume, induction is an unwarranted type of logic for the subsequent explanation; one
aC s
considers that inductions are decent since natural history is consistent in a certain profound
vi y re
reverence. For example, one suggests all wolfs are black from a miniature section of black
wolfs since there is consistency of blackness amongst the wolfs, which is a unique
homogeneity in an environment. Nevertheless, why presume that there is a constancy of
blackness between the wolfs? What validates this belief? Hume contends that one
ed d
understands that natural history is consistent both deductively or inductively, nonetheless, one
ar stu
certainly cannot understand this theory and an endeavour to provoke the notion only requires
the reasoning of induction. Thus induction is an inexcusable type of logic and as such, this is
what becomes training a challenge. Since the cause-and-effect dilemma, Hume situates ahead
is
the perception that we do not recognise the relations amid different matters of circumstance
by cause only.
Th
He contends that as a common proposal, which acknowledges of no exclusion, that
the understanding of this relation is not achieved by arguing a priori, but occurs completely
from familiarity, when we discover that some specific bodies are continually touched with
sh
each other.
Additionally, observing into the problem of dependence upon historical knowledge,
inductive implication undertakes that the historical items as a guide to the forthcoming, for
instance, if earlier, it has poured 80% of the period assumed a aggregation of atmospheric
state occurred, then it will perhaps rain 80% of the while in the imminent assumed an
aggregation of comparable circumstances occurs. But what validates this?
Hume recommended two potential explanations, but excluded them equally: the
preliminary explanation asserts that, as an issue of rational inevitability, the future must be
similar to past, but Hume observes that we cannot consider an indeterminate world since the
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