Philosophy of Science – Final Exam Summary
Lecture 1 – Ways of knowing
Three groups of sciences
1. Natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology etc.)
2. Humanities (history, linguistics, literary studies, philosophy etc.)
3. Social sciences (sociology, political science, economics, psychology etc.)
o What humankind has come up with to understand the world.
Natural Sciences
- Very influential: most ancient.
- Ancient intellectual endeavours.
o Astronomy arose in Babylonia, 1200 BCE.
o Modern natural sciences developed partly from Chinese, Indian, and
Islamic sources in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
- “Scientific revolution”, Europe 1550-1700.
- Seems difficult, but also simple:
- Physical universe is uniform and simple.
- Natural sciences focus on universals and regularities.
o Example: phenomenon of free fall.
o Less interest in concrete historical particulars, such as the fall of this
stone, but interest in the category free fall.
- Standard techniques of theorising (all include zooming out):
o Mathematization, abstraction, idealization.
o Able to yield knowledge in concise, powerful forms.
- Example: laws of nature (highest category of scientific knowledge).
o Mathematical equations among physical quantities.
o Can be deep facts about universe as a whole. Few disciplines have laws
of nature.
- Laws as paradigms of knowledge.
o Taken to represent the highest grade of scientific knowledge.
o Even by many outside the natural sciences.
Humanities
- In ancient and medieval education, the liberal arts were “ways of doing”
instead of ways of knowing (grammar, rhetoric, logic).
- Gradually, they developed into subjects of study (Renaissance humanism).
- Present-day humanities disciplines: history, history of art, studies of language
and literature, philosophy, religious studies.
- World studied by the humanities focuses on historical human actors.
- Historical actors are creative.
o They originate acts, texts artworks.
o Creation follows no rules – unpredictable and inexplicable.
o World is complicated – as opposed to natural sciences, whose world
follows rules, no surprises.
- Important methodological consequences…
- Historical particularity:
1
, o Every event and context is unique.
o We identify periods but then zoom in past these categories.
- Mistrust of generalisation and idealisation:
o Highest form of knowledge is intimate knowledge of particulars.
o Little or no use for scientific laws.
- Main output: interpretations.
o Of acts, texts, artworks.
o Often embedded in theoretical frameworks.
- Empathy, hermeneutics.
o We attempt to reconstruct the historical actor’s world of experiences
and meanings.
- Objectivity of interpretations.
o We test interpretations against the text or other material.
Question
- How to…
Conceptualize the differences between natural sciences and humanities?
Analyse the diversity of the social sciences?
- Answer: using the concepts of nomothetic and idiographic approaches.
Nomothetic approach
Consists in:
- Identifying regularities (patterns) in the world.
- Formulating generalisations and laws to describe these regularities.
- Deriving explanations of observed outcomes from these generalisations and
laws.
- Typical of the natural sciences.
- Strength: nomothetic approach can…
o Identify similarities and structures that underlie apparently diverse
cases (unifying approach, common pattern, generalise/general rules).
o Yield sweeping, general knowledge (zooming out).
o Yield economical knowledge (effortless).
- Weakness: nomothetic approach can…
o Erase the specificity of outcomes.
o Be reductive, mechanistic, positivistic.
Idiographic approach
Consists in:
- Understanding the meaning of contingent, unique, and often subjective
outcomes.
- Typical of the humanities.
- Strength: idiographic approach can…
o Reveal differences between apparently similar cases.
o Yield detailed, context-sensitive knowledge (specify).
- Weakness: idiographic approach can…
2
, o Be blind to general factors that constrain outcomes.
Tension between these approaches: felt particularly in the social sciences.
Social sciences
- Youngest group of disciplines.
- Originated in late-19th-century French and German debates on how to study
societies.
- Present-day disciplines: sociology, political science, economics, psychology,
anthropology.
- World of the social sciences contains:
o Human agents and institutions.
o Forms of behaviour.
o Rationality and ritual.
o Cultures.
- Social sciences feel the attraction of both natural science and humanities.
- Economic, demography.
o Largely nomothetic disciplines.
o Predominantly mathematical investigation.
- Cultural anthropology, political theory.
o Largely idiographic disciplines.
o Produce interpretations and ascribe meanings.
- Diversity even within single disciplines: e.g. psychology.
- Quantitative methods.
o Numerical data, testing of hypothesis.
- Qualitative methods.
o Participant observation, in-depth interviews.
Lecture 2 – Knowledge, Truth, and Facts
Three forms of knowledge
1. Knowledge by acquaintance
o I know The Hague, how to navigate etc.
o I know my friends.
2. “How to” knowledge
o I know how to ride a bicycle.
o ‘Skills’ knowledge.
o Subtle and complicated, hard to write a manual (= not easy to translate
verbally).
3. Propositional knowledge
o I know that P (P = proposition, sentence/utterance).
o We focus on proposition knowledge in this lecture.
Propositional Knowledge
- We regard propositional knowledge as the highest from of knowledge.
o It is knowledge of facts.
3
, o Important in science, in logical reasoning, in arguments.
- Each of us may claim many items of propositional knowledge.
o In various categories.
Knowledge that P (propositional knowledge): examples:
- Knowledge of observed objects.
I know that there is a door over there.
- Knowledge of future events.
I know that night will fall.
- Knowledge about mathematical facts.
I know that 7 + 5 = 12.
- Knowledge of conceptual relations.
I know that bachelors are unmarried men.
What is knowledge?
- The JTB account of knowledge offers an answer to this question.
- It says that knowledge is nothing other than justified true belief.
- Plato first proposed this idea in his dialogue, circa 369 BCE.
- The JTC account analyses the statement “A knows that P.” (A= person, P=
proposition).
K is JTB (knowledge is justified true belief)
- A knows that P if and only if:
1. P is true
2. A believes that P
3. A is justified in believing that P
Most important!
- This is the JTB account of knowledge.
o If conditions 1-3 hold, then A knows that P.
o If one or more conditions fail to hold, then this is not a case of
knowledge.
JTC account: example
- Jo knows that it is raining if and only if:
1. “It is raining” is true – i.e. it is raining.
2. Jo believes that it is raining.
3. Jo is justified in believing that it is raining.
- These conditions specify the meaning of “Jo knows that it is raining” and the
circumstances in which we may legitimately assert this.
What does the JTB account do?
- The JTC account of knowledge…
1. Is an example of conceptual analysis in philosophy.
4
Lecture 1 – Ways of knowing
Three groups of sciences
1. Natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology etc.)
2. Humanities (history, linguistics, literary studies, philosophy etc.)
3. Social sciences (sociology, political science, economics, psychology etc.)
o What humankind has come up with to understand the world.
Natural Sciences
- Very influential: most ancient.
- Ancient intellectual endeavours.
o Astronomy arose in Babylonia, 1200 BCE.
o Modern natural sciences developed partly from Chinese, Indian, and
Islamic sources in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
- “Scientific revolution”, Europe 1550-1700.
- Seems difficult, but also simple:
- Physical universe is uniform and simple.
- Natural sciences focus on universals and regularities.
o Example: phenomenon of free fall.
o Less interest in concrete historical particulars, such as the fall of this
stone, but interest in the category free fall.
- Standard techniques of theorising (all include zooming out):
o Mathematization, abstraction, idealization.
o Able to yield knowledge in concise, powerful forms.
- Example: laws of nature (highest category of scientific knowledge).
o Mathematical equations among physical quantities.
o Can be deep facts about universe as a whole. Few disciplines have laws
of nature.
- Laws as paradigms of knowledge.
o Taken to represent the highest grade of scientific knowledge.
o Even by many outside the natural sciences.
Humanities
- In ancient and medieval education, the liberal arts were “ways of doing”
instead of ways of knowing (grammar, rhetoric, logic).
- Gradually, they developed into subjects of study (Renaissance humanism).
- Present-day humanities disciplines: history, history of art, studies of language
and literature, philosophy, religious studies.
- World studied by the humanities focuses on historical human actors.
- Historical actors are creative.
o They originate acts, texts artworks.
o Creation follows no rules – unpredictable and inexplicable.
o World is complicated – as opposed to natural sciences, whose world
follows rules, no surprises.
- Important methodological consequences…
- Historical particularity:
1
, o Every event and context is unique.
o We identify periods but then zoom in past these categories.
- Mistrust of generalisation and idealisation:
o Highest form of knowledge is intimate knowledge of particulars.
o Little or no use for scientific laws.
- Main output: interpretations.
o Of acts, texts, artworks.
o Often embedded in theoretical frameworks.
- Empathy, hermeneutics.
o We attempt to reconstruct the historical actor’s world of experiences
and meanings.
- Objectivity of interpretations.
o We test interpretations against the text or other material.
Question
- How to…
Conceptualize the differences between natural sciences and humanities?
Analyse the diversity of the social sciences?
- Answer: using the concepts of nomothetic and idiographic approaches.
Nomothetic approach
Consists in:
- Identifying regularities (patterns) in the world.
- Formulating generalisations and laws to describe these regularities.
- Deriving explanations of observed outcomes from these generalisations and
laws.
- Typical of the natural sciences.
- Strength: nomothetic approach can…
o Identify similarities and structures that underlie apparently diverse
cases (unifying approach, common pattern, generalise/general rules).
o Yield sweeping, general knowledge (zooming out).
o Yield economical knowledge (effortless).
- Weakness: nomothetic approach can…
o Erase the specificity of outcomes.
o Be reductive, mechanistic, positivistic.
Idiographic approach
Consists in:
- Understanding the meaning of contingent, unique, and often subjective
outcomes.
- Typical of the humanities.
- Strength: idiographic approach can…
o Reveal differences between apparently similar cases.
o Yield detailed, context-sensitive knowledge (specify).
- Weakness: idiographic approach can…
2
, o Be blind to general factors that constrain outcomes.
Tension between these approaches: felt particularly in the social sciences.
Social sciences
- Youngest group of disciplines.
- Originated in late-19th-century French and German debates on how to study
societies.
- Present-day disciplines: sociology, political science, economics, psychology,
anthropology.
- World of the social sciences contains:
o Human agents and institutions.
o Forms of behaviour.
o Rationality and ritual.
o Cultures.
- Social sciences feel the attraction of both natural science and humanities.
- Economic, demography.
o Largely nomothetic disciplines.
o Predominantly mathematical investigation.
- Cultural anthropology, political theory.
o Largely idiographic disciplines.
o Produce interpretations and ascribe meanings.
- Diversity even within single disciplines: e.g. psychology.
- Quantitative methods.
o Numerical data, testing of hypothesis.
- Qualitative methods.
o Participant observation, in-depth interviews.
Lecture 2 – Knowledge, Truth, and Facts
Three forms of knowledge
1. Knowledge by acquaintance
o I know The Hague, how to navigate etc.
o I know my friends.
2. “How to” knowledge
o I know how to ride a bicycle.
o ‘Skills’ knowledge.
o Subtle and complicated, hard to write a manual (= not easy to translate
verbally).
3. Propositional knowledge
o I know that P (P = proposition, sentence/utterance).
o We focus on proposition knowledge in this lecture.
Propositional Knowledge
- We regard propositional knowledge as the highest from of knowledge.
o It is knowledge of facts.
3
, o Important in science, in logical reasoning, in arguments.
- Each of us may claim many items of propositional knowledge.
o In various categories.
Knowledge that P (propositional knowledge): examples:
- Knowledge of observed objects.
I know that there is a door over there.
- Knowledge of future events.
I know that night will fall.
- Knowledge about mathematical facts.
I know that 7 + 5 = 12.
- Knowledge of conceptual relations.
I know that bachelors are unmarried men.
What is knowledge?
- The JTB account of knowledge offers an answer to this question.
- It says that knowledge is nothing other than justified true belief.
- Plato first proposed this idea in his dialogue, circa 369 BCE.
- The JTC account analyses the statement “A knows that P.” (A= person, P=
proposition).
K is JTB (knowledge is justified true belief)
- A knows that P if and only if:
1. P is true
2. A believes that P
3. A is justified in believing that P
Most important!
- This is the JTB account of knowledge.
o If conditions 1-3 hold, then A knows that P.
o If one or more conditions fail to hold, then this is not a case of
knowledge.
JTC account: example
- Jo knows that it is raining if and only if:
1. “It is raining” is true – i.e. it is raining.
2. Jo believes that it is raining.
3. Jo is justified in believing that it is raining.
- These conditions specify the meaning of “Jo knows that it is raining” and the
circumstances in which we may legitimately assert this.
What does the JTB account do?
- The JTC account of knowledge…
1. Is an example of conceptual analysis in philosophy.
4
