Philo 8 UCLA Midterm SG Questions and Answers 100% Pass

Philo 8 UCLA Midterm SG Questions and Answers 100% Pass Primary Doctrines of Logical Positivism no synthetic/a priori knowledge analytic/synthetic distinction a priori/a posteriori distinction verification theory of meaning hypothetico-deductivism Analytic statement true by definition and are self-explanatory no matter how the world is, the statement will be true Analytic statement example Bachelor's are unmarried Synthetic statement not analytic substantive Synthetic statement example The president of the US is Trump a priori statement independent from sense experience if you can prove something without external evidence Plausible examples of a priori Triangles have three sides Bachelor's are unmarried a posteriori statement requires sensory experience to be proven How do analytic claims allow for non-mysterious a priori knowledge? true by definition and can be proven by reason alone don't require sense experience What's the problem with synthetic, a priori knowledge? a priori concepts are presupposed by the possibility of experience Kant is for it Empricists (logical positivists/empiricists) are against it Why was there a possibility for synthetic/a priori knowledge? "Triangles have angles that sum to 180 degrees" definition of triangle doesn't mention the sum therefore synthetic need experiments to prove this claim and prove by reason alone therefore a priori Why were positivists against synthetic a priori knowledge? claims are actually a posteriori math truths aren't experimental/synthetic since there's no need to do experiments and prove by reason alone, claims have to be a priori Verification Theory of Meaning a non-analytic statement is only meaningful if it's 1. verifiable by 2. sense experience Example of meaningless according to VTM boiling a baby in hot water is wrong the nothing nothings What is considered meaningless according to VTM? when a sentence cannot be verified the principle or claim (regardless of the tech to verify it) Attractions to the VTM things that end up being difficult to define/example end up being said as meaningless when they can't be tested Problems of VTM overly simplistic sentence that challenges views will be meaningless because they aren't testable according to itself, it's meaningless Vagueness of VTM verification = testability leaves out statements of ethics if possible to be verified later, would it still be considered meaningless then? "able": in practice/in principle? "verify": how can a claim be true through evidence that could possibly not be true In practice verifiability ability to test/verify something right now In principle verifiability ability for verification at some point in time with not yet made technology (where we can't put ourselves to verify it) ex: fly caesar's nose when crossing the rubicon What motivates distinction of in practice and in principle having a chance of VTM being true if in practice, many scientific/factual claims would be meaningless (no the to test) note: logical positivists wanted scientific statements to always be meaningful Holism about Confirmation you can't test a single idea or sentence in isolation you test a complex network of claims and assumptions Quine Holism understand a particular thing by looking at its place in the larger whole Holism about confirmation vs VTM Holism about confirmation is a criticism threatens the method of looking at a single sentence as enough to consider it T/F Doubt of relevance of analytic/synthetic distinction it can't be held T/F by experience since it's defined by definition Positivists v Quine Positivists: analytic claims shouldn't be given up on sense experience and observation and can be correct S1, S2,..SN -> O O false -> S1 could be false Quine: is it correct if it's analytic? each word in sentence are defined on someone's perception of the world Induction argument there are possibility-based arguments, the premises can be right, but the conclusion can be wrong types: enumerative induction, abductive inference example of induction argument P1: every swan I have ever seen is white C: All swans are white OR P1: It has rained everyday on April 1st in Cali for the past several years C: It will rain on April 1st in Cali next year Deductive argument the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion logic-based argument statements are very closed example of deduction argument P1: All dogs go to heaven P2: Fifi is a dog C: Fifi will go to heaven Enumerative induction enumeration of various entities all of which have certain combo of properties we know that we haven't exhausted all the cases Abductive inference we infer that the best explanation of something is true example of abductive inference meteor hitting earth 65 million years ago because presence of iridium (found in meteors) in rocks from that time. Problems with induction how is induction justified? sometimes the data could be wrong and scattered Hypothetico-Deductivism when one thing proves another we put the hypothesis into deductive form and test it confirm a generalization when one of its consequences turns out to be true note: grue is an objection Flaws of HD lead to erroneous conclusions relies on induction only applicable to things observed, mentioned, and quantified Grue X is 'grue' if and only if it was first observed before 2020 and is green or it was not first observed before 2020 and is blue Grue v justification of induction incompatibility of 2 observations X is green if and only if x is 1st observed before 2020 and is grue or not and bleen (why does green work but not grue) Challenge grue raises what inductive arguments remain valid? Grue's solution regarding 'or' and time any definition can use that framework like if grue and bleen were words, then green and blue would have to be defined with or and time. but green induction would be good and grue induction would be bad. Karl Popper v Logical Positivists Popper: understand science through falsification (before testing, which observations I can make in order to be refuted) LP: VTM (sees Freudian psychology and astrology as bad science but still scientific) Demarcation Problem separation of good/bad/pseudo science what differentiates scientific and non-scientific Popper's view of induction Induction is not justified, it's unrational deduction will allow to find reasons as to why a theory would be wrong Popper's view of scientific method Process of conjecture and refutation Popper believed that evidence against a hypothesis is more useful, because the theory upon which the hypothesis is based can be thrown out with it. Bold conjecture (according to Popper) hypotheses with a lot of observational cases can be disproven (falsification) Should we believe our best scientific theories? Why? (according to Popper) no way to get around issues is with confirmation Problem's with Popper's view 1. it would be irrational for scientists not to protect their theories from falsification in certain cases 2. we cannot by completely be certain about the accuracy of our observation reports 3. further scientific progress might lead to a theory becoming falsifiable 4. some theories do not predict that certain observable things will not happen, but only that they are very unlikely (why cannot we accept scientific theories?) 5. it isn't clear when we ought to say that a falsification has happened since sometimes the unlikely happens 6. he has a hard time telling us why we would be better off using a theory that has been subjected to repeated attempts at falsification Descriptive attempt to describe what science actually does (when we aren't looking) Prescriptive describes what science should do (from image science presents as final product) Popper v Kuhn on description/prescription Popper: This isn't how science works, but this is how it ought to be Kuhn: This is how science works, and this is relatively close to how it ought to work Paradigm set of beliefs, a theory or unified group of theories, a worldview, set of agreed upon standards, or a view of how science should be done Stages of Scientific Progress Pre-science -> Normal Science -> Anomalies -> Crisis -> Scientific Revolutions Characteristics of Stages of Scientific Progress Pre-science: where all new fundamentals start Normal science: period in which the majority of workers are working within a certain paradigm, the dominant and they work around it (Popper: they should try to refute (descriptive claim), Kuhn: they should make a prescriptive claim) Anomalies: puzzle that has resists solutions, many of these lead to the next stage (one does nothing or else scientific progress would be impossible) Crisis: researchers beginnt to examine the fundamental of the existing paradigm and start challenging them What happens during a scientific revolution? a dominant paradigm replaces an old one because of a crisis and rival paradigm Is the change from one scientific paradigm to another driven only by consideration of reasons and evidence? Not always sometimes new scientists change the perceptions Relativism perception of the world depends on one's own views and beliefs Is Kuhn considered a relativist? Yes because he has his own opinion different from others of how science should be done What is it for two paradigms to be incommensurable? if they aren't comparable by a normal standard each paradigm has its own standard of evaluation so someone working on one may not understand another and its views and beliefs