Philosophy of Science – THEORY AND
REALITY
1.Introduction
1.1 Setting Out
1.2 The Scope of the Theory
In order to understand science, we need to distinguish it from other kinds
of investigation of the world. However we choose the word “science”, in
the end we should try to develop both
1. a general understanding of how humans gain knowledge of the
world around them and
2. an understanding of what makes the work descended from the
Scientific Revolution different from other kinds of investigation of the
world.
1.3 What kind of theory?
Epistemology is the side of philosophy that is concerned with questions
about knowledge, evidence, and rationality.
Metaphysics, a more controversial part of philosophy, deals with general
questions about the nature of reality.
Philosophy of science overlaps with both of these.
We have to deal with disagreement about the right form for a philosophical
theory of science, and disagreement about which questions philosophers
should be asking.
- Understanding of scientific thinking.
- The logical theory of science suggests that we should try to understand
the abstract structure of scientific theories and the relationships between
the theories and observational evidence.
- The methodology is a set of rules or procedures that scientists do or
should follow.
Recently, a more general theory has come up, which is the theory of
scientific change.
A descriptive theory is an attempt to describe what actually goes on, or
what something is like, without making value judgments.
A normative theory does make value judgments, it talks about should go
on, or wat things should be like.
When a recipe is too simplistic, and a logical theory is too abstract, we
might look for a strategy.
1.4 Three Answers
‘How does science work?’
Empiricism: The only source of real knowledge about the world is
experience.
1
,Where does all knowledge come from? The differences between science
and everyday thinking are seen as differences of detail and degree. Pro-
science: science is seen as the best manifestation of our capacity to
investigate and know the world.
1.
Empiricism and science: Scientific thinking and investigation have the
same basic pattern as everyday thinking and investigation. The only
source of real knowledge about the real world is EXPERIENCE. Science is
especially successful because it is organised, systematic, and especially
responsive to experience. Direct empirical tests are no guarantee of
success.
An epistemological thesis: Epistemology concerns our ways of knowing.
Some problems to this theory:
- Direct empirical tests are no guarantee of success. - Experience is a
source of knowledge, but not the only important source.
- Experience is not so much involved in certain branches of science –
e.g., theoretical physics, paleontology, economics, ...
- Even if knowledge is based on experience, that tells us nothing
about what differentiates science from other human practices.
2.
Mathematics and Science: What makes science special is its attempt to
QUANTIFY PHENOMENA and DETECT MATHEMATICAL PATTERNS in the flow
of events. (Mathematics used as a tool within an empiricist outlook is what
makes science special.)
“It is written in the language of mathematics …” (Galileo Galilei, 1623).
Some problems to this theory:
- Mathematical tools are not quite as essential to science as Galileo
thought.
(One of the greatest scientific achievements, Darwin’s On the Origin
of Species [1859], makes no real use of mathematics. )
- Some pseudosciences like numerology involve mathematics.
3.
Social structure and science: What makes science different from other
kinds of investigation, and especially successful, is its UNIQUE SOCIAL
STRUCTURE.
Almost every move that a scientist makes depends on elaborate networks
of cooperation and trust. If each individual insisted on testing everything
himself, science would never advance beyond the most rudimentary ideas.
Cooperation is essential to science. The hard thing is working out which
kinds of experience are relevant to the testing of hypotheses.
Steven Shapin (1994) argues that mainstream empiricism often operates
within the fantasy that each individual can observationally test hypotheses
2
,for himself, and a good theory of the social organization of science will be
a better theory of science than empiricist fantasies.
Other philosophers have begun to develop theories of how science works
that emphasize social organization but are also intended to fit in with a
form of empiricism (Hull 1988; Kitcher 1993).
Some problems to this theory:
- If trust and cooperation are essential to science, who can be trusted
within a community? Who is a reliable source of data?
- What is special about the organization of scientific communities, as
opposed to political or religious communities?
The demarcation problem:
“How should we draw the boundaries between scientific ways of knowing
and other activities? “
This question is part of the larger task to determine which methods are
reliable to acquire knowledge and which beliefs are justified.
Pseudoscience refers to claims, beliefs or practices which are incorrectly
presented as scientific.
“Pseudo-” means false, fake in Greek.
Some symptoms of pseudoscience:
- Use of vague, ambiguous, or untestable concepts.
- Focus on confirmation.
- Disregard for contrary evidence.
- Lack of openness to testing by others.
- Absence of progress.
Not all non-science is pseudoscience. E.g., Poetry, religion, sculpture, etc..
the borders between some branches of philosophy and science are non-
trivial.
Why does it matter to say whether something like graphology should be
called a ‘science’ or not?
- Relevant to many important policy issues.
- Alleged “scientific” information is everywhere.
- Interesting in itself.
3
, 2.Logic Plus Empiricism
2.1 The Empiricist Tradition
There are two classical perspectives on knowledge, one emphasising the
role of reasoning in acquiring knowledge, the other emphasising the role of
perception.
Scepticism, the idea that we cannot know anything about the world, is
divided into two types:
- external world scepticism: How can we know anything about the real
world that lies behind the flow of sensations?
- Inductive scepticism: Why do we have reason to think that the
patterns in past experience will also hold in the future? (David Hume)
The first skeptic philosopher was Pyrrho (c. 360 BC–c. 270 BC).
The view that puts emphasis on reason is called rationalism, the one that
puts its money on perception (seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling) is
called empiricism.
Rationalism is the view that reasoning can provide knowledge that is
independent from experience.
- It is almost uncontroversially accepted that reasoning alone can give us
knowledge about mathematical truths, and about truths of logic and
theoretical computer science.
But can reasoning alone also give knowledge about other subject matters?
Philosophers like Pythagoras (c. 570–c. 495 BC), Plato (428/427 or
424/423–348/347 BC), Ren ́e Descartes (1596–1650), Baruch Spinoza
(1632-1677), and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) definitely thought
so.
In order to understand why Pythagoras and Plato (and many other
Ancient Greeks) were strongly drawn to rationalism, think about the
fact that mathematics, in the form of geometry, was the great
scientific success story of their time.
Geometry is based on pure reasoning, but it seems to give us real
information about the world around us. Geometry arose out of the need
of measuring land, but its development confronted the Greeks with a
4
REALITY
1.Introduction
1.1 Setting Out
1.2 The Scope of the Theory
In order to understand science, we need to distinguish it from other kinds
of investigation of the world. However we choose the word “science”, in
the end we should try to develop both
1. a general understanding of how humans gain knowledge of the
world around them and
2. an understanding of what makes the work descended from the
Scientific Revolution different from other kinds of investigation of the
world.
1.3 What kind of theory?
Epistemology is the side of philosophy that is concerned with questions
about knowledge, evidence, and rationality.
Metaphysics, a more controversial part of philosophy, deals with general
questions about the nature of reality.
Philosophy of science overlaps with both of these.
We have to deal with disagreement about the right form for a philosophical
theory of science, and disagreement about which questions philosophers
should be asking.
- Understanding of scientific thinking.
- The logical theory of science suggests that we should try to understand
the abstract structure of scientific theories and the relationships between
the theories and observational evidence.
- The methodology is a set of rules or procedures that scientists do or
should follow.
Recently, a more general theory has come up, which is the theory of
scientific change.
A descriptive theory is an attempt to describe what actually goes on, or
what something is like, without making value judgments.
A normative theory does make value judgments, it talks about should go
on, or wat things should be like.
When a recipe is too simplistic, and a logical theory is too abstract, we
might look for a strategy.
1.4 Three Answers
‘How does science work?’
Empiricism: The only source of real knowledge about the world is
experience.
1
,Where does all knowledge come from? The differences between science
and everyday thinking are seen as differences of detail and degree. Pro-
science: science is seen as the best manifestation of our capacity to
investigate and know the world.
1.
Empiricism and science: Scientific thinking and investigation have the
same basic pattern as everyday thinking and investigation. The only
source of real knowledge about the real world is EXPERIENCE. Science is
especially successful because it is organised, systematic, and especially
responsive to experience. Direct empirical tests are no guarantee of
success.
An epistemological thesis: Epistemology concerns our ways of knowing.
Some problems to this theory:
- Direct empirical tests are no guarantee of success. - Experience is a
source of knowledge, but not the only important source.
- Experience is not so much involved in certain branches of science –
e.g., theoretical physics, paleontology, economics, ...
- Even if knowledge is based on experience, that tells us nothing
about what differentiates science from other human practices.
2.
Mathematics and Science: What makes science special is its attempt to
QUANTIFY PHENOMENA and DETECT MATHEMATICAL PATTERNS in the flow
of events. (Mathematics used as a tool within an empiricist outlook is what
makes science special.)
“It is written in the language of mathematics …” (Galileo Galilei, 1623).
Some problems to this theory:
- Mathematical tools are not quite as essential to science as Galileo
thought.
(One of the greatest scientific achievements, Darwin’s On the Origin
of Species [1859], makes no real use of mathematics. )
- Some pseudosciences like numerology involve mathematics.
3.
Social structure and science: What makes science different from other
kinds of investigation, and especially successful, is its UNIQUE SOCIAL
STRUCTURE.
Almost every move that a scientist makes depends on elaborate networks
of cooperation and trust. If each individual insisted on testing everything
himself, science would never advance beyond the most rudimentary ideas.
Cooperation is essential to science. The hard thing is working out which
kinds of experience are relevant to the testing of hypotheses.
Steven Shapin (1994) argues that mainstream empiricism often operates
within the fantasy that each individual can observationally test hypotheses
2
,for himself, and a good theory of the social organization of science will be
a better theory of science than empiricist fantasies.
Other philosophers have begun to develop theories of how science works
that emphasize social organization but are also intended to fit in with a
form of empiricism (Hull 1988; Kitcher 1993).
Some problems to this theory:
- If trust and cooperation are essential to science, who can be trusted
within a community? Who is a reliable source of data?
- What is special about the organization of scientific communities, as
opposed to political or religious communities?
The demarcation problem:
“How should we draw the boundaries between scientific ways of knowing
and other activities? “
This question is part of the larger task to determine which methods are
reliable to acquire knowledge and which beliefs are justified.
Pseudoscience refers to claims, beliefs or practices which are incorrectly
presented as scientific.
“Pseudo-” means false, fake in Greek.
Some symptoms of pseudoscience:
- Use of vague, ambiguous, or untestable concepts.
- Focus on confirmation.
- Disregard for contrary evidence.
- Lack of openness to testing by others.
- Absence of progress.
Not all non-science is pseudoscience. E.g., Poetry, religion, sculpture, etc..
the borders between some branches of philosophy and science are non-
trivial.
Why does it matter to say whether something like graphology should be
called a ‘science’ or not?
- Relevant to many important policy issues.
- Alleged “scientific” information is everywhere.
- Interesting in itself.
3
, 2.Logic Plus Empiricism
2.1 The Empiricist Tradition
There are two classical perspectives on knowledge, one emphasising the
role of reasoning in acquiring knowledge, the other emphasising the role of
perception.
Scepticism, the idea that we cannot know anything about the world, is
divided into two types:
- external world scepticism: How can we know anything about the real
world that lies behind the flow of sensations?
- Inductive scepticism: Why do we have reason to think that the
patterns in past experience will also hold in the future? (David Hume)
The first skeptic philosopher was Pyrrho (c. 360 BC–c. 270 BC).
The view that puts emphasis on reason is called rationalism, the one that
puts its money on perception (seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling) is
called empiricism.
Rationalism is the view that reasoning can provide knowledge that is
independent from experience.
- It is almost uncontroversially accepted that reasoning alone can give us
knowledge about mathematical truths, and about truths of logic and
theoretical computer science.
But can reasoning alone also give knowledge about other subject matters?
Philosophers like Pythagoras (c. 570–c. 495 BC), Plato (428/427 or
424/423–348/347 BC), Ren ́e Descartes (1596–1650), Baruch Spinoza
(1632-1677), and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) definitely thought
so.
In order to understand why Pythagoras and Plato (and many other
Ancient Greeks) were strongly drawn to rationalism, think about the
fact that mathematics, in the form of geometry, was the great
scientific success story of their time.
Geometry is based on pure reasoning, but it seems to give us real
information about the world around us. Geometry arose out of the need
of measuring land, but its development confronted the Greeks with a
4
