Download Philosophy of Science Summary Chapter 1: Rationalism and

Philosophy of Science
Summary
Chapter 1: Rationalism and empiricism in antiquity
Two rival approaches:
o Rationalism (Plato, Socrates’ pupil);
o Empiricism (Aristotle, Plato’s pupil).
Rationalism: true knowledge about reality derives from the proper use of our reasoning
capacities. Our capacity to think generates ideas and concepts which we cannot arrive at by
using our sensory capacities alone.
Empiricism: not reason but sense experience is the ultimate source of knowledge. The
senses are reliable indicators of what reality is like.
Plato’s rationalism
o Metaphysics: branch of philosophy that asks and tries to answer the pre-eminent
philosophical question: Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the
world made of? Also called ontology;
o Truth and knowledge are about how things really are, not about how they are for me
or you  for knowledge we can’t appeal to the evidence of observation, given the
perpetual flux of natural reality (things change all the time);
o Two worlds: natural world in which we live, and perfect, supernatural world of Forms
(perfect triangle only exists in the latter);
o Nativism: human beings possess innate ideas: knowledge states that we already
possess at birth, so we don’t have to rely on our senses for knowledge. We’re born
possessing all knowledge, this knowledge was all lost at birth. We can remember it all
if we only use our reason correctly  to learn is to remember.
Aristotle’s empiricism
o There’s only one world: the natural world we inhabit;
o We’re born with no knowledge at all;
o Science = discovery of the causes of objects: we only have knowledge of a thing
when we know its cause, when we’re able to provide a causal explanation
example: how can we explain Socrates’ mortality? Understand a syllogism, a
deductive argument:
a) All human beings are mortal
premises
b) Socrates is a human being__
c) Socrates is mortal
conclusion
Scientific deduction: from an unrestrictedly true law (all humans die) to a particular
case (Socrates). Universal validity of the premises  absolutely true conclusion.
When the validity is not certain it will lead to personal opinion, not true knowledge;
o Induction: empirical procedure by which we move from the concrete to the abstract.
Merely gathering empirical data will not be sufficient to establish the truth of a
principle: the number of people who you’ve observed to be mortal is much smaller
than the number of people you’ve observed to possess two ears, but it’s not a
complete truth to say that all human beings have two ears  intuition apprehends
the first principles (all humans are mortal). Such intuitive induction (insight) by the
mind guarantees the truth of the empirically acquired correlations;
o Doctrine of four causes (because scientific demonstrations must be causative):
1. Formal cause;
2. Material cause;
3. Efficient cause: primary source of change or absence of change;
4. Final cause: goal for the sake of which something is done.
Example with marble statue of Apollo:
1. Apollo shape;
Philosophy of Science
Summary
2. Marble;
3. Sculptor;
4. Aesthetic/devotional.
To have knowledge of something is to have knowledge of these four causes.
Plato – rationalism
two worlds: natural – Forms
born with all knowledge
Aristotle – empiricism
one world: natural
born with no knowledge
Chapter 2: a new (philosophy of) science
Francis Bacon: no scientific experiments, but wrote everything down clearly. Literary gift.
Warned against the idols (characteristic errors) that deceive your perception:
o Idols of the tribe: innate, shared by all human beings. Jumping to premature
conclusion. We tend to focus exclusively on the evidence that supports our cherished
convictions, and disregard its failures. We should be more critical;
o Idols of the cave: are due to individuals upbringing and education;
o Idols of the marketplace: stem from common language;
o Idols of the theatre: accepted dogmas and methods of old schools of thought.
Until end of 16th century: old Aristotelian, deductive (syllogistic) logic. But what guarantees
the truth of the premises?  Bacon: new method: induction: gather as much empirical data
as possible as the basis for proceeding to formulate of theories.
Scientific revolution
o Emphasis on empirical observation, theories had to be based on observational and
experimental facts;
o Universal mechanics;
o Universal mathematics, the universe followed regular mechanical principles and these
could be described in precise mathematical terms.
Chapter 3: Early modern rationalism and empiricism
Descartes’ rationalism
René Descartes: often described as father of modern philosophy. Rationalist: in the end it is
not perception but human reason that grounds knowledge. Science is built like foundations:
we have to establish every science on statements that are known to be absolutely true. We
should use a method of doubt to obtain true knowledge: anything that can be doubted is
uncertain and should not be regarded as knowledge. Your senses deceive you  they can’t
be trusted: they fool us some of the time, so they could be fooling us all of the time 
senses cannot provide the foundation for knowledge. When doubting everything, he knows
one thing for sure: he is doubting  he is thinking  he exists: I think, therefore I am. =
Descartes absolutely certain foundation of knowledge. He is so sure, because its truth is
clear and distinct  everything that he clearly and distinctly understands has to be true.
French Renaissance writer Michel de Montaigne: unreliability of reasoning and observation,
disavowed (verloochende) knowledge. As the images of reality provided by our senses are
often illusory, they cannot be trusted.
The British empiricists
Descartes’ early modern version of rationalism was disputed by empiricists. Most famous:
John Locke, George Berkeley & David Hume.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
John Locke
Rationalists said that some ideas are inborn and everyone knows them. Locke disagrees:
when we’re born the mind is like a white paper.
All our ideas (mental representations) stem from sensation (senses) and reflection (thinking
about things we experienced). These two together constitute experience.
Three types of properties, called qualities, which we attribute to objects:
o Primary quality: a snowball is round. Even if we don’t look, it would still be round.
Primary qualities exist whether we perceive them or not;
o Secondary quality: only exist when the object is perceived. Are subjective (colours,
sounds, smells, texture, heat, cold). Snowball: white;
o Tertiary qualities: the powers objects have to change another object so that it causes
different sensations in us  the sun can make wax white and fire can make lead
fluid.
Mind-dependent properties: only exist by virtue of someone perceiving a material object.
Imagine a tree falling in an abandoned forest, does it make a sound?
Locke: no: it doesn’t have an observer, so it doesn’t make a sound.
Mind-independent (primary) properties: properties inhering in material objects independently
of any perceiving organism.
George Berkeley
There are no primary qualities: how can we distinguish between primary and secondary
when we can count only on our senses?
Everything that exists, exists in virtue of being perceived (something I think is tall, may not
be tall for someone else).
Idealism: the existence of something consists in its being perceived by a mind. Objects have
only ideal, not real or material existence. What happens when you see a cherry and you
imaginatively peel away all the experiences you have of it  the cherry is real, but only
insofar as it exists in my mind. The cherry only exists as a ‘collection of ideas’.
Esse est percipi: to be is to be perceived.
How can we be sure that objects exist outside of the mind? God is always looking down on
us, so he sees everything, and objects are still there, even if I don’t perceive them.
Only substance that exists is the mental substance, all physical objects are determined by
that substance, not vice versa.
David Hume
Descartes, Locke, Berkeley: ‘idea’ idea: view that human beings don’t know the world in
itself, but only through representations in our minds (veil of ideas).
Hume: every science has a relation to human nature.
Contents of the mind should be called perceptions. Two varieties:
o Impressions: immediate data of experience. Red when you actually see it;
o Ideas: faint copies of impressions. Red, present in your mind when you can’t see the
colour.
 Copy Principle: knowledge ultimate derives from impressions received through the
senses.
If a complex idea is meaningful, it must be divisible into simple ideas which can be
connected to their corresponding impressions. If it can’t be broken down into various simple
ideas and impressions, it lacks empirical content, therefore is meaningless and should be
discarded.
You can make an impression of something you’ve never seen before  destroys Copy
Principle: no impression of it, no idea of it.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
Chapter 4: The limits of science: Hume and Kant on human knowledge
Hume
Science is just our best guess. Only fallible knowledge is within our reach.
Hume: if we cannot find the sense impressions from which we derived an idea, the idea is
only a product of the imagination, and doesn’t refer to a state of affairs: it is insignificant.
Imagine two billiard balls, a white and a red one. If you push the white one, against the red
one, the red one starts to move  the collision of the white moving ball causes the
stationary red ball to move. Hume: can we actually see/observe that cause? We see:
1. Contiguity (nearness): see the balls touched one another before the motion was
communicated;
2. Priority (order): the motion which was the cause is prior to the motion which was the
effect;
3. Constant conjunction: if we try it again, with other balls, it will always happen like
that.
We don’t see the causality; we see contiguity, priority and constant conjunction.
But: people do believe the red ball will move after the collision with the white ball: this belief
is the result of the operation of the mind.
We anticipate the movement, drawing conclusions based on past experience: habit
formation.
Human nature makes us act, believe, and think the way we do.
We can only understand our anticipatory success of knowledge if:
1. We assume that the world is uniform and constant;
2. We observe that human nature is such that it associates and forms habits.
Scientific knowledge is unattainable for humans. All we have is empirically informed best
guesses.
Immanuel Kant
Didn’t want to agree with Hume that science is just our best guess  tries to find a way out.
Transcendental question: transcendental = all knowledge which is occupied with the mode of
our cognition of these objects, so far this mode is possible a priori. What makes universal
knowledge possible? How do we attain it?
Kant agrees with Hume that we can only see contiguity, priority and constant conjunction.
But also says that there just is universal knowledge: the synthetic a priori.
Analytic: doesn’t add information for people who already know what the subject is: a
bachelor is unmarried. It is true on purely logical grounds.
Synthetic: extend/expand our knowledge: the candle is red. A candle doesn’t have to be
red, you have to check if the candle you’re referring to really is red.
A priori: independent of sense experience. The source of the judgment is reason. A wax
candle melts in the sun.
A posteriori: dependent of sense experience. The source of the judgment is our senses.
Hume: only agrees with the candle melting in the sun, insofar as the knowledge about the
candle melting in the sun is the result of the workings of the passionate human imagination.
It only seems to be knowledge, but thinking that all candles necessarily melt in the sun is
holding a strong belief that can be completely wrong.
Kant tries to synthesize the empiricist and rationalist traditions in philosophy.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
Judgments according to
Hume and Kant
A priori
A posteriori
Analytic
Synthetic
Analytic a priori: possible
according to both
Analytic a posteriori:
impossible to both
Synthetic a priori: possible
according to Kant only
Synthetic a posteriori:
possible to both
Is a synthetic a priori statement possible? Look for a statement that:
1. Has his origin in the human mind;
2. Adds information about the world (expands knowledge).
Chapter 5: Understanding humans: positivism and hermeneutics
Positivism: idea that the moral sciences (social sciences) should be approached in the
same way as the physical sciences (natural sciences). Those two differ only in degree, not in
kind, therefore the same methods and standards can be used.
Hermeneuticists: positivism is wrong, social sciences are radically discontinuous with
natural sciences.
Social sciences are about humans and animals.
Natural sciences are about lifeless objects.
Hobbes: sought to develop the idea of a mechanistic science of society. Society was like a
clock, its mechanism could be described by universal laws. Economy = social machine,
driven by engine of self-interest.
Positivists are methodological monists: there’s only one scientific method and it should be
used in all of the sciences, natural or social.
Hermeneuticists: believed in dualism: there are two kinds of sciences (social & natural),
which are essentially distinct, differing in subject matter and methodology.
Hermeneutics
Hermeneutics = the art of interpretation.
Dilthey: individuals are rooted in historically contingent traditions, and can only be
understood by taking these traditions seriously.
To know the reason of one’s behaviour, you should see one’s mind.
You can’t see someone’s mind  but you do have direct access to customs, laws, myths,
literature etc. While considering them, we can rely on the faculty of imagination to gain
access to the minds of the people who produced them.
Social sciences do not use erklären: the procedure followed in natural sciences, seeking
explanations through general laws.
They use verstehen: interpretive understanding, to project oneself in other people’s shoes
and to relive experiences (nacherleben).
Hermeutic circle: understanding a sentence  understanding a paragraph  understanding
a whole book, and at the same time: to understand the paragraph and the whole book we
must understand the sentences  we can only understand another human being by moving
back and forth between the individual, his expressions, and the particular slice of history of
which these are part.
Wilhelm Windelband: natural sciences are nomothetic: pursue general, universal knowledge.
Social sciences are idiographic: seek to describe historically unique events (biographies).
Philosophy of Science
Summary
What Dilthey failed to see: interpreters will never be able to shake off their own
preconceptions and presuppositions, their own situatedness in history. There is no objective
knowledge when using verstehen.
Chapter 6: Logical positivism: the formal, the factual and the fictional
20th century: new positivist movement: Wiener Kreis (Vienna Circle): logical positivism.
o Like Comte: exact sciences are example for rest of science;
o Distrust of great philosophical systems;
o Wanted to develop a view of science that would be strong enough to get rid of all
irrational thought.
Logical positivism
Agreed with Hume: knowledge results from either abstract reasoning (logic) or experimental
reasoning (observation).
Logical positivism is about the realization of unified science through the application of logical
analysis to experience. Logic and experience should be brought together to create a unified
science.
Ludwig Wittgenstein: made the revolution in philosophy possible. A number of his claims
were adopted as the Circle’s most basic tenets:
1. The distinction between formal and factual statements;
2. The verification theory of meaning;
3. The conception of philosophy as logical analysis.
1. The distinction between formal and factual statements
Scientific statements fall into either of two categories:
o Category of logical and mathematical statements:
 Logic concerns the internal structure of language. Logical statements are
entirely dependent on their own formal structure and the meaning of the
terms used in them. They’re tautologies: don’t say anything about the world,
have no factual content. They’re analytic: their truth or falsity isn’t established
through observation: tomorrow it will either rain or it will not / 2 + 2 = 4.
They are true under all circumstances; their truth is independent of the
contingent facts of the world. A priori and analytic.
o Category of factual statements:
 Truth of statement can only be established through sensory experience. There
are 48 people in this room / water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. Synthetic.
Whether they are true or not can only be found out a posteriori.
Category of logical and mathematical statements: the Eiffel Tower is or is not in Paris
(something is A or not-A).
Category of factual statements: the Eiffel Tower is in Paris.
2. The verification theory of meaning
Wittgenstein and Vienna Circle: statements are either logical (a priori, analytic) or empirical
(a posteriori, synthetic). All other statements are unscientific.
They wanted a demarcation criterion: criterion that would allow one to draw an objective,
razor-sharp distinction between science and non-science.
Wittgenstein: in order to discover whether the picture is true or false we must compare it
with reality  a statement is meaningful if one knows what one has to do to find out
whether the statement in fact mirrors reality. To understand that you need to know what is
the case if it is true.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
Demarcation criterion = the meaning of a statement is determined by its method of
verification. If a statement cannot be empirically verified, it’s meaningless. Basic statements
must be defined in terms of observable reality (define all terms in statement until you can’t
define any further).
Verification functions as a criterion of cognitive significance: draws a dividing line between
science and pseudoscience (metaphysics, as positivists call it).
3. The conception of philosophy as logical analysis.
Modern positivists: synthetic a priori statements don’t exist  role of philosopher can no
longer be to offer insights about reality (because this is the responsibility of empirical
science). The only thing philosophers can do: investigate and elucidate the logical aspects of
the language used by scientists. Philosophy must concern itself with logical analysis. Only the
method of logical analysis remains.
Philosopher’s task: to transform propositions by means of definitions until terms are obtained
that can no longer be defined but can be brought into immediate contact with experience.
The empirical scientist will take over then.
Difference Wittgenstein and Circle: Wittgenstein didn’t want to deny that there are
metaphysical truths. He claimed that such truths cannot be spoken of, since they cannot be
expressed in language. Although they can’t be put in words, they can be shown. What we
cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
Neurath’s critical response: there’s nothing beyond the grasp of science: what cannot be said
simply doesn’t exist.
The positivists used Ernst Mach to settle one important issue: what precisely is the empirical
basis?
Mach: to reach certainty one should go back to what cannot be doubted. The only way in
which science can reach certainty and remove human prejudices is by relying on what is
actually given in experience  science should never go beyond the given or the positive,
which consists in senses. All scientific statements must ultimately refer back to such sense
data; if they do not, they are inadmissible. Schlick agreed with Mach.
The sense data are described in basic sentences: protocol sentences.
Protocol sentences: direct reports of simple experiences (I see a red spot now). They’re
immediately verified. So not: I have dental caries (non-basic statement, has to be verified)
but: I have a toothache (infallible and incorrigible statement).
 Observations that refer directly to experiences are absolutely certain.
Philosophers: tie theoretical statements (I have dental caries) as closely possible to protocol
statements (I have a toothache).
Schlick & Carnap: elementary statements must be statements about given experiences.
Cracks began to appear in the Circle: they didn’t agree on the nature of the empirical base.
Two groups, each side accusing the other of introducing metaphysical elements into science.
When I have a toothache, the truth of this statement is directly given only to me.  we
don’t want subjective but intersubjective verification: all observers must agree on the truth I
see.
 Verification isn’t an objective process: it takes place in the exclusive privacy of one’s
own mind. Science rests on an empirical base that is essentially subjective.
Communication is rendered impossible: you don’t know anything about my
experiences.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
Two groups in the Circle:
o Conservative right wing of Schlick and Waismann: remain faithful to
Mach/Wittgenstein orthodoxy: knowledge rests on indubitable basic statements
describing experiences;
o Left wing by Neurath and later Carnap: denied that such indubitable statements were
possible.
Schlick: Phenomenal language: construed in subjective form with: I, now, here (I now see
here red; I now have a pain here).
Neurath’s critics:
o Communication by scientists can only be guaranteed if the language shared by all
sciences is the physical language. Physical language uses objective form, containing
observer’s name, references to time and place and concept of perception: at 10.20
a.m. John observed that the pointer’s needle indicated 3.5. It doesn’t talk about
sense data, but about observable properties of material objects;
o Physicalism  the basis of science is not constituted by what each of us sees with his
mind’s eye (mental objects) but with his bodily eyes (physical objects): whereas two
observers will never be able to compare and discuss their respective sense data, they
will surely be able to discuss the properties of material objects that are plain for all to
see. Sentences can’t be compared to reality, that’s metaphysical. Truth doesn’t
consist in agreement of statements and facts (correspondence) but in agreement of
statements with other statements (coherence). The best scientists can do is to use
the material they have at their disposal and pragmatically try to create buildings that
are for now in balance, when the structure becomes shaky, scientists will renovate
with whatever they happen to find lying around: the foundations of science are shaky
and therefore have to be built and rebuilt all the time.
Contra hermeneutics, logical positivists argued there is only 1 science, with 1 method and 1
language.
Schlick’s critics on physicalism:
o It gives up certainty and truth  impossible to distinguish between science and nonscience;
o It leads to peculiar relativism: scientific statements should cohere  any coherent
story will qualify as real science: anything goes as long as it is a coherent story. So
scientific theories can no longer be distinguished from fairy tales and pseudosciences.
Vienna-based positivism leaves us with 2 choices:
o Certainty but no intersubjectivity;
o Intersubjectivity but no certainty.
Chapter 7: Critical rationalism
Karl Popper: criticized on positivism. From empiricism back to rationalism. He agreed with
logical positivist on importance of logic and mathematics for science, and appreciated their
emphasis on empirical testing. But for him the positivists missed a rational aspect to
knowledge and science. For Popper: theory always comes before and not after observation.
In 1919 Popper broke with Marxism, he learned two lessons:
o Humans are liable to make mistakes, they are fallible creatures;
o There’s a major difference between dogmatic theories (like Marxism) and critical
thinking.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
He began to question the scientific value of theories that are able to explain every possible
observation. He saw it as a sign of the profoundly unscientific character of such theories.
But how to demarcate between science and non-science?
Verification theory  some of best scientific achievements then no longer deserve to be
called scientific  not the right demarcation criterion: no universal claim or law can ever be
verified, because it is impossible to check each and every instance that falls under that law.
Schlick’s response: universal laws are neither true nor falls, they’re mere instruments that
can be used to infer statements about particular events.
Carnap’s response: doesn’t agree with Schlick. Agreed with Popper that verification theory is
oversimplified, and it also excludes scientific meaning  modification: attempt to increase a
statement’s degree of confirmation.
Confirmation theory  a theory must be in agreement with empirically established facts.
Science is a process of gradually increasing confirmation. Every white swan I observe counts
as an empirical confirmation of my theory that all swans are white. The degree of
confirmation increases. Popper: verification is too strong, but confirmation is too weak.
Falsifiability theory  any legitimate scientific theory will make predictions that can in
principle be falsified. It’s about the possibility of falsification.
Characteristics of falsificationism:
o Falsifiability is the criterion of demarcation: real sciences are falsifiable;
o Acknowledges a basic observation about humans: their fallibility;
o Only theories that are falsifiable are informative;
o Only through falsification can scientific knowledge grow.
Statement: Tomorrow it will either rain, or it will not. It is true but completely uninformative.
 a statement/theory should be falsifiable in order to be called scientific: we should be able
to specify under which conditions the statement/theory would be falsified.
Conventionalist twist / stratagem: attempt to deflect criticism by making ad hoc adjustments
to a theory. The application of such immunization tactics protects a theory from falsification,
rendering the theory unscientific.
Falsification theory only provides demarcation line between scientific and non-scientific
statements, not between meaningful and meaningless statements. Something can be nonscientific and meaningful and non-scientific and meaningless.
Human fallibility: we do not know, we can only guess. We can expand our knowledge by
trying to locate, remove and correct our mistakes = negative road to truth.
Popper: science uses deductive reasoning. If all As are Bs, the next A will be B. problem is to
establish the truth of the first premise: the general statement. Popper: this cannot be done.
Scientific method is one of conjectures and refutations / trial and error. All As are Bs, the
next A will be B, try to find an A that is not B.
Popper: every organism has inborn reactions or responses, and among them responses
adapted to impending events. Unconscious expectations.
Theory always precedes and, in a sense, forms observation.
Dogmatic behavior: expecting regularities everywhere. But there’s no regularity, only
expected or perceived regularity resulting from one’s theoretical lenses.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
A scientist should take a critical stance toward his own views: they might be wrong.
Historicism: history develops according to fixed patterns, rhythms, laws, or trends. Laws of
nature (natural sciences) are universally true, laws of social life are changing: bound by
specific historical and cultural contexts  experimental methods of natural sciences aren’t
applicable in social sciences proper methodology of social sciences is verstehende method:
method of sympathetic imagination or understanding intuitively the purposes, interests and
meanings predominant in a specific cultural group during a specific historical epoch.
Utopian engineering: endeavour to redesign the whole of society in accordance with a grand
blueprint. Truth about society is already obtained (Bible, Mein Kampf). No doubt nor debate
will be tolerated, failure is never admitted.
In social sciences we can make general statements, but these are much less certain than
those discovered in the natural sciences  therefore they aren’t called laws but trends.
Trends: result of statistical devices, describe a pattern in the available data. Are backwardlooking and don’t say anything about the future.
Laws: universal and forward-looking.
Sociological or economic prediction is difficult, they will only hold if the conditions are right.
Popper: only way to solve practical problems, in both sciences is method of piecemeal
engineering: method of making small adjustments and readjustments which can be
continually improved upon: there’s unity of method, no special method for social sciences
like verstehen.
Rationality Principle: sane persons as a rule act more or less rationally. But this isn’t true.
Popper also admits the rationality principle is clearly false, but it’s a good approximation to
the truth.
If the Rationality Principle has empirical content, it is false and it should be falsified.
If it doesn’t have empirical content (immunizes principle against criticism), it seems
inconsistent with Popper’s falsificationism, and thus with the Critical part of his Critical
Rationalism.
Critics on critical rationalism:
o Temporary immunization is not a crime: should one discard an entire theory if one of
the predictions that can follow from it is falsified? No, they should be given the
opportunity to grow and prove themselves: temporary immunization can be allowed;
o Pseudosciences often make falsifiable claims and thus are scientific by Popper’s lights
 not a good demarcation criterion;
o Replacing one false theory by another false theory is not progress: we are never in a
position to claim that a theory is actually true, it is corroborated at its best;
o Deductive testing presupposes induction: all swans are white, need to observe a nonwhite swan. Problem: how do we know that the animal we’re observing is a swan?
Chapter 8: Language games and paradigms: Thinking from within
Criteria of demarcation: Thomas Kuhn: alternative approach: idea: important to describe the
pattern according to which a science develops. Such a description must be essential input
when we think about a normative criterion which separates science from everything else.
Kuhn’s idea of science: we can detect (and describe) a specific pattern in the dynamics of
science once we turn to the history of science. This pattern shows that scientists usually
uncritically work within a framework that shows them which phenomena, problems, and
technologies are relevant to them. This framework offers them a perspective on reality, and
Philosophy of Science
Summary
tells them which questions are meaningful and answerable at all. Such a framework =
paradigm. Example: Keynesian economics and behavioural economics.
Distinction Wittgenstein:
o Younger Wittgenstein: inspired logical positivists;
o Later Wittgenstein: influenced relativists (ideas in stark contrast with positivists).
Later Wittgenstein
Developed idea of language game (predecessor of Kuhn’s paradigms and Feyerabend’s
traditions).
He no longer defends view that language depicts reality, but now: meaning is use: words get
their meaning from the way in which they’re used by a group of people. Words are used in
social context = form of life / language game. Meanings of words and statements are
determined in a social linguistic context, and language is no longer a representation or image
of reality.
Only when a language is part of a certain encompassing practice will the language come
alive and do words get their meaning. For example: statement: God is Good. Meaningless to
early Wittgenstein: no way to check reference of words ‘God’ or ‘good’. But later
Wittgenstein: statement has meaning in one language game (language of religion) but not in
another language game (language of science).
In the scientific empiricist language game, where it is a rule that words need to refer to
observable objects and events, these terms don’t mean anything at all.
 words have meaning relative to the language game in which they’re used.
When people from different forms of life (playing different language games) think differently
about the world, it’s only possible to understand what they think when we ourselves are
members of that form of life, playing the same language game.
Relativism
Support for relativism:
o The psychologically plausible theory-ladenness of observation;
o The Saphir-Whorf hypothesis in linguistics.
Relativism: view that truth of a claim depends on some kind of framework in which the
claim has its proper place.
In a different culture  different morals. Which morals are the right ones? No objective
answer  not one is better than the other, they’re merely different.
Humans see what they see in the light of what they expect to see. What they expect to see
is determined by the framework they share with others. Anything that doesn’t fit these
expectations if left out of the field of observations.
Karl Popper vs Thomas Kuhn
Similarities:
o Human perception is heavily theory-laden: empiricists are wrong in their assumption
that there are unproblematic raw empirical data: observations are theory-laden: we
see what we see in the light of already acquired expectations and preconceptions 
no objectivity  no neutral observations: reality becomes our own construction.
Differences:
o Is it possible to get closer to a true theory about the world?
 Popper: yes, using the negative, falsificationist way;
 Kuhn: no, there’s no such thing as the truth: what scientists take to be the
truth and what they think reality looks like is always relative to a group of
scientists in a certain period in time within a certain paradigm = scientific
relativism.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
o
Is true knowledge possible?
 Popper: yes, using negative, falsificationist way;
 Kuhn: No, paradigm shift isn’t an improvement, only a shift in perspective on
reality. But within a paradigm there’s growth of science (solving puzzles).
Constructivism: reality becomes our own construction. What we mean by reality is
determined a priori by the theories we already accepted and the anticipations we already
acquired. What is true about the world changes with different groups or individuals in
different periods.
Saphir-Whorf hypothesis in linguistics: linguistic relativity: what one can think about
and what one can perceive is relative to the language one speaks. A language has
consequences for the way we think about reality (some languages have more words for
snow, or river, making it harder to translate).
When there are two different scientific views, we cannot distinguish between the correct and
incorrect view. Conclusion: views are different.
Thomas Kuhn
Relativist, we need paradigms.
Difference with Kant’s categories: Paradigms can change, categories cannot.
Finding a demarcation criterion failed, but we do have a rough intuitive idea of which
disciplines belong to science: historically investigate how these disciplines developed over
time. (= not new demarcation criterion!)
Dynamics of scientific discipline:
Initial, once-in-a-lifetime pre-scientific period  dynamics get form of a spiral.
It starts with a period of normal science (presence of a paradigm)  period of crisis 
period of scientific revolution or paradigm shift (new paradigm)  normal science (with new
paradigm  period of crisis, etc.
Pre-scientific period:
As many opinions as there are period, no consensus about the way one ought to proceed to
gather information about a specific domain of phenomena, no generally accepted
background of assumptions.
Normal science:
Culture of consensus is developed, achieve science with regard to that specific domain of
phenomena = scientific community  normal science.
Paradigm: sum of accepted metaphysical assumptions, theories, methodologies, manuals,
and techniques. During a period of normal science, the scientific community works, acts and
thinks from within such a paradigm.
During a period of normal science, scientists expand the paradigm and try to get rid of
mistakes and minor problems (anomalies). Main work of scientists: solving those puzzles.
The result of solving those puzzles must be progress.
Everyone is ‘indoctrinated’: inculcated with characteristics of the paradigm and convinced
that the paradigm is a true representation of the world. Trained to take an uncritical view
towards the paradigm, always believe it’s true and try to hold on to the theories.
Conservative.
Crisis:
If a paradigm is confronted with more and more problems and anomalies, the
trustworthiness of the paradigm is eroded. There are no new success that reduce the
problems. The unconditional trust that the paradigm is correct withers  crisis: start of a
period of abnormal science: assumptions, methodologies, and accepted truths are critically
Philosophy of Science
Summary
discussed. There’s still no alternative paradigm, scientists have no choice: paradigm is still
accepted, but they’re looking for an alternative.
Out-of-date paradigms aren’t unscientific, but are superseded.
Period of abnormal science can end in two ways:
1. Solve accumulated problems (eliminate anomalies), crisis is managed, trust in
paradigm is restored;
2. Totally new paradigm: scientific revolution.
Scientific revolutions:
The new paradigm replaces the old paradigm in a relatively short time.
If there’s no alternative paradigm, the scientists cannot but use and work within the
paradigm in crisis.
Paradigm shift is not an improvement: only a shift in perspective on reality.
Kuhn: different paradigms are incommensurable.
Incommensurability: to have no measure in common. If two paradigms are
incommensurable, there’s no unit common to both paradigms in which we can express the
comparison between the two. They become incomparable.
Incommensurability because:
1. New paradigms stem from old ones, terminology is the same. But old terms in new
paradigms have completely new relationship to each other, and to the world;
2. Communication between scientists of different paradigms is problematic because they
speak different languages. There’s no neutral or objective language, since the
language used is always already part of the paradigm;
3. Proponent of the different paradigms work in different worlds: scientists who adopt
the new paradigm see a different world, than those who worked in the old paradigm.
Shift from one paradigm to another = gestalt switch. If one adopted a new paradigm, one
cannot shift back.
Incommensurability of paradigms  no rational comparison between two paradigms can be
made: no facts can be used to decide which paradigm is better.
Choosing a paradigm is not motivated by rational deliberation and argumentation. Choice is
determined by social factors or made on basis of personal interests. A paradigm shift is an
irrational process.
Criterion for science: if there is (was) a paradigm present in the study of a specific domain of
phenomena, that discipline can be classified as scientific. (Macroeconomics: classical
economics & Keynesian economics).
Social sciences often seem to switch from perspective to perspective, reinterpreting the
social phenomena. This isn’t the case with natural sciences. The constant flux of social realm
demand continual reinterpretation  Kuhn: social sciences cannot be characterized as
sciences in the same way as natural sciences, using the idea of normal science.
Strong Program
Attempt to use not so much the history of science, as the sociology of science to offer a
scientific picture of science. Also relativistic.
By David Bloor and Barry Barnes.
Four basic tenets:
o Causality;
o Impartiality;
o Symmetry;
o Reflexivity.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
Causality: Sociology of scientific knowledge is concerned with social causes that bring about
those states we call knowledge. Aim for a causal account. Different communities will have
different beliefs depending on different social causes.
Impartiality: be impartial with respect to the truth, success, or rationality of knowledge.
Symmetry: if sociologists of science are concerned with the causes that bring about
knowledge, and if they are supposed to be impartial towards the truth, success or rationality
of the beliefs, they should just look for causes of beliefs. Whether the sociologist of science
regards these beliefs as true or false is irrelevant.
Reflexivity: what goes for all sciences must also go for us.
Strong program opposes two important views in traditional philosophy:
1. Knowledge is true belief;
2. Social and psychological explanations only come into play when people have false,
irrational beliefs, not when their beliefs are true and rational.
Traditional view: if someone has a rational and true belief, the psychologist or sociologist has
no business explaining why this is so, for their beliefs are based on reason or logic.
Two different kinds of explanation: one for true, rational, successful beliefs, and one for
false, irrational, and unsuccessful beliefs.
Barnes & Bloor: in every instance of knowledge one can identify the social conditions that
cause the beliefs.
Only one kind of explanation: strong program.
Strong program offers critique of Kuhn’s views: Kuhn accepts that there is rationality within a
paradigm and that rational beliefs are part and parcel of any paradigm. Bloor and Barnes
don’t believe in that.
Most important threat to strong program: self-refutation: reasons are only valid within a
certain community. Why then would their readers accept their views as true?
Donald Davidson
Critique on Kuhn. There can be no such thing as two incommensurable paradigms.
Kuhn’s paradigm = Davidson’s conceptual scheme.
Conceptual scheme: way of organizing experience; systems of categories that give form
to data of sensation; point of view from which individuals, cultures, or periods survey the
passing scene. May be no translation from one scheme to another  beliefs, desires, hopes
and bits of knowledge that characterize one person have no true counterparts for the
subscriber to another scheme. Reality is relative to a scheme: what counts as reality in some
system may not in another.
There’s no way to establish that two conceptual schemes (paradigms) are incommensurable.
Incommensurability implies untranslatability, but we need a translation into our own
language to identify something as a language (conceptual scheme). If a different language
were totally untranslatable, we would not be able to identify it as a language at all; if a
different language is partially untranslatable, we can’t be sure whether the parts that
allegedly don’t translate are really indicative of untranslatable parts of the language and
therefore of incommensurable parts of conceptual schemes, or whether they are merely
differences in belief  no sense to speak of incommensurable conceptual schemes.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
Kuhn’s later view
Most important shift: view on notion of incommensurability. If it is a radical change or merely
an attempt to clarify the notion, is open for debate.
He stresses: incommensurability pertains between two linguistic structures (lexicons and
taxonomies), but an individual is able to learn both languages, although he will not be able
to translate each and every term or phrase of one language without loss of meaning into the
other language.
Translation: something that is done by someone who knows two languages.
Interpretation: enterprise in which the interpreter may initially command only one language.
Taxonomic terms: there can’t be any overlap in the referents of these terms, unless they
are related as species to genus. There are no cats to which the term dog also applies, but
there are Panthera (genus) under which all tigers, lions fall.
 incommensurability: problem between two taxonomies of two individuals belonging to
different speech communities.
If taxonomies differ with respect to some domain, statement that are meaningful in one
language can’t be expressed in the other. To bridge the gap between communities would
require adding to one lexicon a kind term that overlaps, shares a referent with one that is
already in place. It is that situation which the no-overlap principle precludes.
Incommensurability becomes a sort of untranslatability, localized to one or another area in
which two lexical taxonomies differ.
It does not mean that one cannot learn to understand a different language, it only means
that one will not be able to translate term by term the sentences from that language to one’s
own.
Distinction between interpreting a language and translating a language. Only in the latter:
incommensurability.
Rationality is still available within a Kuhnian view on science. As soon as one recognizes that
the focus need not be on objective, observer-neutral facts, but rather on the idea of change
of belief.
(Later) Kuhn wasn’t as radical as the strong program.
Paul Feyerabend: most radical of all philosopher of science, relativist.
Imre Lakatos: tried to combine and modify views of Popper and Kuhn.
Chapter 9: Research programs & methodological anarchy: competition and
freedom in gaining knowledge
Imre Lakatos
Imre Lakatos: agrees with Popper that theories cannot be proven. Agrees with Kuhn that
Popper’s falsificationism is an oversimplified view of science (scientists don’t immediately
reject they’re theories when they are falsified, but amend them). But rejects conclusion that
this leads to accepting the irrationality of scientific revolutions. He believes: more refined
falsificationist position than the one Popper defends, which doesn’t fall prey to Kuhn’s
criticism, and which presents scientific revolutions not as on a par with religious conversions
but as rational progress.
Lakatos distinguishes three varieties of falsificationism:
o Dogmatic or naturalistic falsificationism;
o Methodological falsificationism;
o Sophisticated falsificationism: escapes Kuhn’s criticism, combines merits of views of
Popper and Kuhn.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
Dogmatic falsificationism: all scientific theories are fallible and conjectural, and thus
cannot be proven. They can be disproved. There is a firm empirical basis of facts that can be
used to disprove theories. For a truly scientific theory, we can specify in advance what
observational situations will refute the theory. If an observation is made that disproves a
statement, that statement has to be rejected.
Lakatos: this variety of falsificationism is untenable because:
o Makes two false assumptions:
 Distinction between theoretical / speculative statements and factual /
observational statements. Incorrect: mostly no pure, untheoretical
observations used to refute a theory. Observation is theory-laden: there is no
natural demarcation between theoretical and observational statements;
 If a statement is a true observational statement, then it is proven from facts.
Since all theoretical statements are fallible, and factual statement cannot be
distinguished from theoretical statements, factual statements must be fallible
too.
o Adheres to a criterion of demarcation that is too narrow.
A scientific theory cannot be proven, only disproved.
Methodological falsificationism: scientists make a methodological decision that a mature
theory which has been successful in the past can no longer be rejected. They stick to the
convention that the theory cannot be falsified. Lakatos terms this view conservative
conventionalism.
Revolutionary conventionalism (Karl Popper): allows theories to be falsified by singular
statements. For these singular statements it is held that they cannot be refuted, for they are
part of a well-corroborated theory. These statements are supposed to serve as observational
or basic statements = unproblematic background knowledge.
Suppose we want to know something about gravitation on a distant star: we have a theory
and we want to test it. The data we gather about this star obviously require that we accept
and fix another theory: that or radio-optics. Radio-optics is accepted as background
knowledge. While testing theory X, theory Y is accepted and used as background knowledge.
Problem of methodological falsificationism: decision to accept one statement over another
seems arbitrary.
Sophisticated falsificationism: a scientific theory T is falsified only if another theory T’
has been proposed with the following characteristics:
1. T’ has excess empirical content over T: predicts novel facts;
2. T’ explains the previous success of T: all unrefuted content of T is included in the
content of T’;
3. Some of the excess content of T’ is corroborated.
This means: no theory will be ever falsified solely on the basis of counterevidence alone:
falsification can occur only when an alternative theory is present.
Research program: consists of two sets of rules, some tell us:
1. What paths of research to avoid: negative heuristics;
2. What paths of research to pursue: positive heuristics.
Heuristics: rules of thumb for finding answers to a problem in a methodological manner.
Lakatos: science = network of propositions with a hard core inside and a protective belt
around it. If we find contrary evidence, we don’t falsify this hard core of the theory, but
make adjustments to parts of the theory that aren’t central: the protective belt.
 negative and positive heuristics are two sides of the same coin: the rule of not adjusting
the hard core implies that we should modify the protective belt.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
Protective belt can be modified in two ways:
1. Degenerative program / pseudo-science: hard core is protected by adjusting
protective belt in unsatisfactory manner. Is not scientific: doesn’t lead to successful
novel predictions;
2. Progressive program: if modifying protective belt guides us towards new hypothesis,
some of which are corroborated.
Difference Lakatos and Kuhn: Lakatos rejects incommensurability thesis.
Paul Feyerabend
Most radical relativistic philosopher of science.
Main point: there’s nothing wrong with the scientific method of knowledge acquisition, it is
just not the only one, we should used other methods as well.
Challenges monopoly of scientific method. He believes we should use a plethora of method,
including scientific method, to gain knowledge.
Since observations are theory-laden, science cannot claim to be about objective facts.
Feyerabend doesn’t believe there are objective facts. Depending on which theory one
accepts, different facts are construed.
Scientists are sculptors of reality.
He advances the view that rejecting a theory implies the rejection of facts. Those who seek
knowledge should explicitly use counterrules and reject the consistency condition.
Counterrules: rules which oppose familiar rules of the scientific enterprise. Using
counterrules and theories that are incommensurable with currently accepted theories also
implies that new hypotheses don’t have to be consistent with these theories. If one adheres
to this demand, the consistency condition, one is claiming the supremacy of this theory over
any other theory, which cannot be justified.
His primary reason for not accepting one theory or method over another: we cannot a priori
exclude any theory, as we might miss the facts that are generated by contradictory theories.
There’s no a priori reason to accept one theory over another.
Knowledge = an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompatible and perhaps
incommensurable alternatives.
Second reason not to dogmatically stick to one method or one theory: cannot be reconciled
with a humanitarian attitude.
Feyerabend pleads for separation of state and science in same way state and church are
separated: while an American can choose the religion he likes, he isn’t permitted to demand
that his children learn magic rather than science at school.
Since any method can provide knowledge it is no longer interesting to separate science from
non-science  no need for demarcation criterion.
Alan Sokal: critique on Feyerabend and all constructivists: there are facts and it is the
scientist’s job to find them. Tested this with his hoax: wanted to test his hypothesis that a
leading American journal of cultural studies would publish an article that fit the
preconceptions of the editors but that contained nonsense: he presented highly controversial
and even nonsensical theories, and also constructed sentences that were literally
meaningless. Paper got accepted and was published.
Sokal defended scientific realism: we need facts, not only in science, but also in society.
And luckily, there are facts.
Chapter 10: Scientific realism: to believe in science
Scientific realism: if we think we have reasons to believe that our best scientific theories
tell us about the underlying, unobservable structures of the world.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
Clash between scientific realism and constructive empiricism (scientific anti-realism).
Observable = empirical, unobservable = theoretical.
Instrumentalism: theories are merely instruments for generating reliable, empirically
testable predictions.
Schlick = scientific realist: thought we are capable of penetrating the underlying structures
of the world.
Carnap = scientific anti-realist: distinguished internal questions from external ones.
Questions about the existence of certain entities are internal if they are posed within a
linguistic framework; they are external if they are questions concerning the existence or
reality of the framework itself. According to him the reasons for accepting the framework,
are not reasons for belief in the existence of the entities. One accepts a framework for
pragmatic reasons, don’t classify as good reasons.
Ernest Nagel: problem of scientific realism is nothing but a linguistic confusion over
expressions. If he is right, there is no debate on scientific realism.
Bas C. van Fraassen: scientific anti-realist: there is a problem of scientific realism which
concerns the limits of science: does science give us a true picture of the world, including its
unobservable structures, processes, and entities, or does it stay on the surface (giving us
only reliable empirical predictions)?
Carl Hempel: logical positivist and empiricist: theoretical terms (unobservable) are
unnecessary if the sole purpose of a theory is to establish deductive connections among
observation sentences. Science can do without theoretical terms.
Bas van Fraassen: postulation of unobservables in science is desirable and advisable, but
only on pragmatic grounds, never on epistemic grounds.
Epistemic grounds: reasons that make the assertion that something exists more likely to be
true.
Argument to defend realism: success of science. Praised high reliability of empirical
predictions, which can only be explained if we assume scientific realism to be true.
Apparently, science is successful, because it truthfully probes the deeper structures of the
world.
Argument for scientific realism: grant truth of hypothesis since it is the only satisfactory
explanation.
Arthur Fine: accept science as it is: doubt what scientists doubt and believe what scientists
believe, since there is no more evidence for the truth or falsehood of theories than what
scientists themselves present  no dispute.
Entity realism: even if theories turn out to be false, the entities they refer to might still exist.
Structural realism: it is not the reference to entities which constitutes enough continuity in
science to justify being a realist, but rather the mathematical structures or mathematical
content of superseded theories.
The validity of scientific realism hinges on the notion of observation performed by human
beings and the problem of under determination of theory by empirical data.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
Van Fraassen: agnosticism: we do not know whether the postulated unobservables exists or
don’t exist for we cannot observe them. Therefore, accepting a scientific theory involves as
belief only that the theory is empirically adequate. Believing that means believing the theory
to be true with regard to the phenomena (all that can be observed, under different
circumstances) = constructive empiricism.
Van Fraassen: we never have sufficient epistemic reasons to believe in the existence of
unobservables postulated in current successful scientific theories.
Arguments against scientific realism:
1. Instrumental or empirical success of a theory doesn’t necessarily yield truth regarding
existential claims about unobservables, and the lack of such success cannot rule out
the truth of a theory’s ontology;
2. If so many successful theories turn out to be ontologically false, we may induce the
conclusion that current successful theories may very well turn out to be false as well
= pessimistic induction from history of science.
Duhem-Quine Thesis / thesis of underdetermination: at any given moment there exists an
infinite number of logically incompatible yet empirically equivalent theories. Even if some
theory which postulates unobservables is believed to be empirically adequate, there are in
principle an infinite number of alternative ontologies of unobservables possible, which are
equally well supported by the data. If this is true, no good reason to prefer one ontology
over another  severe problem for scientific realism.
Defense of scientific realism:
McMullin advances idea that scientific theories are successful since they apparently have
some relationship with parts of the world they attempt to carve out.
Putnam:
o Miracle argument: I believe realism is the only philosophy that doesn’t make the
success of science a miracle;
o Indispensability argument: attack to factionalism (although some concepts may be
indispensable in the scientific explanation of the behaviour of observables, this
doesn’t mean that entities to which these concepts refer really exist, for they may
just be useful fictions).
Defense of scientific realism: only if we take empirically successful hypotheses to be
(approximately) true do we have an explanation for their empirical success, hence we
believe successful hypotheses to be (approximately) true.
Increasingly more critics to logical positivism (logical empiricism)  Van Fraassen’s
constructive empiricism. A hypothesis is empirically adequate if all phenomena (past,
present, future) fit the hypothesis. Such an empirically adequate hypothesis can still be false
if the unobservables postulated by the hypothesis don’t exist. Since we only have access to
empirical data, we will never know whether these alleged unobservables really exist 
agnosticism.
Scientific knowledge’s limits are determined by the physiological facts of human bodies.
Ronald Giere: constructive realism.
Giere & Van Fraassen: model-theoretic approach to science  leaves all kinds of
philosophical options open. But:
o Van Fraassen: acceptance of scientific theory  belief that model is similar to real
system with regard to observable respects;
o Giere: model is similar with regard to detectable respects.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
Difference observable and detectable is important difference between empiricists and
realists.
Realists: more detectable objects than observable objects. Some things are unobservable but
detectable.
Van Fraassen’s empiricism offers possibility of accepting a theory without believing it to be
true. It is possible to interpret science as aiming for empirical adequacy, and not for truth.
There are limits to human knowledge, because of sensory experience, which can only give us
access to the observable world.
Giere: can’t find any justifying relationships that can determine whether the realist
hypothesis on a realistic background (we do have access to unobservable world) is better
justified than the empiricist hypothesis with an empiricist background (we don’t have access
to unobservable world).
Constructive realism doesn’t allow for existence of belief in unobservables  not adequate
philosophy of science.
Chapter 11: Pragmatism: Philosophy of science American style
Pragmatism = American way of thinking about science.
American pragmatists: Charles Peirce, William James, John Dewey.
Distinction in pragmatism:
o Classical pragmatism: Peirce, James, Dewey:
 Peirce;
 James & Dewey.
o Neo-pragmatism: Rorty, Putnam, Habermas:
 Rorty;
 Other contemporary pragmatists.
Peirce, James, Dewey all shared the pragmatic maxim: preoccupation with the clarification of
problem-solving inquiry based on a generalization of the principle of doxastic (belief) inertia
(traagheid) to attitudes other than full belief.
Charles Peirce
Peirce’s pragmatism is a reaction to Descartes’ philosophy.
Pierce: all beliefs about the world could turn out to be wrong (fallible)  his work focuses on
problem of how to make ideas clear if one cannot be sure that intuition makes ideas
perfectly clear  bring science in to make our ideas clear.
Two sorts of doubt:
o Paper doubt: we doubt what we know, without really feeling that we doubt what we
know. We don’t really intend to give up our beliefs about the world;
o Living doubt: feels uncomfortable. Situation in which it is of practical importance to
know what the world is like. Science should take away this living doubt.
Two kinds of sensations or feelings:
o Feeling of belief: steady state of thought;
o Feeling of doubt: search for a means to get rid of that doubt.
Inquiry: transition from state of doubt into state of belief.
Four methods of belief fixation:
1. Method of tenacity: stay away from anything and anyone that could bring me into a
state of doubt. Effective but goes against social impulse;
Philosophy of Science
Summary
2. Method of authority: some authority tells us what to belief and what to reject. Made
civilizations possible, but no institution can regulate opinions on every subject;
3. A priori method: get rid of the contingency or arbitrariness of beliefs. Start using
reason to find out how their beliefs are deduced, where they come from. Subjective
and temporary, taste;
4. Method of science: beliefs depend on external permanency. Keeps us away of living
doubt most effectively. Will result in long run in true beliefs.
Pragmatist maxim: distinctive rule or method for becoming reflectively clear about the
contents of concepts and hypotheses: we clarify a hypothesis by identifying its practical
consequences.
Peirce: function of thoughts = produce habits of action. Difference in meaning = difference
in practice = difference in action. When different ideas don’t make a difference in action,
they express the same idea in different ways (mean the same).
Science = inquiry under the assumption that there is an external permanency.
True knowledge = opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate,
and reality is what is represented in this opinion.
Pragmatist view can accommodate all kinds of problems:
o Dissolves problem of induction;
o Science is set of Popperian conjectures and refutations;
o Emphasizes history of science without invoking incommensurability;
o Answers theory-ladeness of observation;
o Provides new look at debate on scientific realism.
John Dewey
Agrees with Peirce that purpose of thinking is to secure a stable equilibrium.
His stages of belief fixation nearly correspond to Peirce’s four stages:
1. Dogmatic stage: seemingly fixed ideas;
2. Critical stage: need to discriminate between and reflect on our ideas;
3. Axiomatic stage: method of proof, beliefs are conditionally fixed: taste determines
our beliefs;
4. Scientific stage: procedure of discovery.
Dewey rejects the spectator view of knowledge, the idea there might be a priori knowledge:
knowledge about the world that isn’t dependent on that world.
Difference Peirce and Dewey: view on science:
o Peirce: realist: full embracement of science, its results, its capacity to reach beyond
what is observable for human beings;
o Dewey: instrumentalist: science is an instrument for dealing with all kinds of
problems. Aim of science is control.
Dewey: science copes with reality – Pierce: science copies reality.
Distinction: Two Images View:
o Manifest image: perspective of common man (ordinary, everyday world)
o Scientific image: perspective of natural science (particles or energies).
Both Dewey and Pierce reject this view. Only if you cling to this view there will be a problem
of scientific realism: to what extent does the world of observables allow different hypotheses
of unobservables?
Philosophy of Science
Summary
William James
Doesn’t accept Two Images View. Instrumentalist.
James’s version of the pragmatic maxim: A statement is meaningful if either:
a. It has experiential consequences;
b. It has no such consequences, but belief in it has experiential consequences.
Debate on what to belief:
o Clifford: only believe something if there is sufficient evidence;
o Pascal: degree of freedom in what you want to believe.
William James accepts Pascal’s view: he states that science doesn’t dictate what we ought to
believe, and that there’s a fundamental freedom in believing what one wants to believe. If
one doesn’t want to agree with the Darwinian theory because of his religious upbringing,
that is fine with James.
= different from Peirce and Dewey: they belief science leaves no room to believe anything
different from what science says.
Bas van Fraassen agrees with William James on above point.
Neo-Pragmatism
Habermas, Apel, Putnam & Rorty.
Rorty: pragmatism: we don’t need a theory of truth, knowledge or morality. We simply use
the concepts of truth, knowledge and morality to achieve something we find valuable and
important.
Science is our best guess at what the world is like:
o Rorty: our is most important;
o Peirce: get rid of irritating doubt;
o Dewey: underestimated instrumental value of science;
o James: science doesn’t take away the right to believe what one wants to believe.
Chapter 12: Naturalism: Philosophy on the edge of science
Naturalism, by Quine: view that there is continuity between common sense, abstract
philosophy and concrete experimental science. Scientific statements are always hypothetical,
conjectural and conditional and science helps people to get along in the world.
Natuarlism: we use science to study science, we must leave all other philosophical questions
to science itself.
Willard Van Orman Quine
True or false analytic statements don’t add knowledge about the world (all bachelors are
unmarried)  matter of meaning (you have to know what bachelor and unmarried means,
bachelor = synonym of unmarried).
True or false synthetic statements do add knowledge about the world (all creatures with a
heart also have a liver)  empirical research.
Quine believes Carnap’s philosophy of science (logical positivism) suffers from two dogmas:
1. Belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic and truths
which are synthetic;
2. Their version of reductionism: belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to
some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience.
Criterions of analyticity: clarifying the notion of synonymy:
o Interchangeability;
o Semantic rules.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
Interchangeability
Synonymy of two linguistic forms consist simply in their interchangeability in all contexts
without any change in truth value. = interchangeability salva veritate.
Distinction between:
o Extensional languages: language in which two predicates that are true of the same
objects are indeed interchangeable salva veritate. But is that enough for synonymy?
No, the extensional agreement of bachelor and unmarried person might be an
accidental matter of fact rather than a matter of meaning;
o Intensional languages: rich language containing model terms like necessarily.
Interchangeability salva veritate is a sufficient condition for synonymy. It is because
we already know that bachelor and unmarried person are synonymous that we
understand the statement that they are necessarily the same to be true by virtue of
the meaning of the terms, and therefore to be an analytical statement. But since we
already understood the terms, it’s not a criterion of analyticity.
Semantical rules
Semantical rules determining the analytic statements of an artificial language are of interest
only in so far as we already understand the notion of analyticity, not of help in gaining this
understanding
We do not understand analyticity at all  Quine: there’s no boundary between analytic and
synthetic statements.
Dogma of reductionism
Verification theory of meaning might be used to offer a criterion of synonymy: statements
are synonymous if and only if they are alike in point of method of empirical confirmation or
falsification. If this is a good criterion  notion of analyticity.
Reductionism: every meaningful statement is translatable into a statement about immediate
experience.
Carnap’s Aufbau: Quality q is at x;y;z;t’.
Quine: if ‘is at’ is needed but cannot be reduced to immediate experience, the aufbau-project
fails. If it fails, so does the idea that the relation between a statement and experience is one
of reduction.
If reductionism fails, so does the verification theory of meaning for synonymy  no clear
idea of analyticity: no way philosophers of science can distinguish between analytic and
synthetic statements.
Quine: every scientific hypothesis is a hypothesis, revisable in principle and needed as part
of a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience. He thinks any
web of believes will do for ordinary people as long as they get through live, and in science
we simply choose that web of scientific beliefs which best predicts future experience in the
light of past experience.
Quine breaks with old style epistemology.
Old style epistemology: wants to understand how human knowledge, including scientific
knowledge, can be justified.
Quine: naturalized epistemology: we need to investigate scientifically the relation between
experience and science. Want to discover hwo humans learn and speculate about the world.
Hilary Putnam: to naturalize epistemology is to give it up, because any normative answer to
the question why something is evidence for a belief is impossible.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
Naturalized epistemology: result of recognizing the fact that it is impossible to construct
science from sense data. It can only show that some item is taken to be evidence for some
belief one contingently holds. Only real constraints on scientific theorizing are that:
1. Our web of scientific beliefs must accommodate what we take to be our observations,
what we take to be periphery of our web, our sensory promptings formulated in
observation sentences;
2. The web must be efficacious as a device for working a manageable structure into the
flux of experience, it must be helpful in predicting future experience in the light of
past experience.
They study how human beings come to believe all kinds of things about the external world
given sensory input.
Issue: there might be underdetermination of scientific theories by the available empirical
data: many incompatible hypotheses might fit the same data  impossible to discern a
theory that would perform better than others.
Problem that Quine hasn’t solved: problem of induction.
It is science itself that tells us that we can trust our senses, providing a sound empirical basis
for doing science.
Humans have two ways of thinking:
1. Automatic way of seeing and reasoning;
2. Learned way, consciously applied in particular situations.
Gierre: philosophy of science radically naturalized: main task of a naturalistic philosophy of
science is to provide a theory of theory choice: decision theory.
People often opt for a satisfactory choice instead of the optimal choice. Scientists typically
follow something approximating a satisficing strategy when faced with the problem of
choosing among scientific theories.
Chapter 13: Prospects for the social sciences: unification and pluralism
Postpositivists Kuhn, Feyerabend and Quine: two great threats to traditional scientific virtues
of progress, objectivity, realism, and rationality:
o Theory-ladenness of observation;
o Underdetermination of theories by observational data.
To build one unified science, the logical positivists committed themselves to reductionism:
view that scientific progress consists in the stepwise explanation of the phenomena of one
specific level in terms of those of the next lower level, until finally the bottom rung of the
ladder is reached, the level of fundamental physics. To accomplish a reduction we must
show how higher-level systems are composed of lower-level components or how higher-level
sciences can be explained by lower-level sciences.
Reduction leaves us with less furniture in the world (there’s nothing but elementary
particles), and leaves science with theories that are more comprehensive, more predictive
and have greater explanatory power than the ones we had before. It offers explanatory
parsimony: a limited number of basic laws of nature have the power to explain everything.
Two reasons for dismissal of reductionism:
o Science is not always oriented downwards;
o It doesn’t describe actual scientific practices accurately.
Philosophy of Science
Summary
Social sciences offer various perspectives on human beings. They are best characterized as
being simultaneously pluralistic and unificationist. Imperialism (taking one image as superior
to others) is misleading.
Pluralism on two dimensions:
o Within-level: competition between inconsistent research programs or alternative
models that aim to explain the same phenomena;
o Cross-level: no competition but collaboration: various disciplines operating at
different levels of analysis and dealing with different levels of complexity aren’t in
competition.