Detailed notes on the prerecorded lectures for the course Philosophy of Science. The document contains the most important information from the first 8 lectures and encompasses all the necessary knowledge for the first part of the course. Given these notes and the notes for the second part of the co...
LECTURE 1
1. What is philosophy of science?
epistemology = theory of knowledge
- deals with the question “where does knowledge come from?”
* rationalists: from our ratio/ mind/ thinking/ reason
* empiricist: from observation
after we establish that knowledge comes from science -> we need to know what
science is (transition to PoS)
philosophy of science – the philosophical (critical) reflection on what science
is, does and how it generates knowledge
prototypical scientist vs a medium (pseudoscientist)
what is science?
- we use the word “science” often and we use it in the right manner
* we know how it is used and we can tell when people do not use it properly
ex. saying that you are doing science while washing dishes
- what are the characteristics of science?
* we have an idea of what science is, but no clear answer
* we cannot easily answer the question “what exactly is science?”
2. Why PoS for psychologists?
psychology has the status of being a science
is psychology correctly classified as a science? – as an academic, we should be
able to explain why it is
- we need knowledge to do that: we need to know the answers that have been
given in the history of thinking about science, to the question “what is science”
- we need skills to reflect on questions such as “Is it justified to call psychology
a science?”/ “Is it justified that science has the monopoly on acquiring
knowledge?”
- we need to build character: there is a replication crisis in psychology;
publication bias and we need to be able to determine when something is
considered science
! philosophy is a critical reflection and for that we need knowledge and skills
! knowledge and skills serve building a character (understanding society to
advance society)
- the three characteristics make good psychologists
, science has a monopoly on acquiring knowledge
3. Epistemology = theory of knowledge
PoS begain with epistemology
epistemology asks 3 questions:
1) what is (certain) knowledge?
2) how can we justify that knowledge?
- how do we know that what we know is true?
3) what is the source of knowledge?
there are two views in epistemology:
1) rationalism – real knowledge is derived from the ratio/ reason
2) empiricism – real knowledge comes from sensory experience
is it possible to have real knowledge? -> empiricists and rationalists say yes
what are we certain of?
3.1 skepticism
Socrates in Ancient Greece
- convicted for having a bad influence on the younger people
stood in the market square and asked many difficult questions such as “what do
you know for sure?” (Socratic method)
skeptics’ conclusion: we do not know anything at all and never will
is there nothing we can be certain of? (is the skeptic right? -> rationalists/
empiricists would say no)
3.2 rationalism
general claim: knowledge comes from reason/ ratio
associated claim: nativism – there is innate knowledge
3.2.1 Plato
Plato is the most radical rationalist
- he claims that to learn is to remember (= anamnesis)
, - there is no new knowledge: we do not really learn anything
* however, if we have never read about Plato, how would we know he claimed
that?
- why did Plato claim that there is no new knowledge? -> he believed in
reincarnation
Plato’s forgotten everything
- Plato believed that before we were born, we had all real knowledge (and we
lost that knowledge when we were born because it is a traumatic experience)
- the soul knows everything, but when it is born in the body it has forgotten it ->
the ratio needs to be used to remember this knowledge (remembering is not new
knowledge)
Plato makes a distinction between episteme and doxa
- episteme – knowledge of how the things are
* knowledge has to be true
* knowledge = justified & true belief (corresponds to the facts/ the world is as
your mental state depicts it; you can explain how you know something is true)
→ skeptics also have beliefs, but they do not have justifications (they can
never be certain that something is true)
→ skeptics do not make claims about the world
- doxa – opinion about how the things are
* opinions can be wrong
Plato responds to Heraclites with his distinction of episteme/ doxa
- Panta rhei = everything is in constant flux (nothing IS)
- in our world (= the world we perceive with our senses), everything changes
constantly so then nothing is
* “you cannot step into the same river again” -> everything changes
* we do not have real knowledge about the world we perceive with out senses,
because we can only have knowledge about how the things ARE
* that means we can only acquire doxa about the world we perceive with our
senses, not episteme about the world (that would amount to skepticism -> but
Plato did not want skepticism)
→ you cannot have knowledge about how the river is because it changes ->
if you think you have knowledge, you are wrong
Plato was against skepticism
- Socrates doubted the existence of Greek Gods
- Plato says that there is a different world from the one we see and perceive with
our senses
, Plato’s allegory of the cave
→ people are chained to a wall; behind them people hold tables/ chairs and a
fire cast shadows on the wall in front of the prisoners -> the prisoners
think the shadows are the real items when in reality they cannot actually
perceive the real items behind them
- ideas/ forms exist apart from us in a World of ideas/ World of forms (the ideas
do not change/ we have knowledge about how these forms ARE)
- the soul is akin to those ideas – the soul belongs to the world of ideas and has
knowledge about how things are
- acquiring knowledge is to remember these ideas by using ratio properly –
anamnesis
- we think that the world we perceive is the real world but it is not
- Plato describes universal concepts in the world of ideas
how does this work? -> Plato wrote it in his work “Meno”
- “what do you need to do to double the surface of this square?“ -> the slave of
Meno gets it wrong (second), and Socrates (who explains Plato’s ideas) tells the
correct solution (third)
- the response of the slave is that he now remembers the correct way to solve it
- this is unacceptable: Socrates puts words into the mouth of Meno’s slave
* this kind of rationalism is very extreme
* Descartes’s version of rationalism is weaker and more sophisticated
3.3 empiricism
general claim: the source of knowledge is the experience gained through
sensory perception
- it is a commonsense view: if you want to know how something is, you have to
look/ listen
- we cannot be wrong about our experiences (whether the experiences
correspond to something in the world is debatable)
associated claim: if all knowledge comes from experience via perception, there
are no innate ideas/ knowledge
empirical ≠ empiricism
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