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Philosophy of Science Summary
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Dear student, Here's my summary for Philosophy of Science (3rd year course of Psychology). Good luck with studying! :)
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Philosophy of scienceTable of content
Lecture 1....................................................................................................................................................... 2
Lecture 2....................................................................................................................................................... 6
Lecture 3...................................................................................................................................................... 11
Lecture 4...................................................................................................................................................... 14
Lecture 5...................................................................................................................................................... 18
Lecture 6...................................................................................................................................................... 21
Lecture 7...................................................................................................................................................... 25
Lecture 8...................................................................................................................................................... 30
Lecture 9...................................................................................................................................................... 34
Lecture 10.................................................................................................................................................... 37
Lecture 11.................................................................................................................................................... 40
Lecture 12.................................................................................................................................................... 42
Lecture 13.................................................................................................................................................... 44
Lecture 14: the scientific method and the demarcation criterion..................................................................48
,Lecture 1
Content of the course: 14 lectures
[1] epistemology, which leads to
[2] philosophy of science & at the end
[3] take a critical look at scientific and critical thinking and the possible pitfalls.
1. What is the philosophy of science?
PS = philosophical critical reflection on what science is, does, and how it generates knowledge.
Example: Stephen Hawking claims about black holes, Joke Damman claims about white ghosts. What is
science then, and what is pseudoscience?
What is science?
a) We use the word science often and use that in the right manner
b) But what are characteristics of science?
We know a) and b), but still it’s not easy to answer the question what exactly is science?
2. What is the importance of philosophy of science for you?
Why should non-philosophers follow this course?
1. Critical attitude
o It’s part of your academic training be able to take a critical attitude towards your own
discipline.
o Replication crisis: people need to be critical! Otherwise the replication doesn’t have the same
data. It depends on the research whether the data is the same.
o “Is it what you studied for the past few years science?”
You need to know what science is to answer this question!
2. Science plays an important role in society
o Science has monopoly on knowledge
o Is that okay? What is the implication of the answer for psychology?
o This course is about critical thinking!
3. Insight
o Purpose of the course: provide insight in foundations of your study provide a better
understanding of your discipline
o General discussion of what knowledge and science is! It’s important to know what it means to
say your field is science.
GOAL: gain knowledge that enables you to reflect critically on psychology!
You become better scientists
Don’t become the next Diederik Stapel.
3. Epistemology; rationalism empiricism
Epistemology = theory of knowledge.
Epistemology, the beginning of philosophy of science, asks three questions:
1. What is knowledge?
2. How can we justify that knowledge?
3. What is the source of knowledge?
Traditionally there are two views:
1. Rationalism: real knowledge is derived from the ratio/reason
2. Empiricism: real knowledge comes from sensory experience.
,Rationalism/empiricism are reactions to...
Skepticism: “perhaps the conclusion must even be that we don’t know anything, and never will”
Socrates He got convicted: bad for youth, being an atheist. Poisoned.
“Is it possible to have REAL knowledge? What are we CERTAIN about?”
We have no knowledge!
...Is there nothing we are certain of?
3.1 Rationalism
Central claim: real knowledge stems from our reason (ratio)
Associated claim: there is innate knowledge (nativism)
Rationalist #1: Plato
The source of our knowledge is our reason.
- Plato: To learn is to remember (= anamnèsis)
o This means there is no new knowledge. You don’t really learn anything
o WHY? Plato believed in reincarnation: before you were born, you had all real knowledge
the soul, YOU, already possess all knowledge. When you are born into a body, that’s
traumatic, and therefore you forgot everything.
- Epistème Doxa
o Epistème = knowledge of how the things are. REAL knowledge.
o Doxa = opinion about how the things are.
He responds to Heraclites
- Heraclites: pantha rhei = everything is constantly changing, like a river. You can’t step into the same
river twice, because it has changed. There IS no river, there is a process flowing.
o If in our world (= the world we perceive with our senses) everything changes constantly, then
nothing is
o That means we can only aquire doxa, not epistème
BUT... Plato didn’t want skepticism!
- Allegory of the cave:
o Ideas / forms exist apart from us in a World of Ideas / Form World
o A soul is akin to those ideas, our soul belongs to those ideas
o Anamnèsis = acquiring knowledge is to remember those ideas. Gain access again to what you
already know.
Prisoners are formed in a cave, they can only see the shadows and not the real
objects. We only see the shadows of the actually ‘idea/form’.
If you want to have knowledge of the chair, you need to have knowledge of the
IDEA chair. Not the shadow of the chair. REAL KNOWLEDGE: don’t use your senses,
use your brain to gain real knowledge.
How does this work: meno
Socrates was convicted for having bad influence on youth, but also for being an atheist.
This is unacceptable Socrates is put the slave of Meno words in the mound.
This rationalism is VERY extreme! Descartes had a weaker version (L2).
3.2 Empiricism
Central claim: the source of knowledge is the experience gained through sensory perception.
Common sense view: if you want to know how something is, you have to look/listen/...
Empiricism = the central claim is that you gain knowledge from the experiences you have.
- Greek: empeira
- Latin: experienta
, o Associated claim: if all knowledge comes from experience via perception, there is no innate
knowledge.
Empiricist empirical
- Empericist refers to empiricism, the view that knowledge stems from sensory perception
o The opposite of rationalist.
- Empirical = scientific method, which uses observational/experimental data to infer conclusions about
the world. Evidence that is gained through observations or experiments
o The opposite of purely hypothetical.
Empiricist #1: Aristotle
Rejected Plato’s two-world theory
- There is only one world, and that is the one we can perceive with out senses.
- Rejects innate ideas: man is a tabula rasa (= a blank wax tablet).
- Peripatetic principle: Aristotle was the founder of the Lyceum, where he taught while walking
(peripateo in Greek);
Empiricist #2 Aquinas
... He later called the empiricist principle peripatetic principle: Nil est in intellectu quod non prius in sensu
fuerit (nothing is in the intellect which was not first in the senses).
Is Aquinas’ interpretation of Ari correct?
- The key to Aristotle's epistemology is indeed sensory perception;
- In this sense we can rightly call Aristotle an empiricist
- But he does have some rationalist elements in his ‘empiricist’ epistemology.
Universal concepts:
- According to Plato the (general/universal) Idea Chair is an entity existing in the World of Ideas;
- Aristotle rejects this;
- Aristotle accepts only the existence of concrete, individual things (the individual chair);
- How then do we arrive at a universal, abstract concept (thus the concept ‘chair’ that applies to all
individual chair)?
Induction: we move from the concrete to the universal (empirical procedure, found by Ari).
- Take an abstract, general statement like “All men are mortal”
- What you perceive are just real people, and you can establish they are mortal.
- Induction is concluding – based on observation of some cases (but not all) in which A was also B or was
followed by B – that A is always B or is always followed by B.
Are you SURE that all men are mortal? Is this KNOWLEDGE?
NO: on the basis of observation alone you can’t tell the abstract general proposition
‘all men are mortal’ is true it’s just a correlation/hypothesis
Ari did believe that ‘all men are mortal’ was necessarily true.
SOLUTION: induction is only a 1st step
- 2nd step: intuitive induction/understanding
= through our unfailing intellectual capacity of the mind (nous) we can understand
that abstractions like ‘all men are mortal’ are necessary truths.
- BUT... That is a rationalistic element in his epistemology. Intuitive induction has rationalism.
When Aristotle had found a general statement, he was not very critical towards that statement;
That is understandable: he thought he had established via intuitive induction that the statement was true.
3.3 The role of Ari in the late dark ages
Middle ages: Catholic Church had a lot of power. Knowledge issues were resolved by quoting either the bible or
quoting Ari.
Two paths to the truth:
1) Revelation
2) Use your good sense (Ari)
Thomas Aquinas
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