Summary of all chapters of the books (Okasha, Blackburn, DeGrazia, Miller and Attfield) for the course Philosophy of Science and Ethics (GEO2-2142) at Utrecht University.
Written in 2019/2020
Teacher: Floris van den Berg.
Okasha, Samir, Philosophy of Science. A Very Short Introduction, 2nd edit...
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Summary of Okasha (Philosophy of Science), DeGrazia (Animal Rights), Blackburn (Being
Good), Miller (Political Philosophy) and Attfield (Environmental Ethics)
Okasha Chapter 1 – What is Science?
Philosophers rather ask themselves: What is it that makes something a science, instead of what is
science?
Science is an attempt to understand, explain, and predict the world that we live in. – but is it the
whole story?
Many people believe that the distinguishing features of science lie in the particular methods
scientists use to investigate the world. An obvious example is the use of experiments, which
historically marks a turning-point in the development of modern science.
Another important feature of science of science is the construction of
theories – scientists do not simply record the results of experiment and observation in a log book,
but they usually want to explain those results in terms of a general theory.
One of the main tasks of philosophy of science is to understand how techniques such as
experimentation, observation, and theory construction have enabled scientists to unravel so many of
nature’s secrets.
The origins of modern science
History of science is indispensable for doing good philosophy of science. The origins of modern
science lied in a period of rapid scientific development that occurred in Europe between about 1500
and 1750, which we now refer to as the scientific revolution.
Earlier, the dominant worldview was Aristotelianism.
The first crucial step towards the modern scientific worldview was the Copernican revolution.
Copernicus attacked the geocentric model of the universe, which placed the stationary earth at the
center of the universe with planets and the sun in orbit around it.
Copernicus suggested an alternative: the sun was the fixed center of the universe, and the
planets, including earth, were in orbit around it – heliocentric.
Copernicus’ work led to modern physics, through the work of Johannes Kepler (planets move
in ellipses) and Galileo Galilei (telescope).
Descartes developed a radical new ‘mechanical philosophy, according to which the physical world
consists of inert particles of matter interacting and colliding with one another. – its acceptance
marked the final downfall of the Aristotelian worldview.
The scientific revolution culminated the work of Isaac Newton. Newton agreed with the mechanical
philosophers that the universe consists simply of particles in motion, and sought to improve on
Descartes’ theory. – universal gravitation.
Confidence in the Newtonian picture was shattered in the early 20 century, thanks to two
th
revolutionary new developments in physics: relativity theory and quantum mechanics. Relativity
theory, discovered by Einstein, showed that Newtonian mechanics does not give the right results
when applied to very massive objects. Quantum mechanics shows that the Newtonian theory does
not work when applied on very small scale.
Darwin – natural selection, first people believed that species had been separately created by God.
,Watson and Crick – DNA, why offspring look like their parents. Development of molecular biology.
What is philosophy of science?
The principal task of PoS is to analyze the methods of enquiry used in the sciences. Philosophical
reflection can uncover assumptions that are implicit in scientific enquiry. PoS questions assumptions
that scientists take for granted.
Science and pseudo-science
Karl Popper – an influential 20 -century philosopher of science, thought that the fundamental feature
th
of a scientific theory is that it should be falsifiable. Falsifiable is not the same as false, rather it means
that the theory makes some definite predictions which are capable of being tested against
experience. If these predictions turn out to be wrong, then the theory has been falsified, or
disproved. Popper thought that some scientific theories did not satisfy this condition
and thus did not deserve to be called science at all: they were merely pseudo-science.
Freud’s psychoanalytic theory was one of Popper’s favorite examples of
pseudo-science.
Marx’s theory of history, Marx claimed that in industrialized societies around the world, capitalism
would give way to socialism and ultimately to communism. This didn’t happen, but instead of
admitting that Marx’s theory was wrong, Marxists would invent an ad hoc explanation for why what
had happened was actually perfectly consistent with their theory.
Marx theory could be made compatible with any possible course of events, just like Freud’s.
therefore neither theory qualifies as genuinely scientific, according to Popper’s criterion.
Chapter 2 : Scientific reasoning
Scientists reach conclusions by a process of reasoning or inference. The nature of scientific reasoning
through deduction and induction, of which they make an important distinction.
Deductive reasoning or inference is from big to small.
- All Frenchmen like red wine
- Pierre is a Frenchmen
o Therefore, Pierre likes red wine
The first two statements are called the premises of the inference and the third the conclusion. This is
deductive, because if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true too. The inference is
deductive, because of the existence of an appropriate relation between premises and conclusion.
Whether the premisses are actually true is a different matter.
Inductive reasoning: small to big
- The first five eggs in the box were rotten
- All the eggs have the same best-before date stamped on them
o Therefore, the sixth egg will be rotten too.
Premisses of this inference does not entail the conclusion. It is possible that the sixth egg will be
rotten too. It is logically possible for the premisses of this inference to be true and yet conclusion to
be false. We move from premisses about objects to conclusions about objects we haven’t examined.
Scientists use inductive reasoning whenever they move from limited data to a more general
conclusion, which they do all the time
Use this in everyday life: because we see it every day, we think it will be this way
, Deductive reasoning is safer than inductive reasoning; with deductive reasoning we start with true
premises and end with true conclusions, while inductive reasoning takes us from true premisses to a
false conclusion. Although; a scientific theory can never be proved true.
Karl Popper
Popper claimed that scientists only need to use deductive inferences, because they are much safer
than inductive ones. He said that although it was not possible to prove that a scientific theory is true
from a limited data sample, it is possible to prove that a theory is false with deductive reasoning
Falsify a theory, so you can use deductive reasoning – this piece of metal doesn’t conduct
electricity (theory that metal conducts electricity is falsified). Thereby, the premiss entails the
conclusion.
Weakness of Popper: scientists are not only interested in showing certain theories are false.
David Hume
- The use of induction cannot be rationally justified at all. We use induction all the time, but
Hume insisted this was just a matter of brute animal habit.
- Whenever we make inductive inferences, we seem to presuppose what he called ‘uniformity
of nature’ (UN – the objects we haven’t examined are similar to objects of the same sort that
we have examined)
- But can we prove UN? No, says Hume. We end up reasoning in a circle. For to argue that
induction is trustworthy because it has worked well up to now is to reasons in an inductive
way.
- Our inductive inferences rest on the UN assumption, which we cannot prove. Our confidence
in induction is just blind faith.
- Science relies on induction, and Hume’s argument seems to show that induction cannot be
rationally justified = Hume’s problem of induction.
Peter Strawson
- Induction is one of the standards we use to decide whether claims about the world are
justified. (just like if someone worries whether something is legal, they don’t have to
question whether the law itself is legal)
Inference to the best explanation (IBE)
Former inferences are widely used (all x have been y, so all x are y). There is another common type of
non-deductive inference:
- The cheese in the larder has disappeared, apart from a few crumbs
- Scratching noises were heard coming from the larder last night
o Therefore, the cheese was eaten by the mouse.
This inference is non-deductive: the premisses do not entail the conclusion. The inference is clearly a
reasonable one. That the mouse eat it, is the best way of accounting for the available data -> this is
an ‘inference to the best explanation’.
IBE and inductive reference are then two different types of non-deductive inference.
Interesting question whether IBE or ordinary induction is a more fundamental pattern of inference.
Proponents think that ordinary induction is ultimately dependent on IBE. Other philosophers argue
that this gets things backwards: IBE is itself parasitic on ordinary induction. We decide namely the
explanation through ordinary inductive reasoning.
What criteria determine the best explanation? A answer is the simplest or most parsimonious
one. Just like the evolution theory of Darwin explained all the facts in one go. But, for how do we
know that the universe is simple rather than complex?
Probability and induction
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