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Philosophy of Science
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Notes on philosophy of science
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Week 1Philosophy of Science:
Science:
o Three levels of study:
Established facts, hypotheses, theories, and so on: the results of
science
How to do science, generating or unearthing facts, creating, and
evaluating theories, writing articles
Reflecting on science, thinking about its nature, its scope and limits,
the good and bad aspects of science
Thinking about science but in a specific way
Not by turning science into a subject for science, as is done in:
o Sociology of science
o Psychology of science
o Anthropology of science
o History of science
o Etc.
Thinking about science:
But by thinking about:
o What makes good science good;
o Why we do science the way we do it;
o What kind of knowledge we can and want to acquire;
o The central concepts that we use
And certainly, also by looking at science from a distance and being critical
What are we doing here, and why are we doing it in this way and not some other way?
So, a central question will be about the method of science: how do scientists think up
theories, and how do they decide whether any given theory is plausible or not?
We are going to try to describe and understand that method
We will also focus on some of the central questions concerning the humanities,
including:
o If we can know more about history than just a list of historical facts, what is
that ‘more’?
o How can we interpret texts, works of art, and so on, if there’s nobody left
who can tell us whether we have understood it correctly?
o Is objective truth within reach, or are we doomed to remain stuck in our own
cultural perspective?
We will pay special attention to the difference between the humanities and other parts
of science
By thinking about the differences and resemblances, we will learn more about what
we are doing here
,Aristotle (384 – 322 BCE):
Philosopher and scientist
Wrote about many things, including logic, physics, metaphysics, ethics, biology, and
art
Aristotle: empiricism
Unlike his teacher Plato, he takes an empiricist approach to knowledge
Empiricist = taking observation (i.e., perception) to be a source and justification of
knowledge
Aristotle: method
How does an empirical scientist investigate the world? Not just by writing down
everything that he sees
We need a method that tells us:
o What is relevant to investigate;
o How we should investigate it;
o Which conclusions we can draw from our investigations
Aristotle: natural motion
Scientists investigate natural motion, not forced motion
(Aristotle’s concept of motion is very broad: falling, growing, rotting...)
Why do things fall down? Natural motion to the object’s natural place
Result: no experiments
Aristotle: explanations
Facts that have been discovered need to be explained by giving their various causes
Aristotle distinguishes four types of ‘cause’ (Greek: aitia): material, formal, efficient,
and final
For us, the most familiar of these is the efficient cause, that which sets a process in
motion
Aristotle: teleology
But Aristotle also believes in final causes, that is, causes that point towards a final
aim or goal
The aim (Greek: telos) of a seed is to grow into a tree, and for Aristotle this is an
important part of the explanation of its growth
(These aims are not necessarily conscious, of course, but they are present in the
object)
Aristotle: complexity
Aristotle wants scientists to do justice to all appearances, however complex and
varied these may turn out to be
Result: uses almost no mathematics in his science, including in his physics
Twenty centuries of history:
In the Middle Ages much Greek philosophy is lost in Europe, but conserved in the
Islamic world
In the 12th and 13th centuries, Aristotle is rediscovered in Europe
Aristotle had tremendous authority
Aristotelianism:
, Aristotelian science in the (early) Renaissance has the following characteristics:
o Partly empirical, but without experimentation
o Partly based on authority, instead of original research
o A generally authoritarian way of reading
o Doing justice to all the appearances
o Use teleological explanations
o Very little mathematics (with some exceptions)
What is the Scientific Revolution?
Time period during which modern science is formed
Roughly the 17th century; specific years are sometimes placed at 1543 – 1687
But from the point of view of the humanities, there is a long trajectory leading up to
this, starting in the 14th century and reaching maturity in the 16th
Humanities:
From the 14th century, humanism comes into existence
In science this starts mostly as a search for old manuscripts (Petrarca, Poggio)
Soon, philology develops as a mature discipline:
o Discovery of fake documents (Valla, 1440, Donatio Constantini)
o Principle of historical consistency
o Principle of the oldest source (Poliziano, 1454 – 1494)
o Principle of the source language (Erasmus, 1466 – 1536)
This leads to:
o Better knowledge of the classical sciences
o New way of engaging with old texts
o Critical attitude
New historical research based on philology leads to the disappearance of old
certainties and doubts about ancient authorities
o Joseph Scaliger (1540 – 1609) and the chronology of world history: De
emendation temporum
The most radical and fast changes in methodology take place in the natural sciences
But without the earlier revolution in the humanities, this would not have been
possible
Natural sciences so influential that we will look at them in some detail
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 – 1543):
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543)
Defends a heliocentrical view of the world
Conflicts with Aristotelian physics
But doesn’t use a new kind of method, or new kinds of arguments
Andreas Vesalius (1514 – 1564):
Also in 1543: De humani corporis fabrica
Anatomical book based on Vesalius’s own observations
Breaks with the authority of the Roman doctor Galen (about 129 – 199): theory of
humourism
Galilei (1564 – 1642):
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