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Philosophy of the Humanities 1 all notes!

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A summary of all notes from the manual, lecture and seminars. Week 1: FORMS Ch. 1 (facultative), Ch. 3 (with the exception of 3.3c), and 4.2-4.4 of Ch. 4 Plato:“The Allegory of the Cave” Week 2: UNIVERSAL & PARTICULAR 5.1, 5.2, 5.4 & 5.5 of Ch. 5, and 6.1, & 6.2of Ch. 6 Baruch Spinoza:...

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  • March 10, 2021
  • March 17, 2021
  • 32
  • 2020/2021
  • Class notes
  • Jeff diamanti
  • All classes

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  • media studies
  • philosophy
  • philosophy of humanities
  • university of amsterdam
  • amsterdam
  • media
  • media and information
  • media and culture
  • philosphy of humanities 1
  • uva

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Week 1
Key words and ways in which humanities interact with each other:
- Language: How is language used, how does a word mean differently in different contexts?
- Concepts: A concept is an organising term that creates connection between 2 things or people,
filling the gap between them. How a concept is generated between different phenomena?
- Institutionality: universities change their structure and so the way knowledge is spread around

Subject of knowledge: is the subject of reason. It is a set of protocols that the subjects share as they are in
the position of thinkers.

Object of knowledge: the thing being studied.

Useful question for the course
1. How do different philosophical and theoretical traditions conceive of the subject of knowledge and
the object of knowledge, and how do they conceive of the determinate relation therein?

Example: for the Logical Empiricists (Vienna Circle) the subject of knowledge (a thinking, conscious “I”) gets all
but expelled from the space of philosophical inquiry, whereas for Kantian rationality, the thinking “I” is the
locus of reason (and formal abstraction) as such: the world coheres in and through consciousness. Vs
Foucauldian epistemology, where the object of discourse—say, the invention of “hysteria” and “madness” in
the modern medical sciences, or “homosexuality” in late 19 th century psychology—is generated by the
discourse itself (as opposed to happened upon in the world ready for analysis).

2. How do explanation—what is this—and interpretation—what and how does this mean— get treated as
standardizing and regulative practices in the humanities and the philosophical traditions that inform its
historical development?

3. How do historical and institutional forces shape the normative ideals of the disciplines? For instance, the
birth of the nation state, colonialism, the civilizing mission of the west, and eventually the economic
imperative to foster research and development alongside—and sometimes as—teaching in the modern /
post-Humboldtian university.

20th century event: hard distinction between analytic and continental philosophy.
- Analytic philosophy begins with the story of logical empiricism in Vienna and identifies forms of
logic through knowledge is classified. Think humanities are a space for reflection only.
- Continental philosophy is interested in those concepts that we use in our everydayness that
concern the good, the evil, the bad etc…

Major currents in philosophy of science in the 20 th century:
- What is philosophy of science vs humanities? What are their tasks?
- Two key issues in philosophy of science and humanities: demarcation problem, relation theory and
reality

A tripartite division:
- Philosophy of natural sciences  truth
- Philosophy of social sciences
- Philosophy of humanities interpretation

Chapter 1
1. Both philosophy of science and humanities have a double task: descriptive and normative. Explain
these tasks.

,Descriptive: description of scientific practises and products (Eg: how do scientists connect theory to
reality?)
Normative: normative assessments of scientific practices and products (Eg: how should scientists connect
theory to reality?)

Instrumental approach:
 Critical reflection on science/humanities and scientific/humanities research.
 Philosophical insights/framework a instruments for reflection.



Chapter 3
2. What is the problem of demarcation (p. 91)?

The demarcation problem (p 91): difference between episteme and doxa.
Episteme: statements that can be considered by experts in the field. They are timeless necessary truths
that can be tested, verified etc..
Doxa: governing opinions or beliefs. Does not have room in scientific knowledge  conspiracy theories

Plato: reasoning capacities are fundamental in gaining true knowledge about unobservable essences in
supernatural reality.
Like prisoners in the cave, humans who base their knowledge on experiences mistake appearance
for reality. Observations are imperfect shadows of real Forms or ideas in a supernatural realm of
ideas/Forms (doxa)
Aristotle: essences are empirically accessible. There is only one world and we can learn about it through
empirical reasoning.

 It is the same reasoning for Inductive and deductive knowledge

Science vs pseudo-science:
- Logical empiricism: Carnap  verifiability: claim should be testable using sensory experiences. (77)
Where do we see the nothing? What are meaningless statements?
- Critical rationalism: Popper  falsifiability: claim should have the potential to be refuted by some
possible observation (91) the least you can falsify them, the closer they are to general knowledge
- Kuhn’s philosophy of science: normal science is governed by a paradigm (118)



3. Logical Empiricism endorsed a verification criterion of meaning (p. 77). Explain what this
criterion entails.

Logical empiricism (inductive method): historical context
- Socialists, intrigued by the Soviet Union structures.
- They claimed that the way towards the ideal society needed to get rid of metaphysical sciences and
replace them with naturalistic sciences and growth of scientific knowledge
- Logical reconstructions of scientific results (theories and explanations). Context of discovery vs
justifications

Verifiability theory of meaning: knowing the meaning of a sentence means knowing how to verify it by
means of observation. To have meaning you must be able to experience and phrase it in the scientific
language
Verifiability== testability

,  Experience is the only source of meaning
 Scientific claims are verifiable and thus they have a meaning
 Most traditional philosophy lacks of meaning
Existential question (where do we see nothing), feelings (he is mad), personal statements (I hear melody in
my head) cannot be verifiable because they do not have meaning in the scientific world. You need to
experience and directly name the things.

Verification criterion: Scientific theory consists of universal statements but the universal is made of infinite
numbers and we cannot test all of them.
replaced by criterion of confirmation: the measure in which a theory is confirmed or strengthen by an
observation.  from deductive to inductive

4. According to Popper, the verification criterion is useless for distinguishing universal laws from
metaphysical statements (p. 90). Explain Popper’s argumentation for this claim.

Popper’s attack: according to Popper, the verification criterion is useless for distinguishing universal laws
from metaphysical statements (90). The demarcation between scientific and non-scientific knowledge is
brought by the deductive method. (you start from a large premise and look into particulars)
 It is more about falsifying that verifying. You cannot very a universal law because confirmation is
not a solution.


5. Popper endorsed falsifiability as a solution to the problem of demarcation (p. 91). Explain what this
criterion entails.

Like logical empiricism, Popper wants to capture the nature and growth of scientific knowledge. Popper
alternative is Critical Rationalism:
- All knowledge begins with hypothetical or theoretical assumptions
o justification of induction is impossible. Claims should have the potential to be refuted by
some possible observation.
- Claims need to forbid certain states of affairs
- Alternative: falsifiability and deductive testing can capture the growth of scientific knowledge.
Falsifiability, indeed, implies that knowledge is found on observation, and knowledge can be
corrected in the light of observation.
- Different take on the method of science and on the demarcation of science from pseudoscience


6. How does the inductive method of verification differ from the deductive method of
falsification (p. 92)?
Inductive method of verification Deductive method of falsification
The criterion itself is not verifiable. Verification Claim should have the potential to be refuted
refers to statements that are shown to be true. by some possible observation

Inductive logic involves making Deductive reasoning uses given information,
generalizations based upon behaviour premises or accepted general rules to reach a
observed in specific cases. proven conclusion
The problem of induction (universal law resist
verification and confirmation because they rely
on induction)

The neural experience assumption is false your Observation is theory laden

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