Philosophy of Science notes: Lectures 1 to 12 + notes of the videos
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Course
Philosophy of Science (5182V8PS)
Institution
Universiteit Leiden (UL)
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Lecture 1: Ways of knowing
● 3 ways of knowing:
1. Natural sciences - Physics, chemistry, biology, …
2. Social sciences - Anthropology, psychology, economics, …
3. Humanities - History, linguistics, literature, …
● Natural sciences: Focuses on universals and regularities. Physical universe is uniform
and simple, but there is a sense in which the natural sciences make it uniform and
simple, for example the laws of nature:
- Mathematical equations amongst physical quantities which are concise,
universal and unbreakable
● But the practice of natural science is more complicated
● Characteristic output:
- Predictions
- Technological applications
● Humanities: Focuses on historical human actions
● Historical actors are creative, they come up with new ideas, acts, artworks, …
● Creation follows no rules, therefore it is unpredictable and inexplicable
● Important methodological consequences:
- The idea of laws is highly suspect and predictions are not a characteristic
output
● Historical particularity is important in humanities as it helps identify periods and
regions, for example Renaissance, Latin America, … and every event and context is
unique
● Characteristic output: Interpretations
- of acts, texts, artworks
● Empathy and hermeneutics help reconstruct to some extent the historical actor’s
world of experiences and meanings
● Complications: Both disciplines are very different from each other:
- Natural sciences is interested in individual events / objects in evolutionary
biology and astronomy
- In humanities, linguists have laws and study repeating patterns rather than
individual cases
● Nomothetic and idiographic approach: To give a better general understanding, it is
better to think about these two sciences as two different approaches to the world
● These two approaches are the nomothetic and idiographic approaches
● Nomothetic approach: This approach identifies regularities, patterns or casual
relationships in the world, formulating generalisations and laws to describe these
regularities.
● Aims to develop general theories that explain and predict phenomena in a systematic
and law-like manner.
● An example for this approach could be the formulation of laws of physics,theory of
natural selection, theory of supply and demand, …
● A strength of this approach is that it identifies similarities and underlying structures.
● Whereas a weakness is that it is reductive
, ● Idiographic approach: Focuses on the unique characteristics, qualities and properties
of phenomena.
● Emphasizes the richness and diversity of individual cases and seeks to capture their
specific details, context, historical and cultural factors.
● One strength is that it reveals differences between apparently similar cases
● Whereas a weakness is that it leads to large collections of insight rather than
systematic knowledge
● Social sciences: Focuses on human agents and institutions, forms of behaviour,
rationality and culture
● The tension between nomothetic and idiographic approaches is most clear in the
social sciences.
● Social sciences feel the attraction of both natural sciences and humanities
● Certain disciplines skew towards one side, for example economics is more nomothetic
and cultural anthropology is more idiographic
Nomothetic approach Idiographic approach:
● Generalizes ● Specifies
● develops laws ● Highlights the specific, unique
● Explains outcomes as following elements of individual phenomena
from general rules and patterns ● Typical of humanities
● Typical of natural sciences
Lecture 2: Knowledge, truth and facts
● Truth is the correspondence between a proposition and reality.
● Facts are objective pieces of information about reality.
● Science gives us knowledge
● Conditions for knowledge: truth and facts (aka jutifications)
● Knowledge requires truth
● Knowledge is a justified true belief
● The Justified True Belief analysis of knowledge has been widely debated in
philosophy. Some argue that it is too narrow and excludes other types of knowledge
such as practical knowledge or knowledge by acquaintance.
● Belief is different from justification and truth
● There is irrational belief and false belief
● Knowledge is a belief, it is true and is justified
● Justification is an internal matter. It is about whether I have good reasons to believe
something; whether I am a responsible believer.
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