Lectures Philosophy of the Humanities I 2021 - Media Studies
lecture 1: general insights from philosophy of science
Bridging points between the different sciences (how they mutually overlap):
- language.
- on the question of concepts (or organizing terms), you can’t hold or touch it.
- on the question of institutionality, the institution through which forms of
confirmation, verification, testability are used on knowledge generated.
→ at the moment the different sciences are more divorced than before.
Overriding considerations for textbook and working group readings:
1. How do different philosophical and theoretical traditions conceive of the subject (the
thing that is able to reason; such as you as a thinker, but also generally a set of
protocols/ ways of reasoning that all subjects share) of knowledge and/in relation to
the object (the thing being studied) of knowledge, and how do they conceive of the
determinate relation therein?
What is the relation between the subject thinking and object relate?
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 19th 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? (thus; the relation between
explanation and interpretation)
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.
Analytic philosophy: truth claims and how we arrive at them
Continental philosophy: slippery concepts, to which we have commitment (love, being).
How the book works:
- The book offers two histories; one on ‘traditional’ philosophy of (natural) science
(part 1), and one on philosophy of the humanities (parts 2-4).
- The demise of logical empiricism paved the way for other philosophies of science
→ a shift from general philosophy of science to specific philosophies of science,
including philosophy of the humanities.
, - When philosophy of humanities got established as a specific philosophy of science
→ of the human sciences, it became possible and relevant to trace the conceptual
and historical antecedents of that field. Thus, from the 20th century it became in
relation to the sciences.
- the second history in the Leezenberd book offers that history (parts 2-4)
To day ’s agenda – philosophy of science in the 20th
● century: major currents
● A. What is at stake at the philosophy of science? and philosophy of humanities?
● – Tasks of philosophy of science and philosophy of humanities
● B. Two related key issues in philosophy of science and philosophy of humanities
● these are new questions that get asked to the forms of knowledge
● animating in the 20th century:
● – Demarcation problem
● – Relation theory and reality
A Tripartite division (p16, p24)
- philosophy of natural sciences - truth
- philosophy of social sciences
- philosophy of humanities - interpretation
Descriptive and normative philosophy
- chapter 1
- 1. Both philosophy of science and philosophy of humanities have a double task →
descriptive task and a normative task (p.1618).
- descriptive: description of scientific practices and products. (eg. how do scientists
connect theory to reality?)
- normative: normative assessment of scientific practices and products (eg. How
should scientists connect theory to reality?/ What distinguishes science from
pseudoscience and opinion?)
Demarcation problem
- Chapter 3
- 2. What is the problem of demarcation (p.91)?
- This demarcation problem is mostly about an episteme (statements that can be
can be tested, considered, or falsified) v. doxa (a belief or opinion) (p.19-20)
- What distinguishes good science? from pseudo and opinion? → what is at stake in
the demarcation problem; everything that cannot be tested, verified, or
sophisticated has no room in scientific discourse (thus it has to fall under
episteme).
→ post truth era
● fake news
● conspiracy theory
● climate change denial
● flat earths
● etc…
,episteme vs. doxa (better explained)
- Episteme: timeless necessary truths that can be verified (p.19)
- Doxa: opinion, perspective-dependent beliefs (p.20) (either in for example
culture/religion) → form of solipsism
- Philosophy of knowledge in antiquity:
What are the sources of knowledge?
- plato’s rationalism
- aristotle’s empiricism
Seminar - The myth of the cave
- plato
- idea of what something is, things are particulars of a form. The distortion is what a
thing is and what it tends to look like. → representation on the wall of Plato
- reasoning capacities fundamental in gaining true knowledge
- knowledge about unobservable essences (or forms) in a supernatural reality
- the myth of the cave illustrates this position; you need to demystify the
representation
● vs. Aristotle: essences are empirically accessible
The myth of the cave
- plato: perception is in perpetual flux
- hence, perception can’t be the foundation of knowledge
- Humans that take sensory experiences as the ultimate source of knowledge are
like prisoners in the cave → they mistake appearance for reality (doxa)
- observations are mere imperfect shadows or real forms or ideas in a supernatural
realm of ideas or forms
● true knowledge through use of reasoning capacities
● Aristotle disagrees; there is only one world and we can learn about it through
empirical inquiry
3 Different answers to the demarcation problem
● Logical empiricism: claims made need to be verifiable
- verifiability: claim should be testable using sensory experience (p.77).
Thereby, you could compare to statements that could not be verifiable.
● critical rationalism
- Falsifiability: claim should have the potential to be refuted by some possible
observations (p.91). the less we can falsify the better.
● Kuhn’s philosophy of science
- Normal science is governed by a paradigm (p.118). the larger paradigm
that holds together different sciences, with shared concepts.
verification
- chapter 3
- 3. logical empiricism endorsed a verification criterion of meaning (p77). explain
what this criterion entails?
, logical empiricism: historical context
● the main practitioners are socialists (such as Carnap) that wanted to get rid of any
kind of methical thinking from all of disciplines, in light of scientic developments.
● at the turn of the 20th century, natural sciences flourished (eg. Einstein’s relativity
theory)
● sciences as the right model for philosophy
● main aim logical empiricism: analysis of the nature, success, and growth of
scientific knowledge
● logical reconstructions of scientific results (theories, explanations)
- context of discovery vs. context of justification
● Vienna Circle ‘reflective epicenter’
Logical empiricism
● verifiability theory of meaning
- knowing the meaning of a sentence is knowing how to verify it by means of
observation (so only those which that can be observed and analysed count
as truth claims)
- verifiability = testability
- strong empiricists principle: experience is the only source of meaning
- scientific claims are verifiable and hence have meaning (meaning is here a
technical term, because you must experience it and must be able to phrase
it according the rules of language)
● Most traditional philosophy lacks meaning!
Verifiable or not?
- Where do we seek Nothing? (p.76) (nothing is not a thing, it has no meaning, thus
not scientific. this is more a literary way of thinking.)
- Tony Soprano is angry/gets a red haze before his eyes. (p.81) (anger cannot be
verified, so you need to get deeper into the physical things that come with it. eg.
blood pressure)
- I hear a melody in my head. (p.81) (this has no meaning, you can say it but
science cannot test it in this way)
→ These statements appear factive and hence verifiable, but in fact are not. You can’t
experience it.
Popper’s attack
- Chapter 3
- 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.
- In contrast to Carnap (logical empiricist) which saw the inductive verifiability of
truth claims as the best way. For Popper (also empirical) it is a deductive form of
reasoning. → why? just because we say something, even though we cannot prove
it fully, does not mean we cannot use it as a larger general theoretical base. You
just have to test out as many as you can.
Verifiability and the problem of induction
● How to verify universal laws?
