I got a 9.5 for my midterm using my notes. These notes are a combination of the slides from my lectures of Thinnking about Science at Tilburg University in combination with important parts of the book. I wrote this summary on paper last year and do not remember which parts are exactly from the book...
Thinking about society notes for the midterm`
Sidenote: I got a 9.5 for my midterm using my notes. These notes are a
combination of the slides from my lectures of Thinnking about Science at
Tilburg University in combination with important parts of the book. I wrote
this summary on paper last year and do not remember which parts are
exactly from the book and which are from the book. To prevent
plagiarism I hereby give credits to my lectures Stephan and the writes of
exploring humans, philosophy of sciences for the social science, a
historical introduction.
Part 1: a basic introduction to philosophy of knowledge
Rationalism and empiricism in antiquity
Introduction
Epistemology = philosophy of science and the philosophy of knowledge
➔ How can we have knowledge?
➔ How can be sure that the ideas that we have in our minds are about reality?
Two approaches:
1. Rationalism = true knowledge about reality derives from the proper use of our
reasoning capacities -> Plato
2. Empiricism = sense experience is the ultimate source of knowledge -> Aristotle
Plato’s rationalism
Plato wrote things down, Socrates didn’t
• More a systematic thinker
• Ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology
• White head: Western philosophy is nothing but a series of footnotes to Plato
➔ He asked all the right questions that we still try to answer nowadays
• Metaphysics: why is there something rather than nothing?
Plato: perception ≠ knowledge
• Perception: differs from person to person
• Sophists: knowledge is relative to the observer
➔ Relativity of truth: everyone is right about his/her own perception
➔ No investigation or criticism possible. No discussion possible.
, • Perception leads to opinions, not to knowledge
• Truth and knowledge are about how things really are
The real world is a supernatural world/realm which contains the eternal and perfect
forms (ideas) of almost everything. Go there to get the perfect understanding of the
good to be a perfect leader -> true knowledge
• Inaccessible to the senses
• Arrive at knowledge that is the same as knowledge of geometry -> circle =
perfect form
• We see only imperfect reflections of the perfect forms
Allegory of the cave
= Prisoners will mistake the shadows passing for real objects -> imperfect reflections
He will have finally grasped reality when he lays eyes on the sun, whose light reveals
all objects
Humans mistake appearances for reality. Souls trapped in bodies and they think
whatever they perceive with their sense organs is the real world.
➔ We must learn to see what is behind the appearances in the world of Forms.
Universal forms are the ultimate realities that ground true knowledge.
Nativism
= human possess innate ideas; no observation needed.
• Plato: we are born with all knowledge -> we just have to remember it
• Reincarnation = When you die, your soul comes back, but soul forgets
everything at birth
• Anamnese = learning. Remembering knowledge through reason
Aristotle’s empiricism
• Knowledge requires empirical facts
• This-worldly rather than other-worldly: the essences are in the natural world
and thus accessible by empirical inquiry
• Natural perspectives
• Forms are in the things themselves, shaped by matters.
Empiricism
• Source of knowledge is sensory experience
➔ Senses bring us into immediate contact with the world
➔ The experience we have when we explore the world must therefore constitute
the foundation of knowledge
, • All knowledge comes ultimately from observing nature
• No inborn knowledge -> born with no knowledge at all (tabula rasa)
• Organon: on the scientific method
- Science (èpistemè) consist in discovery of causes of objects
- Reasoning from basic theoretical principles to particular cases
Syllogism
a) All human beings are mortal
b) Socrates is a human being
c) Socrates is moral
➔ We should try to get all knowledge this way
➔ First basic premise not certain: opinion (doxa, plato), not (èpistemè) true
knowledge
• Principles should be causative, immediate and true
➔ Are not the conclusion of another syllogism
➔ How can we know that these principles are true?
• Induction = experience as guidance, from the concrete to the abstract
• Problem of induction = no matter how many observations, the conclusion will
never be certain
Intuitive causality detection system
The solution of Aristotle for the problem of induction -> rational solution
• Universal validity of principles does not follow from observations
• Induction is only the first step, then intuition that apprehends the first principle
• This intuition guarantees the truth of the principles -> insight that humans are
necessarily mortal (but they do not necessary have 2 ears)
• Aristotle is not a radical empiricist
Four causes
To have an explanation of something is to have knowledge of the four causes by
rational activity -> after scientific revolution: only efficient cause
1. The formal cause -> there is always a form in things
, 2. The material cause -> the things of which things are made
3. The efficient cause -> modern view, my kick is the efficient cause of the
movement of the chair
4. The final cause -> The purpose/goal from things -> why it is made (objects)
Statue of Apollo Chair Three
1. Idea in head 1. Idea in head 1. Form of the three
designer designer 2. Wood
2. Marble 2. Wood 3. Minerals/vitamins
3. Sculpting, 3. The chairmaker in the ground
removing all the who puts 4. Oxygen, fruits
things to create a everything together
statue 4. To sit on
4. Religious
Philosophers
Heraclites
• Change (flux) is at the heart of existence
• The ‘’obscure’’
• Panta rei -> everything flows
• Nothing is, everything changes/become
Due to ever-changing natural appearances most people are not able to obtain
knowledge. People who can grasp the hidden and fundamental law (logos) behind
appearances can arrive at knowledge.
Parmenides
• Senses mislead human beings into thinking that things are changing all the
time
• Underlying all the change and movement that we pick up with our senses
there is a permanent and unchanging reality
• Everything is, nothing becomes
• Real existence means to be without change
Socrates
• First philosopher -> start of Western philosophy
• Central question: how to live a good life (ethics, rather than epistemology)
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