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Thinking about Science Summary Chapter 1-12
Thinking about Science (840052) Summary of; Exploring Humans. By H. De Regt, H. Dooremalen and M. Schouten
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Thinking about ScienceChapter 1; Lecture 1: Rationalism and Empiricism in Antiquity
1.1 Introduction
What is knowledge?– Socrates is what it all started with. There are 2 rival methods to answer:
1. Rationalism: true knowledge about reality derives from the proper use of our reasoning
capacities (ratio).
Argue: Our capacity to think generates ideas and concepts which we cannot arrive at
by using our sensory capacities alone.
Philosopher: Plato.
2. Empiricism: true knowledge about reality derives from our sensory experience.
Argue: The senses are reliable indicators of what reality is like.
Philosopher: Aristotle.
1.2 Plato’s Rationalism
Plato writes about Socrates his dialogues. (radical nativist)
Socrates: ‘my not knowing is the only certainty’. ‘what is knowledge’.
Argue: asking people what they know for sure to rethink their opinions. Examine
concepts (love, truth, etc.) to determine their essences (unique identifying properties).
Example: to know essence of beauty, one needs to know what all beautiful
things have in common.
Enemy: Meletus; Socrates does not recognize the gods.
Plato: metaphysics (pre-eminent philosophical questions; ontology) and epistemology.
Supported Heraclites and Parmenides. Perpetual flux; everything flows.
Argue: if we equate knowledge with perception, the allegedly fluctuating nature of the
perceptual world has devastating implications, because it will easily breed scepticism
with respect to knowledge.
Example: the wind is either hot or cold but may feel different per individual.
Argue: World is not ever changing but contains eternal and perfect Forms (Ideas).
Example: triangle. The one on the blackboard is not perfect and only a
representation of the ‘perfect’ triangle. Our knowledge of triangles does not
come from imperfect object but from the perfect object; the Form.
Example: allegory of the cave (souls trapped in body and universal Forms are
true knowledge).
Argue: The operation of the senses result in belief (doxa) not knowledge (episteme);
true knowledge is only obtained by going behind sensible appearances. Because
Forms belong to the supernatural world, our senses cannot perceive them; only
through capacity of reasoning.
Argue: nativism; innate ideas; inborn ideas we get to through reasoning. We are born
with all knowledge; lost at birth but able to remember it. Anamnesis; learning by
recollection.
Example: slave with the triangles.
Against: Patregorean relativity, empiricism.
Agree: Parmenides (& Heraclites)
Metaphysical debate: (ontology – ‘what is true’) between appearance and reality. Linked to
epistemology question; ‘what is knowledge’.
Heraclites: Panta Rei (flux is at the heart of existence) ‘nothing is, everything becomes’.
, Argue: Due to the ever changing nature of appearances, most people are not able to
attain knowledge. Only those few people who are capable of grasping
hidden/fundamental law (logos) can arrive at knowledge.
Example: you cannot step twice in the same river.
Enemy: Parmenides.
Short: change is real, being is not.
Parmenides: Real existence mean to be without change, ‘everything is, nothing becomes’.
Argue: 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.
Example: for me something is warm, for someone else it might be cold.
Enemy: Heraclites.
Short: being is real, change is not.
Both: Truth is in the eye of the beholder (Patregorean relativity of truth and knowledge).
1.3 Aristotle’s empiricism
Aristotle: only one world, natural world. All knowledge comes from observing nature.
Argue: source of knowledge is sensory experience. Our senses bring us into immediate
contact with the world; therefor experiences must be the foundation of knowledge.
Argue: Peripatetic Axiom; ‘nothing is in the intellect which was not first found in the
senses’.
Argue: no innate ideas (no anamnesis). We are born with no knowledge; tabula rasa
(receiving impressions from reality <senses> derived from in-formation).
Argue: ‘we only have knowledge of a thing when we know its cause’. ‘we have
knowledge when we are able to provide a causal explanation’;
syllogism (deductive argument)↓↓ (episteme)
Example: (a) All human beings are mortal (premise – true law)
(b) Socrates is a human being (premise – particular case)
(c) Hence, Socrates is mortal (conclusion – absolute certainty)
Argue: 4 types of causes; + example
1. Formal cause (Apollo shape)
2. Material cause (Marble)
3. Efficient cause (primary source of change <sculptor>) (only remaining after SR)
4. Final cause (goal/sake <praise>)
Argue: principles on which scientific knowledge rests, must be causative, immediate
and true. (universal statements, (a), cannot be the conclusion of another syllogism).
Argue: empirical procedure from concrete to abstract: induction. Induction involves an
advance from the observation of particular phenomena to universal laws. The
universal validity of the first principle does not follow from observations we collect.
As generalization by induction does not reveal necessary truths, the inductive method
is only a first step. Therefore, he goes on to argue that it must be intuition that
apprehends the first principles, and the truth is apprehended by nous. Such intuitive
induction (insight) by the nous (mind) guarantees truth.
Enemy: dismisses Plato’s two world view (world of forms), anamnesis.
Empiricist?: Aristotle’s induction is not solely observations; there is also nous. The
four causes cannot be observed only by senses.
,Chapter 2; Lecture 2: A New (philosophy of) Science
2.1 Introduction
Pillars of Hercules: Ne Plus Ultra, Francis Bacon’s Instauratio: Plus Ultra.
Francis Bacon: guide ship of science to new and unsuspected discoveries. Bacon did not
contribute to science by actual doing but by writing. Voltaire; ‘Bacon is father of
experimental philosophy’.
2.2 The Aristotelian-Medieval Worldview
In MA questions were answered by quoting Aristotle, God, or both.
Aristotle: The cosmos was composed of concentric, crystalline spheres to which planets and
stars were attached. Earth was heavenly and immobile, located at the centre (geocentric)
Two realms:
1. Sublunary/terrestrial: Between earth and moon. Corruptible, perishable objects subject to
decomposition; being, exist, die/decay. Move in straight lines in direction of natural place.
4 elements: earth, air, fire, water (e/w heavy, fall down, centre) (f light, go up, border).
2. Superlunary/celestial: Moon outwards; heaven. Everything is perfect, objects are
imperishable and move in perfect circles.
5 elements: same + glass like substance (perfect element).
Ptolemy: Almagest; Geocentric, earth motionless in middle, planets circling around it. Planets
in smaller circles (epicycles).
Agree: Aristotle’s two realms and elements.
Copernicus: The Revolutionibus; planets around sun, i.o v.v. (heliocentric). Rising and setting
of the sun results from earth turning around its axis.
Reject: Aristotle’s two realms and elements.
Enemy: Luther; he will turn the whole science upside down.
Bacon: ‘Books must follow science, science not books’.
2.3 Bacon’s New Methodology
Bacon: intellectual history endless and pointless debates; progress only by breaking the
classical-medieval monopoly on science. We can only settle an intellectual dispute by
adopting empirical method. Truth does not come from contemplation and authority but relies
on the testimony of the senses. Point of view: empiricist.
Reject: Aristotle’s tabula rasa. (too simple) Aristotle’s research. (too simple)
Argue: to establish science based on accurate knowledge of reality, one must purge the
mind of its ‘idols’. Four main idols:
1. Idol of the tribe: innate and shared by all human beings. Our senses are
prone to make mistakes. We stick to views and focus on things that support our
views; forget to look critically.
2. Idols of the cave: peculiarities of individuals due to upbringing.
3. Idols of the marketplace: distorted beliefs that stem from common language.
4. Idols of the theatre: accepted dogmas and methods of old schools of thought.
(Aristotle and Bacon fit in here)
Argue: what guarantees the truth of Aristotle his premises? Universal statement can
never be the starting point of scientific inquiry. Deductive arguments only useful
because supported by empirical facts. We need a new tool; induction (gather as much
data possible and compare world to this sample).
Example: men of experiments and men of dogmas. Men of experiments: ants
(collect and use), Men of dogmas: reasoners are spiders (use own substance),
scientists: bees, gather materials and digest by power of own.
, 2.4 The Scientific Revolution
Kepler: embraced Copernicus’ Heliocentrism. However Copernicus believed that movements
were based on perfect circles. Astonomia Nova:
Argue: planets orbit the sun in elliptical trajectories; 1st law of planetary motion.
Galilei: rejected Aristotelian philosophy of nature. Telescope:
Argue: surface of the moon is rough and uneven. Jupiter has four moons. Sun has
spots. Venus sometimes between earth and sun
Reject: Aristotle’s realms. Ptolemy’s circles.
Newton: three laws of motion and the law of gravitation which explained the behaviour of all
objects terrestrial and celestial.
2.5 The Main Characteristics of the Scientific Revolution
In SR emphasis on three characteristics;
1. Empirical observations: It was no longer permissible to speculate about hidden nature of
phenomena, theories had to be based on observational, experimental facts.
Hooke: microscope to study cells.
Boyle/Newton: ‘experimentum crucis’; an experiment carried out in order to force a
decision between two (or more) alternative hypotheses.
2. Universal mechanics: Aristotle; anthropomorphic (human purposive behaviour was taken
as the model for everything else) e.g. objects have goals just like humans do.
Voltaire ridiculed Aristotelian reasoning of Mr. Prieur; things are there for a cause. These are
however, not explanations; genuine explanations should only involve efficient and physical
causes not a final goal. To explain a phenomenon is to refer back to cause/mechanics that
preceded it.
3. Universal mathematics: The universe followed regular mechanical principles and these
could be described in precise mathematical terms. Thus mechanization goes hand in hand
with mathematization.
The SR was primarily about mechanization, mathematization and demystification of both
remote parts of the universe and non-living objects.
Harvey: showed on the basis of experimental study that the heart is a pump forcing blood to
circulate.
Hobbes: Society is like a clock and we are machines working each other.
Descartes: agrees with mechanization but human soul (res cognitas) not included.
LaMettrie: humans are also machines just like animals.
The Entzauberung (demystification) seemed unstoppable, but question arose if there could be
social sciences besides natural sciences.
SR :
1. Break with Aristotle’s science, metaphysics, philosophy of science.
2. Distinction Sublunary and Superlunary abolished.
3. Final causes dismissed; only efficient causes.
4. Objects no longer thought to carry hidden essence, just matter in motion.
5. Bacon; Aristotle in the right way but wrong; too much nous.
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