(Originally written November 16, 2016 in Book 26)
Introducing Plato
D. Robinson
Particulars are contingent
Universals are the properties that particulars share with one another.
Plato was the first philosopher to see that universals were problematic.
Plato tried to explain it with a two-world system. A perfect world of universals and an imperfect world of copies (particulars).
The world of forms/ideas is never quite explained perfectly.
Forms exist in their own world and can only be "recollected only in the minds of a few talented and well-trained individuals" (Robinson, 65).
Plato's epistemology is difficult because it is mystical and therefore, not directly communicable.
Plato needed the forms to deal with the problem of Heraclitus' flux.
"Forms are more 'real' than particulars, because, unlike particulars, they are eternal and unchanging. Authentic philosophical knowledge can only ever be of these 'forms'" (Robinson, 74).
Everyone is born with the knowledge of the forms because everyone encounters them in earlier lives.
Some of the reason why Plato thought this way about particulars and universals was an account of the Greek language. It was a sort of linguistic determinism. It equates "meeting" and "knowing".
Heidegger was similar in his thinking as German is similar to Greek in how it deals with nouns. It precedes nouns with either masculine, feminine and neuter articles, allowing Heidegger to think about "the nothingness" rather than nothingness.
The forms suffer from an infinite regress, or third man argument.
Plato was also unsure if all man-made objects had forms or not.
The forms have weird ontological problems as well. How can the forms have more reality than particulars? Can reality have degrees?
Plato, because of the notion that meeting and knowing are the same thing, "Maintaining that real knowledge has to be a kind of personal and mystical encounter" (Robinson, 84).
What about universals?
Aristotle - universals are real, but don't exist separately
British Empiricists - universals are a mental image arrived at by abstraction.
"Wittgenstein suggested that our craving for definitive generalities can never be ultimately satisfied, and it is rather unhealthy" (Robinson, 87).
Plato introduced a problem that has not been satisfactorily solved.
Political Philosophy
Plato's view of society is communitarian, emphasizing the social nature of individuals. "Individuals can therefore be judged primarily in terms of their contribution to the State" (Robinson, 88).
The formation of the State came from humans developing a taste for luxury. Divisions of labor is then necessary to provide the luxuries.
Plato would turn the education over to the State (away from the hands of the dangerous Sophists). His educational system is roughly based on the Spartan system which produced a strong army and a stable society.
Plato wanted his society to have experts in every profession. The experts in ruling would get the guardian status and guardian education.
Plato would teach the myth that each man was born of a certain type of metal, thus predetermining every man's status in life.
The myth of the Cave allegory illustrates the ability and the duty of the guardian class.
Those who exit the cave know true knowledge comes from thinking, not seeing.
Plato's ideal republic is hierarchical but because of the myth of the four metals it will function well because everyone will know and accept their place in society (like a beehive).
"By the second generation, everyone will believe this myth of hierarchical castes to be natural and inevitable. Plato is quite content to admit that his hierarchical society must be based on a lie" (Robinson, 101).
Marx inverted the term "ideology" to explain how Plato's big lie works in reality.
The Guardian life is extremely rigorously controlled:
- lived coed in the barracks
- own no property
- breed only with one another by lot
- children are not left with their parents
"Plato's guardians are allowed no individuality or personal freedom" (Robinson, 103).
The social system Plato advocates is severe but it is meritocratic and is not sexist.
"Socrates maintained that morality is a special kind of knowledge which, once known, would always be chosen. Plato seems to have agreed, but argued that this knowledge must be restricted to Guardian experts who will always know the 'correct' answers to all moral problems" (Robinson, 106).
Plato had no time for art in the ideal republic. Only art as propaganda would be admitted. (This art foreshadowed the propagandist art of the Nazis and Soviets).
Plato's moral geometry is often rejected for being inflexible and for reason linking morality and knowledge.
Plato was anti-democratic because democrats have to resort to populism to stay in power. Populist policies are thus favored over wise ones.
"Democratic politicians are merely the slaves of those they pretend to rule, and ordinary people are volatile, violent and bestial" (Robinson, 114).
Popper argued against Plato for his utopianism.
Utopianists often advocate for wiping the slate clean which entails the destruction of society to build a new one.
"The Laws makes a disappointing ending to a philosophical body of work that began with a total commitment to Socrates' own freedom of speech and thought" (Robinson, 131).
"Because Plato cannot have perfect people, he insists on perfect laws which must be obeyed because they are perfect" (Robinson, 131).
The Symposium
Plato seems convinced that homosexual love could be transformed into something spiritually transcendental.
What is love?
Phaedrus: a good thing that instills honor and self-sacrifice
Pausanias: love is sensual gratification but is somehow purer when directed at young men rather than young women
Eryximachus: "love is the cosmic force that constitutes the universe itself" (Robinson, 134).
Aristophanes: Everyone was originally male, female and hermaphrodite. Love is the quest to find the lost part of one's soul. (Zeus punished humanity by splitting everyone into single genders).
Agathon - love is a yearning towards some object of beauty which is not yet possessed.
Diotima - love is the link between sensible and spiritual worlds. "If love is that which moves towards what is beautiful, and wisdom is beautiful, then love is the manifestation of the human soul seeking out the true wisdom of the forms" (Robinson, 136).
The Timaeus
Presents a cosmological account of creation.
"Time is simply a series of numbers that measure how the sub-standard cosmos is always changing" (Robinson, 142).
Plato follows Empedocles' view that all matter is various combinations of the four elements.
Humans are different because of their soul. The soul will return to its star after death if the owner of the soul lived a deserving life.
Plato also advocated metempsychosis (reincarnation) for those souls who aren't worthy of returning to its home star.
Plato's cosmology is similar to M-theory and other string theories that rely on mathematics.
Plato vacillates in the Thaetetus on his theories of perception. Sometimes he is a phenomenalist (we perceive mental images of the world, not the world itself). Sometimes he is a naive realist.
Despite his waffling on the notion of perception he remains staunchly a rationalist - all permanent knowledge comes through thought.
Being a rationalist, Plato had to come up with reasons for error. He claimed that errors arose from memory misapplication.
Knowledge - that which we believe, that which is true and that which we can clearly identify.
The Phaedrus condemns writing because writing is complete. Philosophy is always a process and therefore never complete. As such, dialoge is the best tool for philosophical discovery.
Plato had a long and varied influence:
- Origen developed a neo-platonic theology
- Galileo embraced Plato in his anti-Aristotelian view
- Hegel's dialectical philosophy
Showing posts with label Popper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Popper. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Religious language: Hume and Logical Positivists
(Originally written April 10, 2007 in Book 25)
Class Notes
Problem of religious language
Equivocal - a term means separate things
Univocal - a term means the same thing
Problems with equivocal language is that if it means something other than what we are familiar with than we are speaking meaninglessly.
Problem with univocal language is that how can a finite term be applied to an infinite concept of God?
David Hume
How do words get their meaning?
- Sensory impression
How do I know the meaning of the word "house"? I have seen a house.
How do I know the meaning of the word "blue"? I have seen blue things.
The sensory impression gives meaning to the word describing it
Hume's Fork:
Metaphysics: any term that can not be grounded in experience is utterly meaningless and nonsense. Consign it to the flames.
In order for a word to be meaningful it must be based on an antecedent sensory impression. The problem with this thesis of Hume's is there isn't a single word in this thesis that is based on an antecedent sensory impression.
Vienna Circle
Moritz Schlick (leader): in order for philosophy to make progress it must model itself after the natural sciences and become empirically verifiable.
- Rudolf Carnap, Karl Popper, Kurt Gödel
The Vienna Circle created the philosophy of logical positivism by expanding Humean notions.
Instead of focusing on words/terms they focused on propositions.
A proposition is meaningful if it meets the principle of verifiability.
Principle of verifiability - a sentence is meaningful if they are a) not analytic and b) in principle verifiable.
Under logical positivism metaphysics was rendered (by them) as meaningless and nonsense.
Ethical language is also nonsense. It is purely emotive.
Religions or theological concepts are also nonsense.
In a sense the logical positivists are atheistic, but the atheist would deny God's existence and the logical positivist would state that any denial of the existence of God is as meaningless as any affirmation of God.
The problem with logical positivism is that its basis (the verifiability principle) is not verifiable on its own grounds.
A. J. Ayer claimed that the principle and thought structures are meaningful despite not meeting their criteria.
Strong verifiability principle: a statement is meaningful if it is derived from an observation statement.
Observation -> Proposition
Weak Verification principle: an observation statement can be inferred from a statement
Proposition -> inference -> observation
Class Notes
Problem of religious language
Equivocal - a term means separate things
Univocal - a term means the same thing
Problems with equivocal language is that if it means something other than what we are familiar with than we are speaking meaninglessly.
Problem with univocal language is that how can a finite term be applied to an infinite concept of God?
David Hume
How do words get their meaning?
- Sensory impression
How do I know the meaning of the word "house"? I have seen a house.
How do I know the meaning of the word "blue"? I have seen blue things.
The sensory impression gives meaning to the word describing it
Hume's Fork:
Metaphysics: any term that can not be grounded in experience is utterly meaningless and nonsense. Consign it to the flames.
In order for a word to be meaningful it must be based on an antecedent sensory impression. The problem with this thesis of Hume's is there isn't a single word in this thesis that is based on an antecedent sensory impression.
Vienna Circle
Moritz Schlick (leader): in order for philosophy to make progress it must model itself after the natural sciences and become empirically verifiable.
- Rudolf Carnap, Karl Popper, Kurt Gödel
The Vienna Circle created the philosophy of logical positivism by expanding Humean notions.
Instead of focusing on words/terms they focused on propositions.
A proposition is meaningful if it meets the principle of verifiability.
Principle of verifiability - a sentence is meaningful if they are a) not analytic and b) in principle verifiable.
Under logical positivism metaphysics was rendered (by them) as meaningless and nonsense.
Ethical language is also nonsense. It is purely emotive.
Religions or theological concepts are also nonsense.
In a sense the logical positivists are atheistic, but the atheist would deny God's existence and the logical positivist would state that any denial of the existence of God is as meaningless as any affirmation of God.
The problem with logical positivism is that its basis (the verifiability principle) is not verifiable on its own grounds.
A. J. Ayer claimed that the principle and thought structures are meaningful despite not meeting their criteria.
Strong verifiability principle: a statement is meaningful if it is derived from an observation statement.
Observation -> Proposition
Weak Verification principle: an observation statement can be inferred from a statement
Proposition -> inference -> observation
Saturday, November 18, 2006
What is this thing called science? Ch. 15
(Originally written November 18, 2006 in Book 8)
What is this thing called science?
Ch. 15 - Realism and Anti-Realism
[Introduction]
Realism views science as being able to accomplish its goal of telling us about things going on beyond the surface of things (i.e. DNA) and about things that happened long ago, prior to man's existence.
Many philosophers of science doubt realism. One reason for this doubt is that claims about the unobservable world must be hypothetical to the extent that they transcend what can be firmly established by observation.
Realism is too rash for philosophy of science because it claims way more than it can reasonably defend. History has reinforced this doubt as countless theories about the unobserved world have been proven false.
Anti-realists point out that when theories based on unobservable and observable facts that when the unobservable is proved wrong and the observable is retained. They hold that the enduring part of science is the part based on observation and experiment.
Anti-realists stress the inconclusiveness of theoretical science.
[Global anti-realism: language, truth and reality]
Global anti-realism holds that we are trapped by language and cannot ever directly describe reality. We can only describe it through a human perspective.
Global anti-realism denies that we have access to reality in any way, not just in science.
While most contemporary people are global anti-realists in that we all deny that we can come face to face with reality and directly read off facts about it, that doesn't prove much. At this point, global anti-realism is a very weak thesis.
The thesis becomes stronger when it is taken to have consequences that justify a skeptical attitude toward science and knowledge in general.
Chalmers calls this strengthening of thesis "unwarranted". He admits that we understand the world through conceptional framework, but that the framework can be tested for accuracy.
We learn about the world through observing it and describing it but, also through interacting with it.
Realists use the correspondence theory of truth because it is most conducive to their position. The correspondence theory of truth states that a sentence is only true if it corresponds to reality. A sentence is true if it describes things as they really are.
One problem with the correspondence theory of truth is that it can lead to paradoxes very easily.
The Liar paradox is a good example:
Example 1: "I never tell the truth"
If this is true, then you do tell the truth.
Example 2: If one side of the card has the sentence, "the sentence on the other side of this card is true" and the other side states, "the sentence on the other side of this card is false". This situation proves that either of the sentences are both true and false, which leads to the paradox.
Alfred Tarski demonstrated how, in a reasonably simple language system, paradoxes can be avoided. He distinguished between: one must carefully distinguish sentences between 'object language' and 'meta-language'
Object language deals with truth or falsity of sentences. Meta-language talks about object language.
Using Tarski's formula one of the sentences on the card must be object language and the other must be meta-language and thus, no paradox arises.
One of the main components of Tarski's correspondence theory is that if we are going to talk about truth for sentences, we need a more general language, a meta-language.
Meta-language refers to object language and to the facts to which those object language sentence are intended to correspond.
Tarski needed to show how the correspondence notion of truth can be systematically developed for all sentences within the object language in a way that avoids paradoxes. The difficulty of his task is that for any interesting language there are an infinite number of sentences
Tarski achieved this task for languages involving a finite number of single placed predicates. He took what it means for a predicate to be satisfied by an object.
The everyday language makes it sound trivial. The predicate 'is white' is satisfied by "X" only if X is white.
Using the notion of primitive satisfaction as a given, Tarski defined truth recursively.
Tarski's work was technically important for mathematical logic. It had a fundamental bearing on model theory and effected proof theory. He showed how contradictions can arise when truth is discussed in natural language, and showed how these contradictions can be avoided.
Tarski merely showed a commonsense thing. He proved that "snow is white" is true only because snow is white.
Tarski showed that a commonsense idea of truth can be utilized in a way that is free from paradoxes that were believed to threaten it.
From Tarski's point of view, a scientific theory is true, if and only if it describes the world as it really is.
Anti-realism will maintain that Tarski has not proven a correspondence between truth and a sentence, only a correspondence between one sentence and another.
The traditional debate between realists and anti-realists, in science, concerns whether scientific theories should be seen as truth in an unrestricted sense, or if they should be seen as making claims about the observable world exclusively. Neither side of this debate defends global anti-realism.
Anti-realism
Anti-realism maintains that the content of a scientific theory involves only a set of claims that can be substantiated by observation and experiment.
Many anti-realists are called instrumentalists.
Instrumentalists hold theories are nothing more than useful instruments that aid in correlating and predicting the results of observation and experiment.
Theories, in instrumentalism, are not interpretable as true or false.
Theories must be overarching, general, simple and compatible with observation and experiment.
Bas van Fraassen is an anti-realist who is not an instrumentalist. He believes theories are true and false, but that truth or falsity is beside the point of science.
van Fraassen's merit of a theory is located in terms of its generality and simplicity and the extent to which it is borne out by observation and leads to new kinds of observation.
van Fraassen calls his position "constructive empiricism"
A motive for anti-realism is a desire to restrict science to claims that can be justified by scientific means.
Anti-Realists employee historical evidence to justify their claim that the theoretical part of science is not securely established.
Anti-realists note that even when theories are proven false there is no denying their utility in discovering new methods of observation.
"They (theories) are simply scaffolding to help erect the structure of observational and experimental knowledge, and they can be rejected once they have done their job" (Chalmers, 233).
[Some standard objections and the anti-realist response]
Anti-realists differentiate between observational knowledge, which is securely established and theoretical knowledge, which is not securely established.
One objecting to anti-realism is that if theories are not approximately true, how can they be so predictively successful in experiment?
History, however, forces the realist to admit that the predictive success is not a necessary indication of truth.
Realists claim that anti-realists can sweep difficult problems under the rug. Anti-realists would call this a caricature of anti-realism.
Realists claim that anti-realists don't take phenomena that is unobservable serious enough if they call it useful fiction. Anti-realists admit that these useful fiction and hold that as technology increases useful fictions can become observable phenomena.
[Scientific realism and conjectural realism]
Scientific realism claims that science's aim is to discover how the world behaves at all levels, not just observable ones.
Scientific realism claims that it is true because the testability of realism makes it scientific.
A key problem in the strong version of realism is the fact that history reveals science as fallible.
Ian Hacking, a realist, states that anti-realists place an inappropriately strong emphasis on what can and cannot be observed and pay insufficient attention to what can be practically manipulated in science.
Hacking maintains that an entity is real in science if it can be manipulated by science.
Some realists hold that scientific realism is too strong and attempt to weaken it.
Popper and his followers adhere to conjectural realism. Conjectural realism stresses the fallibility of our knowledge and admit that numerous theories in the past have been falsified and that we have no idea which current theories will be falsified in the future
The conjectural realist, however, still maintain that the aim of science is to discover the truth about what really exists and theories are to be judged on the extent to which they can fulfill this aim.
Conjectural realists will insist that their position is the most fruitful one in science, but will not call it a scientific position.
Conjectural realists hold that scientific realists' position as too ambitious.
Conjectural realism is a philosophical position, not a scientific one.
Conjectural realism has not criteria of judging true theories or false theories. They only recognize that in the past there have been false theories.
[Idealisation]
One objection to realism is that its theories cannot be taken as literal because it idealizes the world in a way it is not.
Theoretical descriptions are idealizations that cannot correspond to real-world situations.
Chalmers claims that the idealization of theoretical science do not pose the difficulties they are thought to.
[Unrepresentative realism or structural realism]
Science is dominated by realism because it attempts to discover reality.
Structural realism sees the theories as being more than calculating tools (anti-realism's position) but are still useful as such when they prove to be false.
What is this thing called science?
Ch. 15 - Realism and Anti-Realism
[Introduction]
Realism views science as being able to accomplish its goal of telling us about things going on beyond the surface of things (i.e. DNA) and about things that happened long ago, prior to man's existence.
Many philosophers of science doubt realism. One reason for this doubt is that claims about the unobservable world must be hypothetical to the extent that they transcend what can be firmly established by observation.
Realism is too rash for philosophy of science because it claims way more than it can reasonably defend. History has reinforced this doubt as countless theories about the unobserved world have been proven false.
Anti-realists point out that when theories based on unobservable and observable facts that when the unobservable is proved wrong and the observable is retained. They hold that the enduring part of science is the part based on observation and experiment.
Anti-realists stress the inconclusiveness of theoretical science.
[Global anti-realism: language, truth and reality]
Global anti-realism holds that we are trapped by language and cannot ever directly describe reality. We can only describe it through a human perspective.
Global anti-realism denies that we have access to reality in any way, not just in science.
While most contemporary people are global anti-realists in that we all deny that we can come face to face with reality and directly read off facts about it, that doesn't prove much. At this point, global anti-realism is a very weak thesis.
The thesis becomes stronger when it is taken to have consequences that justify a skeptical attitude toward science and knowledge in general.
Chalmers calls this strengthening of thesis "unwarranted". He admits that we understand the world through conceptional framework, but that the framework can be tested for accuracy.
We learn about the world through observing it and describing it but, also through interacting with it.
Realists use the correspondence theory of truth because it is most conducive to their position. The correspondence theory of truth states that a sentence is only true if it corresponds to reality. A sentence is true if it describes things as they really are.
One problem with the correspondence theory of truth is that it can lead to paradoxes very easily.
The Liar paradox is a good example:
Example 1: "I never tell the truth"
If this is true, then you do tell the truth.
Example 2: If one side of the card has the sentence, "the sentence on the other side of this card is true" and the other side states, "the sentence on the other side of this card is false". This situation proves that either of the sentences are both true and false, which leads to the paradox.
Alfred Tarski demonstrated how, in a reasonably simple language system, paradoxes can be avoided. He distinguished between: one must carefully distinguish sentences between 'object language' and 'meta-language'
Object language deals with truth or falsity of sentences. Meta-language talks about object language.
Using Tarski's formula one of the sentences on the card must be object language and the other must be meta-language and thus, no paradox arises.
One of the main components of Tarski's correspondence theory is that if we are going to talk about truth for sentences, we need a more general language, a meta-language.
Meta-language refers to object language and to the facts to which those object language sentence are intended to correspond.
Tarski needed to show how the correspondence notion of truth can be systematically developed for all sentences within the object language in a way that avoids paradoxes. The difficulty of his task is that for any interesting language there are an infinite number of sentences
Tarski achieved this task for languages involving a finite number of single placed predicates. He took what it means for a predicate to be satisfied by an object.
The everyday language makes it sound trivial. The predicate 'is white' is satisfied by "X" only if X is white.
Using the notion of primitive satisfaction as a given, Tarski defined truth recursively.
Tarski's work was technically important for mathematical logic. It had a fundamental bearing on model theory and effected proof theory. He showed how contradictions can arise when truth is discussed in natural language, and showed how these contradictions can be avoided.
Tarski merely showed a commonsense thing. He proved that "snow is white" is true only because snow is white.
Tarski showed that a commonsense idea of truth can be utilized in a way that is free from paradoxes that were believed to threaten it.
From Tarski's point of view, a scientific theory is true, if and only if it describes the world as it really is.
Anti-realism will maintain that Tarski has not proven a correspondence between truth and a sentence, only a correspondence between one sentence and another.
The traditional debate between realists and anti-realists, in science, concerns whether scientific theories should be seen as truth in an unrestricted sense, or if they should be seen as making claims about the observable world exclusively. Neither side of this debate defends global anti-realism.
Anti-realism
Anti-realism maintains that the content of a scientific theory involves only a set of claims that can be substantiated by observation and experiment.
Many anti-realists are called instrumentalists.
Instrumentalists hold theories are nothing more than useful instruments that aid in correlating and predicting the results of observation and experiment.
Theories, in instrumentalism, are not interpretable as true or false.
Theories must be overarching, general, simple and compatible with observation and experiment.
Bas van Fraassen is an anti-realist who is not an instrumentalist. He believes theories are true and false, but that truth or falsity is beside the point of science.
van Fraassen's merit of a theory is located in terms of its generality and simplicity and the extent to which it is borne out by observation and leads to new kinds of observation.
van Fraassen calls his position "constructive empiricism"
A motive for anti-realism is a desire to restrict science to claims that can be justified by scientific means.
Anti-Realists employee historical evidence to justify their claim that the theoretical part of science is not securely established.
Anti-realists note that even when theories are proven false there is no denying their utility in discovering new methods of observation.
"They (theories) are simply scaffolding to help erect the structure of observational and experimental knowledge, and they can be rejected once they have done their job" (Chalmers, 233).
[Some standard objections and the anti-realist response]
Anti-realists differentiate between observational knowledge, which is securely established and theoretical knowledge, which is not securely established.
One objecting to anti-realism is that if theories are not approximately true, how can they be so predictively successful in experiment?
History, however, forces the realist to admit that the predictive success is not a necessary indication of truth.
Realists claim that anti-realists can sweep difficult problems under the rug. Anti-realists would call this a caricature of anti-realism.
Realists claim that anti-realists don't take phenomena that is unobservable serious enough if they call it useful fiction. Anti-realists admit that these useful fiction and hold that as technology increases useful fictions can become observable phenomena.
[Scientific realism and conjectural realism]
Scientific realism claims that science's aim is to discover how the world behaves at all levels, not just observable ones.
Scientific realism claims that it is true because the testability of realism makes it scientific.
A key problem in the strong version of realism is the fact that history reveals science as fallible.
Ian Hacking, a realist, states that anti-realists place an inappropriately strong emphasis on what can and cannot be observed and pay insufficient attention to what can be practically manipulated in science.
Hacking maintains that an entity is real in science if it can be manipulated by science.
Some realists hold that scientific realism is too strong and attempt to weaken it.
Popper and his followers adhere to conjectural realism. Conjectural realism stresses the fallibility of our knowledge and admit that numerous theories in the past have been falsified and that we have no idea which current theories will be falsified in the future
The conjectural realist, however, still maintain that the aim of science is to discover the truth about what really exists and theories are to be judged on the extent to which they can fulfill this aim.
Conjectural realists will insist that their position is the most fruitful one in science, but will not call it a scientific position.
Conjectural realists hold that scientific realists' position as too ambitious.
Conjectural realism is a philosophical position, not a scientific one.
Conjectural realism has not criteria of judging true theories or false theories. They only recognize that in the past there have been false theories.
[Idealisation]
One objection to realism is that its theories cannot be taken as literal because it idealizes the world in a way it is not.
Theoretical descriptions are idealizations that cannot correspond to real-world situations.
Chalmers claims that the idealization of theoretical science do not pose the difficulties they are thought to.
[Unrepresentative realism or structural realism]
Science is dominated by realism because it attempts to discover reality.
Structural realism sees the theories as being more than calculating tools (anti-realism's position) but are still useful as such when they prove to be false.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
What is this thing called science? Ch. 12
(Originally written November 14, 2006 in Book 8)
Chapter 12: The Bayesian Approach
[Introduction]
The reliability and practical use of science's predictions in recent history may highlight that philosophers of science have exaggerated the fallibility of theories.
The Bayesians have gravitated to this view and stated that something has gone radically wrong in philosophy of science.
Bayesian are followers of Thomas Bayes, an 18th century mathematician who proved a probability theory.
[Bayes' Theorem]
The theorem is about conditional probabilities. Conditional probabilities are those propositions who depend on the evidence bearing on those propositions.
Bayes' theorem is a method of prescribing how probabilities are to be changed in the light of new evidence.
Bayes' Theorem:
P(h/2) = P(h) P(e/h)/P(e)
P(h) is prior probability of hypothesis 'h'
P(h/e) is posterior probability: the probability of 'h' in light of 'e'
Bayes' theorem indicates that prior probability is to be changed by a scaling factor in light of evidence 'e'.
The weight of evidence 'e' will strengthen or weaken the original probability. Thus P(h) will become P(h/e) and P(h/e) will become more or less probable than P(h) based on the evidence 'e'.
'e' will be 1 if it proves 'h'.
'e will be 0 if it disproves 'h'.
If it neither proves more disproves 'h' its value will be greater than 0 and less than 1
"The extent to which some evidence supports a hypothesis is proportional to the degree to which the hypothesis predicts the evidence" (Chalmers, 176).
If the evidence is confirmed the hypothesis is confirmed and the opposite (and the in between).
The Bayesians allow and need auxiliary assumptions in their theory.
Bayes' theorem is a theorem. It takes for granted some minimal assumptions about probability.
The minimum assumptions are probability calculus (which is widely accepted).
[Subjective Bayesianism]
The Bayesians disagree on a fundamental question concerning the nature of the probabilities involved.
According to objective Bayesians the probabilities represent probabilities that rational agents ought to subscribe to in the light of the objective situation.
Objective Bayesians hold that probabilities are distributed equally and then the Bayes' theorem is used to modify the probabilities in the light of the evidence.
A major problem with this approach is how to ascribe objective prior probability to hypotheses.
Where is a list of hypotheses to be found in any given field? A possible list could be infinite. In such a case all probabilities will be 0 and Popperian falsficationism is proved right.
Subjective Bayesian is different to the objective versions.
Scientists take certain things for granted and thus probability is not initially evenly distributed. Probabilities are assigned based on subjective beliefs.
The subjective Bayesians take the degrees of belief in hypotheses that scientists take as a matter of fact as the basis for the prior probabilities in their Bayesian calculations.
"Bayesianism makes a great deal of sense in the context of gambling" (Chalmers, 179).
Linehan - I just thought it was funny.
The degree of belief held by a scientist is analogous to the odds on a horse in a fair race.
Not all Bayesians will make the same choice between alternatives when applying the Bayesian calculus to science.
Any attempt to understand science and scientific reasoning in terms of subjective beliefs of scientists would seem to be disappointing for those who seek an objective account of science.
Bayesians insist that the Bayesian theory constitutes an objective theory of scientific inference.
The Bayesians see their approach as similar to logic. Logic doesn't care where the premises come from, only if the conclusion flows from the premises.
Bayesians can take the argument further and state that while scientists can be subjective in assigning prior probability, the Bayes' theorem, if applied correctly on the evidence will bring scientist's to the same conclusion regardless of their starting points.
Applications of the Bayesian Formula
There is a low of diminishing return in science that states once a theory has been confirmed by an experiment once, repeating the same experiment under the same circumstances will not be taken as confirming a theory to as high a degree as the first experiment did.
The Bayesian formula captures the essence of the law of diminishing return.
IF the theory "T" predicts the experimental result "E" then the probability of P(E/T) is 1.
The probability of T is to be increased in the light of a positive result E each time the experiment is performed, consequentially the probability of a theory being correct will increase by a smaller amount each time it is performed.
The Bayesians claim to be able to capture the rationale of Lakatos' ideal that confirmations, not falsifications are the key to scientific development.
Lakatos' 'methodological decisions' seemed plausible in his account, but he gave no proof for it. The Bayesians provided a basis for it.
Bayesianism also helps to eliminate ad hoc modifications.
[Critique of subjective Bayesianism]
One criticism is that by embracing subjective probabilities is too much of a concession to be able to attribute probabilities to theories.
There are two major problems with Bayesianism's approach. A Bayesian must know what any scientist felt about a degree of belief.
1) Gaining access to a scientist's degrees of belief is problematic
2) The implausibility of private beliefs having anything to do with a superiority of a theory or another one is also problematic
These problems are intensified when a collaborative work produces results. Whose beliefs are to be the factor in this account?
The extent to which degrees of belief are dependent upon prior probabilities is also another problem.
The subjectiveness of the starting point of the Bayesians makes it impossible for it to be an objective scientific method. If the starting point is gone all that is left is the Bayes' theorem which without science proves nothing.
Chapter 12: The Bayesian Approach
[Introduction]
The reliability and practical use of science's predictions in recent history may highlight that philosophers of science have exaggerated the fallibility of theories.
The Bayesians have gravitated to this view and stated that something has gone radically wrong in philosophy of science.
Bayesian are followers of Thomas Bayes, an 18th century mathematician who proved a probability theory.
[Bayes' Theorem]
The theorem is about conditional probabilities. Conditional probabilities are those propositions who depend on the evidence bearing on those propositions.
Bayes' theorem is a method of prescribing how probabilities are to be changed in the light of new evidence.
Bayes' Theorem:
P(h/2) = P(h) P(e/h)/P(e)
P(h) is prior probability of hypothesis 'h'
P(h/e) is posterior probability: the probability of 'h' in light of 'e'
Bayes' theorem indicates that prior probability is to be changed by a scaling factor in light of evidence 'e'.
The weight of evidence 'e' will strengthen or weaken the original probability. Thus P(h) will become P(h/e) and P(h/e) will become more or less probable than P(h) based on the evidence 'e'.
'e' will be 1 if it proves 'h'.
'e will be 0 if it disproves 'h'.
If it neither proves more disproves 'h' its value will be greater than 0 and less than 1
"The extent to which some evidence supports a hypothesis is proportional to the degree to which the hypothesis predicts the evidence" (Chalmers, 176).
If the evidence is confirmed the hypothesis is confirmed and the opposite (and the in between).
The Bayesians allow and need auxiliary assumptions in their theory.
Bayes' theorem is a theorem. It takes for granted some minimal assumptions about probability.
The minimum assumptions are probability calculus (which is widely accepted).
[Subjective Bayesianism]
The Bayesians disagree on a fundamental question concerning the nature of the probabilities involved.
According to objective Bayesians the probabilities represent probabilities that rational agents ought to subscribe to in the light of the objective situation.
Objective Bayesians hold that probabilities are distributed equally and then the Bayes' theorem is used to modify the probabilities in the light of the evidence.
A major problem with this approach is how to ascribe objective prior probability to hypotheses.
Where is a list of hypotheses to be found in any given field? A possible list could be infinite. In such a case all probabilities will be 0 and Popperian falsficationism is proved right.
Subjective Bayesian is different to the objective versions.
Scientists take certain things for granted and thus probability is not initially evenly distributed. Probabilities are assigned based on subjective beliefs.
The subjective Bayesians take the degrees of belief in hypotheses that scientists take as a matter of fact as the basis for the prior probabilities in their Bayesian calculations.
"Bayesianism makes a great deal of sense in the context of gambling" (Chalmers, 179).
Linehan - I just thought it was funny.
The degree of belief held by a scientist is analogous to the odds on a horse in a fair race.
Not all Bayesians will make the same choice between alternatives when applying the Bayesian calculus to science.
Any attempt to understand science and scientific reasoning in terms of subjective beliefs of scientists would seem to be disappointing for those who seek an objective account of science.
Bayesians insist that the Bayesian theory constitutes an objective theory of scientific inference.
The Bayesians see their approach as similar to logic. Logic doesn't care where the premises come from, only if the conclusion flows from the premises.
Bayesians can take the argument further and state that while scientists can be subjective in assigning prior probability, the Bayes' theorem, if applied correctly on the evidence will bring scientist's to the same conclusion regardless of their starting points.
Applications of the Bayesian Formula
There is a low of diminishing return in science that states once a theory has been confirmed by an experiment once, repeating the same experiment under the same circumstances will not be taken as confirming a theory to as high a degree as the first experiment did.
The Bayesian formula captures the essence of the law of diminishing return.
IF the theory "T" predicts the experimental result "E" then the probability of P(E/T) is 1.
The probability of T is to be increased in the light of a positive result E each time the experiment is performed, consequentially the probability of a theory being correct will increase by a smaller amount each time it is performed.
The Bayesians claim to be able to capture the rationale of Lakatos' ideal that confirmations, not falsifications are the key to scientific development.
Lakatos' 'methodological decisions' seemed plausible in his account, but he gave no proof for it. The Bayesians provided a basis for it.
Bayesianism also helps to eliminate ad hoc modifications.
[Critique of subjective Bayesianism]
One criticism is that by embracing subjective probabilities is too much of a concession to be able to attribute probabilities to theories.
There are two major problems with Bayesianism's approach. A Bayesian must know what any scientist felt about a degree of belief.
1) Gaining access to a scientist's degrees of belief is problematic
2) The implausibility of private beliefs having anything to do with a superiority of a theory or another one is also problematic
These problems are intensified when a collaborative work produces results. Whose beliefs are to be the factor in this account?
The extent to which degrees of belief are dependent upon prior probabilities is also another problem.
The subjectiveness of the starting point of the Bayesians makes it impossible for it to be an objective scientific method. If the starting point is gone all that is left is the Bayes' theorem which without science proves nothing.
What is this thing called science? Ch. 13 (A)
(Originally written November 14, 2006 in Book 8)
What is this thing called science?
Chapter 13 - The New Experimentalism
Introduction:
If the Bayesian account of scientific inference failed, we have not proven much at all about the characterization of what is distinctive about science.
Popper used theory-dependence of observation to poke holes in positivism and inductivism. Popper's account was, however, unable to prove what was falsified: a theory or a part of a theory.
Corrections to Popper's account, like Kuhn and Lakatos became even more theory-dependent. Bayesianism is also a theory-dependent case and suffers the same problems.
Feyerabend saw this and chucked science and took it off its pedestal.
Modern philosophers of science are split; but, some of them are attempting to get off the theory-dependent train without returning to positivism's naive belief in the reliability of sense-datum.
If scientific progress is the steady build-up of experimental knowledge then the philosophy of science's notion of science as being the accumulation of facts can be reinstated in a way that is not destroyed by old arguments.
[Experiment with life of its own]
If experiment is the basis for science then a theory-dependent or fallible account of science is unnecessary and wrong.
Knowledge of the experimental factors can be more valuable then theoretical knowledge.
[Deborah Mayo on severe experimental testing]
Mayo focuses on the detailed way in which claims are validated by experiment.
She holds that a claim can only be said to be borne out of experiment if the claim has been severely tested by experiment and has never been shown to be false
What is this thing called science?
Chapter 13 - The New Experimentalism
Introduction:
If the Bayesian account of scientific inference failed, we have not proven much at all about the characterization of what is distinctive about science.
Popper used theory-dependence of observation to poke holes in positivism and inductivism. Popper's account was, however, unable to prove what was falsified: a theory or a part of a theory.
Corrections to Popper's account, like Kuhn and Lakatos became even more theory-dependent. Bayesianism is also a theory-dependent case and suffers the same problems.
Feyerabend saw this and chucked science and took it off its pedestal.
Modern philosophers of science are split; but, some of them are attempting to get off the theory-dependent train without returning to positivism's naive belief in the reliability of sense-datum.
If scientific progress is the steady build-up of experimental knowledge then the philosophy of science's notion of science as being the accumulation of facts can be reinstated in a way that is not destroyed by old arguments.
[Experiment with life of its own]
If experiment is the basis for science then a theory-dependent or fallible account of science is unnecessary and wrong.
Knowledge of the experimental factors can be more valuable then theoretical knowledge.
[Deborah Mayo on severe experimental testing]
Mayo focuses on the detailed way in which claims are validated by experiment.
She holds that a claim can only be said to be borne out of experiment if the claim has been severely tested by experiment and has never been shown to be false
Wednesday, November 8, 2006
What is this thing called science? Ch. 9
(Originally written November 8, 2006 in Book 8)
What is this thing called science?
Alan Chalmers
Chapter 9 - Theories as Structures II: research programs
[Introducing Imre Lakatos]
Lakatos was an Hungarian who moved to England and was influenced by Popper. Although an avid Popper supporter, Lakatos was able to recognize the problems of falsificationism. He grafted some of Kuhn's work into sophisticated falsificationism.
[Lakatos' Research Programs]
Main problem with Popper's falsificationism was no clear guidance in determining what was falsified in an experiment.
Lakatos claimed that not all laws are equal in science. Some laws are so fundamental to be the nature of a science. These cannot be falsified.
The fundamental principles are the "hard core" of a research program to Lakatos.
Lakatos called all additions to the hard core as the protective belt. Thus, things falsified in the protective belt do not harm the hard core.
Lakatos made free usage of a heuristic. A heuristic is a set of rules or hints to aid discovery or invention.
The positive heuristic of a program stresses what one should do.
Lakatos emphasized the development of research programs as the progress of science.
He stressed the fact that observational statements become relevant in late stages of development.
Lakatos states that it is not the early falsification of observations, but late, mature confirmations of observations that truly matter.
The merits of a research program come from both the extent it leads to novel predictions and the extent it actually affects a program.
A progressive research program will retain its coherence and lead to confirmation of novel predictions.
A degenerating research program will be one that loses its coherence and will be one that loses its coherence and/or fail to lead to novel predictions' confirmations.
"The replacement of a degenerating program by a progressive one constitutes Lakatos' version of a scientific revolution" (Chalmers, 135-136).
[Methodology within a program and the comparison of programs]
A modification or addition to any field's protective belt is the purpose of science, so long as they are not ad hoc.
Modifications to the hard core are strictly prohibited by Lakatos.
Lakatos was dissatisfied with Kuhn's relativist account of scientific revolution and proposed that progressive replacing degenerating programs was not relative.
[Novel Predictions] pg 138
Lakatos' progress relied heavily on novel predictions.
Novel predictions as defined by Popper would not fit into Lakatos' system.
Lakatos' methodology states that a program is progressive to the extent that it makes natural, not novel or contrived or ad hoc predictions.
[Testing the methodology against history]
Lakatos was concerned with the history of science.
A theory of science must match an historical account of science.
Popper and Lakatos regarded Kuhn's analysis of science as mere description and thus, not a viable philosophy of science.
Lakatos criticizes positivist and falsficationist models for philosophy of science because they do not fit in with the facts of the history of science.
Research programs are given time to mature and develop despite early falsifications.
But Lakatos does not give a guideline to scientists who need to choose between two rival programs. There is no objective way of choosing.
[Problems with Lakatos' Methodology]
Lakatos' method is not an accurate description of science? Where are the historical hard cores?
Lakatos insists that program shifts must be via rational inquiry, but there is no historical or contemporary factual basis for this.
Lakatos simplicity suggests that his methodology answers the question of what, if anything, constitutes scientific knowledge.
Lakatos claims that the central problem in the philosophy of science is stating universal conditions under which a theory is scientific.
Lakatos' claim of solving these problems proved to be a farce and his criteria inadequate for objectively determining when a program is progressive, degenerative or in need of replacement.
His theory worked well in hindsight, but was not capable of foresight.
Another major flaw of Lakatos' theory was that he emphasized the historical significance and studied only physics. He then applied it to other studies. Thus, he stated only that a study is not science if it does not match physics' criteria. But if something is not physics does that make it not science?
What is this thing called science?
Alan Chalmers
Chapter 9 - Theories as Structures II: research programs
[Introducing Imre Lakatos]
Lakatos was an Hungarian who moved to England and was influenced by Popper. Although an avid Popper supporter, Lakatos was able to recognize the problems of falsificationism. He grafted some of Kuhn's work into sophisticated falsificationism.
[Lakatos' Research Programs]
Main problem with Popper's falsificationism was no clear guidance in determining what was falsified in an experiment.
Lakatos claimed that not all laws are equal in science. Some laws are so fundamental to be the nature of a science. These cannot be falsified.
The fundamental principles are the "hard core" of a research program to Lakatos.
Lakatos called all additions to the hard core as the protective belt. Thus, things falsified in the protective belt do not harm the hard core.
Lakatos made free usage of a heuristic. A heuristic is a set of rules or hints to aid discovery or invention.
The positive heuristic of a program stresses what one should do.
Lakatos emphasized the development of research programs as the progress of science.
He stressed the fact that observational statements become relevant in late stages of development.
Lakatos states that it is not the early falsification of observations, but late, mature confirmations of observations that truly matter.
The merits of a research program come from both the extent it leads to novel predictions and the extent it actually affects a program.
A progressive research program will retain its coherence and lead to confirmation of novel predictions.
A degenerating research program will be one that loses its coherence and will be one that loses its coherence and/or fail to lead to novel predictions' confirmations.
"The replacement of a degenerating program by a progressive one constitutes Lakatos' version of a scientific revolution" (Chalmers, 135-136).
[Methodology within a program and the comparison of programs]
A modification or addition to any field's protective belt is the purpose of science, so long as they are not ad hoc.
Modifications to the hard core are strictly prohibited by Lakatos.
Lakatos was dissatisfied with Kuhn's relativist account of scientific revolution and proposed that progressive replacing degenerating programs was not relative.
[Novel Predictions] pg 138
Lakatos' progress relied heavily on novel predictions.
Novel predictions as defined by Popper would not fit into Lakatos' system.
Lakatos' methodology states that a program is progressive to the extent that it makes natural, not novel or contrived or ad hoc predictions.
[Testing the methodology against history]
Lakatos was concerned with the history of science.
A theory of science must match an historical account of science.
Popper and Lakatos regarded Kuhn's analysis of science as mere description and thus, not a viable philosophy of science.
Lakatos criticizes positivist and falsficationist models for philosophy of science because they do not fit in with the facts of the history of science.
Research programs are given time to mature and develop despite early falsifications.
But Lakatos does not give a guideline to scientists who need to choose between two rival programs. There is no objective way of choosing.
[Problems with Lakatos' Methodology]
Lakatos' method is not an accurate description of science? Where are the historical hard cores?
Lakatos insists that program shifts must be via rational inquiry, but there is no historical or contemporary factual basis for this.
Lakatos simplicity suggests that his methodology answers the question of what, if anything, constitutes scientific knowledge.
Lakatos claims that the central problem in the philosophy of science is stating universal conditions under which a theory is scientific.
Lakatos' claim of solving these problems proved to be a farce and his criteria inadequate for objectively determining when a program is progressive, degenerative or in need of replacement.
His theory worked well in hindsight, but was not capable of foresight.
Another major flaw of Lakatos' theory was that he emphasized the historical significance and studied only physics. He then applied it to other studies. Thus, he stated only that a study is not science if it does not match physics' criteria. But if something is not physics does that make it not science?
What is this thing called science? Ch. 8 (B)
(Originally written November 8, 2006 in Book 8)
What is this thing called science?
Alan Chalmers
Ch. 8 continued...
Every paradigm has its puzzles to solve. When they encounter a problem that is too serious or problems that are too serious, a crisis will occur.
If a crisis is too big to overcome it "may lead to the rejection of a paradigm and its replacement by an incompatible alternative" (Chalmers, 112).
Anomalies will occur all the time in a paradigm. These will only become a crisis if the anomaly strikes at the foundation of a paradigm.
Anomalies can trigger a crisis due to some sociological needs.
Extremely serious anomalies and a mass number of anomalies can trigger a crisis.
When a crisis is undermining the confidence of proponents of any paradigm a revolution will occur.
The situation is exasperated when a rival and incompatible paradigm emerges.
Rival paradigms will be wholly incompatible. They will ask different questions and assert different standards.
Paradigms guide a scientist's worldview.
Rival paradigms are not chosen as better due to logical supremacy; the switch is sort of like a "gestalt switch" or a "religious conversion"
Kuhn compares scientific revolutions to political revolutions.
For many reasons, Kuhn calls rival paradigms "incommensurable".
Scientific revolutions are successful when a majority of scientists in any field switch paradigms, then holdovers to the old paradigm are obsoleted and left to die.
[The function of normal science and revolution]
Kuhn's account of science is very describe but includes a theory of science because he describes the function of science. He claimed that normal science and revolution have necessary functions in science.
Normal science serves the function of giving the opportunity for scientists to develop a theory.
Normal science creates a safe zone for experimentation. If all scientists were critical of the paradigm, no advances would be made.
Revolution is needed for science to advance.
[The merits of Kuhn's account of science]
Kuhn nailed the descriptive element of science.
Kuhn vs. Popper on differentiating science from astrology:
Popper claims astrology is non-science because it is either unfalsifiable or falsified. (Neither of these is an adequate rejection of astrology.) Kuhn's utilization of the paradigm adequately debunks astrology as a science.
[Kuhn's ambivalence on progress through revolution]
Kuhn is notoriously ambiguous.
Kuhn is relativistic in his account of scientific progress.
Kuhn's denial of relativity in the scope of scientific progress disagrees with his other relativistic claims.
Kuhn's sociological emphasis also emphasizes a relativist view point.
[Objective knowledge]
Kuhn claims that a scientific revolution is analogous to a gestalt shift and yet can occur over time.
Chalmers claims that Kuhn is confusing two types of knowledge here, subjective and objective.
The relationship between one paradigm to another is an objective knowledge, but the switch from one to the other by any given scientist is a psychological one, thus a subjective one.
What is this thing called science?
Alan Chalmers
Ch. 8 continued...
Every paradigm has its puzzles to solve. When they encounter a problem that is too serious or problems that are too serious, a crisis will occur.
If a crisis is too big to overcome it "may lead to the rejection of a paradigm and its replacement by an incompatible alternative" (Chalmers, 112).
Anomalies will occur all the time in a paradigm. These will only become a crisis if the anomaly strikes at the foundation of a paradigm.
Anomalies can trigger a crisis due to some sociological needs.
Extremely serious anomalies and a mass number of anomalies can trigger a crisis.
When a crisis is undermining the confidence of proponents of any paradigm a revolution will occur.
The situation is exasperated when a rival and incompatible paradigm emerges.
Rival paradigms will be wholly incompatible. They will ask different questions and assert different standards.
Paradigms guide a scientist's worldview.
Rival paradigms are not chosen as better due to logical supremacy; the switch is sort of like a "gestalt switch" or a "religious conversion"
Kuhn compares scientific revolutions to political revolutions.
For many reasons, Kuhn calls rival paradigms "incommensurable".
Scientific revolutions are successful when a majority of scientists in any field switch paradigms, then holdovers to the old paradigm are obsoleted and left to die.
[The function of normal science and revolution]
Kuhn's account of science is very describe but includes a theory of science because he describes the function of science. He claimed that normal science and revolution have necessary functions in science.
Normal science serves the function of giving the opportunity for scientists to develop a theory.
Normal science creates a safe zone for experimentation. If all scientists were critical of the paradigm, no advances would be made.
Revolution is needed for science to advance.
[The merits of Kuhn's account of science]
Kuhn nailed the descriptive element of science.
Kuhn vs. Popper on differentiating science from astrology:
Popper claims astrology is non-science because it is either unfalsifiable or falsified. (Neither of these is an adequate rejection of astrology.) Kuhn's utilization of the paradigm adequately debunks astrology as a science.
[Kuhn's ambivalence on progress through revolution]
Kuhn is notoriously ambiguous.
Kuhn is relativistic in his account of scientific progress.
Kuhn's denial of relativity in the scope of scientific progress disagrees with his other relativistic claims.
Kuhn's sociological emphasis also emphasizes a relativist view point.
[Objective knowledge]
Kuhn claims that a scientific revolution is analogous to a gestalt shift and yet can occur over time.
Chalmers claims that Kuhn is confusing two types of knowledge here, subjective and objective.
The relationship between one paradigm to another is an objective knowledge, but the switch from one to the other by any given scientist is a psychological one, thus a subjective one.
Tuesday, November 7, 2006
What is this thing called science? Ch. 7
(Originally written November 7, 2006 in Book 8)
What is this thing called science?
Alan Chalmers
Chapter 7 - The limits of falsificationism
[Problems stemming from the logical situation]
Scientific laws cannot be logically deduced from a set of observable facts.
The falsity of a law can be logically deduced from a single observable fact.
Falsificationism begins to experience problems in complex situations because it is impossible to deduce from logic whether a law or a theory is false or if the evidence used to debunk the theory/law is false.
Straightforward, conclusive falsifications of theories are not achievable.
Scientific theories are super complex and consist of various universal statements.
All theories need to be augmented by auxiliary assumptions.
Auxiliary assumptions include laws and theories governing the use of instruments in experimentation.
Experimentation also involves many extra set of premises and auxiliary assumptions.
So when an experiment proves something false who can be sure that the scientific law or an auxiliary assumption or a condition is what is false. No one can say for certain.
When a theory cannot be conclusively falsified because the possibility that the auxiliary assumption or a part of the experiment is faulty, falsificationism proves to be inadequate. When this happens it is called the Duhem/Quine thesis.
Falsifications of a theory can also be avoided by deflecting the falsification to some other part of the complex theory. The objectivity of science goes out the window as scientists cling to their precious theories.
[Falsificationism inadequate on historical grounds]
Falsificationism fails to be represented by the history of science. If it had been strictly adhered to then some of our most important scientific theories would have been abandoned in their infancy. Some of these are:
What is this thing called science?
Alan Chalmers
Chapter 7 - The limits of falsificationism
[Problems stemming from the logical situation]
Scientific laws cannot be logically deduced from a set of observable facts.
The falsity of a law can be logically deduced from a single observable fact.
Falsificationism begins to experience problems in complex situations because it is impossible to deduce from logic whether a law or a theory is false or if the evidence used to debunk the theory/law is false.
Straightforward, conclusive falsifications of theories are not achievable.
Scientific theories are super complex and consist of various universal statements.
All theories need to be augmented by auxiliary assumptions.
Auxiliary assumptions include laws and theories governing the use of instruments in experimentation.
Experimentation also involves many extra set of premises and auxiliary assumptions.
So when an experiment proves something false who can be sure that the scientific law or an auxiliary assumption or a condition is what is false. No one can say for certain.
When a theory cannot be conclusively falsified because the possibility that the auxiliary assumption or a part of the experiment is faulty, falsificationism proves to be inadequate. When this happens it is called the Duhem/Quine thesis.
Falsifications of a theory can also be avoided by deflecting the falsification to some other part of the complex theory. The objectivity of science goes out the window as scientists cling to their precious theories.
[Falsificationism inadequate on historical grounds]
Falsificationism fails to be represented by the history of science. If it had been strictly adhered to then some of our most important scientific theories would have been abandoned in their infancy. Some of these are:
- Newton's gravitational theory
- Bohr's theory of the atom
- Kinetic theory
- Copernican Revolution
The Copernican Revolution
The Copernican Astronomy system of the 16th century challenged the Aristotelian system (4th century B.C.) and the Ptolemaic system (2nd century).
Copernicus could not adequately defend his system against the scientific community.
Falsificationism would have ruled out Copernicus' system from the onset.
Galileo's addition to the Copernicus system through the verification of Copernicus' predictions via the use of a telescope chipped away at the dogmatic belief in the Aristotelian/Ptolemaic system.
The use of a telescope also raised serious epistemological questions. Why should the data collected via the telescope be more reliable than data collected through the naked eye?
Kepler further defended the Copernican theory using Galileo's mechanics, Copernicus' astronomical theory and Tyco Brahe's recording of planetary positions and made a strong defense of Copernican theory.
Newton then furthered the theory.
Neither inductivism nor falsificationism gives an account of science that is compatible with the Copernican Revolution.
The Copernican Revolution took hold in spite of the many falsifications in the early, imprecise theory formulations.
[Inadequacies of the falsificationist demarcation criteria and Popper's response]
"Popper made a seductive case for his criterion of demarcation between science and non or pseudo-science" (Chalmers, 101-102).
Popper claimed that non-qualified falsificationism was too broad. Popper claims that theories must be falsifiable and must not be falsified. Popper claims the modifications to falsified theory is acceptable in his sophisticated falsificationism.
Dogmatic science is allowed in Popper's theory.
If dogmatism becomes part of falsificationism then what role does falsificationism really play?
"It would be ironic if the highly qualified version of falsificationism became so weak as to rule out nothing, thereby clashing with the main intuition that led Popper to formulate it" (Chalmers, 103).
Friday, November 3, 2006
What is this thing called science? Ch. 6
(Originally written November 3, 2006 in Book 8)
What is this thing called Science?
Alan Chalmers
Chapter 6 - Sophisticated falsificationism, novel predictions and the growth of science
Relative rather than absolute degrees of falsifiability
Sophisticated falsificationism admits that "the more falsifiable the better" is insufficient
Sophisticated falsificationism holds that a theory must be more falsifiable than the one it is replacing.
Sophisticated falsificationism emphasizes the growth of science
It takes a more holistic view than naive falsificationism
Increasing falsifiability and ad hoc modifications
As a science progresses its theories ought to become more falsifiable
Any modification to a theory that is not independently testable is ad hoc and rejected by falsficationism
Popper claims that independently falsifiable modifications are acceptable is falsificationism
Confirmation in the falsifications account of science
Popper claims that advances in science are due to falsifications. Chalmers claims that confirmations of bold conjectures are the cause of scientific advance. Falsifications of cautious conjectures also leads to advances because what was once held to be undoubtedly true is proven false.
Falsified bold conjectures and confirmed cautious conjectures yield little importance.
Confirmations of novel predictions yield great discovery.
Boldness, novelty and background knowledge
Boldness and novelty is based on the relativity of background knowledge.
Background knowledge is merely the accepted scientific theory of a given point in time.
What was bold or novel in 1920 is not bold or novel now and what is bold or novel now may not be bold or novel in 2050 and so on.
Comparison of the inductivist and falsificationist view of confirmation.
The emphasis on scientific growth distinguishes falsificationism and inductivism.
Falsificationism relies on history. Inductivism does not.
Advantages of falsificationism over inductivism
1. facts and experimental results are theory dependent and fallible.
Inductivism claims science has a factual, not theoretical base, but since facts and experiment results are theory-dependent and fallible it is problematic for inductivism
falsificationism does not face the problem of inductivism
Inductivists have trouble explaining and justifying inferences; falsificationism avoids these by claiming induction has nothing to do with science.
Inductivism aims at probable truth, which they fail to deliver. Falsificationism aims for progress, which it delivers. But does this lead us anywhere?
What is this thing called Science?
Alan Chalmers
Chapter 6 - Sophisticated falsificationism, novel predictions and the growth of science
Relative rather than absolute degrees of falsifiability
Sophisticated falsificationism admits that "the more falsifiable the better" is insufficient
Sophisticated falsificationism holds that a theory must be more falsifiable than the one it is replacing.
Sophisticated falsificationism emphasizes the growth of science
It takes a more holistic view than naive falsificationism
Increasing falsifiability and ad hoc modifications
As a science progresses its theories ought to become more falsifiable
Any modification to a theory that is not independently testable is ad hoc and rejected by falsficationism
Popper claims that independently falsifiable modifications are acceptable is falsificationism
Confirmation in the falsifications account of science
Popper claims that advances in science are due to falsifications. Chalmers claims that confirmations of bold conjectures are the cause of scientific advance. Falsifications of cautious conjectures also leads to advances because what was once held to be undoubtedly true is proven false.
Falsified bold conjectures and confirmed cautious conjectures yield little importance.
Confirmations of novel predictions yield great discovery.
Boldness, novelty and background knowledge
Boldness and novelty is based on the relativity of background knowledge.
Background knowledge is merely the accepted scientific theory of a given point in time.
What was bold or novel in 1920 is not bold or novel now and what is bold or novel now may not be bold or novel in 2050 and so on.
Comparison of the inductivist and falsificationist view of confirmation.
The emphasis on scientific growth distinguishes falsificationism and inductivism.
Falsificationism relies on history. Inductivism does not.
Advantages of falsificationism over inductivism
1. facts and experimental results are theory dependent and fallible.
Inductivism claims science has a factual, not theoretical base, but since facts and experiment results are theory-dependent and fallible it is problematic for inductivism
falsificationism does not face the problem of inductivism
Inductivists have trouble explaining and justifying inferences; falsificationism avoids these by claiming induction has nothing to do with science.
Inductivism aims at probable truth, which they fail to deliver. Falsificationism aims for progress, which it delivers. But does this lead us anywhere?
What is this thing called science? Ch. 5 (B)
(Originally written November 3, 2006 in Book 8)
What is this thing called science?
A. Chalmers
Ch. 5
Falsifiability as a criterion for theories
Falsifications sees science as a set of hypotheses that are proposed with the aim of describing one aspect of the world.
Any hypothesis must be falsifiable.
To be falsifiable a theory must have a logically possible observation statement(s) that is inconsistent with it and if any of those observations come true the hypothesis is falsified.
Falsifiability is a prerequisite to a law or theory having the ability to be informative.
Falsifiability is key in science. "If a theory is to have informative content it must run the risk of being falsified" (Chalmers, 65).
Degree of falsifiability, clarity and precision
The more falsifiable a theory is the better.
Scientific theories should be wide ranged and over arching.
More falsifiable theories should be preferred over less falsifiable ones, but once a theory has been falsified it must be ruthlessly rejected.
Bold conjectures are to be preferred over irrelevant truisms.
Refutations of theories is a good thing because we learn from our mistakes. By "finding that our conjecture was false we shall have learnt much about the truth, and shall have gotten nearer to the truth" (Chalmers, 66-67).
Falsificationism demands concise, articulate theories. Vagueness and ambiguity is kicked out by falsificationism.
Falsificationism and progress:
1. Science begins with problems
2. Falsifiable hypotheses are proposed to solve the problems
3. Conjectures are criticized and tested
4. Elimination of falsified conjectures
5. Surviving conjectures are tested again, more vigorously
6. A problem is solved and a new problem emerges
(Repeat)
Problems come from straightforward observations. But they come only in a given theory.
What is this thing called science?
A. Chalmers
Ch. 5
Falsifiability as a criterion for theories
Falsifications sees science as a set of hypotheses that are proposed with the aim of describing one aspect of the world.
Any hypothesis must be falsifiable.
To be falsifiable a theory must have a logically possible observation statement(s) that is inconsistent with it and if any of those observations come true the hypothesis is falsified.
Falsifiability is a prerequisite to a law or theory having the ability to be informative.
Falsifiability is key in science. "If a theory is to have informative content it must run the risk of being falsified" (Chalmers, 65).
Degree of falsifiability, clarity and precision
The more falsifiable a theory is the better.
Scientific theories should be wide ranged and over arching.
More falsifiable theories should be preferred over less falsifiable ones, but once a theory has been falsified it must be ruthlessly rejected.
Bold conjectures are to be preferred over irrelevant truisms.
Refutations of theories is a good thing because we learn from our mistakes. By "finding that our conjecture was false we shall have learnt much about the truth, and shall have gotten nearer to the truth" (Chalmers, 66-67).
Falsificationism demands concise, articulate theories. Vagueness and ambiguity is kicked out by falsificationism.
Falsificationism and progress:
1. Science begins with problems
2. Falsifiable hypotheses are proposed to solve the problems
3. Conjectures are criticized and tested
4. Elimination of falsified conjectures
5. Surviving conjectures are tested again, more vigorously
6. A problem is solved and a new problem emerges
(Repeat)
Problems come from straightforward observations. But they come only in a given theory.
Falsificationism, Inductivism and Kuhn Notes
(Originally Written November 3, 2006 in Book 8)
Ok, so we are in trouble because of a time crunch. The test is in 1.5 hours. It's time to sum up.
Falsificationism:
I. Naive Falsificationism and its problems
Ok, so we are in trouble because of a time crunch. The test is in 1.5 hours. It's time to sum up.
Falsificationism:
I. Naive Falsificationism and its problems
- A hypothesis must be falsifiable in order to be informative.
- Anything that is unfalsifiable can make all situations fit their theory. This makes the theory look good; but, it neither proves anything nor denies anything. It simply explains events according to a theory.
- Since hypotheses must be falsifiable, the more falsifiable a theory is the better it is.
- Problems -
- "Since hypotheses must be falsifiable, the more falsifiable a theory is the better it is" is very vague
- Naive falsificationism takes too static or too isolated a view on individual theories.
- "A hypothesis must be falsifiable in order to be informative" is in fact, a non-falsifiable statement. How can you falsify it?
II. Falsifiability as a criterion for scientific theories.
- Science is a set of hypotheses to explain a certain aspect of the world.
- A hypothesis must be falsifiable to state anything informative
- A non-falsifiable hypothesis can look sound but cannot explain anything or deny anything.
- Falsification makes it informative and if science is to be informative it must be falsifiable
III. Ad Hoc Modifications and Popperian (Sophisticated) Falsificationism
- Ad hoc modification - any modification to a theory that has no independent testability
- Relativity of falsifiability - Naive falsificationism claims that a more falsifiable hypothesis is better. Sophisticated falsifiability claims that a falsifiable hypothesis ought to be replaced by a more falsifiable hypothesis
- Aim of science - The aim of science is to falsify hypotheses and replace them with better ones.
- Confirmation is key in sophisticated falsificationism (Chalmers)
IV. Confirmation in the falsificationist model
- Bold conjectures are better than irrelevant truisms
- Bold conjectures that are not falsified lead to novel predictions
- The bolder the conjecture the better
- Refutations help to eliminate falsehoods which in turn reveals more truth
V. Problems with Falsificationism
- Theory dependence of observation: There is no absolute objectivity in science.
- Falsifications are fallible
- Ad Hoc modifications
- Auxiliary assumptions
- Falsificationism is not recommended by the History of science
- The Copernican Theory, for example, would have been rejected before adequate technology could confirm it.
Inductivism:
I. Inductivism and its problems
- Science is inductively derived from the facts
- Science has a factual basis, not a theoretical one
- Observation precedes theory
- Problems
- Facts and experimentation are theory dependent and fallible
- What is the criteria for a good inductive inference?
- Science is not the mere accumulation of facts. Relevant theories and methods must precede observation
II. The problem of induction
- How can knowledge of the unobservable be derived from observable facts?
- Solutions
- Hume - animal faith
- Kant - induction is grounded in a priori, not observation
- Will - Past futures resemble past pasts. Therefore, future futures will resemble past pasts and future pasts. (This begs the question)
- Reichenbach - pragmatic approach: "if anything works, induction will"
The Problem of induction
I. Hume's Fork (Two types of knowledge)
- Relation of ideas
- Matters of fact
- Where does the concepts of uniformity of nature and causality lie? They are neither a relation of ideas nor a matter of fact.
- Hume's solution - Animal faith or a habit
II. Kant's response - inductive inferences are grounded in a priori concepts
III. Will states that past futures resemble past pasts so future futures will resemble past futures and past pasts.
IV. Reichenbach - (Pragmatic) "If anything works, induction will"
Kuhn's paradigms
I. Nature of scientific paradigms/incommensurability of paradigms
- Paradigms are relative to their specific field
- Paradigms possess:
- Specific accepted laws and theories
- Specific accepted approaches to experimentation
- Specific accepted metaphysical generalities
- Specific accepted methodologies
- Paradigms are incommensurable because they cannot fit with each other at all
- They are incommensurable because they ask different questions and hold different value systems
- The incommensurability of paradigms leads to the crises and revolutions
II. Paradigm shifts
- Pre-Science - disorganized research, no paradigm
- Normal science (caused by Pre-Science) - puzzle solving activity governed by an accepted paradigm
- Anomalies - unsolved puzzles
- Crisis (caused by Anomalies) - serious anomalies will cause crisis
- Revolution (caused by crisis) - If the crisis is not resolved revolution will occur and a new paradigm will emerge
III. Criticism of Kuhn
- Ambiguous
- Relativity
- Criteria changes within his method
- Is there progress or is there paradigm shift?
Thursday, November 2, 2006
What is this thing called science? Ch. 5 (A)
(Originally written November 2, 2006 in Book 8)
What is this thing called science?
A. Chalmers
Ch. 5 - Introducing Falsificationism
Introduction
Popper was the most forceful advocate of falsificationism.
Educated in Vienna in the 1920's (the heyday of Logical Positivism)
Rudolph Carnap (a positivist) had a large following and his supporters clashed with Popper's until the 1960's.
Popper became disenchanted with inductivism because of the Freudian and Marxists and their using it in their theories to make all facts fit into their systems. These systems appeared to be powerful because they were affirmed by a wide variety of facts, but could neither prove anything nor disprove anything.
Popper claimed that true scientific theories are falsifiable.
Falsficationism freely admits that observation is guided by and presupposes theory.
Science is to progress by trial and error and by conjectures and refutations.
Theory in falsification cannot be true, but it can be hopefully said to be the best available.
A logical point in favor of falsificationism
Some theories can be shown to be false through the results of observation and experiment.
This has a logical flavor to it.
The falsity of universal statements can be deduced from suitable singular statements.
What is this thing called science?
A. Chalmers
Ch. 5 - Introducing Falsificationism
Introduction
Popper was the most forceful advocate of falsificationism.
Educated in Vienna in the 1920's (the heyday of Logical Positivism)
Rudolph Carnap (a positivist) had a large following and his supporters clashed with Popper's until the 1960's.
Popper became disenchanted with inductivism because of the Freudian and Marxists and their using it in their theories to make all facts fit into their systems. These systems appeared to be powerful because they were affirmed by a wide variety of facts, but could neither prove anything nor disprove anything.
Popper claimed that true scientific theories are falsifiable.
Falsficationism freely admits that observation is guided by and presupposes theory.
Science is to progress by trial and error and by conjectures and refutations.
Theory in falsification cannot be true, but it can be hopefully said to be the best available.
A logical point in favor of falsificationism
Some theories can be shown to be false through the results of observation and experiment.
This has a logical flavor to it.
The falsity of universal statements can be deduced from suitable singular statements.
Monday, October 23, 2006
Class Notes on Popper
(Originally written October 23, 2006 in Book 8)
Wow, nothing got done on the Bachelor Party day. It was a good day with a horrifying ending, but then my knightess in shining armor saved me and sang me to sleep.
Class Notes
Falsificationism (Popper)
Sophisticated Falsificationism
There is a bit of relativity in this, not found in naive forms of falsificationism.
1. Relativity of falsifiability
2. Ad Hoc Modifications - a modification of a theory which has no testable consequences that aren't also consequences of the unmodified theory
3. Verification in the falsificationist model
-Un-falsified bold conjectures/novel predictions
-falsification of cautious conjectures
Examples of Ad Hoc Modifications
1. Sphericity of the moon - Aristotelians vs. Copernicans (Aristotelians held that the craters on the moon were filled with clear jelly)
2. Phlogiston
3. Punctuated Equilibrium (Darwinism)
Limits of falsificationism
1. Theory dependence of observation - no absolute objectivity in science
2. Falsifications are fallible
3. Falsificationism is not recommended by the history of Science
Wow, nothing got done on the Bachelor Party day. It was a good day with a horrifying ending, but then my knightess in shining armor saved me and sang me to sleep.
Class Notes
Falsificationism (Popper)
Sophisticated Falsificationism
There is a bit of relativity in this, not found in naive forms of falsificationism.
1. Relativity of falsifiability
2. Ad Hoc Modifications - a modification of a theory which has no testable consequences that aren't also consequences of the unmodified theory
3. Verification in the falsificationist model
-Un-falsified bold conjectures/novel predictions
-falsification of cautious conjectures
Examples of Ad Hoc Modifications
1. Sphericity of the moon - Aristotelians vs. Copernicans (Aristotelians held that the craters on the moon were filled with clear jelly)
2. Phlogiston
3. Punctuated Equilibrium (Darwinism)
Limits of falsificationism
1. Theory dependence of observation - no absolute objectivity in science
2. Falsifications are fallible
3. Falsificationism is not recommended by the history of Science
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