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Chapter 1: Out of the Cave: Rationalism and Empiricism

Introduction o Rationalism

Rationalism maintains that true knowledge about reality derives from the proper use of our reasoning capabilities.

o Empiricism Empiricism claims that not reason but sense experience is the ultimate

source of knowledge. Plato's Rationalism

o The birth of true ideas arises by asking questions o Plato tries to determine the ''essences'' of things:

Essences: their unique identifying properties For example: what do all beautiful things have in common?

o Metaphysics: The branch of philosophy that asks and tries to answer the pre-eminent

philosophical questions: Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the world made of?

The investigation of such questions is also called ontology o The central issue of ''being'' and ''becoming

Heraclites: Change is at the heart of existence. He claims that nothing is; everything becomes

o ''Everything flows'' o (You cannot step twice in into the same river)

Heraclites argues that nothing is, everything changes Only the few people who are capable of grasping the hidden and

fundamental law, or logos behind appearances can be said to arrive at knowledge

Parmenides: Nothing ever really changes: if something changes, it no longer is.

o Ultimately, everything is, nothing becomes Mass does not evaporate it keeps existing (Think of a

chopped down tree) The debate between Parmenides en Heraclites is a metaphysical discussion

about the distinction between appearance and reality. Epistemological issues:

issues having to do with our Socratic question: what is knowledge? o Plato's view on empiricism

Plato argued that if we would gain knowledge with perception: Knowledge would become relative to the observer and his own

perceptions and beliefs. (Is the wind cold or chilly?)

Truth and knowledge (episteme) are about how things really are, not about how they are for me or for you.

Wind can't be cold and hot at the same time. Therefore, Plato comes to the conclusion that knowledge is not perception

because perception is always a product of relativism biased by our own stock of truths.

Plato sides with Parmenides: Plato believed that the real world cannot be the ever-changing-world

of appearances, but a supernatural realm which contains the eternal and perfect Forms (also called Ideas) of almost everything.

o Allegory of the cave:

The prisoners have never been out of the cave, they only have ever seen the

projections never the real objects. The prisoners mistake the shadows for the real objects.

When they would break free, they would be blinded by the fire but over time they will be able to see the objects.

When they break out of the cave they will again be blinded by the sun, but after some time they would be able to see the real objects.

The same thing applies to human beings, the sensory experiences being the shadows casted on the wall.

So Plato states that results from the senses only result in belief (doxa) not knowledge.

o Knowledge to see what our senses cannot? The forms that belong to a supernatural world are unperceivable with our

bodily senses, but we can according to Plato gain knowledge about this Forms through our capacity for reasoning.

o Nativism: Plato subscribes Nativism: the doctrine that human begins posses innate (or

inborn) ideas. Plato states that ''learning'' is not learning new things, he states that there is

not such a thing as ''new knowledge'', we only rediscover knowledge that already is within us.

Learning-by-recollection He explains:

o ''Ours souls have seen the essences of things when they dwelled in the World of Forms. If we use our reasoning capacities properly, we can recover from our condition of oblivion and remember and hence know the eternal Forms.

Aristotle's Empiricism: o Aristotle was a student of Plato, but he was on the opposite side a very earth-bound

empiricist o Aristotle's metaphysics is this-worldly rather than other-worldly. He dismissed Plato's

views that here are two worlds, he dismisses the supersensory world of the Forms. o He also rejects the idea of inborn knowledge:

Empiricists claim that we are born with no knowledge at all John Locke & Aristotle: Tabula Rasa

o White sheet of unwritten paper. o Aristotle's empiricist doctrine that all knowledge derives from sensory information

has important implications for scientific methodology: A syllogism, a deductive argument:

(a) All human beings are mortal (b) Socrates is a human begin ---------------------------------------- (c) Hence, Socrates is mortal

A & B are the premises C is the conclusion In a scientific deduction we move from an unrestrictedly true law to

a particular case. Induction argument:

(a) All human beings have two ears (b) Socrates is a human being ---------------------------------------------- (c) Hence, Socrates has two ears

Going from the observation to universal laws

Problem o No matter how large our collection of observations, it will

always fall short of guaranteeing the truth and certainty of the first principles.

o Aristotle not only as empiricist Aristotle understands it is not exclusively observational. The definitive

establishment of theoretical principles depends ultimately on a direct and intuitive grasp of the intellect.

It is the ''nous'', and not the sensory powers, which is able to detect with absolute certainty the essential causal properties of objects.

Aristotle's argued that there are four types of causes: the formal cause the material cause the efficient cause the final cause

According to Aristotle, to have an explanation of something, hence to have knowledge of something is to have knowledge of these four causes.

After the scientific Revolution only the ''efficient cause'' is accepted as a real and scientifically interesting cause.

Chapter 2: Beyond the pillars of Hercules: A new (philosophy of) science

Introduction: o Novum Organum by Francis Bacon:

New scientific method: Science would no longer rely on faith, tradition, the theological

canon, and church authority, but would instead be guided by observation and experiment.

o Francis Bacon himself could not boast no scientific achievements, but with his great literary gifts, he was an extremely important propagandist and spokesman for the spirit of the new experimental science.

The Aristotelian-medieval worldview: o First they believed in an earthly centered view of the cosmos

Copernicus was the first to radically undermine the earth-centered and human centered view of the cosmos

o Luther, Calvin and other clerical authorities stuck to the view that truth could only be found in the Bible but science increasingly emphasized the need for theories that are supported by observational facts, not printed words or church dogmas.

Bacon's new methodology o Bacon saw intellectual history as a history of endless and pointless debates among

philosophical and religious schools Progress would only be possible if the classical medieval monopoly on

science were broken. o He first refutes the idea of an ''tabula rasa''

the mind is way too complicated to be a blank slate according to Bacon.

o The new method of acquiring scientific accurate knowledge of reality:

We must purge the mind of its ''idols'' (characteristic errors, deceptions, or sources of misunderstanding) that stand in the way of respectable science.

characteristic errors, deceptions, or sources of misunderstanding 4 different Idols:

Idols of the Tribe o shared by all human beings, our senses are prone to make

mistakes. o He already speaks of his theory that theories should not be

rendered immune from criticism (He jumps the work of Karl Popper with over 3 centuries here)

Idols of the Cave o Distortions due to the upbringing and training. o Extremes are to be avoided here.

Idols of the marketplace o those distorted beliefs that stem from common language.

Idols of the theatre o the accepted dogmas and methods of old schools of thought

o Bacon and the deductive method of Aristotle The question for Bacon in relation to the deductive method was:

What guarantees the truth of the premises? Bacon argued that universal statements can never be the starting point of

scientific inquiry. o Bacon and the method of induction

Hence his conclusion that the deductive method is worthless when the premises are not a product empirical facts he envisions a new tool, the method of induction.

According to Bacon's inductive scientific method, scientist must gather as much empirical data as possible as the basis for proceeding to formulate of theories.

Baconian science involves more than the accumulation of masses of factual data:

Men of experiment only collect data en use that (Only collection) Men of dogmas are like spiders who make cobwebs out of their own

substance The best is the bee that takes the middle course: they gather

materials from flowers and use it to make something of its own. It is not just observation (the experimental) and not just reason (the rational)

but the combination of the two that makes for good science. The scientific revolution

o Johannes Kepler: Embraced Copernicus' heliocentrism but he changed the belief that the

movements happened in perfect circles, he believed that it where elliptical trajectories.

o Galileo Galilei Used an improved telescope to make a lot of astounding astronomical

discoveries: That the moon has a rough an uneven surface Jupiter had four moons The sun was not flawless it has dark spots.

The split between science and religion. o Isaac Newton:

Inventor of the three laws of motion and the law of gravitation. Newtonian mechanics provided a universal account: the same force that

makes an apple fall o the ground also holds a planet in its orbit around the sun.

Taking stock: the main characteristics of the scientific revolution: o With the advent of the Scientific Revolution came a new type of philosophy:

Mechanical philosophy Which was based on empiricism

In respectable science, it was no longer permissible to speculate about the hidden nature of phenomena. Theories had to be based on observational and experimental facts.

o Characteristics of the scientific revolution: its commitment to the observational method Universal mechanic Universal mathematics

o It was characterized by the demystification (Entzauberung).

Chapter 3

Rene Descartes: o Descartes was a clear rationalist:

He defended the view that in the end it is not perception but human reason that grounds knowledge.

He also accepts the idea of inborn ideas o But he is not as radical an rationalist as Plato:

Descartes does not accept Plato's theory of the supernatural World of Forms, nor his method of recollection.

o Note that Descartes did important empirical work as well. o According to Descartes, all knowledge should likewise be built on a basis of self-

evident, absolutely certain statements. the important thing is that we have to found every science on statements

that are known to be absolutely true. o The first thing a philosopher needs to do:

Establish which statements are true beyond any doubt. Descartes turns for this to reason instead of empirical evidence.

o Descartes argued that we should use a method of doubt to obtain true knowledge Your senses can be doubted so they are not true beyond doubt.

If something fooled you some time, it might be able to fool you all of the time.

He also doubts the basic principles of mathematics. o He comes to the conclusion that he doubts about everything excepts the fact that

he is doubting. From the he states:

''I am thinking, therefore I exist'' o The idea of innate ideas:

Descartes believes that most of our ideas are not innate, for instance the fact that we experience the sun in the sky, this is not innate but a product from experience

But he does argue that there must exist a number of innate ideas, placed in us by god.

o Descartes and his believe in god: Being a very religious person Descartes he believed the following:

''God is perfect, he has to exist, for to exist is more perfect than not to exist.''

''Since God does not deceive us, the physical world indeed exists: we are not mistaken in our claim that we have bodies. So Descartes concludes that not only is he a thinking thing (a res cognitans), he is also a physical thing (a res extensa)

John Locke (Niet noodzakelijk) o Locke concluded that there are no innate ideas; when we are born the mind is like

a ''white paper, void of all characters'' Some presumed innate ideas are not found in idiots and children so they

can't be inborn according to Locke. o According to Locke perception is the production of ideas in the mind of a result of

the actions of the tiny, imperceptible ''corpuscles'' (atoms) of which material objects are composed

So he advocates the view that all our ideas, our mental representations, stem from sensation and reflection and that these two together constitute experience.

When our senses convey a perception of something into the mind, ideas are formed. This source of most ideas Locke calls ''Sensation''

Ideas a mind gets by reflecting on its own operations within itself are called ''Reflections''

This internal and external senses by Locke as the sources of knowledge makes Locke a true empiricist. (in contradistinction to Descartes)

o Ideas not always fit reality, so the draws an influential distinction between three types of properties:

Primary qualities: The corresponding qualities in material objects (mind-independent) They exist whether we perceive them or not.

Secondary qualities: properties that only exist when the object is perceived (mind-

dependent) Locke believes that secondary qualities not only vary from mind to

mind, they simple cease to exist if no one is around. tertiary qualities:

The powers objects have to change another object so that it causes different sensation in us

o (Fire to make lead fluid etc.) o The problem for Locke was:

''How do we know which experiences correspond to primary qualities and which correspond to secondary properties''

George Berkeley: (Niet noodzakelijk) o Berkeley states that there are no ''primary qualities'' like Locke believes.

He argues: ''in the case of primary qualities we also find perceptual relativity just like with secondary qualities.''

Everything that exists, exists in virtue of being perceived. This is called idealism.

o For instance a Cherry: ''With the softness, moisture, redness and all other

mental ideas gone, the cherry is gone. There is no material cherry; it only exists as a ''collection of ideas''

o He states: ''We cannot be sure that objects exist outside of the mind. It is entirely conceivable that we are living in a Matrix-like virtual reality of ideas.

The non-existence of the world of material objects is not merely a philosopher's fiction: we have good reasons to believe that material objects really do not exist.

o But Berkeley does maintain an extra argument: He guarantees the continuous existence of objects, even if no human mind is

present. o Immaterialism and dualism:

Immaterialism: Only the spirit or thinking substance exists. Berkeley

Dualism: Two substances:

o the material substance o the mental substance

Descartes. David Hume:

o Argued that every science has a relation to human nature The only solid foundations he states is experience and observation

So Hume was also committed to empiricism

o How do we acquire ideas according to Hume? The contents of the mind should be called perceptions. The perceptions

come in two varieties: Impressions:

o the immediate data of experience Ideas:

o faint copies of impressions. the copy principle

The Copy Principle: knowledge ultimately derives from impressions received through the

senses. o Testing the legitimacy of a term using the Copy Principle: (metaphysical

microscope) Determine the complex idea it stand for:

This idea must be divisible into simple ideas which in their turn can be connected to their corresponding impressions.

If a term cannot thus be broken down into the various simple ideas and impressions of which it is composed, the conclusion must be that the term lacks empirical content.

Hume argued on the basis of the Copy Principle that the entire concept of substance (by Descartes) was altogether meaningless and illegitimate, as it is not derived from impressions.

o Problem with this metaphysical microscope: How can someone have a complex idea of something like a far away city,

without ever have been there? Hume attempted to solve the problem by arguing that every

complex idea is made out of simple ideas, and that every simple idea corresponds to a simple impression.

o So with our impression of a pavement, and bricks we are capable of composing the idea of a brick road without ever having to have seen one.

How can someone have an idea about a color that one has never perceived?

He never really managed so solve this, but an obvious solution would have been to argument that the mind is capable of blending/mixing ideas to form that certain idea about that certain color.

Chapter 4:

Introduction: o Hume, in search of a science of man, came to the conclusion that human knowledge

is only very limited. What we commonly call scientific knowledge, like universal natural laws, might not be possible at all.

o Immanuel Kant refused to accept this terrible conclusion, seen from the perspective of someone who admired Newton's work and even contributed to astronomy himself

David Hume and the science of man: o Hume participated in the Enlightenment, but he was no typical enlightenment

philosopher. He agreed with the aim of the enlightenment to think for oneself, to reject

authority and more importantly to use reason in criticizing reason and to determine the limits and potential of science.

But Hume concludes from his critique of reason that it is not reason that is the most powerful capacity in human nature.

It is the passions that rule reason ''reason is but the slave of the passions''

o Hume's important empiricist analysis of ''sophistry and illusion'' It focuses on the existence of a causal relation between two events or things

The example of the billiard balls: o The white moving ball collides with the stationary red ball

and it makes the red ball move: (1) Contiguity:

''It is evident that the two balls touched one another before the motion was communicated, and that there was no interval betwixt the shock and the motion''

(2) Priority: ''it is evident, likewise, that the motion

which was the cause is prior to the motion which was the effect.''

(3) Constant conjunction: ''Let us try any other balls of the same kind

in a like situation, and we shall always find that the impulse of the one produces motion in the other.''

o What we see in a billiard ball collision is not the necessity of the causal relation (we can imagine the ball staying still). What we see is contiguity, priority and constant conjunction.

o Evidently, humans conclude to causes and effects on the basis of the above three factors.

This is the base of Hume's devastating critique on the philosophy of that day: he shows that there is no such thing as lawful knowledge of the world.

o But we still believe and expect the red ball to move after collision:

We simple anticipate this by drawing conclusions in the light of past experience.

Our experience teaches us to think the way we think

Concluding from cause to effect is the most important form of reasoning and the base of all our ''knowledge''.

With this we only conclude to effective causes: o In this we assume that nature will behave uniformly, that is,

that it will behave in the future as it did in the past. o The problem of Hume with induction:

we cannot conclude from past experience that the world will behave uniformly.

Reason on itself isn't valuable as it is a slave of our passions but we should be very happy with its exciting otherwise we would not be able to do anything.

o Habit is the great working hypothesis on which we base our actions and our thinking.

o Human nature: It is human nature which prevents us from getting stuck in a radical

skepticism and a state of paralysis It is also the human nature that makes us act and believe

o Hume's philosophical analysis of free will: Hume draws the link between the billiards balls, if humans act the same way

in the same conditions than there is no such thing as free will Like the case with the red ball moving after collision with the white

one. He states that the feeling of free will only arises when we explicitly test our

will. In other cases there is simply no feeling of free will.

According to Hume there is no such thing as free will There is only constant conjunction, and we are led by our instincts to

conclude that there is causality. o Hume as a philosopher with a human face:

His philosophy is one in which we are extremely aware of the specific nature of human thinking and action, and its boundaries.

o Consequences of Hume's philosophy: Although it's goal was to create a ''science of man'' like the ''science of

nature'' by Newton, the consequences of his inquiry into human nature are rather radical with regard to the status of any scientific knowledge.

o The problem of Duhem: ''if the predicted phenomenon is not produced, not only is the questioned

proposition put into doubt, but also the whole theoretical scaffolding sued by the scientist; the only thing experience teaches us is that, among all the propositions which helped to predict the phenomenon and to verify that it has not been produced, there is at least one error; but where the error lies is just what the experiment does not tell us.''

What is the true reason for failure of success?

Chapter 5

Social Sciences versus Natural Sciences: o Positivist:

Positivist are methodological monist: there is only one scientific method and it should be used in all of the

sciences, natural or social. build a universal science.

o Hermeneutics: Hermeneutics argued for a kind of dualism:

Two kinds of sciences: o The social sciences o The natural sciences

Hermeneutics accuse positivists of science worship They consider positivism inapplicable to human life: to understand

human life one must understand human consciousness, and here mechanistic science is condemned to failure.

Natural objects like molecules, stones, planets and cannon balls are moved by causes working on them from the outside

Human beings, however, seemingly escape this natural order of causes and effects, they are not merely driven by objectively describable outside forces but humans have inside

Humans are subjects not objects The above differences makes Dilthey (a hermeneutic) claim:

''the human sciences form an independent system'' ''Geistenwissenschaften'' vs. ''Naturwissenschaften''

Hermeneutics: o Literally means: ''The art of interpretation''

Hermeneutics used to try to interpret the meaning behind historical texts like the bible or myths.

o They state: ''The social sciences must be about humans, real, living humans, humans of

flesh and blood firmly embedded in history'' o Where positivism views traditions as worthless products of human subjectivity the

Hermeneutics individuals can only be understand by taking these traditions seriously.

The natural world is: mental (geistig) and Historical (geschichtlich)

And both aspects must come to be appreciated in the sciences that deal with humanity.

o Hermeneutics believe that people do things for certain purposes, stones and planets do not have such goals.

The acts of humans an material objects are not caused in the same way.

Verstehen: A method for the social sciences o According to Dilthey even with the lack of blind causal laws for social sciences it is

still possible to maintain such a thing as ''social sciences''. He states that we do not need causal laws in order to understand and

predict the behavior of other people o Dilthey was convinced that he point of departure for the social sciences must be

observation, not speculation. o ''Empirie, nicht Empirismus''

Experience in empiricism is looking by a third person's perspective and being objective, testable and theory-independent.

According to Dilthey to experience and understand the human world, we must not step out of that world, but be part of it.

''Knowledge of the principles of the human world falls within that world itself''

o But how can we look into someone's mind? Dilthey argues that we cannot do such a thing in a direct manner, but we

can in an indirect manner: The products (like speeches, literary works etc.) give access to the

minder of its creator. This is not the business of ''Erklaren'': the procedure followed in the natural

sciences seeking explanations through general laws. But the method of interpretative understanding or ''Verstehen''

Verstehen is the imaginative or dramatic skill to project oneself imaginatively in other people's shoes.

Hermeneutic circle: To for instance understand a sentence you need to read it over and

over again.

Chapter 7

Introduction: o With the upcoming of the logical positivists we witnessed a shift from philosophy of

knowledge to philosophy of science. And the questions became ''what is science?''

o The first criticism on the empiricist approach of the logical positivists came from Karl Popper.

With Popper, the pendulum swung back from empiricism to rationalism. According to Popper the positivists missed the fact that there is also a

rational aspect to knowledge and science, which was of fundamental importance:

For Popper, theory always comes before, not after, observation. From verification, via confirmation, to falsification

o The big question, how to draw a boundary around science and set it apart from non-science?

o Verification: The logical positivists used the criterion of verification

But as Hume already noticed their method of induction can never be logically justified.

Popper's conclusion about verification reads as follows: Verifiability is too strong as a demarcation criterion, because even

prototypically scientific disciplines like physics cannot be classified as science, the problem being that no universals claim or law can ever be verified.

o Confirmation: Carnap saw no reason to reject the criterion of verification entirely, instead

he proposed a modification of it: In his proposal scientist should attempt to increase a statement's

degree of confirmation: o A theory must be in agreement with empirically established

facts. (which increases the degree of confirmation) o Falsification

According to Popper the criterion of ''Confirmation'' was much too weak: pseudoscience's come out as better sciences whilst they are

obviously not. So popper proposed a famous third way to approach the demarcation

problem: Falsifiability. This criterion does not demand that a theory should actually be

falsified, it is the possibility of falsification that is important. Real sciences are falsifiable, whereas pseudo-sciences lack his

potential of being wrong. Falsificationism:

o A statement or theory has to be falsifiable in order to be called scientific according to Karl Popper.

A theory that no matter the observations is true cannot be scientific. o Another criterion for the theory of falsification is that the theory becomes

unscientific when it is changed after proven to be wrong to make it right again. A scientist who is not willing to give up his theory when reality shows the

theory wrong, is not really a scientist. o Theories that Popper rendered to be unscientific:

Marx's theory of history After proven wrong simply changed the theory. He learned two lessons from his observation of the Marx theory:

o Humans are fallible creatures o There is a major difference between dogmatic theories and

critical thinking. Adler's theory about the inferiority complex:

Could never be proven wrong

Freud's theory about the Oedipus complex: No case can be imagined that would contradict the theory, hence

there is no way of falsifying the theory. o Explanatory power:

It is an obvious thing to believe that an enormous explanatory power is an excellence for a theory, but Popper argues that this is in fact a major weakness

Scientific theories should always leave open the possibility of being wrong.

o If a theory passes the critical test it is said to be corroborated and can be accepted for the time being. However there is no guarantee whatsoever that the surviving theory will pass the next test.

Only theories that can be falsified are informative according to Popper. But he does not state that other theories are ''meaningless''

o Fallibility of humans: According to Popper we can never be sure whether our opinions are true

and therefore every investigation should start with admitting: ''we are seekers for truth but we are not its possessors''

The fact that human beings are fallible creatures implies that the best we can do is to learn from mistakes.

Negative road to truth: o Try to locate, remove and correct our mistakes to grow our

knowledge. o Popper and induction:

According to Popper, science does not employ the inductive method, but a method that proceeds in the opposite direct: deductive reasoning. Unlike induction, deduction is logically valid.

The problem with deduction is to establish the truth of the first premise, the general statement:

o according to Popper this cannot be done so it can never be proven only shown to be

erroneous. The scientific method of conjectures and refutations

or trial and error Popper is convinced that by trading in induction for deduction, the

rationality of science is saved. As long as it is not possible to refute the theory, we can accept it as true.

In other words, we can pretend it is true, and work with the theory but we are never allowed to claim that the theory is actually true.

Critical Rationalism: o Popper influenced by:

Hume: Popper rests his view on Hume's point that induction is logically

invalid But Popper was a rationalist and Hume obviously was not.

Immanuel Kant: Popper was to a considerable extent influenced by Immanuel Kant's

brand of rationalism. He also agrees with Kant that our sensory capacities cooperate with

our reasoning capacities to form a picture of the world. o Tabula rasa:

Popper does not believe in the theory of inborn ideas but he does think that every organism has inborn reactions or responses.

Popper also believes that we are born with instinctive theories that allow us to find regularity in the world.

This agrees with the theory of Kant but Popper criticizes Kant for his absolutism:

For Popper, the rational structures that we impose on the world, whether they are instinctual expectations or sophisticated scientific theories, are always tentative and conjectural, never certain.

o The above is the reason why we call Popper's rationalism a critical form of rationalism

Good scientists have the capacity to be critical of their theories and the observations that are obtained with them

Our hard-wired inclinations to perceive regularities, and to impose structure upon nature leads to ''the psychological phenomenon of dogmatic-thinking', expecting regularities everywhere.

The problem is that in many cases there is no regularity, but only expected or perceived regularity resulting from one's theoretical lenses.

o The difference between animals and humans: Humans can actively test their beliefs about reality in order to detect

mistakes, this is also a big characteristic of science. The rationality principle in the social sciences:

o Societies: Open society: (democracy etc.)

Open for criticism Closed society (Nazi Germany etc.)

Do not allow criticism o Method:

Experimental methods unavailable in social sciences Popper wants to use the ''verstehende'' method:

The method of ''sympathetic imagination'' or ''understanding intuitively'' the purposes, interests, and meanings predominant in a specific cultural group during a specific historical epoch.

o Poppers rejection of Utopian social science: They forget that social systems are complex systems studied by cognitively

and perceptually limited beings. Due to this social ''laws'' cannot be as exact as natural laws so they are more

like ''trends'' instead of ''laws''

o According to Popper the only way to solve practical problems, in the natural as well as the social sciences, in politics as well as daily life, is the method of ''piecemeal engineering'':

the method of making ''small adjustments and readjustments which can be continually improved upon'', changing one aspect at a time on a local scale.

o Rationality principle as methodological postulate for the social sciences: This says that a social scientist should assume the ''trivial law that sane

persons as a rule act more or less rationally''

Chapter 8

Thomas Kuhn's view of science: o Kuhn argues that we need paradigms to perceive anything at al. o Not another simple criterion of demarcation, but a different strategy to get a

clearer picture of the nature of sciences Kuhn: We have a rough intuitive idea of which disciplines belong to science, we

might take advantage of this and historically investigate how these disciplines, as typical examples of what we tend to call science, developed over time.

He puts great emphasis on the notion of paradigm (later to be changed to ''disciplinary matrix'')

He plays with the idea that the presence of a single paradigm might be taken as a criterion of science.

Convinced of his discovery of a typical pattern in the dynamics of any scientific discipline Kuhn identified a recurrent scheme to be found in the development of any science.

o The presence of a single paradigm seems to be presented as a criterion of science.

o The scheme of the dynamics of a scientific discipline is as follows: First there is a ''pre-scientific period'' Usually followed by a period of ''normal science'' Next a period of ''crisis'' typically follows.

This will lead to a brief and sudden ''scientific revolution or paradigm shift''

o The period of Normal Science: Every existing scientific discipline has had its pre-scientific period.

In this stage there is no consensus about the way one ought to proceed to gather information about a specific domain of phenomena, and there is no generally accepted background or assumptions.

When such a scientific community originates and when there is consensus on what the main (domain-specific) assumptions and theories are, the transition from the pre-scientific period to a first period of normal science (for that discipline) is completed.

o The ''normal science'' period needs a firm base supplying the foundation for its further practice.

Paradigm: The sum of accepted metaphysical assumptions, theories,

methodologies, manuals, and techniques is called a paradigm. Paradigms have two important features:

o Their achievement was sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group of adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity

o It was sufficiently open-ended to leave all sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners to resolve.

No paradigm is ever finished or without minor errors and problems, during the period of normal science scientists try to get rid of these anomalies.

''solving puzzles within a certain framework'' ''Try to solve a problem that has not been solved yet

without having to start from scratch'' The presence of the commitment that the paradigm is basically correct is an

indicator of a period of normal science. The belief that they are basically right is what keeps scientist going,

even when they encounter sever theoretical problems or discrepancies between theory and reality.

During the education of scientist, scientist are taught a dogmatic framework

o A framework not explicitly formulated, but transferred implicitly, mostly via examples of successes of the paradigm in the past.

o The (potential) scientist are in a way brainwashed to take an uncritical attitude toward the paradigm.

Kuhn's idea versus Popper: Education & Scientists

o Popper argued that scientists are scientists to the extent that they are always critical towards reigning theories and try to falsify them, but Kuhn says that scientist are dogmatic about and conservative towards the set of theories.

Popper science as a collection of critical scientists Kuhn in a period of normal science scientists are

not critical but dogmatic o Many historical cases supports Kuhn's and not Popper's

view that scientist take an uncritical stance in periods of normal science.

o The period of crisis How do we get from set of beliefs to another?

For example the Aristotelian paradigm believed that something falls towards the ground because that is its natural place.

But the Newtonian paradigm proved that it is gravity that is pulling something to the ground so that if falls.

Does this change happen instant or gradual? According to Popper it would happen gradual According to Kuhn a paradigm shift occurs abruptly

o If a paradigm is confronted with more and more problems and anomalies, the trustworthiness of the paradigm is eroded.

o When these unsolvable problems accumulate the unconditional trust in the paradigm becomes less solid and will result in a crisis.

This crisis is the start of a period of abnormal science.

o But if there is no alternative paradigm yet, scientists have no choice:

the current paradigm remains accept, but one is looking for an alternative.

o The period of scientific revolution: A period of abnormal science can end in either of two ways:

solve all the accumulated problems A new paradigm presents itself

o This second way is called solving the crisis with a scientific revolution.

o Growth of knowledge According to Popper, growth of knowledge is possible. Science might

proceed in a negative way, but it still heads towards more knowledge and towards the improvement of scientific theories.

But Kuhn concludes that a paradigm shift is not an improvement, there is only a shift in perspective on reality.

Although there is a possibility of growth of knowledge, but only within a paradigm according to Kuhn.

This results in an awkward form of relativism. It is awkward because the lack of real growth of scientific knowledge, in the sense of getting ever closer to the truth, clashes without our intuitions about science.

o Incommensurability: Incommensurability literally means:

''To have no measure in common'' This means for paradigms:

There is no unit, common to both paradigms, in which we can express the comparison between the two.

Paradigms become incomparable. o So when the shift we never know whether it brings us closer

to the truth.

Three aspects to Kuhn' claim of paradigms: The terminology used is often the same, this since new paradigms

usually stem from old ones. o But old terms used in new paradigms have a completely new

relationship to each other. The communication between scientists of different paradigms is

highly problematic because these scientists simply speak different languages.

o The language used is always and already party of the paradigm.

The proponents of the different paradigms work in different worlds:

o Most imported according to Kuhn o ''After a revolution scientists ware responding to a different

world.'' o Scientists who adopt the new paradigm see a different

world, according to Kuhn, than those who worked in the old paradigm.

o This view is in sharp contrast to the view of the logical positivists who believed that facts are neutral and reality is objective.

Kuhn opposes this clearly with the idea that world and reality are determined by the theory about reality.

Theory determines what you see Theory determines what there is

The shift from one paradigm to another resembles a Gestalt switch as described in gestalt psychology, says Kuhn.

Think to the duck and the rabbit But if one has adopted a new paradigm, one cannot shift back. The parallel with a Gestalt switch is only useful for getting an initial

idea of what a paradigm switch is. The idea of Kuhn is that facts are determined by paradigms.

the incommensurability of paradigms implies that no rational comparison between two paradigms can be made: there are not facts that can be used to decide which paradigm is the better paradigm.

o Why a paradigm shift is a revolution: Kuhn's answer why a shift in paradigm is a revolution:

He compares the change of paradigms to revolutionary changes in politics and simply concludes that a scientific that a scientific revolution has all the hallmarks of a political revolution.

The features shared by political and scientific revolutions: A small group of people become aware of the shortcomings of the

establishment, the current government or the current scientific paradigm.

o A political revolution starts with a crisis and so does a scientific revolution.

A change from within is impossible. o A paradigm shift: to explain certain phenomena, a new

paradigm is needed, not just a modification of an existing paradigm.

One cannot achieve consensus in a political discourse if one's goal is a totally different regime and the rejection of the ruling discourse.

o Scientist that work in different paradigms cannot converse with each other, for they think, speak, and act in different, incommensurable, paradigms complete with different standard of evaluation.

The last feature shared is that the solution (in science: the paradigm shift) does not come from within (the paradigm in crisis), but from outside.

Kuhn does not use the term ''revolution'' as a metaphor, but he argues that a paradigm shift is really a revolution in science.

o Final remarks on Kuhn's Structure of scientific Revolutions: Why should we accept Kuhn's philosophy of science if it goes against so

many of our intuitions about science. Kuhn's account of science offers a particular advantage for the social

sciences. o According to earlier proposed criteria of demarcation,

science is science when it generates predictions that can be verified, confirmed or falsified.

So a problem for disciplines such as sociology, psychology and economics.

o But the view of Kuhn carries a criterion for science: if there is (or was) a paradigm present in the study of

a specific domain of phenomena, that discipline can be classified as scientific.

So social sciences are true science, for they contain periods of normal science and paradigms that fit Kuhn's general description of science.

Yet Kuhn himself was rather undecided about the application of his idea of normal science and paradigms to the social sciences.

o The constant flux of the social realm demands continual reinterpretation.

So according to Kuhn they cannot be characterized the same way of natural sciences, using the idea of normal science.

According to the followers of Kuhn argued that what is essential in Kuhn's approach is that he used science to study science

o Milton Friedman: ''Positive economics is in principle independent of any particular ethical

position or normative judgments. As Keynes says, it deals with ''what is'', not with ''what ought to be''

Chapter 9:

Introduction: o Imre Lakatos:

Tried to combine the normative approach of falsificationism with the descriptive approach of philosophers like Kuhn.

The demarcation problem o What is real science and what is pseudoscience?

Throughout history, people have been killed for their beliefs, which those in power deemed pseudoscientific.

Lakatos is very clear that these were not legitimate demarcation criteria and says that:

o ''Blind commitment to a theory is not an intellectual virtue; it is an intellectual crime.''

Lakatos response to Popper en Kuhn: o Popper's importance, according to Lakatos, lies in his having realized the

implications of the collapse of Newtonian theory. Where logical positivist believed that true knowledge was proven

knowledge, Popper realized that the downfall of Newtonian mechanic and the Newtonian theory of gravitation implied that we cannot ever again believe that scientific knowledge is proven knowledge.

o But according to Lakatos, Kuhn was right in arguing that it is too nave to expect a scientist to reject his theory immediately after some evidence contradicts it.

o Lakatos concludes that if Kuhn is right, then there is no difference between science and religion, nor is there a difference between science and pseudoscience.

Lakatos therefore argues that Kuhn falls back on an undesirable irrationalism.

o We might summarize this by noting that Lakatos agrees with Popper that theories cannot be proven. He also agrees with Kuhn that Popper's falsifications is an oversimplified view of science, but rejects the conclusion that this leads to accepting the irrationality of scientific revolutions.

Three varieties of falsificationism o Dogmatic falsificationism:

It holds that all scientific theories are fallible and conjectural, and thus cannot be proven.

''science grows by overthrowing theories with hard facts. '' Lakatos argues that his variety of falsificationism is untenable because it

makes two false assumptions and secondly it adheres to a criterion of demarcation that is too narrow:

Assumptions: o The existence of an distinction between theoretical or

speculative statements and factual or observational statements.

False because there are no pure, un-theoretical observations used to refute a theory.

In other words, observation is theory-laden and therefore the first assumption is false.

o The assumption that if a statement is a true observational statement, then it is proven from facts.

factual statements cannot be strictly separated from theoretical statements.

Too narrow demarcation criterion: o According to Lakatos, ''exactly the most admired scientific

theories simply fail to forbid any observable state of affairs''. Lakatos criticism of dogmatic falsificationism leads to the conclusion that a

theory cannot be disproved either. This would mean that science is no more than vain speculation.

o Methodological falsificationism It holds that scientists make a methodological decision that a mature theory

which has been successful in the past can no longer be rejected. Lakatos calls this ''conservative conventionalism'' The ideas of Karl Popper he calls ''revolutionary conventionalism''

The problem is that a theory can never be falsified: the methodological falsificationists accepts that his observational

sentence is fallible, but he still argues that the statement is basic and ought to be taken as such, since it is part of a well-corroborated theory that scientist use as unproblematic background knowledge.

o For instance when looking at the stars using a telescope, the scientist accepts the base that the telescope can be trusted.

But when something is falsified using the telescope it could be because of the ''empirical base'' which in this case is: ''The telescope is trustworthy''

Lakatos explains why falsification in science does not work as described by methodological falsificationists:

o they typically view a scientific test as ''a-two-cornered fight between theory and experiment so that in the final

confrontation only these two face each other'' But in science, Lakatos observes, a test is a three-way fight involving two rival theories and experiment.

o Sophisticated falsificationism: Lakatos argues that no theory will ever be falsified solely on the basis of

counterevidence alone: Falsification can occur only when an alternative theory is present and

when the excess empirical content of this alternative theory is in fact corroborated.

Research programs o A research program consist of two sets of rules:

some tell us what paths of research to avoid (negative heuristic) others what paths to pursue (positive heuristic)

o A heuristic is a rule of thumb for finding answers to a problem in a methodological manner.

o Lakatos looks upon science like a network of propositions with a hard core inside and a protective belt around it.

Since we have an enormous amount of data corroborating a theory, we are reluctant to give up this hard core. So if we encounter ''contrary evidence'' we do not falsify this hard core of the theory, but we make some adjustments to parts of the theory that are not central:

To the protective belt. This protective belt can be modified in two ways

degenerative manner o the modification guides towards an unsatisfactory situation,

like a crisis. progressive manner

o the modification guides towards new hypotheses, some of which are corroborate.

o one of the hallmarks of progressive scientific research program is that it successfully predicts novel facts. A program that is degeneration is not scientific: faced with falsifications, the series of modifications do not lead to successful novel predictions.

Kuhn's response to Lakatos: o Kuhn finds many parallels between Lakatos his views and his own

Kuhn not only argues that Lakatos ought to endorse the same views on rationality as Kuhn does, but that in actual fact, he does so.

o Kuhn discusses three grounds on which charges of irrationality have been leveled at him:

The first ground is that Kuhn argues that other motives than rational deliberation play a role in scientific revolutions.

Lakatos should also hold this when he says: ''One may rationally stick to degenerating program until it is overtaken and even after.

The second ground is that he argues that the choice between paradigms is a community decision. (Kuhn says that he mend this to but did not say it as clearly)

The last ground for interpreting Kuhn as claiming that science is irrational is based on his notion of incommensurability:

The idea that a rational comparison between two paradigms is impossible.

Lakatos rejects the incommensurability thesis, which makes his view of fundamentally different to Kuhn's.

o But some other info has been found that he at a later point in fact spoke in favor of this incommensurability so this is not entirely sure.

Paul Feyerabend's methodological anarchism: o He argues that: ''Science is an essentially anarchic enterprise''

He believes that we should use not only the scientific method of knowledge acquisition but also other ones.

He challenges the monopoly of the scientific method. His anarchism is not political but epistemological:

According to Feyerabend science knows no ''bare facts'', all ''facts'' that enter our knowledge are already viewed in a certain way and are, therefore, essential, ideational.

o But scientist do however present their theories and views as if facts do actually exist.

His problem with scientific education: Scientific education is a way of brainwashing, by using oversimplification.

Feyerabend argues that the world is much more complex than is presented in simplified models and that the personal beliefs of a scientist do matter for how the views the world.

An anarchistic theory of knowledge o With his methodological anarchism, Feyerabend pleads for the view that if we want

to gain insight and knowledge about the world, we should not restrict our epistemological endeavor to just one fixed method, whether this is the scientific method or any other.

Clinging dogmatically to a certain view does not lead to progress o Feyerabend address of the age-old question ''what is the source of knowledge'':

Any method can be a source of knowledge; Not a rational answer according to those philosophers Feyerabend

opposes. He agrees with Niels Bohr that says: ''When you do research you cannot be

tied down by any rule, not even the rule of noncontradiction. One must have complete freedom.''

Methodological Anarchy versus the scientific method o Feyerabend thinks of scientists as ''sculptors of reality''

He advances the view that rejecting a theory implies the rejection of ''facts'' This means that those who seek knowledge should explicitly use

counter rules and reject the consistency condition. o A pluralistic methodology has to be adopted.

o The primary reason for Feyerabend not to accept one theory or method over another:

This is the problem that we cannot a priori (=in advance) exclude any theory, as we might miss the ''facts'' that are generated by contradictory theories.

o The view of Feyerabend's philosophy of knowledge: ''Knowledge so conceived is not a series of self consistent theories that

converge towards an ideal view; it is not a gradual approach to the truth. It is rather an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompatible alternatives.''

o Second reason not to dogmatically stick to one method or theory: A variety of opinion is necessary for objective knowledge. A person must be given complete freedom if he or she wants to solve a

scientific or other problem. This also implies scientific education

o Feyerabend also pleads for a separation of science and state: To guarantee the complete freedom

o Another consequence is that there is no need for a demarcation criterion between science and non-science:

This since every method clan provide knowledge. The Sokal Hoax

o Alan Sokal argued that here are facts and that it is the scientist's job to find them. He opposes Feyerabend's defense of total freedom of thinking :

If one accepts total freedom, then one ends up with both scientific and moral relativism.

o Sokal Hoax: Sokal wrote a ''undercover paper'', cloaking himself as a relativist,

constructivist and postmodernist, Sokal argues for a position similar to the positions of Bloor, Kuhn and Feyerabend.

After his paper got accepted and was published Sokal wrote a letter to the editors explaining that his article was only an experiment .

he wanted to test his hypothesis that a leading American journal of cultural studies would publish an article that fit the preconceptions of the editors but that contained nonsense.

It is evidently that his experiment was successful.