Philosophy of Science 3

Internalism

claims that justification must be internal (e.g. accessible to the believing subject)

Externalism

claims that justification can be external

The Infinite Regress Problem

evidence for any piece of theoretical knowledge itself rests on other pieces of evidence, which themselves need other evidence to support them and so on

The Argument from Relativity to Perception

The same object can look very different to different observers at the same time, or look different to the same observer at different times. Observers can differ in many respects

The Argument from Illusion

We derive much of our knowledge from using our senses but we know that we can be deceived by our senses. Illness, fatigue or drugs can give us hallucinations or other illusions. We can have dream-experiences which seem real while we experience them.

Descartes' method of Doubt

if a belief could be false, I shall treat it as if it were false.

Rene Descartes

Believed skepticism was not a viable way of life, but a tool for stripping away dubious propositions and leave a residue of fact and certainty.

a posteriori knowledge

if and only if its truth-value can only be decided with reference to experience, observation or testimony. All knowledge which has to be justified by the evidence of experience, including memories.

a priori knowledge

prior to, or independent of experience. Can be obtained by self-evidence (all wives are married, 2+2=4) or deductions from premises which are self evident (Tom is a bachelor, all bachelors are unmarried, Tom is unmarried)

Analytic Statements

This is such that the subject of the sentence completely contains the predicate of the sentence. "All gray elephants are gray"

Synthetic statements

When a subject of a sentence does not completely contain its predicate (it's making something new) "Elephants are gray"

Deduction

Socrates is a man, all men are mortal, Socrates is mortal.

Induction

All the swans I have seen are white, all swans are white. (Does not always lead to truth)

Coherentism

denies the need for foundations and rejects the sceptic's infinite chain of justification. all pieces of evidence eventually join up and support one another.

Micheal Ruse

Man who said something like 'Two men are in the jungle together. One says that they should not stay long because there are tigers about, and leaves. The other says "Tigers are just a theory, not fact" and sits down for a drink. Which is your ancestor?'

William of Ockham/Ockham's Razor

"Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity" - principle urges simplicity in assessing and evaluating explanations

Abduction/IBE

infers that the best explanation is the one nearest to the truth; a form of inference that goes from data describing something to a hypothesis that best explains or accounts for the data.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

scientists should approach phenomena without prejudice and become as children before nature. Six-part scientific theory:
1. Partitions of the Sciences
2. New Method
3. Natural History
4. Ladder of the Intellect
5. Anticipations of the 2nd Philosophy
6. The Second Philosophy or Active Science

Ignaz Semmelweis

worked at vienna general hospital in the 1840s, and discovered that if doctors disinfected their hands between the autopsies of people who died from a fever and the patients, the patients were less likely to catch the disease.

epistemology

The theory of knowledge; that branch of philosophy which asks how we can support claims 'to know' and what sorts of activities give us knowledge. Is knowledge possible?

Three kinds of knowledge

knowing how (playing guitar)
knowing by acquaintance (the taste of orange)
knowing that (the capital of Australia)

Tripartite account of knowledge

someone (S) knows that a proposition (P) is true iff
P is true
S believes that P
S is justified in believing that P

Skepticism

a systematic philosophy of doubt questioning how much evidence is needed before we have knowledge, and stressing the uncertain nature of the sources of knowledge

Edmund L. Gettier

argued that a belief can be justified but false (all swans are white) and if you can deduce a proposition from another justified proposition, the latter also has justification.

Smith and Jones

'the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket'; Smith gets the job with ten coins in his pocket and was correct, even though his cause for justification was wrong

Alvin Goldman

He adds a fourth requirement that the justifying evidence must be casually linked to the object of statement in the correct way

Robert Nozick

He changed tripartite to say someone (S) knows that a proposition (P) is true iff
P is true
S believes that P
If P were not the case, S would not believe that P
If P were the case, S would believe that P

Hume's Criticism of Causation

Causation is not an intrinsic, objective feature of nature. No physical necessity between causes and effects in nature. The necessary connection that we sense between causes and effects is only the product of custom or habit.

Two Strands of Regularity Theory

a. laws of nature are empirical regularities independent of the attitudes of potential knowers.
b. laws are empirical regularities which are dependent on human attitudes and beliefs. Law is what scientists take it to be such. Ayer's epistemic regularity theory

Naive Regularity Theory

Laws are what are expressed by true lawlike sentences.
A sentence S is lawlike iff S has the syntactical form of a true universal generalization: For each x, (Fx -> Gx)

Problems with Naive Regularity Theory

i. uninstantiated lawlike generalizations cannot be disqualified as laws (Newton's law of inertia (the antecedent Fx is uninstantiated in nature))

ii. Vacuous laws: every universal generalization which is true because the antecedent is vacuous (i.e. there is no x which is F in nature), would automatically count as a law of nature: "All particles travelling faster than light are red" would count as a law

iii. instantiated true generalizations which are not laws of nature (uranium vs gold)

A.J. Ayer's Epistemic Regularity Theory

an empirical regularity is a law of nature iff it is a universally true generalization + something else X, where X can be: our willingness to use the universal generalization to make predictions, or our acceptance of universal generalizations as
well-confirmed its role in deductively organized systems (people are generally skeptical of this)

Mill-Ramsey-Lewis View

An empirical regularity is a law of nature iff it is a theorem (or axiom) in each of the true deductive systems that achieves the best combination of simplicity and strength.

4 Advantages of MRL

1. it explains why being a law of nature is not just matter of being a true universal generalisation (distinction between accidental and lawlike universal generalisations).
2. It solves the problem of uninstantiated laws
3. It explain why lawhood is a contingent property: a generalization may be a law at world i, but not at world j, because i but not j provides other truths with which it makes a best system.
4. It explains why we have reasons to take theorems of well-established scientific theories provisionally as laws.

3 Disadvantages of MRL

1. Simplicity and strength seem vague notions.
2. If you have two alternative but perfectly equivalent best deductive systems, then it seems that there are no laws of nature
3. An empirical regularity that satisfies the M-R-L criterion is still just only an empirical regularity that does not have any explanatory power or nomological necessity.

Buller and Hardcastle

"Adaptations are traits that have a history of preservation and modification under selection in the direction of greater functional effectiveness"

Gould and Lewontin

1. Adaptationists focus on natural selection to the neglect of other possibilities
2. Adaptationists assume that evolution is an optimizing process
3. Looking for 'adaptations' is always tainted by human biases
4. Looking for 'an adaptation' ignores pleitropy

Charles Darwin

"I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification."

Pinker

There can be a mismatch between the ancestral environment to which our minds are evolutionarily adapted and the current environment in which we find ourselves

Gould and Vrba

'Features which now enhance fitness
but were not built by natural
selection for their current role'