Midterms

Digital Art

• Art that is made or presented using digital technology

• Started in the early 1980s when computer engineers devised a paint program called AARON

Rhein II

• Andreas Gursky

• Most expensive photo sold

Postmodernism

• A reaction against modernism

• Born of skepticism and a suspicion of reason

• Challenged the notion that there are universal certainties or truths

• Gave the freedom to express themselves through their paintings and design

Balatik

• Orion Constellation, resembling a “hunting trap”

Moroporo

• Pleiades Constellation

• Kawan ng mga ibon, resembles a rosary

• AKA supot ni Hudas

Great Library of Alexandria

• Pinnacle of enlightenment and pedagogy

• Established by Alexander the Great

Biblion

• Great Library of Alexandria

•  where texts were archived

Museion

• Great Library of Alexandria

•  where learning took place

The House of Wisdom

• Grand library of Baghdad

• One of the leading libraries in Islamic history, “Golden Age of Islam”

• Adapted the intellectual richness to serve scholars, scientists, and worldwide thinkers

Abbasid dynasty

• initiated the House of Wisdom

Portrait of Edmond de Bellamy

• a product of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning.

• The algorithm studied past paintings, and from the lessons from scanning thousands of painting, the algorithm can create a portrait of its own from learning from past art pieces.

Pseudosciences

• Do not have scientific evidence and tests

• Somehow false, misleading, or unproven

Normal Science

• Past scientific achievements that form the foundation for further research.

Post-normal Science

• Provides immediate solutions to problem faced by society

Evolutionary Diagram of Knowledge

• All knowledge grows by the method of variation and selection found in living organisms.

• Evolution of human knowledge as a process that progresses by trial and error-elimination, creating new hypotheses and selectively eliminating false ones. 

• For knowledge to be scientific, it should be falsifiable and testable

Problem

• PART

• We select some problem - perhaps by stumbling over it.

Theory

• PART

• We try to solve it by proposing a theory as a tentative solution.

Criticism

• PART

• Critical discussion of our theories

• Knowledge grows by the elimination of some errors

• Learn to understand problems, theories, and new solution

New Problem

• PART

• The critical discussion of even our best theories always reveals new problems.

Paradigm Shift Theory

• Science does not evolve gradually toward truth. 

• Science has a paradigm that remains constant before going through a paradigm shift when current theories can't explain some phenomenon, and someone proposes a new theory.

Scientific Revolution

Occurs when:

• new paradigm better explains the observations and offers a model that is closer to the objective, external reality

• the new paradigm is incommensurate (inproportion) with the old.

Phase 1 (Pre-Science)

• PHASE

• Period before a scientific consensus has been reached.

Phase 2 (Normal Science)

• PHASE

• A paradigm is established

• Sets a conventional basis for research (a precedent).

Phase 3 (Crisis)

• PHASE

• Anomalies arise and there will be competing theories. 

  • If the crisis is resolved, normal science resumes.

  • If not, a scientific revolution occurs.

Phase 4 (Revolution)

• PHASE

• New paradigm will be established that better explains the observations and offers a model that is closer to the objective, external reality.

Rational Construction Model

• Empirical criterion for a series of theories is that it should produce new facts. 

• The idea of growth and the concept of empirical character are soldered into one

Core Theory

• PART

• surrounded by  a protective belt of auxiliary hypotheses.

Auxiliary Hypothesis

• PART

• ideas derivable from a certain core theory which in turn may or may not be supported by data and evidence.

Data

• PART

• Can weaken or strengthen the core theory depending on its alignment

Paradox of Confirmation

• A geometrical theory in physical interpretation can never be validated with mathematical certainty

• Like any other theory of empirical science, it can only acquire more or less a higher degree of confirmation.

• This paradox highlights the strange ways logic and evidence work in scientific reasoning, where seemingly irrelevant observations might still contribute to confirming a hypothesis.

Confirmation

• Relation of support between statements or propositions

Qualitative Confirmation

• When p confirms q, it means (roughly and intuitively) the truth of p provides support for the truth of q.

Comparative Confirmation

• When p confirms q more strongly than p confirms r, it means (roughly and intuitively) that the truth of p provides better support for the truth of q than it does for the truth of r.

Nicod Condition

• For any object a and any properties F and G, the proposition that a has both F and G confirms the proposition that every F has G.

Equivalence Condition

• For any propositions A, B, and C, if C confirms A and A is (classically) logically equivalent to B, then C confirms B.

Instrumentalism

• Consciousness and thinking are functions of a complex organism in transaction with its environment

  • Consciousness is an instrumentality not a thing-in-itself.

• Science is an instrument designed to control the environment and satisfy our practical ends.

• The purpose of science is to predict useful phenomena, regardless of whether it accurately describes an underlying reality. The truth or accuracy of a system is seen as irrelevant, and what matters is its practical application or use.

Epistemological Anarchism

• Argued that there are no universally valid methodological rules for scientific inquiry. 

• Critiqued the idea that there is a method to doing science. The growth of knowledge may not necessarily be rooted in the scientific enterprise.

• There are no useful and exception-free methodological rules governing the progress of science or the growth of knowledge.

• Feyerabend’s philosophy suggests that progress in knowledge happens through diversity, flexibility, and even chaos.

Science

• Organized body of knowledge concerning the physical world, both animate and inanimate

• Attitudes and methods through which this body of knowledge formed

• Method of investigating nature—a way of knowing about nature that discovers reliable knowledge about it

Technology

• Practical application of science

• Focused on being able to control or manipulate nature.

Can we know the answer?

• The main trick to science is to really think of something.

• We examine the world as critically as if many alternative worlds might exists, as if other things may be here which are not.

• If you spend any time spending hypotheses, checking to see wheteher they make sense, whether they conform to what else we know— you will find yourself doing Science

Can we know the answer?

Core concepts

• Science is a way of thinking.

• Openness and courage to question.

• Hypothesis formation and curiosity.

To Look, To See, To Know

• In order to see, one must first know

• Seeing is a socially conditioned Act

• Scientific observation is not purely objective

To Look, To See, To Know

Core concepts

• Perception is shaped by prior knowledge and social context.

• We do not see the world “objectively”

  • We see through the lens of a collective body and thought styles

Forms

• Created upon sensory perception, which are to a large extent independent to their constituent elements, regardless of the sense which supplies them.

• We use surrounding information to interpret ambiguous images or letters.

Collective Body

• Society and culture determine what forms we recognize

Esoteric

• Common people

Exoteric

• professionals

Scientific facts

• constructed through a thought-style shared by a community of experts

Perception

• guided by instruments, methods, concepts, collective agreement among “experts”, etc.

Facts

• Social constructs

• Only what is true to culture is true to nature

Positivist Approach

• Facts are self-evident, that they are simply there. 

• Physical phenomena that manifest themselves visibly are held to be factual

Constructionist Approach

• Facts are socially created.

• Facts are facts once people agree that these things constitute a fact.

On Scientific Method

• Scientific method is not just lab work—it is a disciplined, logical process of knowing.

Inductive Reasoning

• From specific observations to general conclusions

Deductive Reasoning

• From general observations to specific conclusions

Statement of the Probloem

• Only state what you actually know

Formulate Hypothesis

• Propose multiple plausible explanations

Experimentation

• Test hypothesis in question

Interpret Results

• What should happen if the hypothesis is correct?

Draw Conclusions

• State no more than the experiment has proved

Epistemic Development and the Perils of Pluto

• How does our understanding of knowledge itself evolve?

Epistemic Development and the Perils of Pluto

• Knowledge is not static – it shifts from objectivist views (facts are facts) to subjectivist (everything is opinion), and ideally to a rationalist stance that balances subjectivity and objectivity through justification.

Epistemic Cognition

• Knowledge about knowledge

  • How we think about truth, belief, and justification

• The process of thinking about one’s forms of knowledge and ways of knowing

Epistemic Development

• Progress in knowledge about knowledge

  • How we understand and evaluate knowledge

Objectivist Epistemology

• An objective domain of truth

• Take facts and logical proofs as a paradigm case of knowledge

Subjectivist Epistemology

• A subjective domain of taste

• View knowledge as opinion, and opinion as a matter of taste

Rationalist Epistemology

• A rational domain of reasonable interpretation

• Construe knowledge, in a world of interpretation and inference, as justified belief.

EC

• Begin to separate:

  • Facts

  • Preferences

  • Interpretations

MC

• They can:

  • Evaluate logical and moral truths.

  • Distinguish subjective tastes (like food or clothing).

  • Begin to understand interpretation as distinct from fact or opinion (e.g., ambiguous images).

AA

• AGE RANGE

• Development becomes less predictable.

• People construct broader epistemological theories

Modern Science

• Spread through military conquest, colonization, imperial influence, commercial and political relations, and missionary activity.

• Originating from Western European nations during the Scientific Revolution

Silk Roads

• Network for exchange of goods, scientific knowledge, technology, and culture across East Asia and the Mediterranean. (130 BCE, Han Dynasty to 1450s CE)

• Lucrative trade in Chinese Silk

Caravanserai

• Small structures that provide travelers with a safe place to rest and house a marketplace where merchants could sell and trade their goods.

The Spread of Western Science

• Three-stage model that describes the complex and gradual process the non-European nations interacted with, adopted, and developed their sciences from the Western Europe nations during the 16th to 17th centuries

Phase 1: Science as Discovery

• The “nonscientific” nation provides a source of scientific knowledge for the European colonizers.

• Western Europeans surveys the land and collected information about the environment, and brought it back to Europe for analysis and publication.

Phase 2: Science as Institution

• The scientific activity in the new land is based on the established scientific knowledge and traditions of Europe.

• Colonies begin to produce scientific knowledge, heavily dependent on Western Sciences.

Asiatic Society of Calcutta

• Kolkata, India (1784)

• Sir William Jones (British Empire).

• Established to promote Oriental studies.

• British colonial scholars studied India’s history, culture, and religion.

• Geological Survey of India, Botanical Survey, and Zoological Survey.

Asiatic Researches journal

• One of the first academic journals in Asia

Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient

• Hanoi, Vietnam (1900)

• French government.

• Philological and Archaeological study of Southeast Asia's ancient cultures.

• Restoration of Angkor Wat and other temples.

• Published studies of Indochinese civilizations.

Royal Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences

• Batavia, Dutch East Indies (1778)

• Dutch Empire

• Dutch East Indies history, archaeology, culture, and natural sciences.

• Link between Netherlands and the East Indies.

• Founded the National Museum of Indonesia.

• Tijdschrift Voor Indische Taal Land En Volkenkunde (1933).

Phase 3: Science as Dependency

• The “nonscientfic” nation struggles to achieve an independent scientific tradition or culture

• Colonial scientists are to be replaced by the native scientists who work and train primarily within their own countries, build local institutions, and contribute to global science as equals.

Thomas Veiblen and Karl Marx

• Presented ideas related to Technological Determinism

Caesar Augustus

• One of ancient Rome’s most successful leaders

• First emperor of Rome.

Roger Bacon

• credited with the process of making gunpowder, proposed flying machines, motorized ships and carriages, and invented the magnifying glass.

Leonardo da Vinci

• Incorporated scientific principles such as anatomy

• Recreated the human body with extraordinary precision

• Mona Lisa

• The Vitruvian Man

Filippo Brunelleschi

• Studied mathematics to accurately engineer and design immense buildings with expansive domes

Galileo Galilei

• Presented a new view of astronomy and mathematics

• Observed the different phases of the moon

Nicolaus Copernicus

• proponent of Heliocentric Theory

Rene Descarte

• Deductive reasoning through his works on “Discourse on Methods”

Joseph Schumpeter

• proposed creative destruction and life and death of industries

George Basalla

• proposed “The Spread of Western Science”

Joseph Banks

• Pacific Voyage (1768-1771) by Cpt. James Cook

• Botanical surveys in Australia (Botany Bay) and New Zealand.

• Collected 30,000 plant species.

Robert Brown

• Australian voyage (1801-1805) by Cpt. Matthew Flinders.

• Collected ~3,900 Australian plant species.

• Published Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van-Diemen (1810).

  • Description of the Australian plant species he observed.

Joseph Dalton Hooker

• Antarctic Expedition (1839–1843) by Cpt. James Clark Ross.

• Botanical expedition in India (1847-1851).

• Published Flora Indica (1855).

Alfred Russel Wallace

• Explored the Malay Archipelago (1854-1862)

• Collected over 125,000 specimens.

• Theory of Natural Selection.

• Wallace Line.

  • Marks species with Asian origins

Francis Bacon

• Proposed the need for rigorous data collection to prove or disprove a proposition

Carl Sagan

Can we know the answer?

Ludwig Fleck

To look, to see, to know

Robert Pirsig

On Scientific Method

David Moshman

Epistemic Development and the Perils of Pluto