Philosophy of Science Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards generated from the Philosophy of Science lecture covering foundational definitions, branches of philosophy, Feynman's concepts, definitions of science, and forms of interdisciplinarity.

Philosophy

Derived from 'Philo' (love) + 'Sophia' (wisdom), it is the love of wisdom and the systematic study of general and fundamental questions related to topics like existence, knowledge, mind, reason, etc.

Epistemology

The branch of philosophy concerned with the study of knowledge.

Metaphysics

The branch of philosophy concerned with the study of reality.

Ethics

The branch of philosophy concerned with the study of questions related to morality.

Aesthetics

The branch of philosophy concerned with the study of beauty.

Time Binding

The human ability to record, share, and build on knowledge across generations, allowing human progress to grow faster and faster so each generation starts where the previous one left off.

Feynman's Definition of Science

The result of the discovery that it is worthwhile rechecking by new direct experience, and not necessarily trusting the human race's experience from the past.

Science (ter Kulie, 2024)

An intricate system that uses observations, research, and investigations to achieve insight in nature and describe it truthfully.

True and Truthful (Life Sciences)

In the context of the Life Sciences, defined as being in accordance with experimental observations and measurements.

Discipline

A branch of knowledge, instruction, learning, teaching, or education.

Interdisciplinarity

Contributing to, or benefiting from, two or more disciplines.

Synoptic Interdisciplinarity

An enterprise in which a single theoretical perspective is applied to a wide range of previously distinct disciplines (e.g., Cybernetics or Neural Networks).

Cybernetics

The science of control and communications in the animal and machine.

Shared Interdisciplinarity

A form of interdisciplinarity that does not involve day-to-day cooperation, though results of different disciplines still complement each other (e.g., Environmental Science).

Cooperative Interdisciplinarity

Interdisciplinarity where actual teamwork occurs in an environment (e.g., Medical Field).

Integrated Interdisciplinarity

Interdisciplinarity where there is an actual influence of the disciplines on each other (e.g., Computational Neuroscience).

Reflexive Interdisciplinarity

A relation between disciplines where one of the disciplines is the subject matter of the other discipline (e.g., Philosophy of Science, where sciences are the subject matter).