Philosophy Final

Fundamentals of Philosophy: Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Religion

Manifest Image

Our shared everyday experiences

Scientific image

The most accurate description of the world science provides us with

Falsifiability as a demarcation criterion

In order for a theory to count as scientific it must at least be potentially falsifiable by empirical results

Freudian Psychoanalytical Theory

The diagnosis is not going to be subject to being disproven, rather everything that happens confirms it

Objection to Popper: History of Science

Trying to salvage rather than immediately give up a theory is not a bad, unscientific thing

Objection to Popper: The Duhem-Quine Underdetermination Thesis

When a prediction fails, this failure does not straightforwardly impugn the theory you are testing

Objection to Popper: Actual Practice

Contemporary scientists spend a lot of time and effort defending their favored theory

Scientific realism

the position that the world as described by science exists independently of us and contains properties and entities—including unobservables—which science is in a position to tell us about

Instrumentalism

affirms that science is something we help ourselves to, in a purely auxiliary way, for the purposes of predicting phenomena and manipulating the world around us

Scientific realism

is usually associated with a historical thesis about how science develops

Convergent Scientific Realism

some scientific theories are at least approximately true and genuinely refer to objective features of the world

Underdetermination thesis

there is always the possibility of different, incompatible theories that account equally well for the same data

The no-miracles argument

The truth, or approximate truth, of current scientific theories is the best explanation of their explanatory, predictive and technological successes

Response 1 to Laudan: Misapplication of Induction

Current scientific theories have withstood the test of time and so have a better shot of being true or approximately true

Response 2 to Laudan: The Past in the Present

Many elements of old theories survive and carry over to the new ones. Past theories have been filtered for their valuable elements. Science is gradually moving closer to the truth

Reply to Anti-Realism 1: Competing Theories Have Approximate Truth

We shouldn’t assume that just any theory will share equal predictive and technological success with others

Reply to Anti-realism 2: Which Theory?

We need to specify which theory is under discussion. Perhaps one theory is a far better candidate for being approximately true than another

Paradigm

periods of normal science

Anomalies

resist resolution from within the current paradigm (things that are outside of “normal science”

Scientific Revolutions

When anomalies unaccounted for on the current paradigm are seen as important

Incommensurability Thesis

Comparisons between past and present scientific theories are often inconclusive or even impossible. Past and present scientific theories are separated by scientific revolutions, which affect the meanings of scientific terms and theories

Progressive research

Successful in making novel predictions

Degenerating research

Resorts to ad hoc modifications to protect themselves from falsification

Addressing Popper: Haste Makes Waste

The core theory is protected from being thrown out before it has had time to develop and be modified

Anselm’s Ontological Argument

If God does not exist, can we think of a greater being than the being greater then which none can be thought, namely a God the exists? Existence in reality is greater than existence merely in the mind

Formation of Anselm’s argument

Persons have the idea of a greatest possible being

Suppose the greatest being exists only as an idea in the mind

Existence in reality is greater for something than existence only in the mind

We can conceive of a being greater than the greatest possible being—that is, a being that also exists in reality

But there can be no being greater than the greatest possible being

Therefore, the greatest possible being exists in reality

Gaunilo Reply 1: Can’t really conceive of God

One can’t really conceive of or understand a greatest possible being

Gaunilo Reply 2: The island

We can use Anselm’s logic to prove all sorts of nonexistent things

Plantinga’s defense against reply 2

this is a reduction ad absurdum turned against Anselm

God’s attributes have an Intrinsic Maximum?

It can’t apply to finite things like islands because it is impossible that there is a greatest

Omniscience

God knows the truth value of every proposition

Omnipotence

A degree of power that can’t possibly be excelled

Watch vs. Stone

Stone: Where did it come from? perhaps it has been there forever

Watch: it couldn’t have been there forever

Mean-ends Structure

Several parts are framed and put together for a purpose

God inferred from apparent design

The maker had a purpose in mind for the watch

The maker knew how to put the parts together to achieve the purpose

The maker knew which materials needed to be used to best achieve the purpose

Hume’s First Response: False Analogy

an argument from analogy is only as good as the closeness of the analogy made

Hume’s Second Response: Why reason?

The universe could not originally attain its order and arrangement, without something similar to human art. But is a part of nature a rule for another part very wide of the former?

Hume’s Fourth Response: Proportional Cause

The Creator imitating others or improving design over time

Hume’s Final Response: Generation or Vegetation

The universe is more like other things we experience; it seems more plausible, then, that the universe would have a similar cause, like generation or vegetation

Weighing Evidence

the evidence for one side must be weighed against the evidence on the other side