POS part 1

Socrates

• Skeptic.
• Annoying questions making people doubt.

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Plato

• Radical rationalism.
• Anamnesis.
• Panta Rhei.
• Theory of knowledge: real knowledge 1) justified and 2) consists of a true belief.
• Epistème: true reflection of how things are.
• Doxa: opinions of how things are.
• Two-worlds:
  • World of ideas (unchanged).
  • Physical world (changes).

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Aristotle

• Empiricism (slight rationalism).
• One world we can perceive with senses.
• Mind = tabula rasa.
• Induction: knowledge when able to provide causal explanation.
  • Concludes that A is always B or followed by B.
  • Correlation (NOT causation).
• Intuitive induction: induction only 1st step, as a 2nd step we can establish abstractions are necessarily true; tell with our mind that universal notions must be true and therefore knowledge.
• No experiments.

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Aquinas

• Student of Aristotle.
• Attempt to unite Christian teaching and Pagan ideas of Aristotle.
• God = unmoved mover/1st cause.
• Problematic cuz now you're always disagreeing with the bible and/or Aristotle.
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Bacon

• New scientific method.
  • Abandoning prejudices (idols).
  • Of the tribe.
  • Of the cave.
  • Of the marketplace.
  • Of the theatre.
  • Use the empirical method (experiments).
  • Use induction wisely (test general claim in different situations and look for possible refutations).
• Synthesis of observation (experimental) and reason makes good science; collects raw data and interprets it into a meaningful description of nature.

Descartes

• Optimistic rationalism.
• Wondered what we can be absolutely sure of.
• Idea from Montaigne (skeptic).
  • Radical doubt: anything that can be doubted is uncertain, malin genie.
  • BUT: I think, therefore I am is 100% true (one needs to exist to be fooled).
  • Clear and distinct insight: must be true (god is good and physical world exists).

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Locke

• Empiricism.
• Rejection of inborn ideas (no moral universal principles).
• Empiricist principle: all our ideas and mental representations stem from perception and reflection, together constituting experience.
• Ideas: what knowledge consists of.
  • Simple: uniform appearance.
  • Complex: composed of several simple ones.
  • Mode: can’t subsist by themselves; always depend on other ideas.
  • Relation: comparing one idea with another.
  • Substance: problematic as this can’t be experienced (can exist on its own).
• Qualities: properties we attribute to objects.
  • Primary: exist on their own (absolute water temp).
  • Secondary: dependent on observer (subjective measure water temp).

Berkeley

• Idealism: reality is essentially mental.
• All properties of the physical world depend on the mind (to be is to be perceived).
• God is an observer at all times (circular reasoning).
• Puts all properties into the same box while they’re actually distinct (primary; height) and (secondary;tall/small).

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Hume

• Empiricism.
• Agrees with Locke that knowledge is acquired through perception.
• Good science = only foundation of making scientific progress (based on experience and observation).
• Contents of the mind should be:
  • Perceptions.
  • Impressions (immediate data of experience).
  • Ideas (faint copies of impressions).
• Copy principle: world leaves impressions on us, resulting in ideas in our minds (copies). Knowledge derives from impressions.
  • Metaphysical microscope: to understand an idea, it must be broken down (meaningless if not possible).
  • Meaningless concept of substance: not derived from impressions.
• Analysis of causality: we can only have knowledge about matters of fact when we can have knowledge of causality.
• Qualities of causality:
  • Priority (A must occur before B).
  • Contiguity (A and B located near each other in time and space).
  • Necessity (event B necessarily follows A). Can’t be observed (no knowledge).
• Argues that we’re psychologically constituted to conclude causal relationships when perceiving constant conjunction.
  • FAIL: form of inductive reasoning.

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Kant

• Rationalism (but emphasized synthesis).
• Judgments are necessary and universal (Newton’s laws).
• Influenced by Hume.
  • AGREE: can’t know about causality because we can’t determine the truth of general statements with our senses.
  • DISAGREE: synthesis leads to knowledge.

• Look for synthetic a priori statements: origin in the human mind, but also add info about the world.
• Transcendental philosophy: principles of reality are to be discovered by the study of thought processes.
  • Noumenal world: reality as it is (lack sensory evidence). Initial cause of our subjective experience of the world.
  • Phenomenal world: constructed out of sensations in our consciousness (all of our knowledge refers to this).
• Conditions allowing for knowledge of the phenomenal world:
  • Forms of sensation (time and space): not enough.
  • Categories of reason (categorization): sensations are collections of experiences, need to be adequately ordered to be interpreted.
  • Substance is one category, causality is too (under relational category).
• If experience in time and space is categorized adequately, knowledge becomes possible.
  • Copernican turn: we impose structure on the world via perception and categorization, making knowledge a priori (world has to appear to us in forms of sensation and categories of reason). Anything we perceive as cause and effect belongs to category of causality.
• PROBLEMS:
  • Causality can’t be applied to noumenal world (can’t say with certainty that it determines our sensations).
  • When he believed to have real (synthetic a priori) knowledge, it could never be false (sometimes was).
  • Skeptic would say it’s not worth much to have knowledge when it’s not true to the real world.

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Comte

• Positivism: apply the method of natural science to social problems (sociology) by establishing principles of positive thinking.
  • Theological (fictional): mind supposes all phenomenon can be produced by immediate action of supernatural beings (animism, polytheism, monotheism).
  • Metaphysical (abstract): attribution of forces, essences, and powers to explain phenomena.
  • Positivist (real/scientific): reasoning and observation means of knowledge; used to find mechanical explanations.
  • Aims to unveil universal laws of nature governing observable phenomena.
• Psychology is a science (looks for causes of mental disorder without hocus pocus shit).
• There is only one scientific method.

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Dilthey

• Hermeneutics.
• Disagreed with adoption of natural sciences in social ones.
  • People fall outside natural order of cause and effect (unlike in natural science).
  • People differ per person (essential subjectivity).
• Dualistic methodology: sciences are essentially distinct.
  • Erklären: in terms of cause and effect (how does X happen). Nomothetic (pursues general/universal knowledge).
  • Verstehen: in terms of reasons (why does X happen). Idiographic (describe historically unique events).
• Hermeneutic circle: understanding others by moving back and forth between the individual, their expression, and cohort they’re part of.
• Psychologists should look for reasons, not causes (contemporary psychology lacks Verstehen cuz we’re too focused on understanding humans/relations by looking for general laws) = NOT science.
• CRITICISM:
  • Contemporary hermeneutics: Verstehen can’t be an objective method (we interpret others from our own POV). Not science.
  • Neo-positivists: no statements can be made about inner lives of others with absolute certainty ( behaviorism only legit method).
  • Hempel: one can only understand psychological issues one has experienced themselves (otherwise no good scientist).

Wittgenstein I

• Meaning of a word depends on its reference (what we can observe).
• Distinguishing meaningful from meaningless sentences.
  • {{A sentence describes the way the facts are.{{
  • {{A belief corresponds to the way the world is.{{
• Correspondence theory:
  • Truth: claims or beliefs must correspond to reality.
  • Meaning: one should be able to establish the truth/falsehood of the claim.
• Cared about the meaningfulness of sentences uttered in science (not philosophy). Disguised nonsensical language with sensical language.
• {{Sentences can’t express anything about the important questions of life (metaphysics or ethics).{{
• All problems are either scientific (including daily life) or nonsensical.

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Logical Positivists

• Start POS.
  • Reject meaningless statements: scientific statements should be meaningful.
  • Ask ‘‘what do you mean by X” and the meaninglessness will reveal itself.
  • Behaviorism only sound practice of psychology (no descriptors for inner life).
  • Logic: instrument to assess the soundness of a theory, not a method to gain knowledge with (analytic a priori).
  • Protocol sentences (describe reality directly) are observable and all connected through logic (way to foolproof theory). Should be logically connected to all sentences about the world (if A then B = logical conclusion).
  • Positivism:
  • Comte (too theological).
  • Science is the only source of real knowledge (turning point).
  • Unification of science: all scientists work together on one scientific theory to explain the world.
  • United by deductive-nomological model:
    • Premise 1: general statement assessing law/rule (all swans are white).
    • Premise 2: starting statement (this is a swan).
    • Conclusion/prediction: logically follows a deductive statement/prediction (this swan is white).
  • {{PROBLEM: context of the discovery and justification of the universal law one starts with (all swans are white). Remains logically valid, but problematic in broader sense.{{
  • Need of DC: separating scientific/meaningful statements from unscientific/meaningless ones. Science should be falsifiable but there are other criteria one might find important.
  • Verifiability: accepts too little as science.
    • Verification is gathered via the senses (neutral experiences; good foundation for science).
  • Confirmability: accepts too much as science.
• PROBLEMS:
  • No adequate DC.
  • Deductive-nomological model requires a nomological (general) statement to start with - found through induction (not justifiable according to Hume).
  • Semi-solution: we can formulate general claims based on our sociological and psychological preferences (seeker is allowed any method but it should stand up to testing).
  • Theory-ladenness of perception.
  • Duck-rabbit: we can’t establish which way of looking at the picture is correct, because the sensory data fits both theories (underdetermination of theories).
  • No raw sensory data.
• No longer about logical statements (belong to logic and therefore don’t say anything about the world (synthetic a posteriori).

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Popper

• Critical rationalism/methodological falsificationism.
• Not an LP.
  • AGREED: experience is important for knowledge (LP were too radical cuz ratio is too). Logic and maths are tools and don’t provide new knowledge.
  • DISAGREED: different model of science.
  • LP - science from observation to general laws and to confirmation of those laws (both via induction) within context of their discovery and justification.
  • Popper - there is a problem, postulate a conjecture, attempt to falsify.
• Science can be saved from irrational induction and there is a better DC.
• Falsificationism: the truth can’t be DC (even though pseudo-science and real science are vastly different). There have been theories which have turned out to be false but were still scientific (astronomy). Make falsifiability DC.
  • Human fallibility: don’t know, can only guess.
  • Falsifiability is DC: statements (or systems) must be capable of conflicting with possible/conceivable observations. Confirming evidence as unsuccessful attempt to falsify theory.
  • Psychology is a science (know what to observe to reject hypos).
  • Only falsifiable theories are informative: prediction must be definitive (no ‘‘there may be’’) and informative (no ‘‘…or not’’). Science should understand and advance the world. Requires knowledge with bearing in truth. Always risk being wrong.
  • Growth of knowledge only via falsification: corroboration (support of claim) isn’t inductive evidence as induction isn’t rational (which science should be). Negative way to the truth.
  • Theory adjustment.
• Not interested in meaningful vs. meaningless, simply in science vs. pseudoscience.
  • {{Unscientific claims can be meaningful (myths) and sometimes generate scientific hypos.{{
• Inborn ideas: every organism has inborn reactions/responses adapted to impeding events (expectations which aren’t necessarily conscious). Born with expectations (knowledge), which isn’t valid a priori but is psychologically/genetically a priori!
  • Critical rationalism: inborn expectations make us dogmatic thinkers and industry machines (hyperactive pattern detection, confirmation bias).
• Rational way of using deduction: accepting a theory as long as it’s not falsified. Theories are always hypos (can be caused by something else than is postulated).
  • Science is rational:
  • Tries to falsify.
  • Uses deduction.
• PROBLEMS:
  • Pseudosciences also make falsifiable claims.
  • Determining the falsity of a general statement is based on induction. Falsificationism doesn’t lead to progress in and of itself.

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Wittgenstein II

• The meaning of a word depends on its use (know what we should observe). No longer defends the view that language depicts reality.
  • Refer to factual states.
• Language game: words used and have meaning relative to certain social context in which they’re being used (factual claims only true/false relative to language game).
  • Private: some PL thought it was possible.
  • Premise 1: meaning of language depends on reference.
  • Premise 2: inverted spectrum. All meaningful language refers to personal experience.
  • Rules should be publicly accessible: if not, one could become unintelligible.
  • Check use of words based on one’s grammatical/logical rules or those regarding general consistency of word usage.
• Not a relativist but great influence on them.

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Kuhn

• Relativist/constructivist.
• Accidentally created a norm: science always has a paradigm.
  • Unclear whether psychology would be classified as science.
• Described development of science (no quest for DC).
  • Prescientific (0): unorganized, no structure or scientific activity.
  • Normal science (1): paradigm by which science is organized is accepted, predicated on assumption that scientific community knows what the world is like (describing what happens).
  • Mopping-up operations (holes in previous paradigms).
  • Solving puzzles: progress mostly accomplished like this.
  • Abnormal science (2): existing paradigm is faulty, crisis arises.
  • Solve most problems and remain or scientific revolution.
  • Revolution (3): awareness of crisis, new paradigm is presented rivaling the old one. Revolution takes place when (majority of) scientists change sides and adopt new paradigm.
  • New paradigm isn’t better.
• Paradigm: sum of accepted metaphysical assumptions, theories, methodologies, manuals, and techniques. Scientists live within these (not a language game).
• PROBLEM: no growth of knowledge during revolution cuz paradigm shifts are shifts in perspective on reality. Kuhn argues that growth may only occur within paradigm. Scientific growth due to reconstruction from new paradigm bringing about great change.
  • Incommensurability thesis: paradigms aren’t rationally comparable (will never know whether paradigm shift takes us closer to the truth as there are no facts that can be used to decide which one is better).
  • Paradigm shifts are gestalt switches: something doesn't look the same once your perspective has changed (duck-rabbit).
  • Theory of perception (constructivist): theory determines what you see (unproblematic). Kuhn goes even further and claims that the theory determines what there is (ontology). New paradigms are different, not better.

Palermo

• Psychology is a mature science (2 paradigms past):
  • Introspectionism: crisis because no research into animal minds was possible.
  • Behaviorism: psychology is a purely objective branch of natural science (goal to predict and control behavior).

Warren

• Psychology isn’t a mature science. Behaviorism wasn’t universally accepted (only in USA). There never was a generally accepted paradigm to begin with.

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Feyerabend

• Radical relativism/constructivism.
• Traditions: roughly equitable with paradigms. Follow each other throughout history (one isn’t better than the other).
  • Not a gestalt switch (epistemology development?)
• 2 key slogans:
  • Against method: essentially ideational (we can never know objective facts due to theory-ladenness of perception).
  • Anything goes: methodological/epistemological anarchism (difference between science and pseudoscience is artificial).
  • Any method may acquire knowledge about X. Certain preconditions: 1) anarchist, 2) freedom in thinking, 3) all methods have pros/cons.
• CONSEQUENCES:
  • Knowledge is a sea of incompatible alternatives. Not a big deal to Feyerabend, they’re just different ways of explaining phenomena (albeit not scientific).
  • Freedom of methodology in education.

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Lakatos

• Sophisticated falsificationism.
• Tried to combine normative and descriptive approaches.
  • Popper: falsificationism wasn’t strong enough.
  • Kuhn: denied progress when science radically changed.
• Wanted to rescue normativity of science by changing the notion of falsificationism.
  • Stage 1: dogmatic falsificationism (pre-Popper).
  • Every scientific theory and its empirical basis are fallible. Theories could only be judged on the basis of empirical data. Growth of science only through rejection of theories based on observed facts.
  • Stage 2: methodological falsificationism (Popper).
  • Accepts theory-ladenness of observation, but also that scientists can accept BG theories (conventional empirical basis). Rejection of a theory should be interpreted as conflicting with an accepted BG theory (not as proof that it’s false
    • Theory vs. theory vs. empirical basis.
    • Looking at 2 differing theories and accepting best fitting one (normative alternative to Kuhn’s description).
• Research programs: 1|) scientists work within these theoretical wholes, 2) want to stick to RPs (hard core), 3) RPs may co-exist and are comparable.
• Heuristics: methodological ways to find answers to problems (when observations contradict theory).
  • Negative: aren’t allowed to reject core of RP. Implies positive heuristic.
  • Positive: allowed to falsify claims in the protective belt (protects core from actual falsification).
• Heuristics also allow us to seperate RPs.
  • Progressive: adjusting belt leads to more complex and empirical content.
  • Degenerative: adjusting the belt never increases predictive success.
• Kuhn’s criticism: this is not a normative alternative but a rip off (hard core, protective belts, and degenerative phases are close parallels to paradigms, normal science, and crisis).
  • My dude is forgetting that his own view was normative too.
• LAKATOS DC:
  • Falsifiability: if not falsifiable, unscientific.
  • Working with a RP: judge the RP a claim is part of.
  • The RP has to be progressive: verify/confirm theory/claim.
  • Don’t cling to degenerative RP: unless trying to make it progressive.
• Unclear if psychology is a science: which RP are we working with?
  • General field: degenerative (plenty of falsifiable predictions haven’t been successfully replicated).
  • Individual programs.

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Scientific Realism

• Against constructive empiricism to find justifications for belief. Accept that scientific theory informs about unobservable reality and that scientific progress is possible. They’re realists about the elements posited by scientific theory.
  • Approximately true clause: good reasons to accept that the theory represents an approximate truth). Never without error though.
  • To get from claiming a theory to be successful, to the fact that it’s also approximately true, they use abduction.
  • Inference to the only explanation (IOE): a very strong version of inference to the best explanation (IBE) - X is the case, how do we explain it?
    • Forming a theory (if E happened, then X would be expected) and then gauging probability of E being the case.
  • We need good reasons to accept explanations:
  • Parsimony.
  • Coherence.
  • Explanatory power: what we already know.
• Constructivism: there may be more than one scientific theory which is also empirically adequate.

• Disagreement on II and III: realists would treat their discoveries as objective facts, constructivists would call them ‘‘constructed’’ facts since they’re invisible to the naked eye.
• PSYCHOLOGY:
  • Constructivists: study of behavior (not the psyche).
• SCIENTIFIC REALISM DEBATE: what explains successfulness of a scientific theory about unobservable things?
  • AGAINST SR: can abduction be adequately defended (central point).
  • A theory only has to be empirically adequate (successful predictions at observable level).
    • Scientists also want to explain unobservable causes.
  • Never certain of abductive or inductive conclusion (risk of missing actual explanation).
  • FOR SR: constructivist empiricists take the skeptic too seriously. Accept that there’s no certain knowledge and understand that people are fallible and theories falsifiable.
  • Psychologists want to find out about mental states and what causes behavior. If SR can be defended, we can say something about inner lives of others.

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Van Fraassen

• Constructive empiricism.
• Defends constructivism in regard to the unobservable (mental states). Anything that can be observed, is real. Scientific theory is sound if it provides falsifiable predictions which aren’t falsified.
  • PROBLEM for PSYCHOLOGIST: being anti-realist means that one believes psychology studies behavior and not the psyche.

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Peirce

• Pragmatism: doesn’t believe science provides us with certain knowledge, but it makes action possible again.
• If someone acts, you can see what their beliefs are (knowledge).
• Criticizing traditional view that knowledge is always certain (Descartes), as beliefs never are.
  • Paper doubt (Cartesian): positing skeptical beliefs about existence but not actually believing in them.
  • Living doubt: real, uncomfortable. Don’t know what to believe, nor what action to take. Want to get rid of doubt so you can act again.
• Belief fixation: irritation of doubt causes a struggle to maintain a state of belief within people (settlement of opinion is needed).
  • Method of tenacity: staying away from things making you doubt.
  • Method of authority: some people feel contingent about their beliefs (seek out a priori assumptions).
  • A priori method: looking for indisputable truths (subjective).
  • Method of science: provides knowledge which is independent of subjectivity and applies to everyone. Realistic assumption: there’s a world existing independently from us which we can gain knowledge about.

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Quine

• Naturalism.
• Scientific statements are always hypothetical, conjectural, and conditional. Just a net people cast over the world.
• Look at science to learn about science. To acquire knowledge, look at psychology.
  • The goal has changed: we no longer want to justify knowledge about the world, we want to know how people acquire it.
• Naturalized epistemology: to replace traditional epistemology with the psychological study of reasoning. Epistemology part of the sciences.
  • Hume and Bacon reflected similar thoughts.
• Knowledge will never be completely true and justified. Doesn’t amount to skepticism (balance in favor of reasons).
• Most relevant question: could I be wrong?

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