Bechtel - Philosophy of science

Question 1

Logical Positivism

Answer 1

Meaningful statements must be either analytic (true by definition) or empirically verifiable through observation or experience. “Logical” reflects the role of modern symbolic logic

Question 2

Context of Discovery

Answer 2

Refers to the phase in which scientific hypotheses are developed, even if they may not strictly adhere to logical thinking. Scientific ideas may arise from non-logical processes such as intuition or creative insights

Question 3

Context of Justification

Answer 3

Involves the rational assessment of scientific hypotheses, focusing on the logical relation between the hypothesis and the evidence supporting it. Aims to demonstrate the truth of scientific theories based on empirical evidence and logical reasoning

Question 4

Verifiability Theory of Meaning

Answer 4

“The meaning of a sentence was the set of conditions that would show that the sentence was true.” Asserts that sentences, not individual words, could be true or false, and the meaning of words had to be analyzed in terms of their roles in sentences. Positivists had a bias towards physically observable phenomena in observation sentences

Question 5

Analytic Statements

Answer 5

Articulate the meaning of one sentence in terms of another sentence and do not depend on experience, hence cannot be refuted by experience

Question 6

Verifiability Theory Correlation to How Machines Think

Answer 6

Turing test: acceptance of a machine as thinking when indistinguishable from a human. Behaviorist viewpoint emphasizes observable actions over unobservable mental processes

Question 7

Deductive-Nomological Model of Explanation and Hypothetico-Deductive Model of Theory Development

Answer 7

Explanation requires deriving events from general laws and known facts. Both explanation and prediction share a similar logical structure, differing in timing. HD-model involves problem identification, hypothesis formation, testing, and confirmation/disconfirmation

Question 8

Modal Logic

Answer 8

Formal logic dealing with modalities like possibility, necessity, and impossibility. Uses operators such as “possible” and “necessary”

Question 9

Symbolic Logic

Answer 9

Represents and manipulates logical expressions using symbols. Examines the formal structure of arguments and logical inference validity

Question 10

The Raven Paradox

Answer 10

Highlights logical equivalence between “All ravens are black” and “All non-black things are non-ravens.” Testing involves observing black ravens and non-black non-ravens, revealing a counterintuitive aspect of logical equivalence

Question 11

The Axiomatic Account of Theories

Answer 11

Views theory as a network of statements from which specific laws can be derived. Theories are seen as axiomatic structures, with particular laws derived from assumptions and postulates

Question 12

Theory Reduction

Answer 12

Unifies science by deriving principles of one science from another

Question 13

Summary of Logical Positivism (sensory experience)

Answer 13

Grounded in sensory experience, proposing a theory of meaning linking scientific discourse to sensory experience.

Provides an account of explanation using deduction and a theory of confirmation.

Suggests unification of scientific laws into axiomatic structures. Impact on psychology: embraced verificationist theory of meaning and influenced behaviorist theories.

Question 14

Application to cognitive science

Answer 14

Explores human concepts and categorization processes, with typicality judgments seen as grounding concepts in observation

Question 15

Problem of induction

Answer 15

The problem of induction questions our reasons for believing that the future will resemble the past

Question 16

Positivists (Popper)

Answer 16

Positivists acknowledged the problem of induction but believed positive tests of a hypothesis could still lend support to it

Question 17

Modus tollens (Popper)

Answer 17

In modus tollens, if a hypothesis implies a certain prediction, and if that prediction is found to be false, then the hypothesis itself can be inferred to be false. Scientists should aim to falsify hypotheses rather than confirm them

Question 18

Corroboration (Popper)

Answer 18

Popper’s term for supporting evidence or confirmation of a scientific theory. It signifies a rejection of the Positivists’ distinction between meaningful and meaningless discourse

Question 19

Demarcation

Answer 19

The process of distinguishing between scientific and non-scientific discourse. Popper’s demarcation criterion involves assessing the risk that true scientific theories face of being wrong

Question 20

Riskiness of Theories (Popper)

Answer 20

Popper suggests that scientific theories gain strength from their ability to forbid certain outcomes. The more events the theory rules out, the more powerful and informative it is considered

Question 21

Testability (Popper)

Answer 21

Popper emphasizes the importance of scientific theories being testable through critical experiments where it is clear what evidence would count against the theory

Question 22

Artificial intelligence (Popper and criterion of demarcation)

Answer 22

AI simulations failing to accommodate existing data suggest they should be rejected based on Popper’s criteria. The difficulty lies in creating theories that can effectively account for empirical evidence

Question 23

Sternberg (relation to cogsci)

Answer 23

Sternberg’s paradigm exemplifies how competing theories can be empirically tested against each other. Sternberg’s experiment with memory access models allowed for rejecting models that did not fit reaction time data