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General Flashcards

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1
Q

Ancient Philosophy

A

Epistemology: what- how justify- source

skepticism: Socrates

Rationalism:

  • knowledge comes from reasoning
  • Plato
  • nativism
  • anamnesis/ reincarnation
  • universal concepts because of world of ideas
  • distinction: true knowledge/ opinion
  • everything is changing, we can only acquire doxa, not episteme
  • > allegory of the cave: universal concepts apply in world that is ever changing
  • Meno anamnesis
    probl: very extreme

Empiricism:

  • Aristotle
  • source of knowledge are the senses
  • empiricist principle
  • induction + unfailing capacity of the mind that some abstractions are necessary truths (intuitive induction -> universal concepts)
    probl: lacks critical view towards general statements

Aquinas tied Aristotle to the bible -> no experiments

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2
Q

Bacon

A

reaction to: Aristotle& experiments

  • new method:
    1. abandon prejudices
    2. empirical method
    -> allowed to do experiments
    3. induction
    -> mix of perception and understanding (rationalist element)
    Good science: use of observation + rationalist inference
    -> be careful, check if general claim holds in other settings
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3
Q

Descartes

A

reaction to: sceptics, Plato (too radical)

less radical rationalism

method to acquire certain knowledge:

  • radical doubt
  • clear and distinct insights

ideas:

  • innate (nativism)
  • acquired
  • invented

optimism that true knowledge is possible

Newton and Descartes changing the worldview of the time, often mentioned together (mechanization of the word view)

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4
Q

The British empiricists: Locke

A
  1. Rejection of inborn ideas
  2. formulation of the empiricist principle
    - perception and reflection
  3. ideas (knowledge)
    - simple ideas: senses, reflection, perception
    - complex ideas: mode (beauty), substance, relation (family)
    problem: we infer properties, not substance, how do we infer substance?
  4. qualities (leave an idea in us)
    - primary qualities: properties that exist on their own independent of perception
    - secondary qualities: substances that exist because there is a perceiver
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5
Q

The British empiricists: Berkley

A

Idealism: metaphysical view that reality is mental
To be, is to be perceived
primary properties are also secondary properties

no denial of physical word, but denial of substance
constant observer of the world= god

-> problems in his reasoning

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6
Q

The British empiricists: Hume

A 
knowledge via senses
impressions result in ideas in our minds (copy principle)
simple and complex ideas
problem: non existent complex ideas
-> reduction to existing simple ideas

real problem:

  • we use causality when we reason about the world (priority, contiguity, necessity)
  • necessity can’t be perceived
  • > empiricists not justified to use the idea of causality
  • > skepticism
  • > attempts to save knowledge via induction (constant conjunction) are invalid

=| Bacon: proper science uses induction

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7
Q

Kant

A

reaction to Hume (who woke him up): tried to save Newtonian laws, optimistic to gather real knowledge

agrees with Hume: we cannot determine through the senses what is true (not able to justify causality with empiricism)
but: there can be knowledge

combination of rationalism and empiricism to justify knowledge
-> different kinds of judgments:
a priori/ a posteriori
analytic/ synthetic

distinction noumenal/ phenomenal world

transcendental philosophy:
- forms of sensation
- categories of reason (quantity, quality, relation (causality), modality
-> synthesis: sensory input classified by reason
- Copernican turn: we impose structure upon the world (we don’t discover its structure)
- a priori (everything comes in time and space and in a category)
one of those is causality, if cannot be otherwise that things appear as causes and effects
synthetic a priori, rescued knowledge

problems:
- no knowledge about noumenal world, sensations, causality (category of phenomenal world)
- synthetic a priori cannot be falsified (Newtonian laws)
- almost agreeing with the sceptics

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8
Q

positivism: Comte

A

reaction to: success of natural sciences (although still trying to defeat the sceptics) -> what about social sciences?

positivism: apply method for natural sciences to social sciences

Comte’s law of three stadia

-> scientific stage: explanation in terms of causal and mechanical effects

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9
Q

Hermeneutics: Dilthey

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reaction to: positivism arose, criticized by hermeneutics which is too subjective and not a science

people are more than just physical objects, they fall outside of order of cause and effects

verstehen/ erklaeren

problems:

  • never getting rid of own background and interpretations -> not objective (contemporary hermeneutics)
  • not possible to say anything about inner life of others (not able to check) (neo-positivists)
  • interpreting others sometimes not possible if lack of subjective understanding. Erklaeren always possible (hempel on verstehen)
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10
Q

Logical positivism & Wittgenstein 1

A

before: Kant (safe knowledge), positivism (Comte), hermeneutics (Dilthey)

Wittgenstein 1:

  • interested in the “higher”, separation of sense and nonsense
  • meaning depends on reference (correspondence theory of truth and meaning)/ picture theory of meaning
  • we cannot say anything about the higher

Logical positivism: (get rid of incomprehensible philosophy) (empiricists)

  1. Rejection of meaningless statements
    - > if not meaningful, remove. psychology = behaviorism because can be checked
  2. Logic
  3. positivism
    - > philosophy of science
  4. unified science
    - > DN model
  5. Need for demarcation criterion (verifiability/ confirmability)

problems:
- no good demarcation criterion
- DN: induction
- DN: theoryladenness

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11
Q

Popper

A

reaction to: LP, induction free science & better demarcation criterion

LP: observation -> general law (via ind.) -> confirmation (via ind.) = looking for support

Popper: problem -> hyp. -> try to refute = look for refutation

critical rationalism:

  1. Falsification (4 points)
  2. Nativism (and Induction)
    - inborn expectations
  3. critical rationalism
    - exp -> dogmatic thinking (induction machines). Be careful! accept if possible to falsify
    - knowledge is always hypothetical
  4. critical rationalism
    - accepts innate knowledge
    - science is rational and tries to falsify (uses deduction)

problems:
- pseudoscience also makes falsifiable claims
- falsification based on induction (black swan)

-> no progress of science without induction
-> modern emp. (LP) as well as modern rationalism (popper) -> scientific method to acquire knowledge
but fail to provide demarcation criterion

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12
Q

constructivism & relativism (Wittgenstein 2)

A

W 1: meaning depends on reference
W 2: meaning depends on use

meaningful within a context (a language game to illustrate)

  • private language argument
  • LP: possible
  • W 2: not possible (because needs to be checked)
  • > not really a constructivist/ relativist but influenced the real constructivists
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13
Q

constructivism & relativism (Kuhn)

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reaction to LP and popper failing with demarcation criterion: descriptive science

paradigm: theory-laden, like a language game but about science

  1. prescientific period
  2. normal science (paradigm accepted)
  3. abnormal science (crisis)
  4. revolution (new paradigm), back to 1
  • paradigms exclude each other (incommensurability)
  • change like a rift, in the middle of the night, no two paradigms at the same time
  • progress =| change (progress only within paradigm)
  • Kuhn says that theory-ladeness determines what there is (not just what I see compared to the objective facts)
  • > no access to objective facts
  • > not better, just different (new paradigm)

Problems:
- no way to compare paradigms to find consensus (gestalt switch) but: rejecting one means comparison judgement (even though we can’t compare)

-> dem. crit: having a paradigm (psychology then not really a science)

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14
Q

constructivism & relativism (Feyerabend)

A

traditions = Kuhns paradigms
traditions follow each other but are not better

against method: pro sciences, against monopoly of knowledge

anything goes: methodological anarchism

  • knowledge as a sea of alternatives
  • freedom of methodology in education

problems with relativism and constructivism:

  • Kuhn: compared paradigms although he can’t (incommensurability)
  • everything is relative, truth depends on paradigm (but should then be generally true) (contradiction of relativism)
  • science is not a democratic method, not the majority rules

pro relativism:

  • different background theories lead to different observations (rabbit duck example)
  • > find demarcation criterion instead of saving science from relativism
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15
Q

constructivism & relativism (Lakatos)

A

reaction to: save normativity of science, improve falsification as demarcation criterion of Popper
(popper not strong enough, Kuhn denied progress)

sophisticated falsificationism:
- dogmatic falsificationsim
-> problematic because of theory-ladeness of observation
- methodological falsificationism
=> problematic because is should not be theory vs experiment but theory vs theory vs empirical basis
- sophisticated falsificationsim

  • research programs
  • trying to stick to core of RP
  • incommensurability theses incorrect, we can compare Rps and we try to find out which are better (with heuristics)
  • positive and negative heuristics
  • progressive and degenerative RP
  • progressive: predicts more & successful. real RP and series of scientic theories

conclusion:

  • Kuhn and Feyerabend: relativists and constructivists (severe problems with these ideas)
  • Lakatos: attempt to make poppers falsificationism stronger, accept set of demarcation criteria
  • according to Kuhn: not a normative alternative to his views

Lakatos’ demarcation criteria:

  • working with a research program
  • should be progressive
  • abandon degenerative research programs

psychology a science?
not entirely clear:
what is a RP
is it progressive? -> replication crisis

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16
Q

Scientific realism, constructive empiricism, Pragmatism, Naturalism

A

reaction to: due to lakatos, science is the only source of knowledge. But still not justification for our beliefs

Scientific realism vs constructive empiricism

  • constructive empiricism says that there are many theories that are Empirically(!) just as accurate
  • anti- realists: study behavior (what can be seen) and not the psyche (what cannot be seen)

scientific realism are anti constructivists:
- main argument:
say something about the inner life of people (theory
informs us about unobservable reality)
scientific progress is possible
there are good reasons to believe that a theory is
true
- techniques: ?
- IOE/ IBE
IBE: good reasons to think that a theory is
approximately true
IOE: establish that something is the only explanation
based on parsimony, coherence with what we
already know, explanatory power
no miracles

  • argument against
    1. only adequate empirical prediction and you can
      ignore the explanation what unobservable domains
      causes the effect to happen
      -> is this really what scientists want?
    2. by accepting the best explanation you could
      accept the best out of many bad ones
      -> this gives too much credit to the sceptics. We
      have good reasons to believe that an accepted
      theory is true and there is always a small chance that
      it is not true and another explanation is true

problem: science uses general claims and those cannot be justified. sceptics say that this means that we cannot have knowledge
how to preceed? Why do we want to have knowledge? to act!

pragmatism vs scepticism:
- Peirce
- knowledge bound to action
- sure enough?
knowledge =| certain
- paper doubt/ living doubt (uncomfortable) -> fixate beliefs: 
    method of tenacy
    method of authority
    a priori method (subjective)
    scientific method (inependent of taste, applies to 
    everyone,

-> pragmatic maxim makes action possible
the opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth and the object represented in this theory is real. The scientific method will result in the long run in true beliefs
- this does not mean that knowledge is certain but it makes action possible
- knowledge is always provisonal

Naturalism: epistemology naturalized

  • not really a distinction between philosophy and science
  • we use science to study science
  • not justifying knowledge with a foundation
  • this is not a bad thing, we should look at science to learn about science
  • > the goal has changed, we want to know how people acquire knowledge about the world and how we make mistakes
  • > replace trad. epistemology with psychology

naturalized epistemology: replace trad. epistemology with the psychological study of how we reason
-> epistemology belongs to science (psychology)

  • skepticism? no! balance, good reasons to believe in science, always the possibility that you might be wrong
    we only abandon believes if we have better reasons to believe something else -> careful not to make mistakes

have to guts to ask if you could be wrong
look for possible reasoning errors (we might not be as rational as we think)

Philosophy of science (1 decks)

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