L4 - Philosophy of science, p.2 Flashcards
Lecture’s overview
- what are norms worth if they fail to describe scientific practice?
~ paradigms
~ episemological anarchism
~ sophisticated falsificationsim - more recent philosphy of science
~ standpoint theory and values in science
~ hidden methodological principles in psychology
~ theory building and explanation
According to Popper, how do we progress in science?
- theories cannot be confirmed, only falsified
- we should strive to falsify as many theories as possible, to be left only with the ones that cannot be falsified
what is a problem with hard falsificationism?
! hard falsificationism is not possible !
- when we test a prediction we test the theory together with all sorts of background assumptions, so we can’t be sure that the theory should be falsified
- researchers first would criticize background assumptions, before taking into consideration the fact that the theory might be wrong
- how can Popper’s theory of falsificationism be described?
- why is it unreasonable?
- “prescriptive” (it’s about a rule that should be followed)
~ as a scientist, you have to do your best to falsify your own theory
~ this is similar to having bankers responsible for reducing their own bonuses → it doesn’t work! Too high of an expectation to put on scientists
Popper considers his theory as normative. What is the problem with that?
- normative theory: describes a rule (norm) that people (scientists) should follow
- it still should describe examples of what we consider “scientific successes”
~ if there’s no scientist following these rules, this would make Popper’s theory a bad description of science
→ therefore, we ask whether falsificationsim is historically accurate
- Who is Thomas Kuhn?
> How is he related to Popper?
- historian, 1922-1996
- he wants to find in science a set of rules that is typically used throughout, and that can count as rules that describe science
! he does not find such set of rules to describe science → coins paradigms
~ he is the first scientist analysing the theory of falsificationism, and whether it really works
- what is Thomas Kuhn known for?
- what is his view on positivism?
- paradigm shifts
- “theories often break with their predecessors” → against positivism
- “science is not as the logical positivists claim”
what are Kuhn’s main points?
- agreed with Popper about the priority of theory over observation
- all observations and theoretical concepts depended on the language of the adopted theory
- emphasized the pressure to keep individual scientists within the confines of the prevailing research tradition (researchers must adhere to conventions)
what is a Paradigm?
- in different times, people are trained in a certain tradition, and this tradition forms a world view on how to do things
- this all-encompassing world view is a paradigm
~ paradigms shift through time, there is no fixed set of rules that scientists should follow
how does a paradigm shift happens?
- when you are in a paradigm, you work and progress in science (= puzzle solving)
- at some points you will start to encounter little things (anomalies) that contrast a bit the paradigm
- when you encounter many anomalies, that leads to a crisis
- only through a scientific revolution, we reach a sudden shift in paradigm
! paradigms shift very gradually !
~ even meanings of words can change with a paradigm shift
~ e.g. from Newton to Einstein, the meaning of “time” changed (became relative)
- Does science progress gradually?
- how did that change from positivism?
! debatable
- we do have sudden paradigm shifts brought upon by revolutions
- we do gradually build up knowledge within the paradigm, but at some point something can happen which can lead the whole world view to change (the shift)
- therefore, is it really a continuum or do we start from scratch every time the paradigm changes? → we would have a new reference point
~ in positivism, it was clearly gradual because through falsification, we can add new knowledge onto prior knowledge
the stages of science, according to Kuhn
(+ explanation and example)
- instead of comulative progress, Kuhn proposes different stages of science:
-
Pre-science
~ there is no general way of doing things yet -
Normal science (I)
~ we start building rules and training new scientists with those rules (puzzle-solving) -
Anomalies and crisis
~ (e.g.) Newton couldn’t explain the orbit of Mercury, +… -
Revolution
~ (e.g.) relativity theory was proposed → led to new rule -
Normal science (II)
~ new things can be explained, and new rules are formed
what is Puzzle-solving?
- term used by Kuhn to indicate normal science
→ this is because researchers work on familiar topics using well-known techniques and practices - they have confidence that they will be able to solve the puzzles with the available tools
what does a paradigm determine?
- what is to be observed and scrutinised
- which questions should be asked
- how the questions are to be structured
- how the results of scientific investigarions should be interpreted
so, does Kuhn believe in progress over paradigms?
- not entirely clear (not guaranteed by the scientific method)
- if reference point / standard changes all the time, can we really talk about progress?
~ his book, “the structure of scientific revolutions”, is the single most widely cited book in social sciences
~ now the term “paradigm” is very widely used, in all fields
What new school emerges through Kuhn?
- Relativism
~ we can’t evaluate science, or its progress, because it is relative only to that paradigm
~ the terms change, and so does their meaning in theories
→ those theories are not even about the same thing
→ in another paradigm you see another world
To explain relativism, how would Aristotle vs Galileo see a pendolum?
- Pendolums did not exist at the time of Aristotle, so he would focus on the motion of such object
~ e.g. there is an object that is prevented from falling by a string - at the time they also believed that heavy bodies were moved from a higher position to a state of natural rest, a lower one.
- Galileo instead would describe the function, as pendolums existed in his time and he knew what they were used for
what stage is psychology in, now?
- in psychology it is a bit trickier to come up with all-encompassing world views such Kuhn described
- the paradigms in psychology are more local and mostly methodological
~ e.g. behaviorism could be considered a paradigm
~ now, some say that we are in a neurological paradigm, because we focus mostly on the brain
Evidence Based Medicine as a current paradigm
- why?
- Miriam Solomon argues that Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) can be seen as a traditional Kuhnian paradigm
~ randomized controlled trials, systematic reviews, meta analysis
~ it is a social movement with associated institutions, textbooks, courses and journals
~ it is a general philosophy of medicine, defining both the questions of interest and what counts as appropriate evidence
~ it’s driven by successful exemplars (“concrete puzzle solutions”); they provide examples that can replace explicit rules
→ you can learn by example and training
! EBM is very important, but it might work better in combination with other methods that focus on other things
Epistemological Anarchism
- who was the first person?
- Feyerabend starts with physics and goes into history of science (Vienna)
- Cooper becomes his mentor, and Feyerabend is at first very positivist
- changes doctrine → “we should get rid of all rules”
what is Feyerabend known for?
- what were his main arguments?
~ writes book “Against Method”
- he denies the existence of methodological guidelines ensuring progress in science
- it is essential for scientific process that everything is permitted
~ “you need a toolbox full of different kinds of tools. Not only a hammer and pins and nothing else”
- sudden discoveries can justify something that was already assumed (e.g. tower argument)
Feyerabend’s Tower argument
- in the past, when the eliocentric model of the universe was proposed, evidence against it was that if you throw a stone from a tower, it falls straight down and not away as it would happen if the earth was really moving
- actually, later we found other explanations for the these observations, namely that the stone falls straight down because the earth, tower and air move together
~ Feyerabend argues that Galileo was a great scientist because he was stubborn, he wanted to go against complaints and went forward with his research despite the evidence against it at the time
how was Feyerabend described?
- look at picture 1
(you don’t need to know it, but it’s a nice text that will help you remember what Feyerabend thought and brought forward in the scientific field)
Sophisticated Falsificationism
- who started it?
- Lakatos
~ student of Popper
~ tries to save the rationality of science from Kuhn’s relativism and Feyerabend’s anarchism
what does Lakatos say about Popper’s falsificationism?
- what did that lead to?
“from a logical point of view, it is quite possible to play the game of science according to Popper’s rules… The only problem is that it has never happened in this way”
→ Lakatos combines: normative elements of Popper’s philosophy + descriptive elements of Kuhn’s philosophy
→ falsification (normative theory) + actual science (descriptive theory)
What is sophisticated falsificationism?
- more nuanced falsificationism
- direct falsification is very rare:
~ scientists do not usually give up their theories so easily, but will switch when they have a better theory - there is still a role for falsification (e.g. demarcation), but it is not a descriptive principle
Lakatos’ research programmes
- what are the characteristics?
- they can exist close to each other
- you can move from one program to the other
what are the components of Laktos’ reserarch programmes?
(+ their characteristics)
- core (cannot be changed)
- beliefs (associated to each research program)
- positive heuristics (helps program move forward)
~ when testing a theory, if something doesn’t go right with the predictions, we can change something in the beliefs around the core - negative heuristic (you can’t revise the core)
~ research program might slow down, and people might be convinced to move to another research program
(see picture 2)
How can Lakatos’ research programmes be applied to the concept of general intelligence (g)?
- core: g exists
~ empirical tests show that the correlation matrix between cognitive tasks in IQ test is not unidimensional - negative heuristic: we do not reject g
- positive heuristic: we change the model a bit and make it hierarchical (g is not the direct cause of IQ scores, but there are lower-order factors that mediate these effects)
What are the two possible types of research programmes?
- introduced by Lakatos
- Progressive
- Degenerative
