PHIL220 Midterm Flashcards
B: View on Science
- socially reorganize science
- more appropriate set of values are most influential
- help to achieve more objective results
B:Key Idea
- Epistemological practices (e.g. evidence gathering) that are more objectively good than others
- essential for addressing moral concerns
B: Science Wars
- battle between subjective and objective ways of science
- extreme views are hopeless
- Brown says there needs to be middle ground
B: Norm of Total Evidence
when deciding to believe/promote hypothesis:
- consider all relevant evidence
- don’t suppress any evidence
- don’t decide soeley on partial evidence
B: Norm of Anecdotal Evidence
when deciding to follow up a challenge to your hypothesis:
- properly consider anecdotal evidence
- attend to preliminary results, not just large scale results
B: Norm of Testing Rivals
when deciding to believe/promote hypothesis:
-test against any promising rivals beforehand
B: Norm of Appropriate Study Subjects
when enrolling subjects to test hypothesis:
- ensure subjects chosen are relevant to hypothesis
- e.g. age specific, sex specific etc.
Logical Positivism (General)
- c.1900 - 1950
- attempt to defend possibility of objective evidence
- more generally, objectivity of science
- Ernst Mach (inspiration)
LP: Vienna Circle
- 1907-1912
- contained mathematicians, social scientists, physicists
- disgusted by racism, bigotry, nationalism
LP View on Philosophy
found current (1900s) philosophy to be
- pretentious
- obscure
- dogmatic
- politically harmful
Dogmatism
- catholic church dark ages of severe oppression
- scientific revolution aided
- dogmatism harms (through obscurity and pretension) leads people to believe things that would harm greater good
- e.g. intolerance for different ethnicity
LP were Against
- nationalism
- intolerance
- fascism
- violence
- dogma
- obscurity
LP were For
- Diversity
- Tolerance
- Peace
- Clarity
- Democratic social rule
- Open critique and dialogue
LP Critical Aspects
- rejects all speculative philosophy
- e.g. metaphysics, religion
- seems to lack literal meaning
LP Positive Aspects
- promotes empiricists view of knowledge
- science is supreme
- philosophy is only to clarify logic for justification in science
LP Attacked Speculative Philosophy
- existence of god
- souls
- objects
- transcendent spirit
Logical Empiricism
- salvaged scientific objectivity (from LP)
- emerged 1930s/1940s as LP faded
- Carl Hempel helped turn LP to LE
Empiricism
experience is necessary for having knowledge
-(not sufficient)
LE Questions
How CAN science work?
How SHOULD science work?
LE Theories
can and should posit ONLY observable entities
LE Evidence & Justification
- can and should ONLY involve logic and observations
- be objective
Strict forms of Empiricism
- privileges special kind of experience
- directly perceived sense data = perceptions
- you only know what you directly sense
Recent Empiricists
- still require experience for knowledge
- don’t limit what we know to direct perceptions
- can’t know non-observable
Logical Empiricists
- agnostic -> silent about whether unobservables exist or we can know they do
- can talk about, only out of utility