PPT Week 37

Question 1

What is ontology?

Answer 1

The study of what IS, what exists?
Do trees exist? Or only my perception of them ?
Do companies really exist? In what sense? Are companies the brand, the people, the building, etc?

Question 2

What is epistemology?

Answer 2

Epistemology is about knowledge. It’s the study of what we KNOW
What kind of knowledge we can have, how it relates fo reality, how we can be certain of our knowledge

Question 3

The linguistic turn

Answer 3

Is this true? Linguistic turn. I.e. a ball is red

Science consists of linguistic propositions, not objects in reality. Propositions can be true or false

Question 4

What are the 2 kinds of propositions?

Answer 4

Analytic: true or false by definition (linguistic analysis)
(I.e the circle is round)

Synthetic: true or false by observation (empirical observation)
(I.e. this circle is 10 cm in diameter)

Question 5

What are the 2 underlying assumptions of logical positivism ?

Answer 5

Good science consists of 2 kind of propositions:

• analytical propositions (logical truth)
• synthetic propositions (empirical truth)

Question 6

What is the goal of logical positivism?

Answer 6

Demarcation: how do we draw the line between science and pseudo science ?

This is a normative question, not a descriptive question
Not: how does science work in practice ?
Rather: how should science work?

Logical positivism gives a method to verify what is science. Propositions must be either logically or empirically provable. If the prove is not there, the knowledge is not verified

Question 7

What does logical reducability mean ?

Answer 7

It means that scientific knowledge should always be reducible fo the building blocks:
Analytical propositions (logically verifiable) + synthetic propositions (empirically verifiable)

Question 8

What is the unity of science?

Answer 8

Unity of science is something logical positivists aim towards. It’s a common scientific language: one big building of knowledge
All scientists use the same language and use each other’s empirical observations

Question 9

What is the problem with logical positivism?

Answer 9

1. The concepts aren’t always directly observable
   I.e. the concept of “recession”

Synthetic statements about abstract concepts must be deductible to observable propositions
To make that work, we need good definitions

2. the problem of induction (observing all swans and concluding that all swans are white) this is not valid logic. The idea that synthetic knowledge must be verifiable though observation is impossible

Question 10

What are the 2 ways to define a concept?

Answer 10

Intensional definition: the conditions that a thing has to meet in order to be counted as an instance of the concept
I.e. a period of at least 2 quarters in which the economy shrinks

Extensional definition: the collection of instances to which concept refers
I.e. 2008-2009, 2001-2004, 1991-1993