PHILOSOPHY An introduction

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PHILOSOPHYAn introduction
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LECTURES

• I. What is in a Word?
• II. Virtues and Principles.
• III. Mind and Body.
• IV. Politics in a Globalizing World.
• V. Science and Society.
• VI. The Value of Beauty.

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V. SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
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• DEMARCATION
• What is the core business of the philosophy of
  science?
• 2. FALSIFICATION
• Are the philosophy of science and the history of
  sience compatible?
• 3. CONSTRUCTION
• To what extent is the sociology of science a
  radicalization of the philosophy and history of
  science?

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1. DEMARCATION

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SCIENCE AS A CONTESTED CONCEPT

• 1. The reference of this concepts is not always
  clear (example the debate between darwinists and
  creationists).
• 2. This concepts has a normative character
  (example the debate about reproductive cloning).
• 3. Some people use this concepts as a weapon
  (example the debate about the climate changes).

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SCIENCE AS OBJECT OF RESEARCH AND REFLECTION

• Philosophy of science the creation of and
  reflection on ideal models of science.
• History of science the study of the development
  of science.
• Sociology of science the study of what
  scientists do and how their actions are
  culturally embedded.

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THE IDEAL AND THE REAL

• The philosophy of science is more concerned with
  the ideal and the history and sociology of
  science with the real.
• The question What is good science? leads to the
  tension between how science is and how it should
  be.
• Nowadays the philosophy, history and sociology of
  science have a three-cornered relationship.

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TOWARDS CRITERIA OF DISTINCTIVENESS

• Central question of the philosophy of science
  what counts as being scientific?
• Cognitive demarcation how to distinguish
  scientific knowledge from other forms of
  knowledge?
• Social demarcation what is the difference
  between the social interactions of scientists and
  the social interactions of people who have
  another occupation?
• Are there any criteria to make these demarcations?

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STANDARD VIEW OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

• Vienna Circle gt a group of early 20th century
  philosophers who studied the sciences.
• Names Rudolf Carnap, Moritz Schlick and Otto
  Neurath.
• They articulated the standard view of scientific
  knowledge logical positivism.

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TWO KINDS OF MEANINGFUL STATEMENTS

• Analytical statements
• - are truth or untrue because of the meaning of
  the words (example A circle is round)
• - have an a priori character.
• - belong to the domain of logic, mathematics
  and philosophy.
• Synthetic statements
• - are truth or untrue when they are base upon
  the perception of the senses.
• - have an a posteriori character.
• - belong to the domain of the emprical sciences.

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VERIFICATION

• Metaphysics gt meaningless synthetic statements
  (example God exists).
• A criterion of demarcation the principle of
  verification gt if a statement is capable of being
  verified it is scientific, i.e. it must be
  possible to control via the senses whether a
  statement is truth.
• Induction the inferference of universal
  statements (theories and hypotheses) from
  singular statements (based on observations and
  experiences).
• Logical positivism gt science is based on
  empirical facts and logic.

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THEORIES

• Theories consist of universal statements.
• Theories help people to interprete or explain
  phenomena in the world.

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2. FALSIFICATION
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FROM INDUCTION TO DEDUCTION

• No scientific theory can ever be deduced from
  observation statements, or be described as a
  truth-function of observation statements.
• Karl Popper

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KARL POPPER (1902-1994)

• Main works
• Logik der Forschung (1934).
• The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945).
• Objective Knowledge (1972).

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TWO POINTS OF CRITICISM

• THE PROBLEM OF INDUCTION
• THE ILLUSION OF IMMEDIATE OBSERVATIONS, i.e.
  PERCEPTIONS WHO ARE NOT MEDIATED BY THEORIES

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THE PROBLEM OF INDUCTION

• Theories can never be inferred from observation
  statements, or rationally justified by them.
• Induction cannot be logically justified no
  matter how many white swans you observe, it does
  not justify you to conclude that all swans are
  white.
• There is no rockbottom of knowledge.

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OBSERVATION IN THE LIGHT OF THEORIES

• The inductivist prejudice there is a phenomenal
  language free of theories and different from a
  theoretical language.
• The ordinary language is full of theories.
• Observation is always observation in the light of
  theories.
• What one observes is determined by his or her
  previous experiences, knowledge and expectations.

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FALSIBIABILITY

• Science consists largely of problem solving and
  not on observation.
• Deduction replaces induction, i.e. singular
  statements (predictions) are deduced from a
  theory.
• The theory is scientific only if one can falsifiy
  it by a conceivable event.
• A theory is the best available theory until it is
  falsified and/or superseded by a better theory.
• Falsification subsitutes verification.

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THOMAS KUHN (1922-1996)

• Main works
• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962).
• The Essential Tension (1977).
• Black Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity
  (1978).

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE

• Philosophy of science how science ought to
  develop gt progress guaranteed by the scientific
  method.
• History of science how science really developed.
• Kuhn gt the development of a science is not
  uniform but has alternating normal and
  revolutionaryphases.

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NORMAL SCIENCE

• Normal science gt resembles the standard
  cumulative picture of scientific progress.
• Puzzle-solving the puzzle-solver expects to have
  a reasonable chance of solving the puzzle
  puzzles and their solutions are familiar and
  relatively straightforward.
• Normal science is cumulative and presupposes a
  strong commitment of the members of a scientific
  community to shared theories and practices.
• The tension between the desire for innovation and
  the necessary conservativeness of most scientists.

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REVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE

• Revolutionary science implies a revision of the
  existing scientific beliefs and practices and is
  not cumulative.
• Not all the achievements of the preceding period
  of normal science are preserved in a revolution.
• Anomalies are not anymore ignored or explained
  away.
• Crisis the accumulation of particularly
  troublesome anomalies caused serious problems for
  the existing theories and practices.
• There is a search for new theories and practices.

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PARADIGM

• Paradigm gt a common frame of reference and an
  exemplary way of doing research.
• New paradigm gt a new puzzle with another approach
  to solve it and based on a so-called
  Gestaltswith.
• Incommensurability gt theories which dont share a
  common measure gt different standards of
  evaluation, etc.

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3. CONSTRUCTION
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DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SCIENCES

• What are the differences between sciences?
• Double hermeneutics the object of the social
  sciences interpret itself.
• Are the sociale sciences more irrational, i.e.
  subjective than the natural sciences?

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RATIONALITY

• Irrationality is always an accusation made by
  someone building a network over someone else who
  stands in the way.
• Bruno Latour

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BRUNO LATOUR (1947)

• Main works
• Laboratory Life The Construction of Scientific
  Facts with Woolgar (1979).
• Science in Action (1987).
• Politics of Nature How to bring the Sciences
  into Democracy with LaTour and Porter (2004).

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ASPECTS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
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PANDORAS BOX

• Philosophy of science and history of science
  focuses on ready made science.
• Latour focuses on science in the making.
• One should open pandoras box.
• This makes clear that scientific facts are social
  constructions.

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SCIENCE IN ACTION

• Scientists are involved in controversies.
• The fate of the facts they present are in the
  hand of later users.
• To strengthen their statements they are in need
  of allies.
• They have to mobilize human and non-human beings
  to create strong associations.

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METHOD

• We study science in action and not ready made
  science or technology to do so, we either arrive
  before the facts and machines are blackboxed or
  we follow the controversies that reopen them.
• To determine the objectivity or subjectivity of a
  claim, the efficiency or perfection of a
  mechanism, we do not look for their intrinsic
  qualities but at all the transformations they
  undergo later in the hands of others.
• Since the settlements of a controversy is the
  cause of Natures representation, not its
  consequence, we can never use this consequence,
  Nature, to explain how an why a controversy has
  been settled.
• Since the settlement of a controversy is the
  cause of Societys stability, we cannot use
  Society to explain how and why a controversy has
  been settled. We should consider symmetrically
  the efforts to enrol human and non-human
  resources.

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ULRICH BECK

• Main works
• Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine andere
  Moderne (1986).
• Die Erfindung des Politischen (1993).
• Weltrisikogesellschaft (2007).

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THE WORLD RISK SOCIETY

• Social and economic progress is triggered by
  science and technology.
• The unintended consequences lead us to a second
  modernity.
• The problems we produced by ourselves reflect
  what is going on and induce reflection.
• The new risks change the relation between science
  and society.
• Paradox we need science and technology to solve
  the problems induced by science and technology.
• The perception and definition of risks are
  constitutive for politics.