Philosophy of Science Final

Salmon

Subsumption, the causal model.

Dallow

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Laws in Social Sciences

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physical theory and experiment

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Pragmatic Model

An alternative model to causal and the covering law models. The flagpole model with the burried treasure at the end. This is pragmatic because the purpose or goal or context, is an inherent part of any explanation. Often associated with van Fraassen.

Kuhn

Historicism. Paradigms. recognizing large anomalies, modifying them, not modifying the paradigm, they are radically restructuring the paradigm in a gradual way.

falsificationism

Karl Popper. making conjectures and attempting to falsify them. only then can they be proved. A hypothesis passing a test is only corroborating evidence. Versimilitude (getting closer to the truth) We can never know if a hypothesis is true.

The Actual Scientific Method

Some concern about X, we collect data, make a hypothesis, test hypothesis (nature decides) hypothesis can be either falsified or verified. Sets of hypotheses lead to scientific theories.

Norman Hanson

Theory-ladenness of observation holds that everything one observes is interpreted through a prior understanding of other theories and concepts. Whenever we describe observations, we are constantly utilizing terms and measurements that our society has adopted. Therefore, it would be impossible for someone else to understand these observations if they are unfamiliar with, or disagree with, the theories that these terms come from.

Criticisms of the Causal Model

Whether or not what is at hand is statistacally relevant.

The Scientific Method

Written by Dallow. Human beings are inherently inquisitive. Meant to lead to great truth. Empiricists believe that knowledge claims to have to be found in observable methods/proof. All claims about the world must be related to observational evidence.

Theory of Incommensurability

a universal property that defines the relationship between successive paradigms

duhem's problem

after Pierre Duhem and Willard Van Orman Quine) is that it is impossible to test a scientific hypothesis in isolation, because an empirical test of the hypothesis requires one or more background assumptions (also called auxiliary assumptions or auxiliary hypotheses). The hypothesis in question is by itself incapable of making predictions. Instead, deriving predictions from the hypothesis typically requires background assumptions that several other hypotheses are correct; for example, that an experiment worked as designed or that previous scientific knowledge was accurate. For instance, as evidence against the idea that the Earth is in motion, some people noted that birds did not get thrown off into the sky whenever they let go of a tree branch. Later theories of physics and astronomy could account for this fact while also positing a moving Earth.

Antireductionism, (Jerry Fodor)

Argues that regardless of the generality of physics, it does not necessarily follow that all sciences are reducible to physics. He uses the term "special sciences" to talk of these other sciences and argues that they do not have the same content, methods, or aims of physics and, hence, are not reducible to physics. The behavior of higher level things (such as human economic exchanges) are not causally determined or physically captured by the behavior of lower-level ones. BRIDGE LAWS: laws that define the items in the higher-level science in terms of items in the lower-level science. That is, these laws serve as a bridge between the two sciences by showing how the items from the one can be defined to the items of the other. FODOR: argues token physicalism. that the kinds, or natural kinds, that different sciences deal with are not all reducible to physical kinds that physics deals with. For example, one such kind in economics is monetary exchange. But the laws of economics that describe the behaviors of monetary exchange cannot, he says, be defined (reduced, characterized by) the natural kinds that belong to physics. Monetary exchange is not about specific physical objects being exchange. Dollars are abstract entities even if dollar bills are concrete physical objects. Laws about money exchange are about dollars, not dollar bills.

observation and measurement

Basic to whatever counts as science; necessary conditions for anything to be considered scientific. Often these two elements of science are taken as fundamental to science. Not only in the sense of being necessary but also in hte sene of being the starting point for scientific practice. Many people see them as being independent of the later elements of science, such as models and theories.

PRO Reductionism ( Paul Oppenheim and Hilary Putnam)

Believe that reductionism should be thought of as a working hypothesis for scientists. UNITY OF LANGUAGE: the terms and concepts of one science can be replaced by the terms and concepts of another more basic science, and still have everything in the first science accounted for. IE reducing the concept of light to the concept of electromagnetic radiation and understand that whenever we use the term "LIGHT" we are actually just referring to electromagnetic radiation. UNITY OF LAWS: both the terms and laws of the first science can be translated as it were, into laws of the more basic science (but not vice versa) An example would be the reduction of Kepler's laws about planetary motion could be formulated as just an example of Newton's laws about motion..

Covering Law Model

Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim. Deductive-Nomological model. Two explanans (the conditions to be explored and explained) and then an explanandum (event explained) Example would be: Metals conduct electricity. This rod is copper (a metal) So, this rod conducts electricity. Think deductive logic. There is also the Inductive-Statistical argument structure. Think inductive argument. In addition, Hempel and Oppenheim seem to claim that there must be one final correct scientific explanation; there cannot be multiple correct scientific explanations.

Interpretavism

Collingwood- interpretavists reject the idea that explanations in the social sciences are fundamentally similar to those in the physical sciences. History (sociology, political science, etc) have insides and outsides. Physical sciences, chemistry, physics, biology. The outsides of events consists of everything belonging to them that can be described in terms of bodies or their movements. The insides of events can be described only in terms of the thoughts of the agent responsible for the events. Human behavior requires an account of both the bodily motions as well as the beliefs. For example, the physical description of one person cutting another with a knife does not distinguish an act of surgery from an assault. A more detailed physical description of the outside may provide clues that will help understand the intention of the cutter, but until such intentions are understood, we do not really know why the action occurred.

Criticisms of Kuhn

Imre Lakatos. Lakatos thought scientists always work in the context of competing rival research programs, not simply under a single paradigm, and, in addition, he thought that science should never become guided by a single dominant paradigm because progress means progress relative to rivlas.

Explanation in the Social Sciences: Interpretivism

Interpretive theories, sometimes referred to as interpretivism or philosophical interpretivism, are orientations to social reality based on the goal of understanding. Thus, we can define interpretive theories as ontological and epistemological tools used in research concerned with understanding how individuals and groups create meaning in their everyday practices, communication, and lived experiences. Loosely speaking, interpretivists are (a) scholars who are interested in the ways communities, cultures, or individuals create meaning from their own actions, rituals, interactions, and experiences; (b) scholars who wish to interpret local meanings by locating them into a broader historical, geographical, political, linguistic, ideological, economic, and cultural milieu; (c) researchers who look at the meanings of texts and the codes and rules

Criticisms of inductivism

Popper postulates that evidence can be found anywhere a scientist looks. The white swan parable. Based upon probability. Problem of infinite regress.

Garfinkel "Explanation Seeks Its Own Level"

Reduction: one theory reduces another if it enables us to "accomplish the same purposes" as the other. Reducibility turns on what the crucial purposes are.

Science and Values: "The Traditional View"

Science is value neutral. Moral values concern the appraisal of something as right or wrong. The distinction between good science and bad science is sometimes said to be in part a function of science being as value-free as possible. Nicholas Rescher argues that moral values are inherent in multiple aspects of scientific research, such as the choice of research goals, standards of proof, dissemination of research findings, and allocation of credit for research achievements. He claims that values are inescapable as a part of science and that they are not inconsistent with the practice and assessment of good science.

Criticisms of the Covering Law Model

Sylvain Bromberger proposed the flag-pole example. here a vertical flagpole of a certain height stands on a flat level piece of ground. the sun is at a ertain elevation resulting in the flagpole castin ga shadow of a certain length. Given these particular facts, along with a law of rectilinear propagation of light, the length of the shadow can be deduced, in line with the covering law model. Yet no one, would seriously suggest that the flagpole's height is explained by the length of its shadow (even if it could be predicted by the length of its shadow)

The role of induction in scientific inquiry

The story of the women dying because of cadaveric material. The doctors thought that either the ward or the position when giving birth had an influence on the outcome of the baby. Based in empirical findings. We make hypotheses and then alter them based upon our findings.

Causal Model

Wesley Salmon. Subsumption. Particular facts are explained by subsuming them under general laws, while general regularities are explained by subsumption under still broader laws. The Causal model identifies the cause(s) of some phenomenon as the explanation of it and insists on the importance of causally relevant phenomena, though critics have questioned the clarity of both the notion of causation and relevance.

Ontological Reduction

one kind of phenomenon is shown to be really an instance of another, more basic, kind of phenomenon. Particular kinds of phenomena are said to actually be instances of other kinds of phenomena. What makes it ontological is that we take it to be true that water just is H20 independent of whether or not we discovered that fact; it is something true about this world.

Epistemological reduction

the reduction of the various sorts of concepts, models, theories, and so on that scientists use to explore and explain phenomena. the various sorts of these can themselves be reduced to the concepts, models, theories, and so on that scientists use to explore and explain phenomena can themselves be reduced to the concepts, models, theories, and so on of the more basic sciences. Newtons laws of motion can be reduced to Kepler's laws of the motion of the planets in our solar system. A REDUCTION OF ONE MODEL OR SET OF LAWS TO ANOTHER MODEL OR SET OF LAWS.

Reductionism

the view that the higher level sciences (biology/psychology) can be explained in terms of the lower level science.One theory being reduced to another kind of thing. Example, water just is H2O. In other words, one kind of thing: chemical molecules with certain features really is another kind of thing: chemical molecules with certain features (quite unlike the features we usually associate with the everyday fluid).

criticisms of falsificationism

we never test a hypothesis in isolation. falsificationism isn't conclusive. Stellar paralax. What is ad hoc? Altering a theory to save it. Not conclusive.

Hempel

writes the role of induction in scientific inquiry.