Philosophy 8 Midterm

Example of a deductive argument

all men are mortal+ socrates is a man= socrates is mortal

What are some types of inductive arguments

enumerative and adductive

What is an abductive inference

explanatory induction- evidence that supports but doesn't ever confirm a theory

How is "grue" defined?

green if first observed before 2020, blue if first observed after 2020

How does Goodman's definition of "grue" generate a problem for the justification of induction? What challenge does it raise?

grue works in both deductive and inductive arguments. Goodman claimed that whether or not a term contains a reference in time, or is defined in terms of time is a language relative manner

What happens during a scientific revolution

occur when one paradigm replaces another

What is it for a statement to be a posteriori

requires sense experience to know

What is enumerative induction

simple inductions- swans example

What is it for a statement to be a priori

things known independently of experience

Give an example of a "meaningless" statement. Why is it meaningless

"Boiling a baby in hot water is wrong"- ethics questions, no way to truly verify them

How do analytic claims allow for non-mysterious a priori knowledge

Because the knowledge is in the objects definition, is innate

What is the problem with synthetic a priori knowledge

In order to know a synthetic claim, you must have a sensory experience (sight, sound etc) which is contrary to the a priori statements

How does Karl Popper's project differ from the project of the logical positivists

Popper's primary aim was to understand science as opposed to the logical positivists' development of their theory of science as part of a general theory of language meaning knowledge

Examples of synthetic statements

The President of the US is Barack Obama, the Los Angeles Dodgers are from Brooklyn, physics is a difficult subject

What is a paradigm

a whole way of doing science in some particular field. package of claims about the world, methods for gathering and analyzing data, and habits for scientific thought and action

What are the primary doctrines of logical positivism?

analytic synthetic distinction & verification theory of meaning

What is it for a statement to be analytic?

are true or false simply in virtue of their meaning, regardless of how the world happens to be

Examples of analytic statements

bachelors are unmarried, triangles have three sides

Why is the solution to the problem not as simple as just pointing out that the grue-based induction expects a change whereas the green-based induction does not

because it is not necessarily true that the green based induction doesn't require change

Is there any vagueness in what the theory of verification really means? what is it?

definition of verification- really means testability. It leaves out all statements of ethics that cannot be answered by true or false but instead right or wrong. Also an issue of whether or not something must be able to be verified now, or simply that we know of a way we could verify it if given the proper ethnology

What is the difference between a descriptive account of scientific practice and a prescriptive account? Which is Popper plausibly giving

descriptive-attempt to describe what actually goes on or what something is like without making value judgements prescriptive- makes value judgements to argue what should go on or should be like Popper is prescriptive

What is the problem of induction

false premises, you can make anything work

What is Popper's view of induction

he was skeptical, didn't believe observational evidence could confirm a theory

How is holism about confirmation a threat to the verification theory of meaning

holism is a criticism to the verification theory of meaning. It threatened the method of looking at a single sentence as enough to consider it true or false

What is holism about confirmation

holism is to understand a particular thing by looking at its place in the larger whole. the idea is that you cannot test a single idea or sentence in isolation. You test complex networks of claims and assumptions

What are some problems with Popper's view

if an unexpected result is observed, you can blame an assumption rather than a theory itself

What is in practice vs in principle variability? What motivates this distinction

in practice refers to the ability to test/verify something right now whereas in principle refers to the ability for verification at some point in time with not yet made technology. The distinction is motivated by time

What is the difference between induction and deduction

induction- theory of arguments that provide support for their conclusions but do not give the kind of guarantee found in deductive logic deduction- patterns of argument that transmit truth with certainty

What problems arise in the verification theory of meaning

its overly simplistic, sentences that challenge views can often be thrown aside as meaningless simply because they aren't testable

What is the verification theory of meaning

knowing the meaning of a sentence is knowing how to verify it

How does Popper think that the scientific method works if it does not use induction?

need a theory->deduce an observational prediction from it->check to see if prediction comes out as theory says it will-> if prediction fails, we have refuted/falsified the theory-> if the prediction is successful, all we can say is we have not yet falsified the theory

What is the Demarcation Problem

problem of distinguishing science from non-science. solution lay in falsificationism, hypotheses is scientific iff it has the potential to be refuted by some possible observation

How does one confirm a hypothesis according to the H-D view?

put the hypothesis into deductive form and test it

Example of an inductive argument

swan arguments- you see 100 swans which are white so you induce that all swans are white

What is bold conjecture according to Popper

takes a lot of risk by making novel predictions

What is a reason for thinking there is some synthetic a priori knowledge

technically, there are some synthetic claims you could think through even without sense experience #thoughtexperiment Think triangles angles summing to 180

What are reasons for thinking that the H-D view cannot correctly represent what it takes to confirm a hypothesis?

the idea of inclusive or prevents H-D from correctly representing what it takes to confirm a hypothesis

What reasons would positivists have had for thinking there is no synthetic a priori knowledge

they thought a priori knowledge could only be analytic. i.e. geometry, there is still a distinction between the synthetic and analytic parts where the analytic parts are the only ones that are a priori

What attractions does the verification of meaning theory view have

things that end up being difficult to define/explain end up being said as meaningless when they cannot be tested.

What are some (plausible) examples of a priori knowledge

triangles have three sides,

What is it for a statement to be synthetic?

true or false in virtue of both the meaning of the sentence and how the world actually is