Contents
Chapter 1 ............................................................................................................................................. 2
Chapter 2 ............................................................................................................................................. 5
Chapter 3 ............................................................................................................................................. 8
Chapter 4 ........................................................................................................................................... 10
Chapter 5 ........................................................................................................................................... 12
Chapter 6 ........................................................................................................................................... 14
Chapter 7 ........................................................................................................................................... 16
Practicals............................................................................................................................................ 18
Back to Contents
, Chapter 1
Philosophy is an attempt to ask some very basic questions about the universe and our place within it.
Which kinds of activities count as “science”?
The demarcation problem.
o How to draw the boundaries between scientific ways of knowing and other
activities? The most certain example of science to us is physics. Some sciences, such
as economics as it is such a border case, are considered dismal sciences (Thomas
Carlyle). Other border region cases are archaeology and anthropology.
o Pseudoscience: claims/beliefs/practices which are incorrectly presented as scientific
Use of vague, ambiguous, or untestable concepts
Focus on confirmation
Disregard for contrary evidence
Lack of openness to testing by others
Absence of progress
The term ‘science.’
o Some people use ‘scientific’ to suggest that some activity is rigorous and hence
delivers results we should trust.
o Some people use ‘scientistic’ in order to express something negative (dehumanizing).
o Common usage of the term ‘scientific’ is partly descriptive, and partly normative.
A descriptive term or theory attempts to describe what actually goes on
without involving value judgments.
A normative term or theory involves value judgments about what should go
on, what is good.
Example of a term partly descriptive and partly normative: ‘disease.’
o Latin: scire = to know
o Up until the 17th century:
‘scientia’ > logical proof > geometry, mathematics.
‘natural philosophy’ > causality > physics and astronomy.
‘natural history’ > classification and the past > botany and zoology.
th
o Around the 17 Century the field that we now consider science rose under the name of
natural philosophy.
o Over time, ‘science’ came to be used for work with closer links to observation and
experiment.
Science is something that descends from specific people and places, and especially from a key
collection of Europeans, including Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Boyle, and Newton, who all
lived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
We try to develop
1. A general understanding of how humans gain knowledge of the world around them.
2. An understanding of what makes the work descended from the Scientific Revolution
different from other kinds of investigation of the world.
Within philosophy we can distinguish between:
Epistemological issues: questions about knowledge, evidence, rationality
Metaphysical issues: general questions about the nature of reality
Questions that are nor epistemological nor metaphysical
Back to Contents
Chapter 1 ............................................................................................................................................. 2
Chapter 2 ............................................................................................................................................. 5
Chapter 3 ............................................................................................................................................. 8
Chapter 4 ........................................................................................................................................... 10
Chapter 5 ........................................................................................................................................... 12
Chapter 6 ........................................................................................................................................... 14
Chapter 7 ........................................................................................................................................... 16
Practicals............................................................................................................................................ 18
Back to Contents
, Chapter 1
Philosophy is an attempt to ask some very basic questions about the universe and our place within it.
Which kinds of activities count as “science”?
The demarcation problem.
o How to draw the boundaries between scientific ways of knowing and other
activities? The most certain example of science to us is physics. Some sciences, such
as economics as it is such a border case, are considered dismal sciences (Thomas
Carlyle). Other border region cases are archaeology and anthropology.
o Pseudoscience: claims/beliefs/practices which are incorrectly presented as scientific
Use of vague, ambiguous, or untestable concepts
Focus on confirmation
Disregard for contrary evidence
Lack of openness to testing by others
Absence of progress
The term ‘science.’
o Some people use ‘scientific’ to suggest that some activity is rigorous and hence
delivers results we should trust.
o Some people use ‘scientistic’ in order to express something negative (dehumanizing).
o Common usage of the term ‘scientific’ is partly descriptive, and partly normative.
A descriptive term or theory attempts to describe what actually goes on
without involving value judgments.
A normative term or theory involves value judgments about what should go
on, what is good.
Example of a term partly descriptive and partly normative: ‘disease.’
o Latin: scire = to know
o Up until the 17th century:
‘scientia’ > logical proof > geometry, mathematics.
‘natural philosophy’ > causality > physics and astronomy.
‘natural history’ > classification and the past > botany and zoology.
th
o Around the 17 Century the field that we now consider science rose under the name of
natural philosophy.
o Over time, ‘science’ came to be used for work with closer links to observation and
experiment.
Science is something that descends from specific people and places, and especially from a key
collection of Europeans, including Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Boyle, and Newton, who all
lived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
We try to develop
1. A general understanding of how humans gain knowledge of the world around them.
2. An understanding of what makes the work descended from the Scientific Revolution
different from other kinds of investigation of the world.
Within philosophy we can distinguish between:
Epistemological issues: questions about knowledge, evidence, rationality
Metaphysical issues: general questions about the nature of reality
Questions that are nor epistemological nor metaphysical
Back to Contents
