Philosophy of Science- this presentation is all about the definition of science and philiosphy and the different philosophies of science.

2. Classical Middle
Ages
Modern

3. Today’s topic outline:
Definition of Philosophy
Definition of Science
 Divisions/Branches of Philosophy
Philosophies of Science

4. Prepared by:
Abegail L. Gonzales, PhD, LPT

5. Mentimeter.com
Code: 83352037

6.  love of wisdom
 activity people undertake when
they seek to understand
fundamental truths about
themselves, the world in which they
live, and their relationships to the
world and to each other.

7.  rational, abstract, and methodical
consideration of reality as a whole or
of fundamental dimensions of
human existence and experience.

8. Mentimeter.com
Code: 83352037

9.  the intellectual and practical
activity encompassing the
systematic study of the structure
and behaviour of the physical and
natural world through observation
and experiment.

10.  is the pursuit and application of
knowledge and understanding of
the natural and social world
following a systematic methodology
based on evidence.

11.  Sciences are
also particular areas of science,
such as biology, chemistry,
and physics.

12. What is the
difference between
philosophy and
science?

13. o Science gave philosophy a way of empirically
testing theories and concepts
o Philosophy has helped to develop
the scientific method used today
o It also dictates what areas science can and
cannot test, delineating the boundary between
physical and metaphysical questions.

14. DIVISIONS/BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy
Logic Ethics Epistemology Metaphysics

15. o Logic is the study of the
principles of correct
reasoning.
o making claims and
backing them up with
reasons, acting in accord
with reasons and beliefs,
drawing inferences from
available evidence, and so
on.

16. o Is a process for making a
conclusion and a tool that
can be used.
 The foundation of a logical
argument is its proposition, or
statement.
 The proposition is either accurate
(true) or not accurate (false).
 Premises are the propositions used
to build the argument.
 The argument is then built on
premises.
 Then an inference is made from the
premises.
 Finally, a conclusion is drawn.

17. Definition of Logic in Philosophy
Logic is a branch of philosophy.
There are different schools of thought
on logic in philosophy, but the typical
version is called classical elementary
logic or classical first-order logic. In
this discipline, philosophers try to
distinguish good reasoning from bad
reasoning.

18. Definition of Logic in Philosophy
Logic is also an area of
mathematics. Mathematical
logic uses propositional variables,
which are often letters, to
represent propositions.

19. Informal logic is what’s typically used in daily
reasoning. This is the reasoning and arguments
you make in your personal exchanges with
others.
TYPES OF LOGIC

20. Examples:
Premises: Nikki saw a black cat on her way to
work. At work, Nikki got fired.
Conclusion: Black cats are bad luck.
Explanation: This is a big generalization and can’t
be verified.
Premises: There is no evidence that penicillin is
bad for you. I use penicillin without any problems.
Conclusion: Penicillin is safe for everyone.
Explanation: The personal experience here or lack
of knowledge isn’t verifiable.

21. Formal Logic
In formal logic, you use deductive
reasoning and the premises must be
true. You follow the premises to
reach a formal conclusion.

22. Premises: Every person who lives in Quebec lives
in Canada. Everyone in Canada lives in North
America.
Conclusion: Every person who lives in Quebec
lives in North America.
Explanation: Only true facts are presented here.
Premises: Bicycles have two wheels. Jan is riding
a bicycle.
Conclusion: Jan is riding on two wheels.
Explanation: The premises are true and so is the
conclusion.

23. Symbolic Logic
Symbolic logic deals with how symbols
relate to each other. It assigns symbols to
verbal reasoning in order to be able to
check the veracity of the statements
through a mathematical process. You
typically see this type of logic used in
calculus.

24. Propositions: If all mammals feed their babies
milk from the mother (A). If all cats feed their
babies mother’s milk (B). All cats are
mammals(C). The Ʌ means “and,” and the ⇒
symbol means “implies.”
Conclusion: A Ʌ B ⇒ C
Explanation: Proposition A and proposition B
lead to the conclusion, C. If all mammals feed
their babies milk from the mother and all cats
feed their babies mother’s milk, it implies all cats
are mammals.

25. Mathematical Logic
In mathematical logic, you apply
formal logic to math. This type of logic
is part of the basis for the logic used in
computer sciences. Mathematical logic
and symbolic logic are often used
interchangeably.

26. o the branch of knowledge
that deals with moral
principles.
o ethics refers to well-
founded standards of right
and wrong that prescribe
what humans ought to do,
usually in terms of rights,
obligations, benefits to
society, fairness, or
specific virtues

27. o theory of knowledge
o investigates the origin, nature
and methods and limits of
human knowledge and truth

28. "What is knowledge?"
"How is knowledge acquired?“
“What do people know?"
"How do we know what we know?

29. o branch of philosophy that
studies the first principles of
being, identity and change,
space and time, causality,
necessity and possibility. It
includes questions about the
nature of consciousness and the
relationship between mind and
matter.

30. o field of philosophy that is
generally focused on how
reality and the universe began.
Example:
A study of God versus the Big
Bang theory
o Philosophers sometimes say
that metaphysics is the study of
the ultimate nature of the
universe.

31. History
of the
Philosophy of
Science

32. Aristotle's Empiricism vs Plato's Forms
Plato - humanity was born with an innate
knowledge of everything, and that
learning was a process of unlocking
the memories.
- everything had a perfect potential
abstract form, and that any knowledge
gained through observation and
experiment was filtered by the senses.
- Empirical knowledge was mere opinion.
And that pure knowledge could be
advanced by deduction alone.

33. Aristotle
 knowledge could only be gained by
comparing it with what was already
known and perceived
 He believed that inductive
reasoning was required to establish
some basic premises before scientific
demonstrations.

34. Plato Aristotle
1. Truth was something
abstract.
Truth was something concrete.
2. If something is true, it must
ALWAYS be true.
Something does not have to be
always true.
3. You could not find truth in
the world, truth resided in
the Realm of Forms
The truth was the world all around us.
4. Plato wanted big truths:
 the perfect form of cat
 the perfect form of
justice
 the perfect form of
goodness
Aristotle preferred to collect little
truths:
I fell out of bed
+ the cat fell from the tree
+ the rock fell down the
mountain
________________________________________
THINGS FALL

35. idea
of deductive
reasoning
emerged!

36. Deduction
 method of reasoning in which a
conclusion is logically reached from
premises.
Example:
if we know the current relative
positions of the moon, sun, and Earth,
as well as exactly how these move with
respect to one another, we
can deduce the date and location of the
next solar eclipse.

37. Induction
 method of reasoning in which a
generalization is argued to be true
based on individual examples that
seem to fit with that generalization.
Example: after observing that trees,
bacteria, sea anemones, fruit flies, and
humans have cells, one
might inductively infer that all organisms
have cells.

38. Beyond the Greeks
Romans did not have too much of a
contribution to the philosophy of
science

39. The Islamic Contribution to the
History of the Philosophy of Science
 preserved the philosophical knowledge
of the Ancient Greek philosophers,
adding to it techniques and philosophies
learned from the Vedics in India

40. Ibn-Sina (980 - 1037)
 also known as Avicenna
 He believed that
general and universal
questions were the
first stage,
and experiments
uncovered the truth.

41. Ibn al-Haytham
 first scholar to define the
modern scientific method
 He also pointed out that
scientists should not
regard themselves
as infallible, and that they
should be open to
criticism.

42. Al-Biruni
 first philosopher to
understand the
importance
of errors within
scientific
experimentation.
 repeated
experimentation
was the only way to
neutralize these
inaccuracies

43. The Renaissance
collaboration of science and religion
continued, in an attempt to understand
the nature of reality

44. Francis Bacon
 first philosopher in the
history of the philosophy of
science to realize that pure
Aristotelian methods taught
scientists nothing about the
universe, finding answers for
observed phenomena, but
lacking the great leaps made
by Platonist thought.
Father of
Empiricism/Scientific
Method
 redesigned the scientific method to
utilize a largely induction based
philosophy.

45.  idea of experimental science the
basis of induction.
 he proposed that an experiment
should be designed around two
discrete hypotheses; the
researcher should aim to find in
favor of one and refute the other.
 Bacon laid the foundation stone
for the divergence of science and
philosophy; science and religion

46. Descartes
 famously attempted to
explain the cosmos
and epistemology by
deduction from
Aristotelian first
principles, based
around the divine, but,
at the end of his life,
even he realized that
the cosmos was simply
too complex to be
derived from first
principles alone.
 “I think therefore I am”

47. The History of the Philosophy of Science
in the Nineteenth Century
 debate now addressed the link
between science and theology
John Herschel (1792 - 1871)
 A Preliminary Discourse on
the Study of Natural
Philosophy
 He stated that rather than
attempting to doubt the
existence of God, science
should be used as a tool to
undermine the burgeoning
trend of atheism.

48. Whewell
• inductive processes
could lead to
absolute proof and
that science could
generate
unbreakable truth.

49. John Stuart Mill
 science could not
use induction to arrive
at absolute truth
 He stipulated that
however many times a
hypothesis was found
to be proved by the
empirical evidence, this
could not guarantee
that this would always
be the case and so
science could only ever
be possibility

50. The Victorian Age and the Twentieth Century
 the science became almost completely
disentangled from theology.
 Victorian philosophers attempted to
discern what constitutes science,
and set down the protocols of
the scientific method

51. Pierre Duhem
1861-1916
 first philosopher to divide
physics from the other
fields
 He advocated holism,
believing that the universe
cannot be divided into
discrete and individual
hypotheses, because it is
interlinked and
intertwined, needing this
united view.
 attempted to make a distinction
between science and religion,
arguing that the two fields could
not answer the same questions.

52. Poincare
1854-1912
 He questioned the very
nature of scientific
hypotheses, arguing that
there were many different
types.
 brought the idea of
'convention' to the history of
the philosophy of science,
believing that scientists
often used the most
convenient methods to
describe the universe.

53. Karl Popper
(1902 - 1994)
 tried to delineate
the boundary between
science and non-science,
arguing that metaphysics
was non-observational, and
therefore could not be
science.
 idea of falsification, where
a hypothesis must be
potentially disprovable for it
to be regarded as scientific.

54. Lakatos
 He attempted to
resurrect the idea of
falsification by
stratifying. He
postulated that there
was a 'hardcore'
scientific theory that
was taken as given,
and needed no
falsification.

55. Hempel
(1905 - 1997)
 known for his criticism of
the inductive method,
(Raven Paradox)
 any scientific finding relying
upon induction could only
give a probability of an
answer being correct, not a
black or white yes or no.

56. Thomas Kuhn
Structure of
Scientific
Revolutions (1962)
 idea of paradigms
and paradigm
shifts.

57. Feyerabend
(1924 - 1994)
 believed that the scientific
method was an artificial
construct, and restricted
the free thought of ideas.
 believed in 'Scientific
anarchy,' a principle of
anything goes, and that
scientists would develop a
good method that would
work for their particular
research field.

58. Truth and Theory
refining
and
adapting
theories
Peer
acceptance
“scientifically
proven”

59. Avoiding the Truth - Theory as a Tool
 Science never accepts that
any hypothesis or theory, is completely
true. Theory is seen as a tool that is
assumed true, until falsified.
 Even if all of the steps of the
scientific method are followed, there
is always a chance of error, or an
incorrect basic premise.

60. Paradigm
 establishing of a scientific truth
 majority of research operates within
these boundaries.
paradigm shift (entire field of science
changes direction)
 as data-collection becomes more
accurate, or new information is
uncovered, many theories often fail to
match empirical observations.

61. whilst repeated research,
experimentation, and confirmation of
results will always approach the truth,
theory can never become truth.
 Scientific truth is implicitly assumed
when an entire field, other than a
few fringe scientists, reaches a
consensus.
CONCLUSION

62. Realism and Antirealism
What is Realism?
 non-observable phenomena actually
exist.
ex.
black hole - No scientist has
ever seen a black hole, but theory
predicts that they exist.

63. What is Antirealism?
 theory should never be regarded as
truth
Examples:
Darwin’s Natural Selection
Newton’s Laws
Einstein’s Relativity

64. Because there is no clear dividing line
between what can be accepted as
truth, and what is conjecture, most
scientists do not stray into this area.
They slowly build upon accepted
theories that only a major paradigm
shift or the refuting of a fundamental
principle, can alter.
Realism and Antirealism –
What is the Answer?

65. Scientific Reductionism
Scientific reductionism is the idea of
reducing complex interactions and
entities to the sum of their constituent
parts, in order to make them easier to
study.

66. The Limitations
of
Scientific Reductionism
 scientific reductionism stands accused of
vast oversimplification.
 problems involved in applying the idea to
abstract ideas such as emotion and being, it
is very impractical.

67. Scientific Reductionism - Still a Useful Tool
 Scientific reductionism is not a viable
theory in modern science, because the
processes governing the universe are so
complex and intertwined that they can
never be understood fully. Despite this,
reductionist thinking does have some uses,
and allows complex processes to be teased
apart and understood.

68. What Is A Paradigm?
 is a framework containing all of the
commonly accepted views about a
subject, a structure of what direction
research should take and how it should
be performed.
 “the practices that define a
scientific discipline at certain
point in time.” (Khun)

69. What is a Paradigm's Purpose?
 What is studied and researched.
 The type of questions that are asked.
 The exact structure and nature of
the questions.
 How the results of any research
are interpreted.

70. What is a Paradigm Shift?
 not just a small change in science, or the
modification of a theory. It is a scientific
revolution and completely changes the
way in which science looks at the world.
 often the result of scientists working at
the fringe of the paradigm,
performing research that most other
researchers feel is a little misguided, or
a dead end.

71. Occam’s Razor
o William of Ockham
o 'the simplest answer is most often
correct'
o should be a guide and not a rule.