Phil 3318: Philosophy of Science

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Phil 3318 Philosophy of Science

• Quine the Social dimension of Science

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Quine

• Central Thesis
• Empiricism is grounded on two dogmas, both of
  which are ill-founded.
• Distinction between analytic and synthetic
• Reduction of all predicates to experiential
  datums.

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Analytic v. Synthetic

• Analytic predicate adds no information than what
  is contained in the subject
• Bachelor is an available adult male
• I exist
• Hesperus is the star that rises in the morning

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Analytic v Synthetic

• Synthetic statements add information to the
  subject
• Groundhogs climb trees
• I am a professor of philosophy
• Hesperus is phosphorus.

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Extension

• General terms pick out classes of objects
• Cat -gt all cats
• Creatures with a heart -gt creatures with a
  heart
• Creatures with a kidney -gt creatures with a
  kidney
• Now, it just happens to be the case that these
  two classes are the same, but there is nothing in
  the concept of one that would tell you that.
• Same extension, different meaning.

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Note

• Terms that are co-extensive can be substituted
  for one another without changing the truth value
• No bachelor is married
• No unmarried male is married.
• (thats why there is no information in these
  statements)

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So why the problem w/ Analyticy?

• How do words get their definitions?
• Lexically
• Stipulatively
• Ostensively?
• Except in the extreme case of stipulative
  definition, each of these depends on the notion
  of synonymy, and therefore cannot be the basis
  for analycity.

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Can interchangibility suffice as a basis for
analycity?

• Bachelor has ten letters
• Unmarried adult male has ten letters
• Necessarily, all and only unmarried males are
  unmarried males
• Necessarily, all and only bachelors are
  unmarried males
• Necessarily, all and only creatures with hearts
  are creatures with hearts
• Necessarily, all and only creatures with kidneys
  are creatures with hearts.

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Carnap

• Not really important a matter for the history
  of philosophy.

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Verification Reduction

• Verification the meaning of a statement is the
  method by which that statement could be verified.
• A statement is analytic when it is synonymous
  with a tautology.
• But synonymy (likeness of meaning) then implies
  likeness of verification method.
• So how do we verify?
• Reduce to sense-experience predicates

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And how do we reduce?

• To each statement, there is a unique range of
  possible sense-experiences that will confirm
  (verify) or disconfirm that statement
• But, for the case of statements that use terms
  that are not obviously sense-experience terms, we
  need to substitute (translate) theory-statements
  into experience-statements.

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Quines suggestion

• is that our statements about the external world
  face the tribunal of sense experience not
  individually but only as a corporate body (295)
• In short every theory is complete, translation
  between theories is impossible, and entire
  theories, NOT individual hypotheses, are
  confirmed or disconfirmed by experience /
  experiment (the Quine-Duhem Thesis)

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Lakatos

• Progressive v. degenerative research programs
• Theory leads to discovery of hitherto unknown
  facts
• Theories are fabricated to explain already known
  facts

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Sociological Demarcation The difference between
science and nonscience is at most an
institutional difference.

• Institutions
• Disciplinary Matrix (Kuhn)
• Set of theories, techniques, standards,
  institutional practices, social orgnanizations,
  problem-solving exemplars.

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Perhaps Science is Distinctively Social

• Paul Ziman
• Science is public knowledge The objective of
  science is a consensus of rational opinion over
  the widest possible field.
• Science stands in the region where the
  intellectual, the psychological and the
  sociological coordinate axes intersect. It is
  knowledge, therefore intellectual, conceptual and
  abstract. It is inevitably created by individual
  men and women and therefore has a strong
  psychological aspect. It is public and therefore
  molded and determined by the social relations
  between individuals.

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Kuhn

• Finally, at a still higher level, there is
  another set of commitments without which no man
  is a scientist. The scientist must, for example,
  be concerned to understand the world and to
  extend the precision and scope with which it has
  been ordered. That commitment must, in turn, lead
  him to scrutinize, either for himself or through
  colleagues, some aspect of nature in great
  empirical detail. And if that scrutiny displays
  pockets of disorder, then these must challenge
  him to a new refinement of his observational
  techniques or to a further articulation of his
  theories. (42)

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Social Practice

• 1. Each suggests that science is social in these
  respects
• 1. Peer Review
• 2. Quality of Publication
• 3. Professional Advancement
• 4. Professional Recognition
• Social Practices Drive Reform In
• 1. Store of Accepted Facts.
• 2. Store of Concepts
• 3. Norms of Inquiry
• Experimental Techniques and Protocols.
• 4. Norms for Assessment
• Explanation and Theory
• 5. Norms of Rationality

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Scientific Attitude Haugland

• Scientists are scientists by virtue of their
  commitments, commitments that require vigilance.
  Pockets of apparent disorder are nothing but
  apparent breaches of the relevant constitutive
  standards the scientist must be resolved to be
  on the lookout for them, and resolved not to
  tolerate them.

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Feyerabend

• Is the social organization of science something
  that distinguishes it from religion and other
  forms of dominance and control?
• Feyerabend

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Why Does it Matter?
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A Different Question

• What Makes for Good Science?
• Intersubjective Testability
• Reliability
• Precision
• Coherence
• Scope
• Explanatory Power