PHILOSOPHY

Read about Philosophy of Science, assumptions, foundations, nature and implications of science.

October 9 2021

Philosophy of Science | Definition | Scope & Characteristics

Philosophy of science is defined as the philosophical study of assumptions, foundations, nature and implications of science. According to Kolawole Ogundowole (2003), philosophy of science sums up the experiences in the development of all sciences and social applications of their findings. It deals directly and also indirectly with the subject matter of all sciences.

The field of philosophy of science is said to be defined by an interest in one of a set of “traditional” problems or an interest in central or foundational concerns in science. In addition to these central problems for science as a whole, many philosophers of science consider these problems as they apply to particular science (e.g. philosophy of biology or philosophy of physics etc).

Some philosophers of science also use contemporary results in science to draw philosophical morals. Although most practitioners are philosophers, several prominent scientists have contributed greatly to the field and are still contributing till date.

Thus in philosophy of science the central concepts common to empirical science are examined and clarified. These include: explanation, confirmation, prediction, systematization, empirical significance and the relationship of all these concepts to the structure of scientific theory. Examples may be drawn from both contemporary and historical science, including the social, biological and physical sciences.

History and philosophy of science therefore, is a discipline that deals with the system of science itself. It examines science structure, components, techniques, assumptions, limitations and so forth. History and philosophy of science is an academic discipline that encompasses the philosophy of science and the history of science.

Note that philosophy of science is not a branch of philosophy; rather it belongs to the area of philosophy called special inquiry. It is part of a range of sub discipline known as “philosophy of x” (where X may be filled in or substituted with various special science and social science such as law, sociology, psychology, chemistry physics etc).

Each of the activities for which there is a “philosophy of X” is said to be an investigation into a certain part of the world or a particular type of human activity. Hence when philosophy examines the basic concepts and claims of science we have what is called philosophy of science.

Philosophy of science is understood more by examining its nature, conceptions or how various scientific theories, ideas, claims, analysis or synthesis and school of philosophy came to make their input in the whole are of philosophy of science.

Scope of Philosophy of Science

Like science, philosophy of science embraces and covers a very broad range of activities. It attempts to answer questions such as: what is science? What is the purpose of science? How do we arrive at scientific truth? Thus, the areas or scope of philosophy of science can be found in the subject matter of all sciences.

In other words, philosophy of science deals with all the claims, assumptions and presuppositions of science. Hence philosophy of science is interested in anything science is interested in, but in a critical reflective, rational and philosophical manner.

Characteristics of Philosophy of Science

It is not primarily an empirical study of science. As such philosophers of science do not generally engage in empirical research beyond learning something about a few branches of science and their history.
It is primarily concerned with conceptual clarification.
It is normative in that it asks whether the methods that scientist use and the conclusions that they draw using those methods are proper or justified.
It takes a special interest in the concepts other discipline take for granted.
It employs a critical, evaluative approach. It aims at explaining why certain methods of analyzing data or the notion of explanation are good ones.
It emphasizes on conceptual analysis. For example, explaining what explanation is or in other words, what it means when we say that one thing “explains” another.

The development of Philosophy and Science

The earliest developmental strides and feats achieved in science could be traced to Mesopotamia, Egypt and ancient Greeks. Mesopotamia was the frontline in the areas of science- mathematics, astronomy and engineering, hence the representation in decimal, division of the circle into 360 degrees, divisions of the hour and minutes, etc are attributed to Mesopotamia.

Egypt on the other hand, is the cradle of human civilization. Egypt had a well organized system of religion cum education. It was in Egypt, at the Egyptian mystery system or school that most leading Greek philosophers studied courses like mathematics, geometry, medicine, astronomy, science etc.

June 23 2021

Relationship between Philosophy and Science

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Philosophy relies on the result of the empirical sciences for the formulation of its propositions and theories. Thus philosophy and science go hand in hand and so are not separable even though they are quite distinct. This explains why in the past, most philosophers were at the same time also scientists.

One of the important relationships between philosophy and science is that while science explains how things occur, philosophy explains why things occur.

This is an important aspect in the relationship between philosophy and science. This is because, in trying to explain why things and events occur in the physical world, one must also be confronted with the question of how the events occur. Both science and philosophy are disciplines that are concerned with realities and nature of things.

They borrow deeply into the principles of nature and causes of things as well as provide valid and reliable explanations and information to the various questions that arise in the heart of men. Although, philosophy and science share some notable relationships, we must not underscore the fact that philosophy is the queen of all sciences.

Philosophy as already noted is the love of wisdom or the search for the ultimate reality. Thus since philosophy is the only discipline defined as the love of wisdom, it means that every scientist, every scholar or student is automatically engaged in the philosophic activities in so far as such a person is in pursuit of knowledge or wisdom, whether in the sciences or in other allied courses. What this means is that, given the simply definition of philosophy, every discipline is simply a branch of philosophy.

The Birth of Modern Science

The Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation and other external and internal influences were instrumental to the birth of the modern science. At the time, men and women were moving out of Europe and traveling all corners of the earth gathering and acquiring new knowledge.

As they return, they brought back tales of strange land and peoples. Their tales were very unsettling to both the established religion and cultural or ethnic customs of the time. Also, at the time, there were attempts to forge a new science of nature.

Consequently, truths of scholastic philosophy and theology were questioned. People began to turn to the book of nature itself for answers to basic questions in life. This led to the emergence of a new natural science.

The growth of modern science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries played significant roles in encouraging skepticism. But then, this posed some problems, for the skeptics hold that knowledge is not possible.

Therefore, if they deny that knowledge is, how can one explain the experiments of great mind like Galileo and the impressive theories of Copernicus, Kepler and Newton in astronomy and physics respectively; all of which seem to have been confirmed by mathematics, observation, and experiment?

To that effect, modern philosophy took the challenge of attempting to resolve two basic problems posed by the new science and skepticism. The first problem is on the nature of knowledge itself, the nature of truth and the most reliable methods of discovering and testing truth and knowledge if any.

Secondly, the nature of reality or what constitutes reality; what was knowledge about, the nature of the ultimate reality, the extent and limit of knowledge. That was and still is the concern of the modern philosophy till date.

Philosophers of Science and their Contributions

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In the ancient time, nearly every notable scientist was at the same time a great philosopher and every philosopher was to some extent a scientist. Through their works and activities, the philosophers provided useful concept and insights to science. The philosophers whose work or ideas boosted up scientific activities are:

Anaximander: Anaximander who lived between 611 and 546BC was a natural scientific philosopher. He was an astronomer, map inventor and the initiator of measuring day by hour. It was him who discovered that the earth is spherical and not flat.

Rene Descartees: Rene was a French philosopher and scientist who discovered things in mathematics and practices the experimental method. He equally developed basic philosophical notions, which were consonant with the new approach of natural sciences. For instances, Descartes distinguished between two main kinds of substances, namely: mind and matter.

For him, matter is extended, and one of the characteristics of extended matter is that it can be measured and scientific observation concerns mainly measurable things. What is measured that be compared, related to things, with the help of mathematical formulae or through logical relations.

All of this is typical of modern science. It can therefore be said that Descartes philosophical endeavour provided a number of fundamental concepts which could go together with the recent developments of science.

Immanuel Kant: Kant was a German philosopher, whose critical philosophy brought a new understanding of the relation between the mind and its object. Kant wanted to justify the findings of science (e.g. the universal and necessary laws of physics) against the attack of David Humes Empiricism.

He concluded that the mind is shaping or molding its known object by means of some structure (or categories) of understanding, which are applied to sense data. Kant’s critical approach is used up to this day in some scientific circles to explain the theoretical part of their work.

David Humes: Hume was both a philosopher and a scientist. He proposed philosophical reflections which greatly influenced the general understanding of scientific activity. Hume claimed that our knowledge of things can be based only on sense-data, that is, whatever we come to know through the activity of our senses.

Humes sees causality as the constant conjunction between two sense impressions. For him nothing in our sense experience indicates a necessary connection between a cause and its effect.

Francis Bacon: Francis Bacon was an English philosopher who described the method and purpose of scientific knowledge. He was the originator and founder of inductive method. He emphasized the role of scientific discoveries and inventions in giving man mastery or control over the forces of nature.

Galileo Galilei: Galileo was an Italian and one of the founders of the concepts of a mathematical universe. Galileo invented a telescope with which he discovered a large number of fixed stars that were not yet known at the time.

Albert Einstein: He was a theoretical physicist. His many contributions to physics include the special and general theories of relativity, the founding of relativistic cosmology, the first-Newtonian expansion, the quantum theory of atomic motion in solids and the zero-point energy concept.

He published more than 300 scientific and over 150 non-scientific works and is often regarded as the father of modern physics.

Moritz Schlick: Schlock was a German philosopher and the founding father of logical positivism and the Vienna Circle. He studied physics at Heidelberg, Lausanne and ultimately the University of Berlin under Max Planck.

Schlick was attracted and consequently concerned himself with the problems of epistemology, the philosophy of science and more general questions about science. His success led to his becoming a professor in the philosophy of inductive sciences at the University of Vienna.

Schlick’s enduring contribution to the world of philosophy is as the fount of logical positivism. His humanity, good will, gentleness and especially his encouragement have been documented by many of his peers.

Alfred North Whitehead: Whitehead was an English mathematician who became a philosopher. He wrote on algebra, logic, and foundations of mathematics, philosophy of sciences, physics, metaphysics and education. His childhood was described as over protected, but when at school he excelled in sports, mathematics and was head prefect of his class.

Whitehead developed a keen interest in physics. His outlook on mathematics and physics was more concerned about their scope and nature rather than about particular tenets and paradigms.

Paul Karl Feyerabend: Feyerabend was an Austrian-born philosopher of science best known for his work as a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked for three decades (1958-1989).

His mayor works include Against Method published in 1975, Science in a Free Society published in 1978 and Farewell to Reason (a collection of papers published in 1987). Fayerabend became famous for his purportedly anarchistic view of science and his rejection of the existence of universal methodological rules. He is an influential figure in the philosophy of science and also in the sociology of scientific knowledge.

Aesthetics | Importance & Elements of Aesthetics

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Aesthetics is a systematic investigation into the nature, essence and purpose of art. It examines the assumption, principles and basic concept of art. Aesthetics or esthetics is a sub branch of axiology and axiology is a branch of philosophy that is concerned with the study of values.

Therefore, aesthetics is concerned with the study of art or the essence of beauty and ugliness. It includes what art consist of, as well as the purpose behind it. Aesthetics ask questions such as, what is beauty.

Does art consist of music, literature, and painting? Or does it include a good engineering solution, or a beautiful sunset? These are some of the questions that aesthetics attempt to answer.

Aesthetics also studies methods of evaluating art and allows judgment of the art. Is art in the eye of the beholder? Does anything that appeals to you fit under the umbrella of art? Or does it have a specific nature? Does it accomplish a goal?

Aesthetics does not only study arts but it also entails the appreciation of arts and the beautiful.

The importance of aesthetics

Art has existed through all of recorded human history. It is unique to humans because of our unique form of thinking. Its importance is based on this nature, specifically, man’s ability to abstract. Art is understood as a tool of man to bring meaning to abstract concept.

Aesthetic is important because it delves into the reason why art has always existed, the burning need of mankind through the ages to see the world in different and clear way.

It further evaluate art by the standard of human life and whether it accomplishes the job of satisfying man’s intellectual needs, or whether it tends to hurt or make worse those needs.

Art therefore is the means whereby feelings are communicated from one person or one min to another. The ultimate worth of art is its infectiousness- that’s, the ability to produce in the minds of its audience the feelings which the artist originally had.

Elements of Aesthetics

Art is a selective recreation of reality. Its purpose is to concretize an abstraction to bring an idea or emotion within the grasp of the observer. It is a selective recreation, with the selection process depending on the value judgement of the creator. These value judgments of the creator can be observed and evaluated via the field of ethics.

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October 18 2020

What is Epistemology

Princewill Ene PHILOSOPHY Epistemology 0

Epistemology is from two Greek words –episteme (to know) and logos (study of). When combined. It means the study of the theories of knowledge. Epistemology, or the theory of knowledge as it is sometimes called, is that branch of philosophy which investigates the nature, scope and quality of human knowledge. Epistemology can also be seen as the investigation into the grounds and nature of knowledge itself.

The study of epistemology focuses on our means for acquiring knowledge and how we can differentiate between truth and falsehood. Modern epistemology generally involves a debate between rationalism and empiricism, of the question of whether knowledge can be acquired a priori or a posteriori.

Epistemology was practiced since Plato’s, Socrates’, and Aristotle’s day, but only gained that title in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Despite the antiquity of its problems, it is still one of the most hotly debate areas of philosophy. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a group of philosopher from Europe began this influential branch of philosophy.

Some of them include Emmanuel Kant Rene Descartes, John Locke, David Hume, and George Berkeley. They believe that, since every fact, hypothesis, conjecture, etc. about the universe is something produced by us, perhaps, by studying ourselves and how we come to know these things; we could come to know the universe for us.

This is the study of the way in which we know rather than epistemologists did not think the study of our nature was just primary, but rather that it was necessary to understanding what parts of the universe were accessible to us.

This means question like; what is knowledge? How do human acquire knowledge? Can we know anything at all? How does knowledge originate? Can we know about necessary and possible things? Can we know we aren’t been fooled by a little demon? Can we know we are the only minds?

In seeking to find reliable source of knowledge there arose two central schools of epistemology, the rationalists (whose view is called rationalism) and the empiricists (whose view is called empiricism).

Rationalism

Rationalism is an epistemological view that the mind or intellect, rather than the senses, is the only or main source of knowledge. In other words, rationalism is a philosophic approach which emphasizes reason as the primary source of knowledge, prior or superior to, and independent of, sense perceptions.

The rationalists held that we can know some things just through the appropriate thinking processes. Knowledge can be acquired through the use of reasons.

Theories of knowledge like those of Plato and Descartes are called ‘rationalistic”. Both Plato and Descartes claim that the true knowledge is already within us in the form of innate ideas, which we do not acquire but are born with.

It is further maintained by rationalists that what we know as certain by various rationalistic procedures is the real world. The world that cannot be known with certainty is generally judged to be unreal and unimportant world.

Empiricism

Empiricism came from a Greek word, emperia which means experience. With regard to theories of knowledge, empiricism (understand in a broad sense) connote any doctrine which holds that all knowledge derives primarily from sense experience.

Knowledge is obtained through experience. In this broader sense, Aristotle and his followers would be empiricists. In a narrower sense, when empiricism contrasted with rationalism, it connotes a doctrine which claims that true knowledge derives exclusively from sense experience. In this narrower sense, empiricism would not accept that any new knowledge is acquired by either intellectual intuition or deductive reasoning.

Some empiricist philosophers include, Rene Descartes, Francis Bacon, David Hume, George Berkeley and many others.

(a) Francis Bacon (1561 b – 1626)

Francis Bacon is sometimes called the father of British empiricism. In any case he rejected the mistakes of purely rational constructs and favored the use of the experimental method.

The classical empiricists were Locke, Berkeley and Hume, all of whom denied the existence of innate ideas.

(b) George Berkeley (1985 – 1753)

George Berkeley was a Catholic bishop and a philosopher. He brought some new elements in empiricism, so much that he is sometimes called a mentalist, an immaterialist or even an idealist.

For Berkeley, the exterior world has no reality beyond being perceived. Berkeley puts it as esses est percipi “to be is to be perceived” what this means is that there is nothing in the universe except what is perceived by us.

But then, we know that for sure, things would exist even if we didn’t perceive them.

(c) David Hume (1711-1776)

David Hume proposed philosophical reflections which have greatly influenced the general understanding of scientific activity. Hume applied the principle of empiricism without compromise. He claimed that our knowledge of things can be based only on sense-data, i.e. whatever we come to know through the activity of our senses.

Any knowledge claimed to be of something beyond our sense impressions is the consequence of speculative reasoning from immediate sense impressions to their supposed source or cause. But no good rational justification can ever be given for believing anything that is not related to immediate sense impressions.

Thus, nothing in our sense experience indicates necessary connection between a cause and its effect. No possible experience can ever indicate that similar past (or present) connections between natural events will apply in the future as they have occurred in the past, which the future will be similar to the past.

(d) Rene Descartes

Rene Descartes was a French Philosopher and mathematician born in French in the year 1596. Descartes is perhaps the most often quoted philosopher.

You must have heard his famous dictum. Cogito ergo sum- “I think, therefore I am”. Descartes asks these questions: What can I know? What can I be certain of if I doubt absolute everything?

These questions probably seem less far out nowadays than they did in Descartes’ day, we know precisely how amazing the human mind can be, how real hallucinations seem and how disorienting virtual reality is.

Nevertheless the question is odd. Who really doubts if we are different people standings on the planet? Well, Descartes tried to. He thought that if he could doubt everything that was at all doubtable whatever was left would be certain knowledge.

Once you have certain knowledge, you have unimaginable power to build up a convincing philosophical and scientific system. That was Descartes’ ultimate goal. His method is however, not simply one of doubt; it is also one of inquiry. He was trying to find something out- what is certain knowledge.

He was assuming that there is something we want to know that no one else already knows. Furthermore, his “method of doubt” is not simple doubt, it is absolute doubt. We cannot just think “may be what I’m seeing is an illusion”, we have to assert everything I ever see is illusory”- and see what we are left with.

Anything we can possibly doubt must be doubted. Can you think of something it is impossible to doubt? Perhaps the best way to conceive of absolute doubt is to assume there is an evil demon (a Cartesian demon) whose sole purpose it is to trick you. The evil demon is extremely powerful and so can alter all of your perceptions to make anything look like any other thing.

What did Descartes do with these situations? He doubts everything. Absolutely everything! What did he find impossible to doubt? His own existence! Hence cogito ergo sum. What were the results of Descartes’ position? – (Solipsism – subject of knowledge is more important than the object of knowledge).

Using Descartes ‘method, questions of being must be set aside until questions of knowing have a satisfactory resolution. We must not, according to the method, stipulate anything.

Nevertheless, we must achieve absolute certainty. For many, strict skepticism –the belief that we can’t know anything resulting skepticism) is not to get us to stop believing, but rather for us to ponder the relationship between justification and our beliefs.

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