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SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

Class notes Dec 26, 2025 ★★★★★ (5.0/5)
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SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

Auguste Comte (1798-1857) is regarded as the first philosopher of science and the first one to distinguish natural philosophy from science. He was part of

positivism philosophy: the idea that science is the only way to learn about the

truth. According to positivism, factual knowledge can only be gained through observation (the senses) and researchers are limited to data collection and interpretation in an objective manner. This means that genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive (based upon research and observation, empirical research). Other ways of knowing, such as intuition, are rejected or considered meaningless. Comte is also one of the founders of sociology. His school of sociological positivism says that society, like the physical world, operates according to scientific laws.According to Comte, philosophy is a dynamic space where ideas are forged, tested and purified, leading to the emergence and evolution of scientific thought.He thought that philosophy has historically played a central and transformative role in the development of scientific disciplines. In the earliest stages of inquiry (asking for information/investigating) philosophy encompasses all domains. As these inquiries mature, they split off from philosophy and form distinct disciplines. The remaining role of philosophy is to form a unifying framework for understanding and organizing the sciences. In this case, tasks of philosophy

include: synthesizing scientific knowledge, offering a coherent system to

interpret scientific progress and addressing abstract, overarching questions

about unity of science. So, functions of philosophy for scientists include:

clarification of scientific concepts, critical assessment of scientific assumptions and methods, formulation of new concepts and theories, fostering dialogue among sciences and between science and society. This also highlights the importance to return to philosophical debate in times of crisis in science. In conclusion, philosophy has two roles in science. From the inside it should provide conceptual clarification, from the outside it should provide methodological scrutiny.In philosophy, a priori and a posteriori are used to distinguish types of knowledge, justification or argument by their reliance or experience. A priori knowledge is independent from any experience and includes mathematics and deduction from pure reason. A p0steriori knowledge depends on empirical evidence (obtained through sense experience or experiments) and includes most fields of science and personal knowledge. According to positivism, knowledge is only true if it is derived a posteriori.-

WAYS OF KNOWING

There are three groups of sciences: natural sciences (physics, chemistry, etc.), human sciences (history, literary studies, philosophy, etc.) and social sciences (psychology, economics, anthropology, etc.). These sciences are very different, but nowadays there is a big need for knowledge integration meaning that the sciences need to interact. This can be difficult because the sciences take very different approaches. There are two different general approaches of doing

science: nomothetic and idiographic. The nomothetic approach consists of

identifying regularities in the world, formulating generalizations and laws to describe these regularities and deriving explanations of observed outcomes from these generalizations and laws. The idiographic approach consists of understanding the meaning of contingent, unique and often subjective 1 / 2

outcomes, this appeals to one’s own experiences of similar phenomena. The nomothetic approach is typical for the natural sciences, while the idiographic approach is typical for the human sciences. The social sciences have aspects of both and are very diverse.Natural sciences are very old, there was a scientific revolution between 1550 and

  • These sciences are interested in universals and regularities, so they zoom
  • out from individual events to consider classes of events. Overall, there is a strong focus on abstraction, idealization and mathematization. The physical universe is uniform and simple. This allows replicable knowledge in concise, powerful formats such as scientific theories and mathematical models. At the top of these sciences are the laws of nature, which are stated regularities in the relations or order of phenomena in the world that hold either universally or in a stated proportion of instances. Here, laws are seen as the paradigms of knowledge and regarded as the highest form of scientific knowledge.The human studies focus on historical events, acts that are motivated by intention, texts, artworks and cultures. Humanities study human actors, which are always creative. As creation follows no rules, everything is inexplicable and unpredictable. Every event and context are unique and thus generalization and idealization are not favored in this science. The highest knowledge is of particulars (understanding individual, specific instances or experiences). Human actions are guided by intentions, value, beliefs and cultural norms. To understand the meaning of actions, researchers need to engage with the context and intentions behind them, their own experiences provide a basis for understanding others’ actions. In these sciences, many phenomena are not identifiable purely in empirical data. The main output from humanities is interpretations.-

KNOWLEDGE, TRUTH AND FACTS

There are three forms of knowledge: acquaintance knowledge (knowing about,

subjective, gained through personal experience), skills knowledge (knowing how to, acquisition of skills) and propositional knowledge (knowing that something is the case, theories, ideas, statements). Propositional knowledge is regarded as the highest form of knowledge, because it represents facts.The JTB (justification, truth and belief) account holds that knowledge is equivalent to justified true belief. This idea was first proposed by Plato around 370 BC. If all three conditions are met of a given claim, then there is knowledge of that claim. The JTB account analyses the statement: “A knows that P”. There are three conditions for “A knows that P”: P is true, A believes that P and A is justified in believing that P. The first condition revolves around P being true, not on whether we are aware that it is true. This raises the question of how one can be sure that P is true. In science this obstacle can be lessened by empirical data, evidence, etc. The JTB account focusses on how knowledge relates to the truth, it does not solve the problem of what is true. Condition two established that knowledge is a person’s mental state. Condition three means that there have to be good grounds for holding a belief. The purpose of this is to rule out lucky guesses as knowledge.The truth is a property of propositions (statements and claims) and systems of propositions, such as scientific theories. Other elements of knowledge have success predicates (adequacy, validity) and are not considered true or false. To

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