Generalizations, Idealizations, and Induction an Investigation of Probability Theory Through Historical Paradigms
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John Locke's Historical Method
RUCH FILOZOFICZNY LXXV 2019 4 Zbigniew Pietrzak University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland ORCID: 0000-0003-2458-1252 e-mail: [email protected] John Locke’s Historical Method and “Natural Histories” in Modern Natural Sciences DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12775/RF.2019.038 Introduction Among the many fundamental issues that helped shape the philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, one concerned the condi- tion of philosophy and scientific knowledge, and in the area of our inter- est – knowledge about nature.1 These philosophical inquiries included both subject-related problems concerning human cognitive abilities and object-related ones indicating possible epistemological boundaries that nature itself could have generated. Thus, already at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from Francis Bacon, Galileo, and 1 These reflections are an elaboration on the topic I mentioned in the article “His- toria naturalna a wiedza o naturze” [“Natural History vs. Knowledge of Nature”], in: Rozum, człowiek, historia, [Mind, Man, History], ed. Jakub Szczepański (Cracow: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2018); as well as in my master’s thesis: The Crisis of Cognition, the Crisis of Philosophy (not published). It is also a debate over the content of Adam Grzeliński’s article entitled “‘Rozważania dotyczące rozu- mu ludzkiego’ Johna Locke’a: teoria poznania i historia” [“John Locke’s ‘An essay on human understanding’: cognition theory and history”], in: Rozum, człowiek, historia, ed. Jakub Szczepański, (Cracow: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2018), as well as some of the themes of the author’s monograph Doświadczenie i rozum. Empiryzm Johna Locke’a [Experience and reason. The empiricism of John Locke] (To- ruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2019). -
Would ''Direct Realism'' Resolve the Classical Problem of Induction?
NOU^S 38:2 (2004) 197–232 Would ‘‘Direct Realism’’ Resolve the Classical Problem of Induction? MARC LANGE University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill I Recently, there has been a modest resurgence of interest in the ‘‘Humean’’ problem of induction. For several decades following the recognized failure of Strawsonian ‘‘ordinary-language’’ dissolutions and of Wesley Salmon’s elaboration of Reichenbach’s pragmatic vindication of induction, work on the problem of induction languished. Attention turned instead toward con- firmation theory, as philosophers sensibly tried to understand precisely what it is that a justification of induction should aim to justify. Now, however, in light of Bayesian confirmation theory and other developments in epistemology, several philosophers have begun to reconsider the classical problem of induction. In section 2, I shall review a few of these developments. Though some of them will turn out to be unilluminating, others will profitably suggest that we not meet inductive scepticism by trying to justify some alleged general principle of ampliative reasoning. Accordingly, in section 3, I shall examine how the problem of induction arises in the context of one particular ‘‘inductive leap’’: the confirmation, most famously by Henrietta Leavitt and Harlow Shapley about a century ago, that a period-luminosity relation governs all Cepheid variable stars. This is a good example for the inductive sceptic’s purposes, since it is difficult to see how the sparse background knowledge available at the time could have entitled stellar astronomers to regard their observations as justifying this grand inductive generalization. I shall argue that the observation reports that confirmed the Cepheid period- luminosity law were themselves ‘‘thick’’ with expectations regarding as yet unknown laws of nature. -
There Is No Pure Empirical Reasoning
There Is No Pure Empirical Reasoning 1. Empiricism and the Question of Empirical Reasons Empiricism may be defined as the view there is no a priori justification for any synthetic claim. Critics object that empiricism cannot account for all the kinds of knowledge we seem to possess, such as moral knowledge, metaphysical knowledge, mathematical knowledge, and modal knowledge.1 In some cases, empiricists try to account for these types of knowledge; in other cases, they shrug off the objections, happily concluding, for example, that there is no moral knowledge, or that there is no metaphysical knowledge.2 But empiricism cannot shrug off just any type of knowledge; to be minimally plausible, empiricism must, for example, at least be able to account for paradigm instances of empirical knowledge, including especially scientific knowledge. Empirical knowledge can be divided into three categories: (a) knowledge by direct observation; (b) knowledge that is deductively inferred from observations; and (c) knowledge that is non-deductively inferred from observations, including knowledge arrived at by induction and inference to the best explanation. Category (c) includes all scientific knowledge. This category is of particular import to empiricists, many of whom take scientific knowledge as a sort of paradigm for knowledge in general; indeed, this forms a central source of motivation for empiricism.3 Thus, if there is any kind of knowledge that empiricists need to be able to account for, it is knowledge of type (c). I use the term “empirical reasoning” to refer to the reasoning involved in acquiring this type of knowledge – that is, to any instance of reasoning in which (i) the premises are justified directly by observation, (ii) the reasoning is non- deductive, and (iii) the reasoning provides adequate justification for the conclusion. -
Truth, Rationality, and the Growth of Scientific Knowledge
....... CONJECTURES sense similar to that in which processes or things may be said to be parts of the world; that the world consists of facts in a sense in which it may be said to consist of (four dimensional) processes or of (three dimensional) things. They believe that, just as certain nouns are names of things, sentences are names of facts. And they sometimes even believe that sentences are some- thing like pictures of facts, or that they are projections of facts.7 But all this is mistaken. The fact that there is no elephant in this room is not one of the processes or parts ofthe world; nor is the fact that a hailstorm in Newfound- 10 land occurred exactIy I I I years after a tree collapsed in the New Zealand bush. Facts are something like a common product oflanguage and reality; they are reality pinned down by descriptive statements. They are like abstracts from TRUTH, RATIONALITY, AND THE a book, made in a language which is different from that of the original, and determined not only by the original book but nearly as much by the principles GROWTH OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE of selection and by other methods of abstracting, and by the means of which the new language disposes. New linguistic means not only help us to describe 1. THE GROWTH OF KNOWLEDGE: THEORIES AND PROBLEMS new kinds of facts; in a way, they even create new kinds of facts. In a certain sense, these facts obviously existed before the new means were created which I were indispensable for their description; I say, 'obviously' because a calcula- tion, for example, ofthe movements of the planet Mercury of 100 years ago, MY aim in this lecture is to stress the significance of one particular aspect of carried out today with the help of the calculus of the theory of relativity, may science-its need to grow, or, if you like, its need to progress. -
Religious Language and Verificationism
© Michael Lacewing Religious language and verificationism AYER’S ARGUMENT In the 1930s, a school of philosophy arose called logical positivism, concerned with the foundations and possibility of knowledge. It developed a criterion for meaningful statements, called the principle of verification. On A J Ayer’s version (Language, Truth and Logic), the principle of verification states that a statement only has meaning if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable. (can be shown by experience to be probably true/false). ‘God exists’, and so all other talk of God, is such a statement, claims Ayer. Despite the best attempts of the ontological argument, we cannot prove ‘God exists’ from a priori premises using deduction alone. So ‘God exists’ is not analytically true. Therefore, to be meaningful, ‘God exists’ must be empirically verifiable. Ayer argues it is not. If a statement is an empirical hypothesis, it predicts our experience will be different depending on whether it is true or false. But ‘God exists’ makes no such predictions. So it is meaningless. Some philosophers argue that religious language attempts to capture something of religious experience, although it is ‘inexpressible’ in literal terms. Ayer responds that whatever religious experiences reveal, they cannot be said to reveal any facts. Facts are the content of statements that purport to be intelligible and can be expressed literally. If talk of God is non-empirical, it is literally unintelligible, hence meaningless. Responses We can object that many people do think that ‘God exists’ has empirical content. For example, the argument from design argues that the design of the universe is evidence for the existence of God. -
The Demarcation Problem
Part I The Demarcation Problem 25 Chapter 1 Popper’s Falsifiability Criterion 1.1 Popper’s Falsifiability Popper’s Problem : To distinguish between science and pseudo-science (astronomy vs astrology) - Important distinction: truth is not the issue – some theories are sci- entific and false, and some may be unscientific but true. - Traditional but unsatisfactory answers: empirical method - Popper’s targets: Marx, Freud, Adler Popper’s thesis : Falsifiability – the theory contains claims which could be proved to be false. Characteristics of Pseudo-Science : unfalsifiable - Any phenomenon can be interpreted in terms of the pseudo-scientific theory “Whatever happened always confirmed it” (5) - Example: man drowning vs saving a child Characteristics of Science : falsifiability - A scientific theory is always takes risks concerning the empirical ob- servations. It contains the possibility of being falsified. There is con- firmation only when there is failure to refute. 27 28 CHAPTER 1. POPPER’S FALSIFIABILITY CRITERION “The theory is incompatible with certain possible results of observation” (6) - Example: Einstein 1919 1.2 Kuhn’s criticism of Popper Kuhn’s Criticism of Popper : Popper’s falsifiability criterion fails to char- acterize science as it is actually practiced. His criticism at best applies to revolutionary periods of the history of science. Another criterion must be given for normal science. Kuhn’s argument : - Kuhn’s distinction between normal science and revolutionary science - A lesson from the history of science: most science is normal science. Accordingly, philosophy of science should focus on normal science. And any satisfactory demarcation criterion must apply to normal science. - Popper’s falsifiability criterion at best only applies to revolutionary science, not to normal science. -
Study Questions Philosophy of Science Spring 2011 Exam 1
Study Questions Philosophy of Science Spring 2011 Exam 1 1. Explain the affinities and contrasts between science and philosophy and between science and metaphysics. 2. What is the principle of verification? How was the logical positivist‟s view of verification influenced by Hume‟s fork? Explain. 3. Explain Hume‟s distinction between impressions and ideas. What is the relevance of this distinction for the empiricist‟s view of how knowledge is acquired? 4. Why was Hume skeptical about “metaphysical knowledge”? Does the logical positivist, such as A. J. Ayer, agree or disagree? Why or why not? 5. Explain Ayer‟s distinction between weak and strong verification. Is this distinction tenable? 6. How did Rudolf Carnap attempt to separate science from metaphysics? Explain the role of what Carnap called „C-Rules‟ for this attempt. Was he successful? 7. Explain one criticism of the logical positivist‟s principle of verification? Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not? 8. Explain the affinities and contrasts between A. J. Ayer‟s logical positivism and Karl Popper‟s criterion of falsifiability. Why does Popper think that scientific progress depends on falsifiability rather than verifiability? What are Popper‟s arguments against verifiability? Do you think Popper is correct? 9. Kuhn argued that Popper neglected what Kuhn calls “normal science.” Does Popper have a reply to Kuhn in his distinction between science and ideology? Explain. 10. Is Popper‟s criterion of falsifiability a solution to the problem of demarcation? Why or why not? Why would Gierre or Kuhn disagree? Explain 11. Kuhn, in his “Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?” disagrees with Popper‟s criterion of falsifiability as defining the essence of science. -
Mill's Conversion: the Herschel Connection
volume 18, no. 23 Introduction november 2018 John Stuart Mill’s A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, being a connected view of the principles of evidence, and the methods of scientific investigation was the most popular and influential treatment of sci- entific method throughout the second half of the 19th century. As is well-known, there was a radical change in the view of probability en- dorsed between the first and second editions. There are three differ- Mill’s Conversion: ent conceptions of probability interacting throughout the history of probability: (1) Chance, or Propensity — for example, the bias of a bi- The Herschel Connection ased coin. (2) Judgmental Degree of Belief — for example, the de- gree of belief one should have that the bias is between .6 and .7 after 100 trials that produce 81 heads. (3) Long-Run Relative Frequency — for example, propor- tion of heads in a very large, or even infinite, number of flips of a given coin. It has been a matter of controversy, and continues to be to this day, which conceptions are basic. Strong advocates of one kind of prob- ability may deny that the others are important, or even that they make Brian Skyrms sense at all. University of California, Irvine, and Stanford University In the first edition of 1843, Mill espouses a frequency view of prob- ability that aligns well with his general material view of logic: Conclusions respecting the probability of a fact rest, not upon a different, but upon the very same basis, as conclu- sions respecting its certainly; namely, not our ignorance, © 2018 Brian Skyrms but our knowledge: knowledge obtained by experience, This work is licensed under a Creative Commons of the proportion between the cases in which the fact oc- Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License. -
A Feminist Epistemological Framework: Preventing Knowledge Distortions in Scientific Inquiry
Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont Scripps Senior Theses Scripps Student Scholarship 2019 A Feminist Epistemological Framework: Preventing Knowledge Distortions in Scientific Inquiry Karina Bucciarelli Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses Part of the Epistemology Commons, Feminist Philosophy Commons, and the Philosophy of Science Commons Recommended Citation Bucciarelli, Karina, "A Feminist Epistemological Framework: Preventing Knowledge Distortions in Scientific Inquiry" (2019). Scripps Senior Theses. 1365. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1365 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Scripps Student Scholarship at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scripps Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK: PREVENTING KNOWLEDGE DISTORTIONS IN SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY by KARINA MARTINS BUCCIARELLI SUBMITTED TO SCRIPPS COLLEGE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS PROFESSOR SUSAN CASTAGNETTO PROFESSOR RIMA BASU APRIL 26, 2019 Bucciarelli 2 Acknowledgements First off, I would like to thank my wonderful family for supporting me every step of the way. Mamãe e Papai, obrigada pelo amor e carinho, mil telefonemas, conversas e risadas. Obrigada por não só proporcionar essa educação incrível, mas também me dar um exemplo de como viver. Rafa, thanks for the jokes, the editing help and the spontaneous phone calls. Bela, thank you for the endless time you give to me, for your patience and for your support (even through WhatsApp audios). To my dear friends, thank you for the late study nights, the wild dance parties, the laughs and the endless support. -
Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science
OBJECTIVITY IN THE FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requisites for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Karen Cordrick Haely, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2003 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Louise M. Antony, Adviser Professor Donald C. Hubin _______________________ Professor George Pappas Adviser Philosophy Graduate Program ABSTRACT According to a familiar though naïve conception, science is a rigorously neutral enterprise, free from social and cultural influence, but more sophisticated philosophical views about science have revealed that cultural and personal interests and values are ubiquitous in scientific practice, and thus ought not be ignored when attempting to understand, describe and prescribe proper behavior for the practice of science. Indeed, many theorists have argued that cultural and personal interests and values must be present in science (and knowledge gathering in general) in order to make sense of the world. The concept of objectivity has been utilized in the philosophy of science (as well as in epistemology) as a way to discuss and explore the various types of social and cultural influence that operate in science. The concept has also served as the focus of debates about just how much neutrality we can or should expect in science. This thesis examines feminist ideas regarding how to revise and enrich the concept of objectivity, and how these suggestions help achieve both feminist and scientific goals. Feminists offer us warnings about “idealized” concepts of objectivity, and suggest that power can play a crucial role in determining which research programs get labeled “objective”. -
Pragmatism Is As Pragmatism Does: of Posner, Public Policy, and Empirical Reality
Volume 31 Issue 3 Summer 2001 Summer 2001 Pragmatism Is as Pragmatism Does: Of Posner, Public Policy, and Empirical Reality Linda E. Fisher Recommended Citation Linda E. Fisher, Pragmatism Is as Pragmatism Does: Of Posner, Public Policy, and Empirical Reality, 31 N.M. L. Rev. 455 (2001). Available at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmlr/vol31/iss3/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by The University of New Mexico School of Law. For more information, please visit the New Mexico Law Review website: www.lawschool.unm.edu/nmlr PRAGMATISM IS AS PRAGMATISM DOES: OF POSNER, PUBLIC POLICY, AND EMPIRICAL REALITY LINDA E. FISHER* Stanley Fish believes that my judicial practice could not possibly be influenced by my pragmatic jurisprudence. Pragmatism is purely a method of description, so I am guilty of the "mistake of thinking that a description of a practice has cash value in a game other than the game of description." But he gives no indication that he has tested this assertion by reading my judicial opinions.' I. INTRODUCTION Richard Posner, until recently the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, has been much studied; he is frequently controversial, hugely prolific, candid, and often entertaining.2 Judge Posner is repeatedly in the news, most recently as a mediator in the Microsoft antitrust litigation3 and as a critic of President Clinton.4 Posner's shift over time, from a wealth-maximizing economist to a legal pragmatist (with wealth maximization as a prominent pragmatic goal), is by now well documented.' This shift has been set forth most clearly in The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory,6 as well as Overcoming Law7 and The Problems of Jurisprudence.8 The main features of his pragmatism include a Holmesian emphasis on law as a prediction of how a judge will rule.9 An important feature of law, then, is its ability to provide clear, stable guidance to those affected by it. -
Notes for Our Seminar: Objectivity and Subjectivity
Notes for our seminar: Objectivity and Subjectivity B.M. December 14, 2019 Contents I A preview and overview of the topics we may cover 2 1 The nature of our seminar-course 3 II Readings and Notes for the sessions of Sept 11, Oct 2, Oct 30, and part of Dec 4 13 2 Readings for the September 11 session 13 2.1 Excerpt from [9] . 14 3 Some notes for Sep 11: Subjectivity, Universal Subjectivity, Objectivity 15 3.1 Objective . 16 4 Readings for October 2: 25 5 Notes for Oct 21 session: Objectivity and Subjectivity in Mathematics 36 5.1 What is the number `A thousand and one'?....................... 37 5.2 Plato ............................................ 38 5.3 `Tower Pound' definition ................................ 39 1 5.4 J.S. Mill .......................................... 39 5.5 Georg Cantor: ...................................... 40 5.6 Gottlob Frege (∼ 1900) ................................ 41 5.7 Foundations::: or Constitutions ............................. 43 5.8 David Hilbert ....................................... 43 5.9 L.E.J. Brouwer ...................................... 46 5.10 The simple phrase \and so on::: "............................ 48 6 Readings for October 30, 2019: (Shades of Objectivity and Subjectivity in Epistemology, Probability, and Physics) 50 7 Notes for October 30, 2019:(Shades of Objectivity and Subjectivity in Epistemology, Probability, and Physics) 51 8 Subjectivity and Objectivity in Statistics: `Educating your beliefs' versus `Test- ing your Hypotheses' 55 8.1 Predesignation versus the self-corrective nature of inductive reasoning . 57 8.2 Priors as `Meta-probabilities' . 59 8.3 Back to our three steps . 61 8.4 A numerical example and a question . 62 9 Issues of Subjectivity and Objectivity in Physics 63 10 Consequentialism of Meaning|notes for part of session of December 4 65 11 Dealing with nonexistent objects 69 2 Part I A preview and overview of the topics we may cover 1 The nature of our seminar-course Phil273O (Objectivity and Subjectivity) will be the fourth seminar- course I've taught with Amartya Sen and Eric Maskin.