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Philosophy of science

This overview explores the philosophical foundations of science through the insights of key thinkers from ancient to early modern times. Beginning with Plato's rationalism and Aristotle's empiricism, the text highlights Francis Bacon's emphasis on induction, René Descartes' mechanistic worldview, and Galileo's pioneering contributions to science. It also discusses David Hume's skepticism about causation and the future, leading to Immanuel Kant's critical response regarding the limits of human perception. The conflict between empiricism and rationalism forms the core of this philosophical discourse on science.

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Philosophy of science

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  1. Philosophy of science Philosophers of science

  2. Early Philosophers • Plato (428 - 347 B.C.) • Rationalist • Aristotle(384 - 322 B.C.) • Empiricist

  3. Bacon, Francis (1561-1626) • English philosopher, essayist, and statesman • 1620 Novum Organum (New Tools) • Theory of Induction • Redefined the role of science in society from being a hobby for intellectuals, to a tool for bettering the life conditions of mankind • “Printing, the compass and gunpowder have changed the world, science will lead to many such inventions in the future” • Empiricist

  4. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) • 1637 Discourse on Method • Theory of Deduction • Mechanistic worldview • Mathematics is the primary form for reality and thinking • Mathematics is the key to knowledge • Rationalist

  5. Galileo Galilei (1564- 1642) • Astronomer/Mathematician, one of the greats of modern science • Galileo's achievements include: • demonstrating that the velocities of falling bodies are not proportional to their weights; • showing that the path of a projectile is a parabola; • building the first astronomical telescope; • coming up with the ideas behind Newton's laws of motion; • confirming the Copernican theory of the solar system. • He was denounced for heretical views by the church in Rome, tried by the Inquisition, and forced to renounce his belief that the planets revolved around the sun. • Designed “the scientific experiment” • http://www.mcm.edu/academic/galileo/ars/arshtml/mathofmotion1.html

  6. David Hume (1711-1776) Scottish enlightenment • “Neither reason nor experience reveals to us the truth about the things that traditional metaphysics discusses-things such as God, the soul or the material substances that supposedly cause our sense-perceptions” • Experience has only something to say about the past, nothing about the future

  7. Hume continued • What is reason? Can we justify a belief about the future by reasoning from the past to the future? • Inductive reasoning is only a habit or custom • There is no rational bases that correlations in the past will continue in the future • Most of our knowledge has a non-rational foundation • Critical empiricism is the way (the spirit of Bacon)

  8. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) • “Things in themselves” according to Kant • Reaction on Hume • The world as it appears to us is not reality as it is in itself. • The world in itself is the source of our experience. • The things in themselves are not objects for experience. • Our experience provides the ‘content’ of our sense-perceptions, which our mind renders intelligible through the imposition of form. • Mind does not create the world but it does shape it at a very deep level...

  9. The conflict • Empiricism - Rationalism • Aristotle - Plato • Bacon - Descartes • Newton? • Hume - Kant • Anglo-Saxon - Continental European • Assignment • Try to describe some experiment you have done in some subject by using the concepts: theory, hypothesis, empirical, rational, induction, deduction

  10. Assignment • Try to describe some experiment you have done in some subject by using the concepts: theory, hypothesis, empirical, rational, induction, deduction

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