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Philosophy of science

Philosophy of science. Philosophers of science. Early Philosophers. Plato (428 - 347 B.C.) Rationalist Aristotle ( 384 - 322 B.C.) Empiricist. Bacon, Francis (1561-1626). English philosopher, essayist, and statesman 1620 Novum Organum (New Tools) Theory of Induction

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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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