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Five Minutes on PoS for Mapping Workshop. By Noretta Koertge. Introductory Remarks. I’ll give a quick overview of some of the differing ways philosophers have characterized scientific reasoning, using visual prompts as much as possible.
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Five Minutes on PoS for Mapping Workshop By Noretta Koertge
Introductory Remarks • I’ll give a quick overview of some of the differing ways philosophers have characterized scientific reasoning, using visual prompts as much as possible. • John Losee has two books that provide an historical introduction to PoS
Inductive Accounts • What we might call naïve inductivism says science begins with observations. These are clustered into generalizations of ever increasing scope that eventually contain theoretical terms. Sometimes called the “layer-cake model.” • Example: observe behavior of gases, generalize to Boyle-Mariotte Law and Charles’ Law. Then explain low-level laws with the Kinetic Theory of Gases. • The emphasis is on accumulation. If any revision occurs it is because the scientist behaved irresponsibly.
Not-so-Naïve Inductivism • No one (?) thought that was the whole story. For example, Francis Bacon privileged shininginstances, observations that were especially useful for revealing the hidden nature of the phenomena under study. • William Whewell, a contemporary of Kant, stressed the importance of finding the right concepts with which to describe phenomena. • His visual metaphor for what he calls the consilience of inductions seems to be tributaries converging into a river that is both broader and deeper. • There follows a fragment of Whewell’s Inductive Table for Astronomy, taken from his Novum Organon Renovatum. Brackets show consilience; italics highlight conceptual innovation.
Hypothetic-Deductive Accounts • Although inductivist approaches are still often found in scientific practice (cf. data mining or so-called shotgun empiricism), what one often finds in scientific textbooks today is an H-D model. • Scientists are guided by hypotheses that they then test through experiments, collections of data, and comparison with other well-tested scientific claims. Initial hypotheses are often wrong and must often be either refined or totally discarded. • Popper’s Conjectures and Refutations provides a critique of inductivism and an account of what makes hypotheses bold and tests severe.
Paradigms and Research Programmes • On a naïve Popperian C&R account, the hypothesis space would be unconstrained and science would be the site of “revolution in permanence.” (Popper himself included metaphysical frameworks and background knowledge.) • Kuhn’s major challenge to inductivists was his emphasis on scientific revolutions. But especially troubling to Popperians, was his account of “normal science,” which made science seem too conservative and too dogmatic. • Lakatos’ Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes tried to “Popperize Kuhn.” His students generated a couple dozen of case studies that showed the historical usefulness of the RP approach.
A Problem-Centered Approach • In Objective Knowledge Popper introduced a little diagram that made explicit the importance of problems in understanding scientific inquiry. The next slide combines excerpts of that discussion. • There then follows a slide that I often use in intro lectures. (I’ve probably published it somewhere but can’t remember where.) • See also the ms. about the nature of scientific problems on my webpage.
Towards an Ecosystem Model? • The previous accounts of the scientific process are discipline-centered, although they recognize that techniques and concepts can be imported from outside and that inconsistencies between disciplinary claims pose important problems to be resolved. • Steven Johnson in The Invention of Air makes preliminary moves towards an ecosystem approach to scientific knowledge. • He is inspired by the following Bretherton Diagram, an attempt to show the structure of Earth System Science.
