Study+Guide


 * Concepts** you should be able to explain or discuss

demarcation verifiability falsifiability normal science puzzle-solving matters of fact relations of ideas analytic and synthetic research programmes necessary and sufficient conditions pseudoscience valid and sound arguments truth-preserving deductive reasoning entailment reductio ad absurdum inductive reasoning inductive strength and cogency logical fallacy (equivocation, false dilemma, ad hominem, etc.) theory-ladenness of observation underdetermination holism


 * Quotes** to consider in depth:

Chalmers (7) "one has to learn to be a competent observer in science…microscopists found no great difficulty observing cells divide in suitably prepared circumstances once they were alert for what to look for, whereas prior to this discovery these cell divisions went unobserved."

Chalmers (9): "although the images on our retinas are part of the cause of what we see, another very important part of the cause is the inner state of our minds or brains, which will itself depend on our cultural upbringing, our knowledge and our expectations"

Chalmers (25): "observations suitable for constituting a basis for scientific knowledge are both objective and fallible. They are objective insofar as they can be publicly tested by straightforward procedures, and they are fallible insofar as they may be undermined by new kinds of tests made possible by advances in science and technology."

 Kuhn (C&C 14): "it is precisely the abandonment of critical discourse that marks the transition to a science”

Lakatos (C&C 20): “Indeed, the hallmark of scientific behavior is a certain skepticism even towards one’s most cherished theories”

Lakatos (C&C 21): "In scientific reasoning, theories are confronted with facts; and one of the central conditions of scientific reasoning is that theories must be supported by facts."

Laudan (C&C 49): "It is now widely acknowledged that many scientific claims are not testable in isolation, but only when embedded in a larger system of statements, some of whose consequences can be submitted to test"

Duhem (C&C 266): "Unlike the reduction to absurdity employed by geometers, experimental contradiction does not have the power to transform a physical hypothesis into an indisputable truth"


 * Study Questions**:

1. Consider Chalmers description of the "common basis of science [in fact]" on p. 4. a) Facts are directly given to carfeul, unprejudiced observers via the senses b) Facts are prior to and independent of theory c) Facts constitute a firm and reliable foundation for scientific knowledge Further on, Chalmers tries to disambiguate the two uses of the word fact: "it can refer to the statement that expresses the fact and it can also refer to the state of affairs referred to by such a statement" (10)  Does Chalmers' critique of the "common basis" commit the fallacy of equivocation vis a vis the use of the word "fact"?

2. Consider two examples of purported pseudosciences (e.g. astrology, alchemy, parapsychology, sociobiology, Marxism, psychoanalytic theory, Pyramidology, etc.) Explain Popper's criterion of demarcation, and apply it to your examples. Explain how Kuhn's criterion differs from Popper's, and apply it to your examples as well. Finally, consider Ruse's suggestion about how to distinguish science from non-science and apply it. Discuss the relative merits of the three strategies for distinguishing science from pseudoscience.

3. What is the three-part matrix Thagard claims as relevant to demarcation, and what factors does it include which the authors of earlier readings did not? I.e., explain his demarcation principle and how it is like/unlike Kuhn’s or Lakatos’. When does astrology come out as a pseudoscience according to Thagard’s criterion?

4. What are the two dogmas of empiricism, and in what way, according to Quine, are they at root the same?