Questions tagged [philosophy-of-science]
for applied philosophical questions about the study of science, the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and the scientific method
2
votes
1answer
81 views
Finding desirabilities and probabilities in Jeffrey's Logic of Decision
I'm trying to solve problem 16 (Ch. 5) of Jeffrey's Logic of Decision.
The problem says:
Suppose that A and B are pairwise incompatible propositions, and
suppose that the preference ranking is as ...
0
votes
1answer
22 views
What does ‘Disinterestedness’ mean in the context of Mertonian norms?
With ref to the CUDOS Mertonian norms...I used to think disinterestedness mean’t striving to be objective but I now think the intended meaning was for it to be taken literally.
-1
votes
0answers
25 views
Norton and Hume in thought experiments in science [on hold]
Norton believes that all thought arguments can be reformulated (and function) as arguments based on empirical premises reach a conclusion.
How does Hume’s account of thought experiments differ from ...
2
votes
1answer
40 views
Mach and Norton thought experiments in science
Both Mach and Norton hold empiricist views on the notions of the role of thought experiments.
Could someone please explain the difference? Have done some reading but it’s not totally clear.
2
votes
1answer
43 views
Popper and Platonism
Regarding thought experiments in science, James Robert Brown believes that thought experiments can provide knowledge of the laws of nature or the real world based on intuitive thinking (and not ...
1
vote
0answers
39 views
What difference is there between scientifically testable premises and personal biases that are tested? [on hold]
What difference is there between scientifically testable premises and personal biases that are tested?
That's, when is it possible to do scientific probing that is not somehow subjectively-oriented?
...
3
votes
1answer
87 views
Does the pessimistic meta-induction say that best scientific theories may be untrue, or merely not true about reality?
Does the pessimistic meta-induction say that best scientific theories may be untrue, or merely not true about a mind independent reality? Might examples from the history of science of past refuted ...
6
votes
3answers
117 views
How can the credibility of dietary recommendations of medical sciences and EBM be upheld in light of a history of radical changes of its claims?
I know the typical argument is that science is a work in progress and is constantly self-improving.
However, self-improvement demands some continuity in claims. For example, relativistic physics was ...
-1
votes
0answers
23 views
Is an inductive premise an empirical premise?
Is an inductive premise an empirical premise?
In developing the principle of equivalence, after seeing that bodies would free fall inertially in a box in space free of gravitation (just as it would ...
1
vote
1answer
36 views
What's the difference between XY=F and XY=0 in Jeffrey's Logic of Decision?
I'm stuck solving problem 14 in Chapter 5 of Jeffrey's Logic of Decision.
The first part of the problem says:
Show that in presence of prob is nonnegative (prob X≥0) and prob
is normalized (T=1)...
4
votes
2answers
82 views
Thought experiments and empiricism
The debate between Norton and Brown regarding whether thought experiments transcend empiricism is interesting with Norton suggesting that thought experiments do not transcend empiricism.
If one had ...
1
vote
1answer
35 views
Has there been any philosophical guidance regarding when to use logic vs empirical testing?
One obvious disadvantage of testing a given claim with scientific constraints is that one may never know the number of possible constraints to try, in which combinations, and in which order to modify ...
0
votes
1answer
38 views
What is the relation between the propensity interpretation of probability and probability in physics?
I would like to know what physicists think about the propensity viewpoint.If this latter one is in line with physics and especially Quantum Mechanics. Otherwise, what is the most coherent ...
0
votes
0answers
55 views
Is there any relation between Bhaskar's “critical realism” and recent philosophies like OOP and Accelerationism
Is there any relation between Bhaskar's "critical realism" and recent philosophies like OOP and Accelerationism. They feel broadly similar, perhaps just because both of the latter often involve post ...
2
votes
0answers
26 views
Does falsifiability require reproducibility according to Popper?
I can see how the idea of falsifiability (rather than some form of verificationism) could support a demarcation between science and pseudoscience. Here is the Wikipedia definition of falsifiability:
...
2
votes
4answers
129 views
Truth in Science vs. Truth in Math
Two scientists independently try to solve a problem to predict a certain phenomenon. The two scientists come up with different answers, but both of their solutions seem logical to each other. How do ...
2
votes
3answers
181 views
What is consciousness
Is it a question that science may answer? This article became the root of my thinking.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/mar/01/consciousness-eight-questions-science
-4
votes
2answers
90 views
Why is modern physics still connected to Western notions of time? [closed]
as Rasheedah Phillips says “Afrofuturism uses a completely different construct of time and engages a different notion of time consciousness and notion of the future than does the European brand of ...
3
votes
1answer
93 views
Who/What is the source of knowledge?
This question mostly pertains to physics and math, but I think it fits best on this site. I am not very familiar with philosophy, so I apologize if my question is not very formal.
Essentially, the ...
1
vote
0answers
55 views
Does a level I multiverse implicate a very long life? [closed]
Let's suppose that there are infinite level 1 universes, agreeing with physicist like Max Tegmark and even before them with philosophers like Giordano Bruno.
Now, please follow this thought ...
1
vote
3answers
55 views
Can hypotheses have parts that are supported or falsified individually?
Can an hypothesis that is part of the scientific method have multiple parts which can be falsified or supported individually?
Let's say the experiments provide evidence that Part A models correctly ...
2
votes
6answers
132 views
Can a theory become a law?
I'm just trying to speak properly and the definitions of fact, hypothesis, theory and law are quite mixed in my head.
Some background
The following are not perfect definitions but some ideas.
...
2
votes
0answers
99 views
AGI and Quine's conundrums:underdetermination and holism
How has [or will] the prevalence of “big data” – the exploding plethora of information and computing power to classify, categorize and correlate it, combined with Artificial General Intelligence, or ...
1
vote
1answer
41 views
Explaining the Termination Risk of Simulation Technologies
There is a recent article in Erkenntnis that discusses termination risks related to the simulation hypothesis [1]. That is, if we are living in a computer simulation, are there risks that might ...
3
votes
0answers
60 views
Looking for a book to compliment Zammito and Mohanty in understanding the ethos of post positivistic realism
There are two books which I consider to be indispensable to an understanding of
contemporary western culture’s post-truth/alternative facts (scientific and cultural post modernism/structuralism/...
7
votes
5answers
220 views
Social theory of science?
A lot of philosophers of science try to explain what science is through a normative approach. That it, they try to show what are norms and standards the satisfaction of which make a theory or practice ...
2
votes
1answer
48 views
What does it mean to say that the relation between evidence and hypotheses is “syntactic”?
Positivists construe the relation between evidence and hypotheses to
be syntactic (L1990, 23). Consequently, "what would count as evidence
for a hypothesis is determined by the form of the ...
0
votes
1answer
46 views
The definition of “scientific community”?
What is a "scientific community"? What are its features? I am looking for rather recent and widely received definition of "scientific community".
1
vote
2answers
105 views
What is the most basic thing? [closed]
I wanted to know that what is the most basic or the basicestest thing that makes up the universe? Just like a wall is made up of bricks and bricks are made up of atoms and atoms are made up of ...
3
votes
2answers
148 views
Is Occam's razor about finding the “Best” or the “Worst”?
William of Ockham would, in the 14th century, scarcely have imagined how much Philosophy of science could change. Then when Bacon gave us Inductivism in the 17th century, an immediate synergy can be ...
6
votes
5answers
3k views
Do good explanations have to be true?
Is it so that whenever one gives an explanation to a question starting from 'why' or 'how' the explanation that we receive in return always is true in nature?
From one perspective, an explanation is ...
4
votes
2answers
61 views
Are all unobservables in physics very small?
Are all unobservables in physics very small?
I think I've read that the interior of the sun is an unobservable, and so entity realists like Ian Hacking have to claim we can't know anything at all ...
4
votes
3answers
62 views
What is evidence?
I know I should know what evidence is, but I have been unable to find an in-depth definition of it.
I originally thought that it was a when an argument against a theory or hypotheses was proven ...
11
votes
7answers
2k views
Is it inappropriate for politicians to make rules governing scientific research?
Robinson Meyer, in a recent article in The Atlantic, quotes law professor Wendy Wagner as follows:
People who are not scientists are telling us how scientific synthesis and analysis should be done.....
3
votes
3answers
127 views
Objectivity in science
In my view scientists make experiments and get results. Then, usually they interpret these results (theories). We may agree that experiments' results are objective, at least if they are reproducible. ...
1
vote
0answers
36 views
Would Popper have argued that a coin toss is indeterministic?
I know that Popper was an adovcate of the propensity theory of probability, i.e. probabilities are understood as properties of sets of generating conditions. Furthermore I (think) I have read that ...
3
votes
1answer
100 views
Random Emergence
In De Caelo 300b, Aristotle introduces the idea of the random emergence of the natural:
"it is possible that with this disorderly motion some of the elements might have unified in those combinations ...
3
votes
1answer
50 views
Is there a fundamental difference between hypothetical explanations in sociology and natural sciences?
According to Explanandum and Explanans on Wikipedia:
An explanandum (a Latin term) is a sentence describing a phenomenon
that is to be explained, and the explanans are the sentences adduced
as ...
2
votes
0answers
42 views
Philosophical way to look at classical interpretation of probability
I was thinking about the classical interpretation of probability. They make the assumption that determinism obtains in the natural world. Hence, probability is epistemic. Can I see that as a form of ...
2
votes
0answers
68 views
Kierkegaard and Natural Sciences
Is there any overlap in Kierkegaard's work and Philosophy of Science? If my memory is not misleading, Søren's journals had plenty of mathematical and scientific examples, but used for the most part to ...
3
votes
1answer
101 views
Are there examples of when verificationism doesn't hold in Physics?
Are there examples of when verificationism doesn't hold in the context of Physics?
I intend to relate this to some discussion of Einstein's use of verificationism to discard Ether in the magnet ...
-1
votes
2answers
211 views
Does free will contradict the theory of infinite universes
Let's imagine that we live in a world with infinite universes. One of these universes is the same as the one we live in, except for one change: this morning I choose to cut off my leg for some reason, ...
1
vote
0answers
18 views
What does Latour mean by (-/non/post/)modernism?
There is a summary on wikipedia of We Have Never Been Modern which says
Latour viewed modernism as an era that believed it had annulled the entire past in its wake.[29] He presented the antimodern ...
1
vote
0answers
41 views
Foucault and scientific revolutions
In the famous debate between Foucault and Chomsky (link), Foucault argues that there is no human nature really because, among other things, a scientific revolution in some science is just a revolution ...
4
votes
2answers
115 views
Question about the “catch-all” hypothesis as a response to the “bad lot” objection
In response to van Fraassen's "bad lot" objection, I have seen in multiple papers (and in the response of Lipton, from what I remember) refer to the idea of the use of a 'catch-all' hypothesis which ...
2
votes
1answer
48 views
What are some of the most successful responses to van Fraassen's “bad lot” argument against explanatory inference?
As the question asks, what are the most successful responses to van Fraassen's "bad lot" argument against explanatory inference?
By 'successful' I just mean most widely accepted or argued for. Or ...
0
votes
8answers
213 views
Can we ask an infinite amount of questions or is there a limit to how many questions we can ask? [closed]
I've been thinking about the nature of questions and answers to questions. Can I ask people opinions on whether they think it is possible to ask an infinite amount of questions or do we as human ...
3
votes
3answers
103 views
How, in layman's terms, does one argue against solipsism and/or the denial of Occam's razor?
Lately I've been listening to lots discussions with conspiracy theorists and science-deniers, and I've noticed that, when their position is challenged with evidence, their responses generally fall ...
1
vote
4answers
116 views
Why do we think objects and beings are real? [closed]
How can we tell if we are real and not a simulation that we perceive to be real. Given we know not what the universe is except what we perceive it to be.
What if galaxies are just but other ...
2
votes
4answers
92 views
Specific questions from reading Russell's “The Problems of Philosophy”
I don’t understand the following things from Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy, page 49-52:
What is meant by “we can only know what is required in order to secure the correspondence.” (...
