Philosophy of science:
In the 20th century , has its origins in logical positivism/empiricism
which took its understanding of empiricism from Hume and logical developments
due to Frege, Russell, and Whitehead
Concerns:
The nature and scope of the evidence for scientific theories
(evidence understood as sensory or deductive entailment)
The logic of scientific reasoning, with the understanding
that the goals of science are explanation and prediction
The structure of scientific theories
Demarcation issues (what distinguishes science from pseudo
and non science?)
From Hume:
To be meaningful, a statement must concern "relations
of ideas" or "matters of fact"
This was understood to rule out metaphysics, theology,
and the like.
Positivists:
Verification theory of meaning: the meaning of a statement
just is the empirical conditions that would verify it.
Instrumentalism concerning theoretical (unobservable)
entities and events
Theories are tools to "save the phenomena"
Inductive reasoning in the context of discovery; deductive
reasoning in the context of justification
Some core questions in the philosophy of social sciences:
Progress relative to that of the natural sciences?
Foundations?
Methods?
Objectivity?
Efforts by some social scientists to adhere to the positive
model, and its rejection by others
Realism or social constructivism?
Should/can the social sciences explain or is understanding
or interpretation the appropriate goal?
Feminist and postcolonial science studies critiques
Accountability: given their subject matter and, in archaeology,
concerning the treatment/ownership of historical artifacts
What makes a question “philosophical,” rather than “scientific”?
Philosophical questions are questions the sciences cannot
answer
These questions include why the sciences cannot answer
such questions
An alternative: “Philosophy of science is science gone self conscious” (Quine)
Are there limits on the sorts of questions science can answer? Rosenberg,
yes. Examples:
What are the methods of science?
How do these methods limit the kinds of question science
can address?
No one science can answer either of these questions.
Attention to relevant philosophical questions is important (necessary) to
good science
Because even if science can't provide answers to them,
individual scientists have to take sides on them.
Scientists must take a position on which their science
can/should answer ethical or moral questions.
Lack of consensus among the social sciences, sometimes
within specific sciences, about appropriate domain, methods, and standards.
Questions of concern to the philosophy of social science: Can human action be explained in the way that natural science explains phenomena in its domain?
From “the received view” of the philosophy of science:
The goal of science is explanation
To explain an event or object or process, it must be subsumed
under a law (deterministic or statistical)
For some, laws and explanations have causation at their
core
For others, ‘causation’ just is “constant conjunction,”
not “the cement (duck tape?) of the universe, and laws are merely the descriptions
of such constant (or statistically significant) conjunctions.
One of the most serious philosophical questions to be addressed: if the social
sciences have made less progress than the natural sciences, why is this the
case?
If a social scientist believes it is true, what explanations might you offer
– and, as important – how might this affect your own research:
Do social scientists fail to use the methods successful
in natural science or fail to use them properly?
You might not agree that the social sciences should use
the methods appropriate to the natural sciences and locate the problem elsewhere
(complexity of human behavior, for example). You might take the subject matter
of the social sciences to call for different methods and to be evaluated
by different standards than those appropriate to the natural sciences.
Alternatively, a social scientist might deny outright
the claim that the natural sciences have demonstrated more progress (or,
for that matter, progress at all in the ways the question assumes)
Does the question of comparative progress matter? Is it the aim of the social
sciences (or should it be) to improve the human condition?
If explanation and prediction are the goals of science, and both require laws, then why haven't the social sciences discovered laws?
Are the social sciences harder than the natural sciences?
The number of regularities to which humans are subject…
Ethical considerations in terms of experimenting/studying
human subjects
Are the social sciences younger than the natural sciences?
In what period do we take them to emerge?
Moreover, haven't they enjoyed – unlike the natural sciences – a continuity
of concepts, in particular:
Action
Desire
Belief
Grounded in our folk psychology (in turn, perhaps an adaptation?) these are very old. But one can ask, if they are the right categories for explaining human behavior?
If not, are they the reason the social scientists have not been successful?
Is the individual the appropriate focus of research and explanation, or groups of individuals, or systems?
Representing “the received view” through the 1970s (80s?) in the philosophy of science and very influential in archaeology and some other social sciences
On the one hand, Hempel rejects the account of discovery as involving inductive reasoning maintained by earlier positivists.
On the other hand, he shares other assumptions with positivists (and thus is often referred to as a positivist)
The role of logic:
Both observations and statements of theory are taken to be in the form of sentences (singular and universal/statistical, respectively)
Thus, the relationship between observations and theories can be formalized using logic (which just is the study of sentential relationships in terms of degree of support, etc.)
The role of experience:
Observations (particularly those made in the context of experiments) can be used in the context of justification to test hypotheses and theories.
To explain is to subsume a phenomenon under a generalization (and ultimately a law).
p, q, r (small case or capitalized as meta-variables ranging over sets of
sentences)
v inclusive ‘or’
& and
~ it is not the case that
> if/ then
P Q (if P then Q)
Aspects of the received view (“post” positivist or positivist?)
Context of discovery/context of justification distinction
There is no logic of discovery (and certainly not naïve inductivist
account)
How a hypothesis is arrived at is unimportant; how it
is tested is
Cannot consider all the facts, cannot categorize them
without a hypothesis
Observation statements concern observables; theories include
non-observables
“Bridge” or correspondence principles connect the two
“Testability” as demarcating statements with empirical import from those
without
Problem > consider/devise hypotheses > derive test implication from
the most promising > test it or them
Modus tollens (the logic of falsification) is deductively valid
P > Q H > I
~Q
~I
------- -------
~P
~H
The logic of confirmation is not:
P > Q H > I
Q
I
------- -------
P
H
Still inductivist in a wider sense (sophisticated inductivism) and subject
to the problem of induction
H & (I1, I2, … In)
I1, I2, … In
--------------------
H
(H & [(A1 & A2) & … An]) > I
~I
---------------------------------
~(H & [(A1 & A2) & … An])
I: C > E
(H & A) > (C > E)
~E
--------------------
~(H & A)?
~C?
~(C > E)?
Contextualism:
Identifying that something is a problem (or needs explaining)
Identifying “worthwhile” hypotheses
Identifying the implications of a hypothesis and how it can be “tested”