“Let’s get scientific!”

But what does that mean? What does it mean to say that something is scientific? What are the main concerns of a “Philosophy if Science?” Clearly, there is a huge body literature on the philosophy of science. This gloss I offer in order to give you an overall perspective on what the philosophy of science is about and, hopefully, to whet your appetite to find out more.

Science and the Nature and Limits of Knowledge

Generally speaking, the philosophy of science is that branch of philosophy which examines the methods used by science (e.g. the ways in which scientists frame hypotheses and test them against evidence), and the grounds on which scientific claims about the world may be justified.

Traditionalists with respect to the nature of science (including many working scientists themselves) claim that there is a clear demarcation between science and non-science/ pseudo-science, specifically they point to the distinguishing features of scientific methodology. (e.g. the use of experiments). Modern science is concerned principally with information acquired by means of observation, experiment and analysis. But this runs into trouble as soon as one notices that not all the sciences are experimental (astronomy, history, social sciences, psychoanalysis).

The word 'science' comes from the Latin scientia, meaning 'knowledge: but as previously noted, science is not necessarily concerned with ALL forms of knowledge. Moral knowledge, legal knowledge, aesthetic knowledge, etc. would not be properly considered “scientific bodies of knowledge” contemporarily. And since knowledge is contrasted with mere opinion, science must be concerned with epistemic warrant. The process of gaining scientific knowledge is one in which the straightforward claim to deal with facts needs to be qualified, both

1. on account of the way we reason from evidence to the framing of scientific theories

2. from the nature of the experiments upon which science is based.

Some Important Topics:

· Demarcation

· Essentialism/ Nominalism

· Induction

· Induction, Law of Nature and Explanation

· Mechanisms for Scientific Advance and Theory Preference

· Teleology

· Scientism

· The Role of the Philosophy of Science

· Observation Sentences/ Theoretical Sentences and Bearers of (Scientific) Meaning

Science and Demarcation

First, as has already been noted, what philosophers and scientists refer to today as “science” is arguably more accurately referred to as "Modern Science.” It may surprise some to discover that well before the advent of modern science Western philosophers/scientists are engaged in inquiry which they refer to as “science.” (I recall making that statement in the company of a physicist who took some offense. He assured me that there was no science before Galileo.) Nevertheless, as I pointed out to him, it really was their word (the pre-Moderns) after all. Science comes from the Latin word “Scientia.” It doesn’t seem quite right to tell them they were using their word wrong all along since they “were not really doing science” in the first place.

Often when philosophers ask “What is science?” it is natural to regard that as an instance of a Socratic/Platonic quest to find the unifying “Form of Science.”

“What is it that all and only “science” has in common by virtue of which it is science?”

This is asking for what common feature all the things properly considered science share or what is it that makes something a science.

But this immediately raises the questions:

1. Is it a “natural kind” that we must discover

2. Is it a social/linguistic construction we create?

Plato would hope for the former, Wittgenstein would caution us that it is probably the latter. If the social constructivists/ nominalists are right, then there is merely the pragmatic question to ask: What practices is it most useful to label “science?”

Science and pseudo-science

How do we demarcate “science” and distinguish it from other forms of inquiry as well as from pseudo-science? Figuring this out will allow us:

1. To distinguish between genuine science and bogus pseudo-science.

2. To assess or otherwise regard the deliverances of science” (i.e. what scientists tell us non-scientists).

3. To know If and when to regard a scientific theory as an absolute truth, a temporary hypothesis, a useful model, a colorful mythology held by a unique tribe.

4. To identify what are scientific questions, methods, and language (and what is NOT).

Karl Popper (1902 - 1994) argued that the fundamental feature of a scientific theory is that it should be falsifiable. A falsifiable theory is one that we might discover to be false - it is not compatible with every possible course of experience. If a theory is unfalsifiable, that is, if the theory is compatible will all experiences real or imagined, then this was a sure sign that it was not a scientific theory.

· Popper thought that scientific theories that did not satisfy this condition did not deserve to be called science at all; rather they were merely pseudo-science.

· Popper cited Freud's psychoanalytic theory as a prime example of pseudo-science since the theory could be reconciled with any empirical findings and made no empirical predictions whatsoever. Freud's theory was unfalsifiable.

· Popper believed that Marx's theory of history was also pseudo-scientific. Initially, Marxist theory did make specific empirical predictions which did not in fact occur. Had later Marxists simply accepted this as genuine falsification of Marxist theory, it would have remained a genuine (disproven) scientific theory in Popper's view. However, since Marx's theory could be made compatible with any possible course of events (and was in fact made compatible by some of his more creative defenders), it became unfalsifiable just like Freud's; it does not qualify as being genuinely scientific, according to Popper's criterion.

· Popper contrasted these theories with Einstein's theory of relativity which satisfies the criterion of falsifiability.

While Popper's attempt to demarcate science from pseudo-science seems initially to be intuitively plausible, some philosophers regard Popper's criterion as being overly simplistic. Popper's criticism of Freud/Marx for explaining away data that appeared to conflict with their theories seemed to be used by plenty of 'respectable scientists'.

Essentialism versus Nominalism

This is one instance of a larger dispute. Does science have an essential nature, but more broadly, does anything at all have a fixed essential nature? As we have seen, the Classical worldview asserts that there are “natural kinds” and it is the business of science to carve nature by its joints[1], so to speak. We think it proper for biologists to distinguish between cats and dogs since these are different species and manifest real, mind independent features of nature. For the biologist to distinguish between cats named Fred and cats names Max would seem silly and appealing to a specious distinction. But many modern philosophers and some scientists as well reject the idea that there are any fixed essences along with Aristotelian formal and final causality. A powerful implication of Darwinian Evolution is that biological species are NOT fixed at all. The nominalist will tell us that this should not surprise us since it is, in fact, nothing other than our social and linguistic practices that create certain sortings of the world (not the world’s own “joints,” and that pragmatic benefits and only pragmatic benefits, recommend one sorting over an alternative. We will be looking at this dispute as it relates to science.

Induction and Probability

It is generally agreed that scientific theories cannot be conclusively proven, but must be regarded as

1. having degrees of probability (inductive generalizations of statistical probabilities)

2. or as the best available explanation at the moment (epistemic probability)

Knowledge, for science, aims to be proven knowledge, justified by evidence and reason. Nothing is accepted as true unless it has been proved to be so, or there are good reasons to believe that it will be at some point in the future. This reflects the philosophical quest for certainty that goes back to Rene Descartes (1596-1650), who refused to accept anything that he could not know for certain to be true. He hoped to base all knowledge on self-evident propositions, and thought that reason should take priority over observation. Descartes was aware that his senses frequently misled him. The implication of this, a view which had a long history prior to the rise of science, was that, if the evidence of our senses did not conform to reason, it was likely that the testimony of our senses was in error.

Thus the “knowledge” that science provides is far less certain then what Plato or Descartes or even Aristotle for that matter, would have regarded as properly meeting the definition of knowledge. Other philosophers, such as John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711-76), took sense experience as the basis for knowledge, and it is their approach (known as empiricism) which has provided much of the philosophical underpinning of modern science. Locke believed we must content ourselves with something less then Descartes “certainty” which he regarded as an unattainable and unnecessary pipedream.

John Locke responds to Descartes in the following way:

“But yet, after all this anyone will be so skeptical and distrust the senses, and to affirm that what we see and hear, … is but a series of appearances of a long dream, … and therefore will question the existence of all things, knowledge of anything… I make him this answer, that the certainty of things existing in rerum natura when we have the testimony of our senses for it is not only as great as our frame can attain to, but as our condition needs."[2]

So for Locke, inquiry and science cannot proceed by deduction and a priori truths alone (if at all) but rather by experience and induction. But a point I need to stress is that the Modern Empiricism of Locke et al. is markedly different from the Classical Empiricism of Aristotle, Aquinas and the Scholastics. The modern commitment to representational realism and rejection of essentialism and formal causality meant that at most we could infer truths about the world inductively, making predictions about future experiences based on past experiences. In fact, the very notion of what “inductive inference” amounts to and what epistemic warrant it provides will be one of the very problems considered in philosophy of science. But one thing that most moderns would agree on is that science does not consist in grasping timeless and eternal truths of which we can be certain.

Although the raw data for science is mediated to us by the senses, we shall be looking at the way in which science has always been at pains to find ways to ensure that our senses are not deceived -in particular, by devising experiments which control nature in such a way that a single feature of it can be checked out, without being too influenced by everything else. From the time of Locke to the present, philosophers of science have tried to develop methods of minimizing subjectivity and interpretation when collecting observational data. Science still strives for this, but more and more philosophers of science have pointed out challenging limitations to achieve anything like “pure objectivity.”

Many would point out however, that for all its uncertainties, this science from the last four hundred years has radically transformed every aspect of human existence. (On balance, for the better.) Now, if a theory “works,” that is, solves the problems we are trying to solve, makes predictions that actually occur, the theory on which it is based must be correct, or at least, is strongly supported. That’s the thinking anyway. But there is a sense in which this “thinking” commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Note I am claiming it my theory is true (P) then we should have a certain observed fact (Q). We have the observed fact, therefore the theory must be true.

P -> Q

Therefore

But as any freshman logic student will tell you, NOTHING strictly follows from the conjunction of P -> Q

And Q.

Well, one might reply, of course it does not follow deductively. But we never said it did. Instead we said it follows inductively. Ah, but again, what exactly does that mean? What is the nature of induction and are there questionable presumptions upon which inductive reasoning in science relies? Philosophers of science consider these questions.

Induction, Explanation and Natural Law

Another key question within the philosophy of science concerns how it is that we can move from observation of natural phenomena to producing general statements about the world. Since an indispensable feature of science is the construction of theories that are supposed to explain various facts about the world, the philosophy of science will ask questions about the nature and origins of theories and explanations and mechanisms employed in these theories such as “natural laws.”

This can be broken down further:

1. What is the mental or methodological process for constructing these theories?

2. What licensees or warrants this inference from observation the theoretical explanation?

3. By what criteria can one say that a theory is correct or otherwise judge between rival theories?

4. What is the cogency of key mechanisms employed by scientific theories such as “natural law?”

Related to these are questions of scientific realism versus instrumentalism, essentialism versus nominalism and mechanisms for scientific advance and theory preference.

Mechanisms for Scientific Advance and Theory Preference

It would seem that Popper's attempt to demarcate science from pseudo-science cannot be entirely correct. Scientists do not generally just abandon their theories whenever they find conflict with the observational data. Usually they look for ways of eliminating the conflict without having to give up their theory. The failure of Popper's demarcation criterion throws up an important question: Is it actually possible to find some common feature shared by all the things we call 'science', and not shared by anything else? The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein argued that there is no fixed set of features that define what it is to be a 'game.' The same may be true of science.

But besides demarcation, this raises another question for the Philosophy of Science: what guides the constructive project? What values or other forces do shape or should shape our construction of “science?” What constitutes a scientific advance and how are such advances achieved. Popper differs famously with Thomas Kuhn on this issue. In Kuhn’s controversial 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, he argues that science does not proceed in the logical/ rational fashion suggested by Popper, but rather social pressures and developments among communities of scientists are also responsible for the abandonment of one “paradigm” and adoption of a new one. Philosophy of Science examines this dispute as well

Unity of Science and Teleology

There is another way in which science is said to advance. When separate theories are subsumed under a single more fundamental theory, this is regarded as an advance in understanding. This explains the scientific quest for the “Grand Unification Theory” in physics. Now one might question whether or not this would truly be an advance, especially is the GUT gave no better predictive models then the ones we already have. But there is another issue here. There are those who seek a unity within all of science, that is, that the information, knowledge and theories of one branch of the natural sciences can be translated into or otherwise accounted for in the language and theories of a more fundamental branch. For instance, we might achieve a kind of unity between chemistry and physics if chemical talk could be reduced to physics talk.

But there seems a problem with biology. Biology contains teleological talk, perhaps vestigial. For instance, it seems an important biological fact that the purpose of the heart is to circulate blood, a fact we were ignorant of for the better part of human history and one we are better off knowing. Neither chemistry nor physics contain any teleological notions. If biology is fundamentally teleological, then no complete reduction is possible without the loss of knowledge. Some have argued that biology is NOT fundamentally teleological, but rather evolution theory can help us translate talk of purpose and function into purely mechanistic talk that can be accommodated by the other two physical sciences. Similar issues arise when trying to subsume the social sciences within the natural sciences. We will be looking at what role, if any, teleology can play in science.

Scientific Realism and Instrumentalism

But let us grant what few would deny: science provides us with powerful, useful theories. Should we, on this basis, believe that our most useful theories give us an accurate picture of reality? Well, this is a slightly more complicated question than it might at first appear. It depends on whether or not

1. Truth is a correspondence relation that exists between our mental representations (pictures/ sentences/ propositions) and “the way the world really is.”

2. There is “one” accurate picture of reality, one and only one “way the world really is.”

3. Usefulness is sufficient to assure us that the requisite correspondence obtains.

A Kantian or first-generation Pragmatist is going to reject #1. Truth is not a correspondence relation between the objects of our experience and some extra-mental reality. The Pragmatists would add the very notion of such a correspondence is incoherent and all we could possible mean by saying that a theory is true IS that it is useful in solving our problems and making accurate predictions about our experiences. Note that this is not a particularly new view of science. Something like this dispute arose among the ancient astronomers, at least as to what the goals of science should be.

Neo-pragmatists would reject #2. They reject the universal subjectivism of a Kant or the mythical “end of inquiry” of a C. S. Peirce[3] claiming instead that truth and ontology a relative and there is no place “outside” of theory to make non-theory-laden judgments about at adequacy of a given theory or ontology.

But if one wishes to retain the old correspondence account of truth and scientific realism (i.e. Science is in the business of telling us the way the world really is.) then #3 returns as a skeptical challenge to science.

We need to examine these presumptions.

One might ask “why ask philosophical questions about science?”

Well... Why not? J

But there are some practical benefits. Doing so may reveal unwarranted assumptions, and these in term may serve to improve science. But of course, philosopher types think the best reason to ask philosophical questions about science is because it’s interesting and part of living an examined life. Nevertheless, one might suggest, as above, that science is validated by the results it achieves. “If it aint broke, don’t ‘fix it’ (or think about it).” one might say. See Bill Nye[4] or Neil deGrasse Tyson[5] on the uselessness of philosophical speculation, especially as compared to the usefulness and fruitfulness of science.

But for one thing, if 'science' is simply a label that is given to a certain domain of questions and methods of investigation to answer those questions, it is quite reasonable to ask whether a field of study is, from the perspective of the rest of science, genuine or bogus. For instance, we regard Astronomy is scientific, but most would contend that astrology is not. Mainstream medicine is scientific, but what of herbalism, homeopathy, acupuncture, chiropracty.? Knowing what “genuine science” is seems to require that we police it and can clearly articulate and defend the demarcation criteria we employ.

And what of the claim that a product is 'scientifically proven' to give health benefits? What does such a claim imply and how can it be verified? These are all questions that require careful attention.

Science and Scientism

As we discussed, the Enlightenment was a time of great optimism, and science was seen as a savior of sorts. Science would free us from disease, poverty, drudgery, famine, environmental catastrophes, perhaps even war and ignorance. Reason, once unfettered by superstition, blind faith or allegiance to tradition, and held to a strict empirical standards of epistemic warrant, would be the tool by which humankind would be emancipated.

These past few centuries saw the rise and development of the “experimental method.” But what in part they did not realize is that their optimism depended in part on an uncritical acceptance of some of the very blind faith presumptions from which they sought emancipation. (The existence of a fixed objective truth accessible to human reason.) There remained a fundamental trust in the human ability to understand and to benefit from that understanding, but, above all, science seemed to offer a degree of certainty about the world.

Scientism: the view that the scientific description of reality is the only truth there is. Nothing counts as genuine knowledge which does not meet the critical standards of scientific language and justification.

We will see/saw with Positivism the suggestion that any genuine factual statement could be/ should be authenticated by science in principle, is not in fact true or even possible. Positivists urged is to reject all non-scientific approaches to knowing reality (including all the arts, religion, metaphysics, ethics, and personal, emotional and value-laden ways of encountering the world). Most regarded them as subjective attitudes or emotional expressions but not genuine meaningful expressions of knowledge. But the incoherence of this view does not seem to dissuade a surprising number of “ordinary” people even today. While this is not a widely held view within the community of philosophers, the public’s very high esteem of the “scientific fact” and its deep suspicion of claims of value, etc. are remarkably entrenched in the popular mind. This too is an issue for the philosopher of science.

Philosophers and scientists

Until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, science and philosophy were not regarded as separate disciplines. Natural philosophy was the term used for the branch of philosophy which sought to understand the fundamental structure and nature of the universe, whether by theoretical or experimental methods, and some of the greatest names in philosophy -both before and after science appeared as a separate discipline were also involved with mathematics and science.

As science developed particular forms of experimentation and observation, it naturally started to separate off from the more general and theoretical considerations of philosophy. It also became increasingly difficult for anyone person to have a specialist working knowledge of all branches of science, quite apart from all branches of philosophy. Hence the activities of scientists and philosophers started to be distinguished, with the latter carrying out a secondary function of checking on the underlying principles and operating assumptions of those engaged in science.

However, it would be wrong to think that the influence has all been one way, with philosophy gently guarding and nurturing its young, scientific offshoot. Science has been so influential in shaping the way we look at the world that it has influenced many aspects of philosophy. The Logical Positivists of the early twentieth century, for example, regarded scientific language as the ideal, and wanted all claims to be judged on the basis of evidence, with precise words corresponding to external facts that could be checked and shown to be the case. This led them to argue that all metaphysical or moral claims were meaningless. In effect, they were arguing that philosophy should have scientific precision.

Sometimes scientists see themselves as the bastion of reason against superstition and religion. This was a popular view in the eighteenth century, and is still found today, as for example in the work of Richard Dawkins (1941-), who parallels his promotion of science with a criticism of religious beliefs on the grounds that they cannot be justified rationally, effectively using science as a benchmark for proven knowledge.

The Role of the Philosophy of Science

The first example of the philosophy of science, as a separate branch of philosophy, is, arguably, found in the work of William Whewell (1794-1866), who wrote both on the history of science, and also (in 1840) on The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon Their History[6] (1847). As science must proceed inductively, it is very important to have clarity on precisely what inductive inference is. Whewell enters in to a famous and longstanding dispute with John Stuart Mill on this issue.[7]

Whereas scientists tend to become more and more specialized in their interests, philosophers generally stand back from the details of particular research programs, and concentrate on making sense of the overall principles and establishing how they relate together to give an overall view of the world.

There are two problems here:

1. Science is too vast for anyone person to have an up-to-date, specialist knowledge of every branch. Hence the philosopher of science, being a generalist, is always going to have a problem with doing justice to the latest scientific work upon which he or she needs to comment.

2. The role of science can sometimes be overstated, with its exponents slipping into scientism.

Observation Sentences/ Theoretical Sentences and Bearers of (Scientific) Meaning

Finally, since all theories are expressed in language, we must deal, to some extent, with all the usual philosophical problems of language, that is, not only what we can know and of how we can know it, but what can we say and how can we say it. Can we make a sharp divide between “pure” observation sentences and statements that are theory laden? If not, then any observation statement will presume (therefore cannot prove) the truth of the theoretical construct to which it belongs. Kuhn also makes this point in his The Structure of Scientific Revolution. On the strongest interpretation of this view, scientific theories cannot be disproven; only abandoned.

Traditional Branches of Philosophy relevant to Philosophy of Science or, perhaps, to be obviated by Science:

· metaphysics (the attempt to describe the general structures of reality -and whether or not it is possible to do so)

· epistemology (the theory of knowledge, and how that knowledge can be shown to be true)

· philosophy of language (the nature of scientific claims, the logic by which they are formulated and whether such language is to be taken literally).

I think two topics will recur:

1. Are there aspects of reality with which science cannot deal, but philosophy can?

2. Does Philosophy have anything to offer science?

3. Does science have anything to offer philosophy?

The situation is rather more problematic, for there are three different ways (at least) in which we can think of the relationship between philosophy and science:

1. Science gives information about the world, while philosophy deals with arguments and meanings. Philosophy should therefore restrict itself to the role of clarifying the language science uses to make its claims, checking the logic by which those claims are justified, and exploring the implications of the scientific enterprise. It should keep well away from the subject matter within which science deals.

This has been a widely held view, and it gives philosophy and science very different roles.

2. Given the practical concerns of both philosophy and science, and each’s concern with epistemic warrant, truth and the linguistic relation of reference, we should not expect to draw a clear line between the activity of science and that of philosophy.

This suggests that it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between statements about fact and statements about meaning. Since science does not simply report facts but rather seeks to provide theories to explain them within a more comprehensive worldview, like philosophy, it uses, explains and revises concepts and thus engages in conceptual analysis. This view reflects ideas published in 1951 by the American philosopher W. V. Quine in an important article entitled “The Two Dogmas of Empiricism.”

3. Philosophy describes reality and can come to non-scientific conclusions about the way the world is. These conclusions may not depend on science, but are equally valid.

This reflects an approach taken by philosophers who are particularly concerned with the nature of language and how it relates to experience and empirical data, including Moore, Wittgenstein, Austin, Strawson and Searle.

And then, of course, one could go on to ask if you can actually do science without having some sort of philosophy. Is physics possible without metaphysics, language or logic? What about all the concepts and presuppositions that scientists use to explain what they find?

Finally, many have suggested that science can never be absolutely 'pure'. It can never claim to be totally free from the influences of thought, language and culture within which it takes place. In fact, science cannot even be free from economic and political structures. If a scientist wants funding for his or her research, it is necessary to show that it has some value, that it is in response to some need, or that it may potentially give economic benefit. Scientific findings are seldom unambiguous; and those who fund research do so with specific questions and goals in mind, goals that can and do influence the way that research is conducted or its results presented.

[2] Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Chapter XI , (1690) http://enlightenment.supersaturated.com/johnlocke/BOOKIVChapterXI.html

[3] C. S. Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, argued that truth is what we would agree upon, were inquiry to be pursued as far as it could fruitfully go.

[4] Bill Nye's comments on the relevance of philosophy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROe28Ma_tYM

[5] On The Nerdist Podcast

http://www.nerdist.com/2014/03/nerdist-podcast-neil-degrasse-tyson-returns-again/

(The discussion to which I refer begins about 20 minutes in.)

[7] Specifically. Millgram’s “Mill’s and Whewell’s Competing Visions of Logic”