Talk:Philosophy of science/Archive 1

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There are serious problems with the wiki dictionary entries for both the 'philosophy of science' and 'scientific method'. First and most importantly they are dated! Not only can science progress but sometimes even philosophy can. The consensus among philosophers of science today is that we are in a 'post-positivist' era. This means that there are no longer any (or very few indeed) professional philosophers supporting any of the various versions of empiricism that have been put forward as theories of knowledge or modified to directly address the issues of scientific method, criteria of judgement and so on. This is true to the point where the terms empiricist and positivist are often used pejoratively. Now many non-philosophically inclined scientists are perhaps unaware of this. Some of them cling to the simple beliefs about science taught to them when they were college freshman in spite of the fact that these old fashioned beliefs bear little relation to their actual practice. Many scientists, a little more self reflective, and a little more aware of the philosophical and sociological discussions of science, vainly attempted to hold onto some sort of Karl Popper falsification notion. Many of them have been rightly annoyed by the various postmodernist critiques of science but Popper does not give them adequate philosophicval ground to deal with the critiques of Kuhn and Feyerabend let alone the more extreme social constructionist issues put forward by poststructuralist and postmodernist critics. There is a new philosophy of science - Critical Realism - which both scientists and lay persons, as well as professional philosophers, find quite compelling. It projects a deeper critique of empiricism on the one hand, while refuting postmodernist versions of relativism on the other. It does so in a way which most people also find in accord with commonsense.

The second problem with both entries is that while Wiki in general is very concerned with social issues, these entries do not consider either the social sciences or the philosophy of social science. The scientificity (or not) of social science is a raging contemporary debate that infects (or enriches, depending upon your point of view) most substantive sociological debate. Critical Realism has a unifying position with respect to the natural and social sciences; that is the latter can and should be scientific. This point of view has a bearing upon the question of the scientific method as well. It is only in the most vague and general sense that one can speak of a scientific method at all. It is something like an injunction to be be logical,systematic and observant. In any other important methodological respects sciences are disciplinary and sub-specialism disciplinary specific with respect to methods. The methods, to put it crudely, must be appropriate to their objects of knowledge.

There exists today a rich and varied literature about critical realism and also applying it to a plethora of questions. A starting point to investigate this perhaps would be my book 'The Philosophy of Social Science: New Perspectives' (available at Amazon and elsewhere: ISBN 0582369746). Garry Potter


An interesting assertion that philosophy of science can progress... after all, some would argue that the 'progression' away from positivism was actually more like a regression back to Kant. Still, I have a question, or at least food for thought: even if philosophy can progress, what is its role in science and in the community at large? I think it's a great subject to study, and more people should do so, but the majority of the population and indeed the majority of scientists seem to manage quite well without it - or even really being aware of it!

Philosophy in general and the philosophy of science in particular progress when they better succeed at explaining the subject areas they set out to explain. Proving such progression is in one sense simply the argumentive proof for whatever it is one is attempting to prove. Hence, proof of our progress since Kant is dependent upon some of the myriad books, articles, arguments etc. that have been authored subsequently actually advancing our understanding of topic areas he engaged with. If one can not improve upon what has been written before why bother to write? Hence, contemporary philosophical work depends upon an implicit faith in both the possibility and actuality of progress.

It is very true as you say that both the public at large and scientists seem to get along just fine with littlle or no knowledge of philosophy. Historically there are broadly speaking two extremes in perspective with respect to philosophy's (potentially helpful) relation to science: the 'master scientist' and the 'under-labourer'. I tend towards the latter. Philosophy can improve scientific work through the clarification of concepts,logic and issues concerning criteria of judgement. It can also aid in properly situating scientific practice and results in terms of historical socio-economic context. . . and accordingly perhaps humbly teach science some humility. Science as Whitehead asserted continued blithely on indifferent to its 'refutation' by Hume (the problem of induction). This unfortunately is simultaneously weakness as well as strength.

One last point: I think perhaps that philosophy's greatest value with respect to science could be its (future) contribution to the public's greater understanding (and correction of misunderstandings!) of science. Garry Potter

Like Garry, I'm also concerned with the wikipedia articles for philosophy of science, scientific method and related articles. The subheadings for the current philosophy of science article are relevant but poorly represent the great host of issues with which the philosophy of science deals. It is, as Garry says, outdated. I also agree with what Garry implies that wikipedia currently has a strong non-philosophically-trained-scientist bent (to its detriment). (Most scientists do not have training in the philosophical foundations of science (which tends to make scientists dogmatic in regards to science, like RK) let alone formal LOGIC!...scientists think they know what logic is, but most don't know jack about it...which should be suprising/alarming since these folks are developing theories that should rely on sound logical formulation....Any ways....) And it is true that "there are...few...professional philosophers supporting any of the various versions of empiricism". A number of philosophy of science theories with different flavors had been developed over time from instrumentalism, prescriptivism to realism (realism is a sort of strict development of empiricism)...instrumentalist theories seem to have won the day with most philosophers of science. Philosophy of social science is currently completely neglected in wiki, and while I attempted to make a brief reference to the difference in scientific methods between so called hard and soft sciences in the science article, some dummy (scientist) deleted it.

I sympathize with your concerns about scientists not trained in philosophy trampling philosophy articles in their muddy boots, but you're not going to bring the two cultures any closer by calling people names like "dummy." Also, there's no need to encourage a view of this problem as cutting neatly between sciencey and philosophical Wikipedians. I trained as a scientist, and yet I've been over at scientific method often arguing single-handedly for weeks to keep the article agnostic about method and to make sure that the broad-based dissent among philosphers and social scientists gets mentioned.168... 02:11, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
The above comments (not from 168, the notes above him) strike me as an attack towards RK, and to scientists as a group. All I can say is that this person needs to go to Barnes and Noble, and read a few dozen books by scientists. Many certainly are well versed in logic and philosophy, and arguably more so than most philosophers are versed about science. We should not engage in unfounded condemnations of entire professions based on a philosophical disagreement. JeMa 20:15, Nov 24, 2003 (UTC)

Perhaps what you say is true, but the fact still remains that philosophy of science and scientific method are both at best meagre reviews of their subjects, and attempts at improvement are stubbornly resisted. Methinks you protest too much. Banno 03:45, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I just noticed that my comments aren't very timely, this being a discussion that seems to have left off four months ago. Oh well.168... 02:42, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
The censorship by those fanatics of scientism is truly tiresome. It is tme to fight back in earnest, and modernize the view of various subjects here. EofT

My primary counterpoint to Garry is concerning "Critical Realism". It seems to borrow from Instrumentalism. If merely another version of instrumentalism, I'm doubtful it is widely accepted version among professional philosophers of science, as it is only one of many instrumentalist theories (or philosphies of science in general). Garry seems to come from the philosophy of social science school which has developed somewhat independently from the philosophy of science tradition which started out focusing on physics, ignoring social science for some time. B 18:02 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yes, it does seem instrumentalist. And there are deeper issues here too, like economics and whether it is religion or not. Read this on the Physiocrats, surely that is at least one origin for "philosophy of social science". Also review Sociology of knowledge, Islamic science and quasi-empiricism in mathematics. These should be better integrated into philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science. But, also, we should be cognizant that many reject the idea of philosophy as such, and reject the idea that the process of philosophy actually reveals anything. This view too should be represented, especially as more people hold it than hold the opposite view. EofT
Surely there should be discussions of various types of bias here too, those relevant to science? For a current messy debate on this see Talk:Gaia theory. And there are big questions on ghost-writing of medical research and limits of inquiry and ethics of experiment and all that. A total rewrite of the existing article is in order. EofT Also General Semantics, Theory of Everything, cognitive science of mathematics, other cognition and observation questions in philosophy of physics and the many issues around time and its measurement. EofT
User:EntmootsOfTrolls/WikiProject Body, Cognition and Senses will deal with some of those issues in a fundamental way, starting from the right place. You are all encouraged to join it and help. - 142.

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A suggestion: philosophy is usually defined as metaphysics (or ontology), ethics and epistemology. Good articles on the philosophy of science and philosophy of mathematics and for that matter philosophy of social science (including economics) should deal with all three issues, rather than let scientism, mathematical fetishism, and economism pick and choose which issues to deal with. There is work on all nine (three by three) issues, and a good research effort will cover it all. EofT

I am surprised --and suspicious-- about the "usuality" of your definition. It is interesting, unless precisely "useless, not even false" (Dirac?). I have an other problem with the distinction between "philosophy of science" and "epistemology". Is there any? To whom? On what grounds?
Please note that there are no links to pages for a distinct philosophy of science in other languages, and I feel uneasy to add one in French.
Marc Girod 10:44, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)