1st Lecture

Epsitemology- Study of Knowledge

Metaphysics - Study of nature of reality

General Class Topics

● * Ethical issues : atomic bomb- public policy
● Conflicting studies- of a psych experiment not being repeatable - failures
● Why is Astrology (horoscopes and such) not a genuine science?
○ Does not make testable predictions
○ Not based on expermental data
○ Uses mainly inductive reasoning ( starts from conclusion and works back)
○ Certain sociological structure
■ The peer review is really weak for a science
● There would be constant contridiction

2nd Lecture- Introduction to Theory and Reality

Normative vs descriptive accounts of science

● Normative accounts: How things should be and then use inductive reason (work back)
○ This could also take into account a “vague” verson of a hypothesis
○ THIS REFERS TO ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC DATA RATHER THAN MOTIVE
● Descriptive accounts: Attempt to explain what's going on
○ You do this without making value judgements
○ For this account we strongly use the idea of empiricism
■ Carl Hempel was a G in the field of logical empiricism. Founding G

Empiricism

● Empiricism- The only source of real knowledge comes from experience & sensation
○ Manifest image vs scientific image
○ Manifest image
 ■ Obvious how world appears through sensations ( 5 senses)
■ ex: This guy looks like a dick with his racist ass shirt
○ Scientific image
■ The more “theoretical” aspects in life, ones not readily observable
■ The world of atoms, and forces acting upon us >:D Gravity op

The Scientific Revolution

● Before
○ Aristotle Physics (natural philosophy)
■ HIS WAY OF DESCRIBING GRAVITY
■ Some elements composed of more earth + water so stay to ground
■ Some elements composed of more air + fire therefore fly or are light
● After
○ Newtonian Physics ( more “accurate” instances of science)
■ Mechanics: Galileo, Descartes, Newton & other
■ Astronomy: Copernicus, Kepler, Newton & others
○ In Newtonian physics you have a 5th element added by copernicus: Circular
■ Circular→ occurs Beyond our atmosphere & rotational spin
● Heliocentric Model vs Geocentric model
○ Geocentric Model
■ Things revolve around the earth
■ First thought up back in good ol’ Aristotle’s day
■ An astronomer Talamein built upon this theory to have the elipses
○ Heliocentric model
■ Things revolve around the sun- originally thought up by Copernicus
■ Our boy Galelio proved this goody and spread it in an ingenious way
● Galelio’s Dialogue: Dialogue concerning 2 chief world systems
○ Wrote this in Italian and in a dialogue to get a big ass audience
○ Cast: Salviati ( G-man’s msgner bitch), Simplicio ( Aristotelian, Catholic church),
Sagredo ( you know the educated layman that’s like
whaaa)
○ Salviati argued Galelio’s views using empiricism
■ Was trying to prove that the moon isn’t completely round and nice
 ■ Shows that the sun’s rays reflection in rectangle shined too much
everywhere - Church dude was like naw G or earth ain’t a square
■ Used a spherical mirror to show that it was too concentrated OOOOO
■ THEY KEY POINT IS HE USED EMPIRICISM AND EXPERIMENTATION
TO PROVE HIS GODDAMN POINT :D!
● Boyle’s Argument and the Mechanical World Picture
○ Starts out empiricist
○ Experience shows when we divide matters up
■ Once we get to super small sizes we can’t see
○ Primary qualities of observation: Size or bulk , shape, motion
○ Secondary qualities: color taste, dissolutbility → appears this way
● Theory of Mechanism
○ Combines ideas about composition w caustation and explanation
■ Sometimes post physics motion ( gravity)- how to view world <3
LECTURE 3 MOFO KEKEKEKE

Questions (?) to ask keke

● How does someone produce knowledge?
● How should scientific inquiry be structured to achieve the goal of producing knowledge
of the highest possibility of quality?
● What is the knowledge w science produce?

Empiricism
● The only source of real knowledge = world experience

Vienna Circle
● Focussed mainly on logical empiricism ( proving the usefulness of science)
○ Revolutions in physics made the forefronts of LE
○ 1920’s focussing on Einstein’s and Newton’s work
○ Slick= physicist Gardle= Mathematician
● 1920-1930
○ Political situation changed a lot, because you know the nazis
■ Went to America to escape the nazis and taught phil there
■ One of these special peeps were Rudolf Carnap (corn napping)
Rudolf Carnap ( corn apps)
● Goal: To eliminate the idea of metaphysics
 ○ Reminder: metaphysics = Study of the nature of reality
● Wants to achieve this through the analysis of results and observation
○ This is referred to as logical analysis- similar to logical empircism
● Thought a lot of things were bat shit useless AFFFFFFFF ( had no meaning)
○ Cornap wanted scientific knowledge to be meaningful af
Non meaningful shiz
● Doesn’t matter if statement is true or false but just has no meaning, value, or purpose
○ ex. Do unicorns even lift, caesar salad is a prime number
○ contrast between meaningful and meaningless
■ Meaningful : Zeus is a god → in context used to describe him in books
■ meaningless: using god to refer to something beyond experience
Meaningful real deep shiz~
● Meaning of a sentence consists in its method of verification
○ Not concerned with how good your evidence is
■ but should be some observational evidence
■ In otherwords, can we test your statement
○ Example of nonverification
■ Unicorns exist to kill humans
● No way to detect unicorns or their intentions
■ Universe is fundmentally deterministic
● There is no way ( in principle (metaphysical)) to determine things
like fate exist
■ Ex of both: Is there such thing as a universe
● Observational evidence: I feel like I’m living in it- meaningful
● Non meaningful- someone’s feeling is impaired- non meaningful
How to test for meaningful thingamajiggers
● Athropode are animals with segmented bodies and jointed legs
○ To prove this you need a few criteria referred to as:
■ Observational Statements = Protocol Statement (key)
● x is an animal
● x has segmented legs
● x has jointed legs
■ Theoretical Statements
● If the x consists of all these things, then x is arthropod is true
● Observation statements vs Theoretical Statements
○ Observation: Describe things about the world through sensation
■ Alone they don’t do much → meant to give meaning to other things ~
 ○ Theoretical: Related to observational- Logically in order to be meaningful
■ The theoretical statement is only meaningful if the observations
statements make it meaningful
Logical empiricism
● 2. Verifiability theory of meaning
● 3. Observational-Theoretical term distinctions
○ Theoretical terms → Electrons, protons, neutrons
■ Observational: Watch reactions and watch spin occur etc….
■ This also occurs a lot with genetic
● Looking at if someone has a certain gene, you need to observe
● ***Observational- Theoretical term distinction → Theoretical + logic = Observational***

Problems with logical empiricism

● Logic and mathematics
○ No observational Statements
Solution for logical empiricism→ Analytic- Synthetic Distinction
● Analytic
○ T/F in math and logic→ is the table gray or naw or 2+2=4 or wasabi=fking spicy
○ Definitions are also under this category kekeke
○ Virtue in just its meaning
● Synthetic (making)
○ Any statement where observation & experience prove if its T OR F
● Analytic vs Synthetic = Meaning definition vs Meaning definition + World Experience
○ Use things like F=ma → Analytic
○ Rearrange to get (F/m)= a → Synthetic (basic example)
Carnap (corn apples) counts 3 things as meaningful
● 1. Analytical Judgment → 2+2 = 4
● 2. Contradiction (anti-analytic) → 2+2= 5 (there must exist a contraction <3)
● 3. Empirical Statement → Theoretical + Observational statements

Lecture 4

Lecture 5

Pre Lecture Notes + Concepts

● What connection between an observation and theory makes it evidence for a theory
○ Has been quite the predicament
● Logical Empiricists → looking for way to develop logical theory of evidence and confirmation
● Problem of Induction
○ What reason should we believe past experience patterns will continue to future → where
is the justification? → Our boy Hume asked that very question
■ What reason do we have for thinking the future will resemble the past?
■ Hume is what we call an inductive skeptic
○ Darwin didn’t see animals evolve→ nor did copernicus observe earth revolving around
sun
● Logical empiricist
○ Use very basic concepts of deductive reasoning- valid arguments- sound
■ Premise: All men are moral
■ Premise: Socrates is a man
■ Socrates: Is mortal
○ They have to be logically consistent
○ Observations are always of particular objects and occurrences
■ Logical empiricist → discover and establish generalization
● Used in help describing the lawas of nature
○ One case can “prove” a generalization
○ Inductive logic was thought of as theory of all good arguments that are not
deductive. Carnap, especially, used “induction in a very broad way
● Induction: only for inferences from particular observations in support of generalizations
● Ematical induction (simple induction)
○ A generalize induction → you see on many instances that swans are white
■ You can induce that all swans are white → kind of deduction\
● Projection
○ We infer from a number of observed cases to arrive at predictions about the next
case
■ not a generalization about all cases
■ We see a white swan, and we infer next swan we see will also be white

● Induction and Explanatory inference (2 types of non deductive inferences)

○ Inductive
■ Just the basis of non deductive → since its inductive
■ Reichenbach→ claimed→ claimed that all nondeductive inference in science can
be reconstructed in a way that depends only on a form of inference that is close to
trandition induction
■ Structure inductive reasoning in the form of deductive reasoning^
 ○ Explanatory
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■
■
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● 2 main Approaches to discuss problem in the eyes of logical empiricists
○ An inductive logic that looked as much as possible like deductive logic
■ borrowing ideas from deductive logic whenever possible
○ Use a mathematical theory of probability
● Hypothetico-deductivism
○ Sometimes used to describe a simple view about testing and confirmation
■ Hypotheses in science are confirmed when their logical consequences
turn out to be true
● This approves of the white swan theory BADUMP
■ Potential to refute the hypothese (48)
■ Relation of confirmation that exists just between a hypothesis and
observation

Actual Lecture

● Carnap on Logic
○ Methods (logica analysis) are used ultimately in philosophy
■ This has the empirical nature attached to it + in the sciences
■ It is not ultimately down to a system, theory, or systems
● Induction and confirmation
○ Induction: (State observations → draw from them to get conclusion)
■ Inferences from particular observations in support of generalizations
■ Ex. Swain 1 observed white at t1 (premise like structure)
■ Swain 2 observed white at t2
● This can be extended to swain 1000 observed at t1000 was white
● This would allow for a more compelling argument
■ therefore all swains are white → this is not true some are black
○ Deduction (state fact, look for everything under)
■ All swains are white (1st one assume is always true)
■ Therefore swan 1 and 2 observed at t1 and t2 must be white
● The Problem of Induction (Home boy Hume)
○ How do we know that future experience will resemble past experience
■ Will the sun rise tommorow?
 ● We can use inductive argument
○ We saw the sun rise up yesterday and the day b4 that
○ We see in textbooks that it’s been rising forever
○ If it didn’t rise, then photosynthesis would be a pain
● Overall the more premises= stronger argument
■ Hume argues however, your past experience don’t neccessairly influence
or will show patterns as to if the occurance will happen again ):
● Hume on induction
○ Intuitively we use inductive arguements on an everyday basis
■ We are justified to use it
■ We see our inductive reasons also fail
● Ex. the poison bread → you don’t know when that sh*t is ewie
○ Hume believes that we should readily use deductive arguments as a much better
alternative
■ There exists a parallel where stating that, he has to use inductive
reasoning to justify the use of deductive arguements
● Can’t come up with deductive argue. fact without inductive proof
○ SCIENCE USES INDUCTIVE ARGUMENTS ALL OVER THE PLACE
■ One would consider inductive good bc it has worked so far bruh ~
○ We currently only have “solid evidence” of things in the near past & present
■ Do we have enough evidence to make predictions?
■ Can we use mathematics and derive from them to know with certainty
● Carnap’s perspective: There is empirical data for it
○ Factual claims like F=ma
■ You still need to display the thoery & test it
■ You go to get duh empirical data
● Format for strong inductive logic and strong deductive logic
 We will focus more on the inductive
confirmation
The prediction (evidence/results) prove our
hypothesis - ( like in science)

Putting this into practice ( premise for situation)

● 1.You had babies dying at a specific part of the ward by 10+ %
● 2.Doctor thought it was a result of doctors not washing hand after touch zombies
● 3. Others thought the cosmology and movement of uranus attributed to sickness
● 4. Doctor got their dirty asses to wash their hands
● 5. Sickness of babies went to sub 1% → Drastic improvement

Lets use the Hypothetico Deductive Method

 ● Hypothesis : Dirty ass doctors not washing their hands is the reason for bby death
○ Washing hand reduces chances of infection and them getting fevers
○ Handling with cadavers can lead to infections
○ *the more hypothesis (premise) the
● Prediction: If the dirt bags wash their hands, the death of babies will go down
● Observation: It drastically improved situation, no more needless baby death
● Hypothesis confirmed : YAAAAA

2nd way
● Hypothesis: The stars surrounding uranus is causing these babies fevers
● Prediction: Washing hands isn’t going to do jack
● Observation : It did jack something
● Hypothesis confirmed: Naw Bruh
●
●
Carnap being a silly goose wanting meaningful logical facts

Black Ravens (Teen titans)

Lecture 6 Theory and Reality

*Go over Carnap and Galileo Reading → Additional*

Hume = Deductive OG → Carnap = Inductive G

Counter to black Raven route

1. The “DAYUM IT ACTUALLY MATTERS” route

● The white shoe actually confirms all “ravens are black”
○ Just provides a small amount of confirmation
○ Logical Empiricist Embrace this Response
○ Looking at lots of NOT BLACK // NON-RAVENS does seem evidently
relevant ( This is the more “mathematical approach”)

2. Order matters
● Where you are presented with nonblack ( evidently relevant ( you care)) or a non
raven ( you don’t care) is evidently relevant.
○ If they aren’t holding a raven behind their back why do you care
● Need to know relevant background of context → to see if you care
● * Try to disprove/ disconnect aspects of inductive reasoning → disconfirmation*

3. E.g Genetics → Of Ravens or animals in general → albino (outliers) can refute many

❖ Theoretical Context + Context of hypothesis is relevant

➢ Determines what counts as evidence → What matters most is effectivens
The New Riddle to Induction→ Talk of grue
Summary of scenario
● Grue is defined:
● 1. As emeralds of green color before 2016 &
● 2. As emeralds of blue color that are viewed after Jan 1 or 2016
● Solution to this problem? Instance 2 seems like a bad argument

1. Just wait until 2016

● Problem → Undermines inductive reasoning because no reasoning to trust with the
inductive arguments with “Green”
2. Don’t allow predicates with times in them → In their Definition
● No Temporal Definition
● Problem: Define blue=bleen until 2016 and grue after 2016 green
● Revised: In particular language ( English) only definitions without time are
allowed in inductive arguements
No ands or ors to link things together~
3.Natural Kind Terms are only allowed in inductive argument
● Actually occur in nature ( like blue cells vs bleen grue which were human def.)
○ Don’t want to use made up words for classification of dif categories
● Hard to give examples ( Very hard distinction)
○ Aka Organic compounds or molecules like H20

*Overall Problem: Just making false predictions about the future ( don’t want that)*