Philosophy of Science

What is Knowledge?
 The reason why we carry out research is to
increase our knowledge
 One of the main source of our knowledge is
scientific theories; theories are developed
through research

Statements that describes

and explains what we
experience around us
What is Knowledge?
 Knowledge can be defined as
“justified true belief” (Plato)
 …what you know can be justified (be
proven using evidence, logical
arguments)
 …what you know AND believe it to be
true
What is Knowledge?
 English Oxford Dictionary defines
knowledge as..
 “expertise, and skills acquired by a person
through experience or education; the
theoretical or practical understanding of a
subject”
 “what is known in a particular field or in total;
facts and information”
 “awareness or familiarity gained by
experience of a fact or situation”
 What is Knowledge?

Knowledge is one part of our belief system; some

things that we believe are not knowledge because
they are not logical or they cannot be justified
(proven)
Looking for Reality
 How can we know what is real?
 Where do we get our knowledge from
(source of knowledge)?
 How do we determine the information
we are confronted with are real, can
be believed and are true?
Looking for Reality
 Non-scientific enquiry
 Casual observation and experience
• Our daily observations and experiences shape
what we believe to be true
• Seeing is believing BUT sometimes our eyes play
trick on us
• we see what we want to see – our perception,
belief and attitude may influence our
objectivity
• we may not be trained to observe – without
sufficient knowledge we may not understand
what we see
Looking for Reality
 Non-scientific enquiry
 Casual observation and experience

We ‘look’ with our eyes; but we ‘see’ with

our brains; it is our brains that decipher
the signals from our eyes and interpret
what we see
Looking for Reality
 Non-scientific enquiry
 Tradition (‘biar mati anak, jangan mati adat’)
• We inherit a culture made up (in part) of firmly accepted
knowledge about the workings of the world
• Knowledge is cumulative, and an inherited body of information
and understanding is the jumping off point for the development of
more knowledge
• “standing on the shoulders of giants” (wealth of knowledge
accumulated from previous generations
 Authority
• Reality shaped by listening to those in authority (experts in their
field)
 Printed materials
• Psychologically many of us tend to easily believe something if they
are printed in books and magazines (as well as what is said on TV
and radio); mass media (arus perdana) very powerful tool to
brainwash society
Errors in Inquiry
 Common mistakes we make in our casual
inquiries
 Inaccurate observations
• Most of our daily observations are casual and
semiconscious (that is why we disagree about what
really happened); we filter – we see what we want
to see
 Over-generalisation
• When we look for patterns among the specific
things we observe around us, we often assume that
a few similar events are evidence of a general
pattern (e.g. after being tricked twice by a
salesperson, we come to the conclusions that all
salespersons cannot be trusted)
Errors in Inquiry
 Common mistakes we make in our casual
inquiries
 Selective observation
• Once we have concluded that a particular pattern
exists, we tend to focus on future events and
situations that fit the patterns and ignore those
that do not
 Illogical reasoning
• Believe in luck (e.g. believe that having a car with
registration numbers “8” will bring good luck; ‘4’ is
bad luck – so we use 3A to replace the number ‘4’)
• Believe that a series of bad luck will be followed by
good luck
What is Really Real?
 Pre-modern View
 Our early ancestors assumed that they saw things as they
really were
 There is only one reality
 Modern View
 Possible to have diversity of views (different strokes for
different folks; beauty in the eyes of the beholder); each
person with their own reality
 Post-Modern View
 What is real is the images we get through our points of view;
multiple realities within each of us
 Personal view will color our perception of what we see
happening
 The more views we have of something the more knowledgeable
we are
Science
 Science is an approach of explaining real
world phenomena through empirical
evidence
 Contrary to …
 Biased opinion
 Prejudice
 Astrological conclusions
 Superstitions
 Popular beliefs
Science
 Science seek to explain phenomena
by studying empirical evidence
 Phenomena is…
 …an occurrence, circumstance, or fact
that is perceptible by the senses;
 …it is an object or aspect known
through the senses rather than by
thought or intuition
Science
 Below are examples of real world
phenomena
 Teenage violence in school
 Sexual harassment in the workplace
 Internet addiction
 Teenage pregnancy (and ‘buang bayi’)
 Racial prejudice
 Mass exodus during holiday (‘balik kampong’)
 National brain drain to developed countries
 Obesity (overweight) among children
 Advertisements in shaping brand equity
Science
 We use science to create knowledge by
gathering and analyzing empirical
evidence using…
 Experiments
 Unobtrusive observation
 Case studies
 Field survey
 Artifact findings
 Ethnographic approaches
Science
 Science is sometimes characterized
as logico-empirical as the two pillars
of science is logic and observation
 Another way of looking at what we
do in science
 Developing scientific theories (logical
aspect of science)
 Empirical data collection
(observational aspect of science)
What Science is NOT
 Science cannot settle debates about values
 For example, Science cannot determine whether capitalism
is better than socialism
 Science cannot determine whether Buddhism is better than
Christianity
 However, if we can agree that suicide rates, level of crime
and amount of charity are accurate measures of quality of
religion, then we could determine if one religion is better
than another based on specific criteria
 The problem is we cannot agree on appropriate criteria
 Science can help us know what is and why but NOT
what should be done (science cannot recommend us
what to do)
Social Science
 Social science aims to find patterns of
regularity in social life
 The challenge of finding patterns of regularity
is greater in social science compared to pure
science
 Laws of physics are more mechanical and
predictable than human behavior
• Honest people sometimes steal
• People conscious about health sometimes smoke or drink
alcohol; some people regularly go to the gym but smoke
cigarettes
Social Science
Social Regularities

 Three common objections to social

regularities
 Some regularities are trivial (not
important)
 Some regularities are not totally regular
(quite regular but not convincingly enough)
 People involved in regularities could choose
to decide to do irregular acts (e.g. honest
person sometimes tell a lie)
Social Science
Social Regularities
 We can refute these three common
objections to social regularities by …
 Trivial regularities needs to be studied
because we might find irregularities that
requires explanation (even if their trivial)
 Some regularities are not totally regular BUT
just because irregularities do occur does not
mean the regularities are not real
 People involved in regularities could choose to
decide to do irregular acts BUT they do not
happen often to threaten the observation of
regularities
Social Science
 Regularities of social life that social
scientists study generally reflect the
collective behaviour of many individuals
 Social scientists create theories about the
nature of groups rather than individual
life
 Social scientists try to explain why
aggregate patterns of behaviour are so
regular even when the individuals
participating in them may change over
time
Social Science
 Social scientists try to understand the
system in which people operate, the
system that explains why people do what
they do (…context or environment is a
powerful influence on people)
 The aim of social science is to try to
understand the kind of people who share
the same kind of view or behavior
(common characteristics)
Social Science
 Social science involves the study of
variables and their relationships
 People are involved in our study only as
carriers of those variables
 Variables have attributes; attributes are
characteristics or qualities that describe
an object
Nature of Scientific Activity
 Ask questions of the events covered by a
particular discipline that have not been
resolved
 Accept that no aspect of events being studied is
immune from questioning (no sacred cows)
 Attempt to answer research questions with
empirical evidence
 Theories are always, at best, tentatively true
 Practice of asking questions builds on
previous research
Science
 Scientific law
 Generalization drawn from observations
 A set of observed regularities expressed in
concise verbal or mathematical statement
(Krimsley, 1995)
 Example:
• Laws of physics
• Law of atomic fusion
• Laws of demand and supply
• Law of diminishing returns
Scientific Theory
 Theory
 Explanation for the scientific law
 An explanation for an observation or series of
observations that is substantiated by a
considerable body of evidence (Krimsley, 1995)
 Features of a theory
 They explain a lot of observations
 They are supported by a great deal of evidence
 They are broad, encompassing and explaining a lot
of hypothesis
 Despite many challenges they have never been
demonstrated to be untrue
Scientific Theories

 We cannot prove a theory to be true but

we can prove a theory to be false
 No matter how many times or how many data
we analyse, there is always a possibility that
future tests can prove our theory to be false
 Evidence from a set of tests / data can be
explained by two or more theories; after
running more tests, we may find that theory X
is better at explaining a phenomena than
theory Y
Hypothesis
 Hypothesis is a Statement describing
relationship between two or more constructs /
variables that can be tested and falsified
 To develop a hypothesis, we need a rational
explanation of the hypothesis (theoretical
linkage and operational linkage)
 Theoretical linkage is the reason why the variables
should be related
 Operational linkage is a description of how the
variables might be related and tested
Theory and Hypothesis

 Difference between theory and

hypothesis:
 Theories are more general than hypothesis
 Theories explain why things are related
whereas hypothesis just say that X is related
to Y
 Theories are used to generate hypothesis
(hypothesis comes from theories)
Model of Research Process

Theory

Empirical
generalization Hypothesis

Observations
 Deduction It is the theory that decides what can be observed
Albert Einstein

Generalization of scientific laws

(patterns in observation)
Theory

Falsifiable statement Hypothesis

derived from theory that Collect
can be tested empirical data
Observation

Confirm theory not false Confirmation

thereby strengthening the
possibility of theory being true
Induction
Plausible explanation for
pattern observed
Theory
Falsifiable statement
describing pattern
Tentative
Hypothesis
Find pattern in
observation
Pattern

Confirmation

Collect empirical data

 Research Structure
Deduction

Broad questions
Focus down
Operationalise
Observe
Analyze data

Reach conclusion

Generalize back to
question
Scientific Research

High Degree of Explanation

Low

Prejudice Journalism Scientific Facts

Findings

Low Proportion of Evidence High

Paradigm
 Provides a conceptual framework for seeing
and making sense of the social world
 When we hold on to a paradigm, we are said to
be “thinking inside a box” (as opposed to when
we try to be creative, we are advised to “think
outside the box” – thinking outside the
paradigm that may be restricting our creativity
“To be located in a particular paradigm is to view
the world in a particular way”
Burrell and Morgan (1979)
Paradigm
 Paradigm is a prerequisite to
perception (Thomas Kuhn, 1970)
 Paradigm shapes the way we
perceive “reality”
 Example
 Natural disaster – Act of God or Mother
Nature?
 Difference between the views Scully
and Molder in X-Files
Paradigm

 A scientific paradigm is a framework containing all of the

commonly accepted views about a subject, a structure of
what direction research should take and how it should be
performed.
 Thomas Kuhn suggested that a paradigm defines “the
practices that define a scientific discipline at certain point
in time.” He also postulated that paradigms are discrete
and culturally based.
 For example, a Chinese medical researcher, with a
profound knowledge of eastern medicine, will inhabit a
different paradigm than a purely western researcher.
Paradigm

 Thomas Kuhn came up with four basic

ways in which a paradigm indirectly
influences the scientific process:
 What is studied and researched
 The type of questions that are asked
 The exact structure and nature of the questions
 How the results of any research are interpreted
Philosophy of Science

 There are three branches of philosophy

that influence how and why we do
research:
 Epistemology – nature of knowledge and
where does knowledge come from?
 Ontology – what is reality; how do we
know if something exist?
 Axiology – influence of values in
determining what is real
Epistemology
 Epistemology is the field within philosophy
that deals with understanding knowledge
 In simple terms, this field can be broken down
into three aspects
 Nature of knowledge
• What is knowledge?
• What do we mean when we say we know something?
 Sources of knowledge
• Where do we get knowledge?
• How do we know the knowledge we have is reliable?
• When are we justified in saying we know something?
 Scope of knowledge
• What are the limits of knowledge? (What can we know
and what we can never know)
Epistemology
 To the Positivist
 True objectivity as an external observer is
possible
 They study parts to understand the whole
 They look for regularities and causal
relationships to understand and predict the
social world

Independent
Epistemology
 To the Constructivist (anti-
positivist)
 The knower and the known are
interdependent and that social
science is subjective
 The social world can only be
understood by occupying the frame of
reference of the participant in action
Epistemology
 Empiricist
 To the Empiricist, knowledge could only be gained
from experience
 Concept of “A posteriori” states that knowledge is
formed “after the fact” (after we experience an act)
 Rationalist
 To the rationalist, reason could reveal knowledge to
us
 Concept of “A priori” states that knowledge can be
formed “before the fact” (even before we experience
an act)
Epistemology
 Emanuel Kant (among other things)
introduced two concepts
 Phenomena – our knowledge of things are
only limited to what appears to us
 Noumena – we will never have knowledge
of things as they are in themselves (we will
never know reality in its absolute nature)
 Ontology – ‘What is Real?’
 Ontology is the study of the nature of being,
existence or reality
 What makes us believe something is real
 How do we know something exist?
 Ontology deals with questions on what exist or
can be said to exist, and how they can be
grouped, related within a hierarchy, and
subdivided according to similarities and
differences.
 All living things are divided into plants (flora) and
animals (fauna), and animals are divided into groups
such as mammals, reptiles, amphibians, etc.
Ontology
 Common questions in the study of
ontology are as follows:
 What is existence?
• For example, if we do know something, does it
exist?
 What constitutes the identity of an object
(definition)?
 When does an object go out of existence (as
opposed to merely changing)?
• For example, is a car without wheels still a car?
Ontology
 To the realist
 Social world is tangible
 Social world is real and external to the individual
 ‘We share one common reality’
 To the nominalist
 Reality as constructed in the names, labels and
concepts used to construct reality
 Individuals create the social world
 There are multiple realities
 ‘What is real to me may not be real to you’
Axiology
 Axiology is the study of how our
values influence our knowledge
 Assumptions regarding the role of
values
 On-going debate: can values be
suspended (put aside; bracketed) on
our effort to understand, or do our
values mediate, influence and shape
what is understood?