2.

The importance and evaluation of

worldviews
 Why is worldview important

• The four functions of ideologies (explanatory, evaluative,

orientative, and programmatic) are based on
• (1) a set of basic beliefs about human nature and
• (2) a conception of freedom (Ball and Dagger 2020, p. 12)

• Both of these are logically related to worldviews

Human nature (Ball and Dagger 2020)

• Classical liberal: human beings are “naturally” competitive

and acquisitive.

• Marxist: competitiveness and acquisitiveness are “unnatural”

and nasty vices nurtured by a deformed and deforming
capitalist system—a system that warps people whose “true”
nature is to be cooperative and generous.

• Nazi fascists: it is “natural” for races to struggle for

dominance.
 Freedom (Ball and Dagger 2020)

• Every ideology claims to defend and extend “freedom” ,

but different ideologies define freedom in different ways
• E.g. Liberals: freedom of the individual to live in his or
her own way, without undue interference from others
• Marxists: freedom of the working class, to achieve a
classless communist society.
• Nazi fascists: freedom of the German race to attain
“purity” and supremacy.
 Why is worldview important?

The worldview of atheist Richard Dawkins:

“The universe we observe has precisely the
properties we should expect if there is, at bottom,
no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing
but blind pitiless indifference.”
This lends support to the conclusion that, in an
atheistic worldview, all the supposed moral values
and meaningfulness of life are without ultimate
foundations but merely superficial illusions
Alex Rosenberg, atheist philosopher:
The Atheist's Guide to Reality (2011):

• Is there a God? No.

• What is the nature of reality? What physics says it is.(scientism)
• What is the purpose of the universe? There is none.
• What is the meaning of life? Ditto.
• What is the difference between right and wrong? There is no moral
difference between them.(no objective morality)
 Atheist philosopher Nietzsche
(The Antichrist 2, 43)

‘The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle

of our charity. And one should help them to it. What is more
harmful than any vice?—Practical sympathy for the botched and
the weak’ ‘The poisonous doctrine, “equal rights for all.”’
Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844-1900): ‘God is dead’

• Not saying that God ceased to

exist, but claiming that God is
not worth believing anymore.
• Nietzsche’s claim has been
challenged by other
philosophers:
Actually, most people today still believe there is a God (Creator
of the universe)
基督教在启蒙运动之后的发展
• 基督教 , 大约 20 亿信徒 , 大约世界人口的
33% 。
 How to know whether a worldview is true?

• This is a very important question given that

• 1. Worldviews cannot be avoided and they (consciously or subconsciously)
influenced the biggest decisions in our lives
• 2. You wouldn’t want to (consciously or subconsciously) be committed to a
worldview which is false, for the rest of your lives.
• Need to consider reason and evidence
Is science the only or the best way to know?

• Science is a very useful way of knowing things

• But is science the only or the best way to knowledge?
(Scientism)
Scientism is not science 13

• It is a philosophical view of science and reality.

• Scientism cannot be proved by science itself
• Any attempt to prove the value of science would require
philosophical argument
• E.g. The question ‘why is the testing of theories
important for understanding how the natural world
works’ cannot be answered by simply doing more
testing, rather the answer would require a philosophical
explanation of how testing relates to our understanding
of the workings of the natural world.
• Verificationism: only statements that can be
confirmed or disconfirmed by sensory experience
are meaningful.
• Popular in the early 20th century (‘Vienna circle’),
it has since been widely rejected
• Fallacy: the statement that ‘only statements that
can be confirmed or disconfirmed by sensory
experience is meaningful’ cannot be confirmed or
disconfirmed by sensory experience.
• Thus the verification principle itself cannot be
verified according to its own principle.
 Empiricism 16

‘Seeing is Believing’ –is this true?

• Science deals a lot with unseen

entities
(e.g. quantum particles)

• We can reasonably infer the

existence of unseen entities from
what we can see.
Science requires laws of logic, deduction and
induction.
• Laws of Logic ：
1. A is A (Law of identity)
2. It cannot be the case that A and not-A (Law of non-contradiction)

• Aristotle: It is impossible that the same thing belong and not belong to the same
thing at the same time and in the same respect. (Note: the word ‘contradiction’ is
sometimes used in a different sense e.g. by Hegel)

3. Either A or not-A (Law of excluded middle).

• Note: The explanations of these laws can be found in both ‘Western’ and in Eastern
philosophy (e.g. Brahmasutra).
Laws of logic

• Laws of logic are not psychology of reasoning or merely a

person’s way of reasoning.
• Laws of logic are not invented but discovered.
• Laws of logic corresponds with reality and are necessarily true:
• Illustration: ‘There cannot be something like a shapeless
square’; this statement cannot be false (because ‘shapeless’ would
not be the case if there is a shape (e.g., a square)).
• Compare with scientific theories which are never 100% proven
• Loke, Andrew. 2014. ‘The benefits of studying philosophy for science education,’ Journal of the NUS Teaching
Academy 4: 27-35.
Q. Does Quantum physics violate laws of
logic?

• The Copenhagen interpretation favored by

Eastern and Western Mystics is unproven.
• Other interpretations exist, and some of
them, such as de Broglie-Bohm’s pilot-
wave model and Everett’s Many Worlds
Interpretation, are perfectly consistent
with the laws of logic.
 Check out these sources concerning quantum
physics if you are interested (won’t be tested for
this course).

• www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~mdt26/
PWT/lectures/bohm7.pdf .
• https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-
bohm/
• Moreover, scientists are still unsure how to reconcile quantum
physics with General Relativity
• Problems such as these indicate that the theories are
incomplete.
• One can agree with physicist John Wheeler by regarding
quantum physics as provisional, and that some deeper theory,
waiting to be discovered, would explain in a clear and rational
way all the oddities of the quantum world, and would, in turn
explain the apparent fuzziness in the quantum classical
boundary (Ford 2011, p.263).
• Some Eastern and Western mystics claimed that something which
can violate laws of logic exist.
• On one hand, there is no evidence that such an entity exists (how to
know such an entity exist? Via a non-intellectual experience of
reality arising in meditative or mystical state? How to know whether
this experience is veridical?)
• On the other hand, this claim is false because there cannot be
something like a shapeless square: this is not based on our inability
to imagine but based on our understanding of the meanings of
‘shapeless’ and ‘square’ (and the meaning of the laws of logic).
Laws of logic imply modus ponens and modus tollens: two
forms of valid deductive reasoning

(Note: if (1) the premises are true and (2) the deduction is
valid, the conclusion would be true)

• Modus ponens: • Modus tollens

1. If p, then q. 1. If p, then q
2. p, 2. Not-q
3. Therefore, q. 3. Therefore, not-p.
Science requires philosophy:
Criteria for a good scientific theory (Ellis) 24
1. Satisfactory structure: (a) internal consistency (b)
simplicity (Ockham’s razor)
2. Intrinsic explanatory power: (a) logical tightness (b)
scope: the ability to unify otherwise separate phenomena,
and (c) probability with respect to well-defined measure
3. Extrinsic explanatory power(a) connectedness to the rest
of science, (b) extendability — providing a basis for
further development;
4. Observational and experimental support (a) testability:
the ability to make predictions that can be tested (b)
confirmation.
 25

• ‘These criteria are philosophical in nature in that

they themselves cannot be proven to be correct by
any experiment. Rather their choice is based on past
experience combined with philosophical reflection.’
(Ellis, 2007, Section 8.1)
• Science requires philosophy and history (‘past
experience’)
• Ellis, G. (2007). Issues in the philosophy of cosmology. In J. Butterfield & J. Earman (Eds.), Philosophy of
physics. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
 Philosophy is not speculation!
• All academic disciplines require philosophy (epistemology,
metaphysics, ethics, logic)
• Philosophical reflection and reasoning is capable of yielding items of
knowledge which we can be even more epistemically certain about
than the conclusions of science.
• E.g. Shapeless square cannot exist
• E.g. I exist
• E.g. It seems that this lecture theatre exists
• E.g. I feel pain (when I do)
• There are others examples…

• These statements cannot be false.

 Be careful of bad philosophy!

• C. S. Lewis “Good philosophy must exist, if for no

other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be
answered.”

• Scientism is BAD philosophy!

• Verificationism is BAD philosophy!
• And there’re plenty of other examples (see next
lecture)
What is criteria for good and bad philosophy?

• To put it simply, good philosophy is based on good arguments

• Bad philosophy is based on errors in reasoning as illustrated by the
fallacy of scientism
• As this course is not a course on critical thinking I won't have time
to go through these in detail, but if you are interested you can
check out the websites on the next slide
These will not be tested for your exam but you may find
them helpful for writing good papers and essay in the
future:
• Recognizing faulty reasoning
• 1. Critical Thinking Web, module of “Fallacies and biases”: go through the tutorials listed here:
• https://philosophy.hku.hk/think/fallacy/
• 2. The principles and methods of correct thinking

• Readings:
• http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/logic/whatislogic.php
• http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/logic/connectives.php
• http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/logic/relations.php
• http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/arg/arg.php
• http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/arg/standard.php
• http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/arg/valid1.php
• http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/arg/sound.php
• http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/arg/valid2.php
• http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/arg/induction.php
• Science by itself cannot justify moral values and obligations (is-ought gap)
• Philosophical arguments are required for deciding which experiment
should or should not be done.
Sources of knowledge

• Senses (see, hear, touch, smell, taste)

• Introspection (e.g. I feel happy)
• Rational insight (e.g. A=A; concepts)
• Moral insight (e.g. torture babies for fun is
wrong)
• Aesthetic insight (e.g. sunset is beautiful)
• Memory (derivative)
• Testimony (derivative)
Methods of gaining knowledge:

• E.g. philosophical, mathematical, scientific, historical,

arts, religious, indigenous/traditional

• These methods uses various sources of knowledge in

different ways

• Not all usages are of equal credibility=> need to judge

case by case
• Some might be pseudoscientific
Different kinds of evidence and arguments （论证）

• Evidence: indicator of truth (evidence does not have to be empirical;

there are other sources of knowledge’)
• Truth: corresponds with the way things are

• Which kind of evidence and argument is the best depends on what we

are trying to find out.
• How the universe works? Scientific
• What happened during WWII? Historical
• Does God exists? Philosophical
 WORLDVIEWS
Naturalism Pantheism Deism Christian Islamic Hinduism Buddhism Taoism Confucian-
Theism Theism Ism

What are the

reason and
evidence in
support?

Origin

Meaning

Morality
How should
we act

Destiny