Demarcation

Question 1

What is science?

Answer 1

Science is an umbrella-term covering the plurality of all and only scientific praxes

Question 2

Five interconnected items of a praxis

Answer 2

1. members
2. aims
3. means to reach aims
4. criteria to judge whether aims are reached
5. norms & rules for the behavior of the members

Question 3

necessary conditions for praxis

Answer 3

1. educational system
2. money

Question 4

scientific praxis

Answer 4

1. people: scientists
2. aims: produce scientific knowledge
3. means: acting in accordance to some scientific method
4. criterion: when one has collected a large and various body of evidence that confirms a hypothesis, model or theory, then it is accepted and obtains the seal scientific knowledge.
5. values: CUDOS (communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, originality, skepticism)

Question 5

skopology

Answer 5

discourse on aims

Question 6

Aristotelian aims

Answer 6

1. finding out the truth and nothing but the truth about reality
2. discovering the laws of nature
3. understanding reality
   & more
   (but, scientific aims)

Question 7

Baconian aims

Answer 7

1. To secure & enhance the prosperity and the welfare of people
2. to contribute to the quality of life, to ‘the good life’, to Aristotelian eudaimonia
3. Wisdom, i.e. the capacity to realize what is of value for us and securing it
   (capitalist aims)

Question 8

idealists

Answer 8

sharp distinction. between unknowable nouminal reality (reality as-it-is-in-and-of-itself) and the knowable phenomenological world, what results after nominal reality has passed the sensory organs and conceptual apparatus of the observing and understanding human subject.

Question 9

metaphysical realists

Answer 9

no distinction between different worlds, reality is knowable by us.

Question 10

Axiology

Answer 10

philosophical discourse on values

Question 11

CUDOS

Answer 11

1. communalism
2. universalism
3. disinterestedness
4. originality
5. skepticism

Question 12

Communalism

Answer 12

transparency, no private intellectual property

Question 13

Universalism

Answer 13

Impersonal criteria for judgement

Question 14

Disinterestedness

Answer 14

no financial interests

Question 15

Originality

Answer 15

extending current scientific knowledge

Question 16

Skepticism

Answer 16

every idea must be criticized & tested severely

Question 17

DECAY (MacFarlane)

Answer 17

replacing CUDOS in modern science.
1. Differentialism
2. Egoism
3. Capitalism
4. AdvocacY

Question 18

Differentialism

Answer 18

Claims influenced by non-epistemic factors, like political, moral, economic & cultural factors

Question 19

Egoism

Answer 19

Personal achievements

Question 20

Capitalism

Answer 20

Profiting, patents

Question 21

Advocacy

Answer 21

commitment to political/ cultural agenda

Question 22

Hominum-objects

Answer 22

objects produced by humans

Question 23

subcategories hominum-objects

Answer 23

1. artefacts: concrete objects produced by engineers, and by artisans and craftsmen
2. works of arts: concrete objects produced by artists
3. waste: products of processes in the human body & by-products of actions performed by humans

Question 24

Dual nature of artefacts

Answer 24

characterisation of an artefact needs both a description of the material object and a description of the function(s) it can perform

Question 25

functions of artefacts

Answer 25

1. proper functions: functions intended by the maker 2. accidental functions: not intended, but also possible functions Only concrete objects with proper functions can malfunction

Question 26

Difference between scientific and technological praxis

Answer 26

1. technological praxes only have external, Baconian aims --> for the sake of consumers' needs or desires. 2. Science is concerned with things that do exist, technology with not-yet existing things 3. Science: mostly knowledge-that, and knowledge involved in technology: knowledge-how

Question 27

Step-wise engineering processes

Answer 27

1. specific needs and desires of the consumer are described 2. functional requirements are determined 3. specifications of the design (leads to blueprint) 4. construction of a prototype of the artefact 5. manufacturing the artefact

Question 28

Latour & Woolgar

Answer 28

social construction of scientific facts

Question 29

Process of scientific facts being constructed:

Answer 29

1. p starts as a speculation 2. p assumes various modalities 3. p becomes the object of active empirical inquiry and invites judgement 4. p gets confirmed, and is firmly fitted in scientific knowledge 5. p is taken for granted, its history 1-4 is forgotten and stripped away; p has become a of morsel of scientific knowledge, a scientific fact most drop out at any previous levels.

Question 30

Social constructionism

Answer 30

thesis that scientific facts are not discovered, but constructed in a collective social process.