Week 5: Scientism, Kuhn and... Flashcards
(29 cards)
Thomas Kuhn
He did not agree with Popper’s idea that scientists should mostly be critical all the time.
His theory suggests that scientists cannot be critical most of the time, because they don’t criticise their paradigm. There’s a lot that scientists take for granted; just like we as students just accept the facts without being critical. He says that sometimes science is not critical at all. And this is good, because if we were critical all of the time, there wouldn’t be any scientific progress.
Kuhn’s phases of science
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Pre-paradigmatic phase
All science starts out here. Happens once. -
Normal science phase.
Once here, you can never go back to the pre-paradigmatic phase. Always return to this, and we are here most of the time. The rule. Most of the real work happens during this phase. Not concerned with falsifying, but rather with solving puzzles: solving problems that we believe have a solution. -
Crisis
From here, science can move back to normal science or to scientific revolution. -
Scientific revolution
Once here, go back to normal science.
Paradigm
Gives shape to and steers scientific research, it is something that a scientist does not have to justify to their colleagues because they already agree with it. A lot of structure is present to help scientists formulate and investigate scientific questions: a theoretical framework. The reason scientists can rely on these frameworks is that other scientists also use them and believe in them.
Theories, concepts and methods which a scientific discipline takes for granted and that direct research in that discipline.
Normal science
Defined by the existence of a paradigm (confidence).
Pre-paradigmatic phase
The phase before there is a paradigm, the methods still have to be thought up by the scientists, not science as we know it, unproductive.
What is an anomaly? What do Popper and Kuhn say about it?
Problem within the paradigm that scientists are unable to solve right now.
- Popper would think of an anomaly as a falsification and reject it.
- Kuhn claims that science always has anomalies, and its existence is not a problem as long as they are confident it will be resolved.
Crisis
Scientists start doubting their own paradigm (unconfident).
Two ways to solve the crisis:
- The most important anomalies of the paradigm are solved. Return to normal science = crisis over.
- A new paradigm emerges to solve anomalies. If the scientists embrace it and abandon the old ways, then we have a scientific revolution.
Scientific revolution (paradigm shift)
Phase where one paradigm is abandoned and another is accepted.
Example: Chomsky.
Good vs. bad science
Good science = who take the paradigm as a standard and use it.
Bad science = going against the paradigm.
Incommensurability
Lack of comparability using a neutral standard (not together measurable); two things cannot be compared using a standard that is appropriate to both. There is no betrayal objective way to say which is better.
When does an anomaly become problematic?
It becomes problematic when a field is faced with a growing number of anomalies, which are rarely resolved.
Two kinds of power:
Foucault.
Repressive power (traditional):
Someone else forces you to do their bidding. Our lives are shaped by this power. Forces us to do what we don’t want to do. Focused on/in specific institutions: bosses, judges, police, politicians.
Normalising power:
Makes us want to do what we have to do anyway. Turns us into people who automatically by their own will do what society wishes. People who can’t imagine stealing because education taught that it was wrong. We don’t have to be jailed because we won’t steal anyway. It is everywhere: family, school, hospital, commercial TV break. Science.
“True self”
Foucault rejects the idea that there is a “true self” buried inside us, independent of society.
Instead, our identities are formed by the social forces around us; by language, norms, institutions, expectations.
Therefore, the idea of freedom as “getting back to the real me” is, for Foucault, nonsense, because there’s no “me” outside of social context.
Hempel’s law
Whenever the cause A happens, the effect B will happen afterwards.
Hempel
Logical positivist, believed that all sciences work in the same way. He looked at explanations in physics, constructed a model that is known as the deductive-nomological model: Hempel thinks that historians explain in the same way that scientists do. He takes the natural sciences as the prototype: explanation by the use of laws (deductive-monological model).
Why does the apple fall? You can explain it with the laws of Newton.
Deductive-nomological model
Hempel thinks that historians explain in the same way that scientists do. He takes the natural sciences as the prototype: explanation by the use of laws (deductive-monological model).
Why does the apple fall? You can explain it with the laws of Newton.
Hegel’s law
Every stage of history is a logical development of the previous stage.
Hegel and synthesis
Lawlessness may seem to provide freedom, but in a certain sense it also creates unfreedom (e.g. it makes stealing, threatening and violence possible). Hegel claims that these kinds of contradictions push history forward. To solve a contradiction in one stage (the thesis), we move to the next stage, which is the opposite (the antithesis). After these comes the synthesis, a combination of the first two stages in which the contradiction has been resolved and the weaknesses of the first two phases have disappeared.
Which period did Hegel agree with?
He agreed with the Romantic idea that nobody can escape from their own time to take a position outside of history. The way that we are/think is shaped by our history and our culture.
Hegel believes that history is a story of progress.
18th century
Age of Enlightenment (or the Age of Reason)
Enlightenment: to become enlightened is to become a mature person. Maturity = thinking for yourself.
Goal: encourage people to think for themselves.
19th century
Romantic period (or the Age of History (1800-1850)
Studying history became the most important intellectual activity. They did not believe that reason was the same for everyone.
Invented ‘culture’ = thought of as being something good. You can only understand yourself if you know where you come from and the origins of your culture.
Karl Marx
Inventor of communism, which is based on a philosophical theory of history called dialectical materialism.
His philosophy starts from Hegel.
Dialectics
Development following the pattern of thesis > antithesis > synthesis
