Philosophy-of-Science

What distinguishes a scientific theory from a myth, an ideology, or a metaphysical system? Why do we accept as knowledge what physics tells us, but not what astrology — or psychoanalysis, at least in its more speculative form — claims? These questions, simple at first glance, opened in the twentieth century one of the most consequential debates in contemporary philosophy. Its two central figures — Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn — formulated answers that, far from reconciling, redrew the landscape of epistemology. ...

Charles Sanders Peirce American logician, mathematician, philosopher, and scientist. Founder of pragmatism and modern semiotics. One of the most original minds in the history of philosophy, though neglected in his lifetime. His work profoundly influenced William James, John Dewey, and the entire analytic and continental tradition of the 20th century. Key Concepts Pragmatism (pragmatic maxim): the meaning of a concept lies in its conceivable practical consequences — “Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have” Triadic semiotics: every sign involves three elements — sign (representamen), object, and interpretant; signification is always mediated and relational Icon, index, and symbol: three types of sign-object relation: resemblance (icon), causal/existential connection (index), arbitrary convention (symbol) Fallibilism: no belief is absolutely certain — knowledge is provisional and subject to revision; science advances through self-correction Synechism: continuity is a fundamental category of reality — a critique of atomism and nominalism Universal categories: Firstness (pure quality, possibility), Secondness (reaction, existence), Thirdness (mediation, law, sign) Community of inquirers: truth is the ideal limit toward which the scientific inquiry of an unlimited community of researchers converges Influenced by Kant — categories, transcendental logic Aristotle — logic, categories Hume and Berkeley — British empiricism (critiqued) Charles Darwin — evolutionism applied to thought Influenced William James — popularized pragmatism (modifying Peirce) John Dewey — instrumentalism Wittgenstein and analytic philosophy — language and use Umberto Eco, Roland Barthes — semiotics and text theory Habermas — discourse ethics and community of communication Works Collected Papers (posthumous, 8 vols.); key articles: “The Fixation of Belief” (1877); “How to Make Our Ideas Clear” (1878). ...

Imre Lakatos Imre Lakatos was a Hungarian-British philosopher of science and mathematics, a professor at the London School of Economics and one of the central figures in the debate on scientific rationality during the 1960s and 1970s. His work seeks an intermediate position between Popper’s falsificationism and Kuhn’s historical account: against the idea that a single refutation overturns a theory, but also against the idea that scientific change is mere irrational “conversion”. Lakatos proposed that the unit of scientific appraisal is not the isolated theory but the research programme, judged over time by its capacity to anticipate novel facts. He was also an original philosopher of mathematics, showing in Proofs and Refutations that mathematical knowledge grows through a dynamic process of conjectures, proofs, and counterexamples rather than by pure, finished deduction. ...

Karl Popper Austrian-British philosopher. Proposed falsificationism as a criterion for scientific demarcation and defended the open society against totalitarianism. Sharp critic of Marxism and historicism. Key Concepts Falsifiability (The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1934): a scientific theory is not one that can be verified (induction — the problem of Hume), but one that can be falsified — that admits the possibility of being refuted by experiments. Psychoanalysis and Marxism are not sciences: they are immune to refutation Problem of induction (asymmetrical solution): no number of observations confirms a universal law; a single counterexample falsifies it. Science progresses through the survival of the most audacious theories under severe scrutiny Critical rationalism: reason advances through bold conjectures and rigorous refutations — not through secure inductive accumulation Evolutionary epistemology: the growth of knowledge is analogous to biological evolution — variations (conjectures) eliminated by selection (refutation) Open Society (The Open Society and Its Enemies, 1945): societies that permit criticism, reform, and peaceful change of institutions; critique of Plato, Hegel, and Marx as “enemies” — historicisms that believe in inevitable laws of history and justify authoritarianism Historicism: the belief that there are historical laws that allow us to predict the future — Popper argues it is a dangerous fallacy; the future is open Influenced by Kant — limits of knowledge and the active role of the subject Hume — problem of induction (point of departure) Einstein — science as bold, refutable conjecture Influenced Contemporary philosophy of science (Lakatos, Feyerabend — disciples and critics) Thomas Kuhn (debate on scientific progress) Contemporary political liberalism George Soros — applied the “open society” as a political and philanthropic project Works The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934); The Poverty of Historicism (1944); The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945); Conjectures and Refutations (1963); Objective Knowledge (1972). ...

Paul Feyerabend Paul Feyerabend was an Austrian philosopher of science and one of the most provocative thinkers of the twentieth century. Trained in Vienna and based for decades at Berkeley, he began close to logical empiricism and to Popper’s critical rationalism — he even studied under Popper at the London School of Economics — before becoming one of his sharpest critics. His best-known work, Against Method (1975), defends epistemological anarchism: the thesis that there is no single, universal, ahistorical scientific method capable of explaining the success of science. Examining real episodes from the history of science, above all the case of Galileo, Feyerabend argues that progress has often required breaking the methodological rules then in force. His provocation became synonymous with a radical defence of pluralism and intellectual freedom against every dogmatism — including the scientific one. ...

Thomas Kuhn American historian and philosopher of science. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) completely transformed the understanding of scientific progress and introduced the concept of paradigm into global intellectual vocabulary. Key Concepts Paradigm: set of theories, methods, exemplary problems and values shared by a scientific community; determines what counts as a legitimate problem and acceptable solution Normal science: period of routine “puzzle-solving” work within an established paradigm; does not question its foundations Anomaly: experimental or theoretical result that does not fit the paradigm; initially ignored or neutralized Crisis: accumulation of resistant anomalies that undermine confidence in the paradigm Scientific revolution: replacement of one paradigm by another incompatible with it — not through gradual accumulation, but through conversion of the scientific community; examples: Copernicus, Lavoisier, Einstein Incommensurability: rival paradigms are incommensurable — there is no neutral language to compare them directly; scientists live in “different worlds” Science as social practice: scientific progress is determined by sociological and historical factors, not merely logical ones — challenge to the rationalist model of Popper Influenced by Karl Popper — philosophy of science (point of debate) Alexandre Koyré — history of scientific ideas Ludwik Fleck — thought collectives and thought styles (precursor) Wittgenstein — language games and forms of life Influenced Popper — Kuhn-Popper debate on scientific rationality Paul Feyerabend — epistemological anarchism (Against Method) Imre Lakatos — scientific research programs Sociology of knowledge (Edinburgh school) Humanities in general — “paradigm” became a universal term Works The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962); The Essential Tension (1977); Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity (1978). ...