The structure of scientific inference

Probability, gradual consensus, incremental evidence

Bayesian epistemology
Inference to the best explanation, and bayesianism
Intuicionismo
Hume
Inductivismo (desde Bacon a Newton…)
Hypotheses non fingo, I frame no hiphotesis, I feign no hiphotesis…
Hipótesis: "Suposición de una cosa para inferir una consecuencia".
Tesis: "Conclusión que se mantiene con razonamientos" (en maths: teorema? Vs
axiomas y postulados no razonados..)
Creación de enunciados
Cálculo de enunciados y proposiciones
A logical calculus of the ideas inmanent in nervous activity
El problema de la creacion de hipótesis
El problema de la inducción
Emergencia
Supervenience (emerge de, se deriva de, se apoya y esta incluida en…)
Teoria de sistemas, sistemas complejos, cibernetica
Intelecto agente, posible
Intellectus agens
Active intellect
Espontaneidad intelectual
La imaginación de thought-experiments y “mágica cognitiva”
Los experimentos mentales, el modelado y simulación de fenómenos y procesos, los
esquemas conceptuales, la caracterización, la extracción de parámetros, el análisis de
sensibilidad, la observación de simulaciones y comportamientos, la optimización.
El contexto de “descubrimiento (de una hipótesis, de una teoría, de una ley)” vs el
contexto de “justificación” (de hipótesis o presuntas leyes puestas quasi arbitrariamente
y con el fin de buscar su justificación)
Induccionismo fisico
Causalidad
Cinematica
Orbitales
Conjetura-refutacion
Ciencia normal de Kuhn
Anomalías
Paradigma-“exemplar” de Kuhn
Modelos y analogías
Popper-Feyerabend-Kuhn-Lakatos
Against Method de Feyerabend, esto es lo que hay, no todo es avance, imposición de
ciencia=imposición de fe…etc
La estructura de las revoluciones cientificas de Kuhn, ciencia normal en un paradigma
establecido vs revolución del edificio teórico, posiblemente inspirada desde hindsight y
promise and aesthetical appeal
Lakatos methodologies of research programmes MRP, methodologies of scientific
reserach programmes SRP, tendencies degenerativas o confirmativas de un RP, cambio
de modelo teorico poco a poco, assessment gradual mediante hipótesis auxiliares…Las
Teorías no son bruscamente refutables o falsables en el sentido de Popper. Lakatos o
qué se puede retener de Feyerabend, Kuhn y Popper
Lakatos progressive problem-shifts involves novel predictions developed in accordance
with positive and negative heuristics
Perspectiva meta-metodologica (sobre analisis historico de metodologías dadas como
hechos) de Lakatos
Conjeturas y refutaciones de Popper
Consenso
Metodo especulativo en el progreso del consenso
Evidencia en Descartes y Balmes y Canals
Berkeley y las ideas
Hipótesis=modelo perfecto en Platón, Galileo como platónico
Ockham//Scoto
Plausible
Verosimil
Explicación cientifica
Explicación causal vs explicación funcional
Toda explicación debe ser causal
Estimación
Prior probabilities
Plausibility constraints
Poperianos contra inductivistas
Dialogo y hermeneutica en el consenso cientifico
Demarcacion poperiana de lo que es conocimiento cientifico (falsable) de lo que no lo
es
Empiricismo constructivista (Van Fraassen) vs realismo: teorias empíricamente
adecuadas para salvar las apariencias de los fenómenos y datos de observacion, no tanto
para saber que son “verdad” o encontrar la verdad
Underdetermination of theories by data
IBE inference to the best explanation vs deductive-nomic model D-N vs hipotetico-
deductivo
Prediccion de resultados desde una teoria vs acomodacion y encaje de datos en el
proceso de construccion de una teoría
Descubrimiento de fenomenos y sus causas vs inferencia de comportamiento de
dispositivos y sistemas artificiales y su relativamente rápida caducidad en su interés
Observación y calculo, pero toda observación esta “cargada” de teoría…
Theorical pre-conceptions en toda inferencia de hipótesis: contra el inductivismo puro
de Bacon, donde bastan los datos para obtener inducciones
Los datos son selectivos, seleccionados siempre
El problema de elegir los experimentos, diseño de experimentos, siempre desde
hipótesis o teorias a explorar, cargados o presididos por teorias…
Ontología, Lógica y Epistemología subyacentes
Proposicion
Es un enunciado o juicio el cual solo puede originar uno y solo uno de los términos
verdadero o falso.
Las proposiciones más comunes que se utilizan son: axiomas, postulados, teoremas y
corolarios.
Axiomas
Es una verdad que no requiere demostración y se la cumple en todas las ciencias del
conocimiento.
Postulados
Es una proposición aceptada como verdadera. A diferencia de los axiomas, estos se los
emplea generalmente en geometría, los mismos que no se han constituido al azar, sino
que han sido escogidos cuidadosamente para desarrollar la geometría
Teorema
Es la proposición cuya verdad necesita ser demostrada: una vez que el teorema se ha
probado se lo puede utilizar para la demostración de otros teoremas, junto con axiomas
y postulados.
Un teorema consta de: hipótesis y tesis:
Hipótesis: son las condiciones o datos del problema
Tesis: es la propiedad a demostrarse.
Corolario
Es la consecuencia de un teorema demostrado.
Los problemas son hoy complejos, más difícil inducción y más difícil deducción, al
menos cadenas más largas de argumentación y más lejanas de la observación inmediata,
más indirectos, menos claros y concretos (o igual de concretos)
Imposibilidad de certeza, pero imposibilidad igualmente de refutar por los complejos
condicionantes en los que se observa y aserta una refutación (inseguridad de tener el
control), no clara la “drastica falsabilidad” de Popper

Teoría (cualitativa) de confirmaciones // Razonamiento Bayesiano

http://vms.cc.wmich.edu/~mcgrew/confirm.htm

http://www.filosoficas.unam.mx/~posgrado/prog_maest.html

http://www.filosoficas.unam.mx/~posgrado/prog_maest.html

F. PROGRAMA DE CURSOS PROPEDEUTICOS Y DE LOS CURSOS

OBLIGATORIOS DE LA MAESTRIA

1. Cursos propedéuticos

1.1 Curso propedéutico de filosofía de la ciencia

Objetivo General:

Identificar los principales temas y problemas de la filosofía de la ciencia

contemporánea, comprender las principales posiciones y respuestas al respecto y
evaluar críticamente su desarrollo en el presente siglo.

1. Introducción.

El concepto tradicional de ciencia; sus supuestos ontológicos, lógicos y epistemológicos

fundamentales. Breve crítica a cada uno de ellos desde el estado actual de las ciencias y
de la epistemología.
2. La concepción stándard de las ciencias:

a) El positivismo lógico y sus propuestas sobre la estructura, método, criterio de

demarcación y objetivos del conocimiento científico. Problemas con cada una de ellas.

•b) La supuesta reacción popperiana al positivismo: las coincidencias y divergencias

con el mismo. El rechazo de la dicotomía teórico-observacional, el método deductivo de
contrastación, la falsabilidad como criterio de demarcación, el carácter progresivo de las
explicaciones científicas satisfactorias y el sobredimensionamiento del progreso
científico como aumento del grado de verosimilitud de las hipótesis. Crítica a cada una
de dichas propuestas.

3. La concepción no-estandard de las ciencias:

•a) Las notas distintivas de tal nueva concepción: la historización de la filosofía de las
ciencia, el rol constitutivo de las teorías y/o paradigmas, el abandono de la distinción de
contextos y de la búsqueda de criterios de demarcación, el énfasis en la actividad
productora de la ciencia sobre el producto, la re-introducción del sujeto cognoscente, la
incidencia de valores extra-científicos, y la nueva elucidación de la objetividad y
racionalidad científica.

•b) La ejemplificación de tales cambios en la concepción de Thomas Kuhn. Paradigmas,

ciencia normal y revoluciones científicas. Problemas y cambios en la posición de Kuhn
al respecto.

•c) Los programas de investigación (I. Lakatos): núcleo tenaz y heurística positiva. La
reconstrucción raciofnal de la historia de las ciencias. Problemas con los remanentes
popperianos en dicha propuesta.

•d) Paul Feyerabend y su anarquismo epistemológico. Las relaciones fundamentales

entre sus propuestas centrales: todo vale, pluralismo teórico, contrainducción, teoría
pragmática de la explicación y postura heterodoxa acerca del progreso y la racionalidad
científica.

•e) Tesis y cambios en el enfoque de solución de problemas de Larry Laudan: (i) la

aplicación inicial del mismo al proyecto científico (1977), (ii) el modelo de reticulado
en su nueva teoría de la racionalidad científica (1984) y (iii) la epistemología
normativa-naturalista (1987).

f) Breve evaluación de las dificultades más importantes en cada uno de ellos.

4. Bas van Fraassen, la reacción y después

•a) El empirismo constructivo y su crítica al realismo científico. Respuesta a tales

críticas y la explosión de realismos disminuídos.

b) Tendencias actuales en filosofía de las ciencias: problemas dominantes y enfoques

relevantes para su tratamiento.
Evaluación: A través de exámenes escritos (parciales y final).

BIBLIOGRAFIA

Carnap, R. (1959). "The Elimination of Metaphysics Through the Logical Analysis of

Language", en A. Ayer, ed., Logical Positivism. New York: The Free Press, pp. 60-82.

Chalmers, A. (1982). "The Logic of Discovery: An Analysis of Three Approaches",

Ibid., pp. 417-430.

Feyerabend, P. (1972). Against Method. London: Verso. Caps. 1-5 y 18.

-----(1975). "Consuelos pare el especialista", en I. Lakatos y A. Musgrave, eds., La

Crítica y el Desarrollo del Conocimiento. Barcelona-Buenos Aires-México: Grijalbo,
pp. 345-390.

-----(1989). `How to Be a Good Empiricist", en B. Brody y R. Grandy Readings in the

Philosophy of Science, op. cit., pp. 104-122.

Giere, R. (1988). Explaining Science. Chicago: University of hicago Press.

Giere, R. (1989). "Philosophy of Science Naturalized", en B. Brody y R. Grandy, eds.,

Readings in the Philosophy of Science, op. cit., pp. 379-397.

Goodman, N. (1989). "The New Riddle of Induction", en B. Brody y R. Grandy, eds.,

Readings in the Philosophy of Science, op. cit., pp. 309-312.

Hacking, I. (1981). "Lakatos´s Philosophy of Science", en I. Hacking, ed., Scientific

Revolutions, op. cit., pp. 128-143.

-----(1984). Representing and Intervening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hanson, N. (1967). "Observation and Interpretation", en S. Morgenbesser, ed.,

Philosophy of Science Today. New York- London: Basic Books, pp. 89-110.

Hempel, C. (1959). "The Empiricist Criterion of Meaning", en A. Ayer, ed., Logical

Positivism, op. cit., pp. 108-132.

-----(1965). "Science and Human Values", en Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New

York: The Free Press, pp. 81-98.

-----(1965). "The Theoretician´s Dilemma: A Study in the Logical of Theory

Construction", Ibid., pp. 173-228.

Hempel, C. (1966). Philosophy of Natural Science. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:

Prentice Hall. Caps. 3, 4 y 6.
-----(1967). "Scientific Explanation", en S. Morgenbesser, ed., Philosophy of Science
Today, op. cit., pp. 78-89.

Kuhn, Th. (1972). La Estructura de las Revoluciones Científicas. México: Fondo de

Cultura Económica.

-----(1975). "Lógica del Descubrimiento o Psicología de la Investigación?", en I.

Lakatos y A. Musgrave, eds., La Crítica y el Desarrollo del Conocimiento, op. cit., pp.
81-114.

-----(1990). "The Road Since Structure", en A. Fine, M. Forbes y L. Wessels, eds., PSA
1990, vol. 2. East Lansing, Michigan: Philosophy of Science Association, pp. 3-13.

Lakatos, I. (1975). "La falsación y la metodología de los programas de investigación",

en I. Lakatos y A. Musgrave, eds., La Crítica y el Desarrollo del Conocimiento, op. cit.,
pp. 203-342.

-----(1975). "Historia de la ciencia y sus reconstrucciones racionales", Ibid., pp. 455-

510.

Laudan, L. (1977). Progress and Its Problems. Los Angeles-Berkeley: University of

California Press.

-----(1990). Science and Relativism. Chicago-London: University of Chicago Press.

Nagel, E. (1979). The Structure of Science. New York: Harcourt, Bruce and World, Inc.
Caps. 3-4.

Popper, K. (1962). La lógica de la investigación científica, Madrid: Tecnos.

-----(1965). "Conjectures and Refutations", en Conjectures and Refutations. The Growth

of Scientific Knowledge. New York: Harper Torchbooks, pp. 33-65.

Putnam, H. (1981). "The Corroboration of Theories", en I. Hacking, ed., Scientific

Progress, op. cit., pp. 80-105.

Quine, W. (1974). "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", en From a Logical Point of View.

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, pp. 20-46.

van Fraassen, B. (1980). The Scientific Image. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

1.2 Curso propedeutico de teoría del conocimiento

En este curso se examinarán las corrientes filosóficas más sobresalientes que han
surgido en el área de la teoría del conocimiento en el siglo presente, teniendo como
objetivos: (1) entender correctamente las teorías bajo escrutinio, sus diferencias y
semejanzas y (2) evaluarlas críticamente; y (3) establecer una comparación de sus
ventajas y dificultades teóricas. Los temas que consideraremos: El fundamentalismo
epistemológico, teorías de la coherencia, teorías externalistas y causales, epistemología
naturalizada, escepticismo y el problema de la inducción.

Temas:

1.- Fundamentalismo (clásico y contemporáneo)

2.- Coherentismo. Justificación internalista; holismo; falibilismo.
3.- Teorías Externas y Naturalismo.
4.- Escepticismo. Escepticismo clásico y contemporáneo; Escepticismo metódico y
como sistema.

BIBLIOGRAFÍA

Jonathan Dancy, Introducción a la epistemología contemporánea. (Madrid: Tecnos,

1993), págs. 71-80.

Nelson Goodman, "Sense and Certainty", en Empirical Knowledge, ed. por Chisholm y
Swartz, (Prentice Hall, 1973).

Laurence Bonjour, "Can Empirical Knowledge have a Foundation?" en American

Philosophical Quarterly 15 (1978), 1-13.

L. Bonjour, "The Coherence Theory of Empirical Knowledge" en Philosophical Studies,

30 (1976) pp. 281-312.

Richard Fumerton, "A Critique of Coherentism" en The Theory of Knowledge,

antología por Louis Pojman (Wadsworth, Inc. 1993).

Alvin I. Golman, "The internalist Conception of Justification", en Midwest Studies in

Philosophy, ed. por Peter A. French (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1980).

Alvin I. Golman, "A Causal Theory of Knowing" en The Journal of Philosophy 64, 12
(1967), pp. 355-372.

Laurence Bonjour, "Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge", en Midwest Studies

in Philosophy.

W. V. Quine, "Epistemology Naturalized" en su libro Ontological Relativity and Other

Essays (New York: Columbia U. P., 1969) pp. 68-90.

Thomson Clarke, "The Legacy of Skepticism" (copia)

Barry Stroud, "The Significance of Scepticism" en Transcendental Arguments and

Science antología por P. Bieri, Horstman, y L. Kruger, D. Reidel Pub. Co. (Dordrecht,
Holland: 1979).

1.3 Curso propedeutico de lógica

 Objetivos Generales: Al final del semestre los alumnos tendrán los rudimentos de
lógica necesarios para empezar a construir sus propios análisis de proposiciones
científicas que no involucren nociones modales o cuantificación de orden superior.

Introducción al razonamiento crítico

Se estudiará cuándo es adecuado o incluso necesario ofrecer razones con énfasis en

Filosofía de la Ciencia. Los temas serán tomados de los libros de Barker, Barry, Bedau,
Browne & Keeley, Engel, Fogelin, Johnson & Blair, Missimer, Moore & Parker,
Ruggiero, Runkle, Russow & Curd, Seech y Thomas.

Conceptos Básicos:

• Lógica y razonamiento
• Oraciones, proposiciones y aseveraciones
• Lenguajes naturales y lenguajes formales
• Forma lógica
• Validez y verdad
• Definiciones
• Lenguaje emotivo, metáforas, ambigüedad, vaguedad y eufemismos

Argumentos:

• Relaciones causales, temporales y retóricas entre las partes de un argumento

• Tipos de argumentos:
• Deductivos, inductivos, abductivos, por analogía, probabilísticos y estadísticos.

Estructura de argumentos:

• Partículas indicadoras de premisas y conclusiones

• Diagramas

Evaluación de argumentos:

• Falacias formales y falacias materiales

• Contraejemplos

Introducción a la lógica formal de primer orden

Silogismos y diagramas de Venn: usos y limitaciones

Estilos lógicos: deducción natural, método axiomático y lógica algebráica

Lógica proposicional:

• Funciones veritativo-funcionales y tablas de verdad

• Tautologías, contradicciones proposicionales, contingencias proposicionales
• Formas normales y conjuntos adecuados de conectivas
• Diferencias entre la simbolización lógica y los lenguajes naturales:
• Errores de traducción: doble negaciones, disyunciones exclusivas, etc.
• Diferencias entre el condicional material y la implicación lógica.
• Qué se puede probar mediante simbolización y qué no se puede probar.
• Reductivo y prueba condicional.

Lógica de predicados de primer orden:

• Cuantificadores
• Substitución y oraciones libres
• Validez

Evaluación: Examenes escritos.

BIBLIOGRAFÍA

Se utilizarán libros de Introducción a la Lógica como:

• Copi I. Introducción a la Lógica, Eudeba.

• Enderton, H. B. Una Introducción Matemática a la Lógica, IIF/UNAM, 1987 México.

• Ferrater, Mora Introducción a la Lógica Matemática, FCE, 1973.

2. Cursos obligatorios de la maestría

2.1 Filosofía de la ciencia I

•Se revisarán algunos de los problemas más importantes que ha abordado la filosofía de
la ciencia del siglo XX, en relación con aspectos sincrónicos -lógicos, epistemológicos y
metodológico s- de la ciencia, procurando en todos los aspectos analizar diferentes
corrientes y perspectivas en la forma de plantear y pretender resolver los problemas. El
profesor se asegurará que por medio del análisis de los problemas y de las corrientes, el
estudiante tenga claridad acerca de la naturaleza y de los objetivos de la filosofía de la
ciencia.

•El profesor tendrá la responsabilidad de que el alumno estudie algunos de los textos
fundamentales en la filosofía de la ciencia de este siglo, algunos de los cuales se
mencionan en la bibliografía anexa.

Algunos de los problemas que se deberán abordar serán los siguientes:

1. RACIONALIDAD DE LA CIENCIA
• La racionalidad científica como problema fundamental de la Filosofía de la Ciencia.
Enfoques normativistas y descriptivistas (naturalistas).

2. PROBLEMAS DE EXPLICACION
• Naturaleza de la explicación científica.
• Tipos de explicación científica.
• Explicación y predicción.

3. EL CONCEPTO DE LEY CIENTIFICA

• Caracterización de las leyes científicas.
• Tipos de Leyes.
• Criterios de legalidad.

4. EL CONCEPTO DE TEORIA CIENTIFICA

• Tipología, lógica y semántica de conceptos.
• Naturaleza y estructura de las teorías científicas: diversas concepciones.
• Interpretaciones y modelos.
• Relaciones interteóricas. El problema de la reducción de teorías.

5. PROBLEMAS DE CONTRASTACION Y CONFIRMACION

• Sintaxis de la confirmación.
• Paradojas de la confirmación.
• El problema de la inducción y de la contrastación del conocimiento científico.
• La metodología falsacionista.
• Diversas concepciones sobre la base empírica y su dependencia de otras teorías.
• La epistemología anarquista: contra el método y contra la ciencia.
• Confirmación y probabilidad.

6. TEORIAS Y MODELOS
• Tipología de Modelos.
• El papel de los modelos en la investigación científica.
• Modelos y metáforas en la investigación científica.

7. TEORIA Y OBSERVACION
• La dicotomía teoría-observación.
• Caracterización de los términos empíricos.
• Términos teóricos y términos observacionales.
• Eliminabilidad de los conceptos teóricos.
• Intentos reduccionistas.
• Entidades teóricas y entidades no-observables.
• Carga teórica de la observación.
• La evolución del concepto de observación.

Evaluación: Exámenes parciales y un examen final escrito.

BIBLIOGRAFIA que se sugiere:

Achinstein, Concepts of Science, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1968.

Bachelard, G., La Formación del Espíritu Científico, Siglo XXI, Buenos Aires, 1972.

Boyd, R., Gasper P., y Trout, J. D., The Philosophy of Science, Cambridge Mass., The
MIT Press, 1991.

Brown, H. I., Perception, Theory and Commitment. The New Philosophy of Science,
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1977.

Bunge, M., La Investigación Científica, Ariel, Barcelona, 1969.

Carnap, R., Fundamentación Lógica de la Física, Sudamericana, Buenos Aires.

Chalmers, A. F., ¿Qué es esa cosa llamada ciencia?, Siglo XXI Editores, Madrid, 1983.

Duhem, P., "Physical Theory and Experiment", en Feigl y Brodbeck 1953, 1906.

Feigl, H. y Brodbeck, M. (eds.), Readings in the Philosophy of Science, Appleton-

Century-Crofts, Nueva York, 1953.

van Fraassen, Laws and Symmetry, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1989.

Goodman, N., Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, Bobbs-Merril, New Yord, 1965. (la. ed. de
Harvard University Press, 1955).

Hacking, I. (ed.), Scientific Revolutions, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1981.

Hacking, I., Representing and Intervening, Cambridge Press, Cambridge, 1983.

Hanson, N. R., Patterns of Discovery, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1958.

Harré, R., The Principles of Scientific Thinking, University of Chicago Press, Chicago,
1970.

Hempel, C. G., Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Enssays in the Philosophy
of Science, The Free Press, New York, 1965. Traducción al español: La Explicación
Científica, Paidós, Buenos Aires, 1965.
Hempel, C. G., "On the Standard Conception of Scientific Theories", en Minnesota
Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 4, M. Radner y S. Winokur (eds.), University
of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1970.

Hempel, C. G., Filosofía de la Ciencia Natural, Alianza Universidad, Madrid, 1983.

Hesse, M., The Structure of Scientific Inference, University of California Press, 1974.

Kitcher, P. y Salmon, W., Scientific Explanation, vol. XIII, Minnesota Studies in the
Philosophy of Science, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1989.

Martínez, S., "Qué es una ley irreductiblemente estadística?": El caso de la mecánica

cuántica", Diánoia 37, 1991.

Moulines, C. U., Exploraciones Metacientíficas. Estructura, desarrollo y contenido de la

ciencia, Alianza Universidad, Madrid, 1982.

Nagel, E., La Estructura de la Ciencia, Buenos Aires, Paidós, 1978.

Nidditch (comp.), The Philosophy of Science, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1968.

Olivé, L. y Pérez Ransanz,A.R. (eds.), Filosofía de la ciencia: teoría y observación,

Siglo XXI Editores/UNAM, México, 1989.

Otero, M., La filosofía de la ciencia hoy: dos aproximaciones, UNAM, México, 1977.

Pérez Ransanz, A.R., "Azar y explicación: algunas observaciones", en Crítica No. 66,
diciembre de 1990 pp. 39-54, 1990.

Popper, K. R., The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Hutchinson, Londres, 1a. ed. en
inglés 1959, 1935.

Popper, K. R., Conjetures and Refutations, Harper & Row, Nueva York, 1963.

Popper, K. R., Objetive Knowledge: an evolutionary approach, Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1972.

Putnam, H., "What Theories are not", en Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of
Science, E. Nagel, P. Suppes y A. Tarski (eds.), Stanford University Press, 1962. (Trad.
en Olivé y Pérez Ransanz 1989, pp. 312-329), 1960.

Railton, P., "Probability, Explanation and Information", Synthese, vol. 48, pp. 233-56,
1981.

Reichenbach, H., Experience and Prediction, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill,
1938.

Rescher, N., Scientific Explantion, The Free Press, Nueva York, 1970.
Rolleri, J. L. (ed.), Estructura y Desarrollo de las teorías Científicas, IIF/UNAM,
México, 1986.

Salmon, W., Four Decades of Scientific Explanation, in Kitcher and Salmon, pp. 3-219,
1989.

Salmon, W., "Scientific Explanation: Causation and Unification", en Crítica No. 66, pp.
3-23, Diciembre de 1990.

Shapere, D., Reason and the Search for Knowledge, Reidel Publishing Co., Dordrecht,
Holland, 1984.

Stegmüller, W., Estructura y Dinámica de Teorías, Segundo tomo de Teoría y

Experiencia, 1983. (Edición del original alemán: Springer Verlag, Heidelberg, 1973).

Suppe, F. (ed.), The Structure of Scientific Theories, University of Illinois Press,

Urbana-Chicago-London, 2nd. ed., 1977.

von Wright, G. H., Explicación y Comprensión, Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 1979.

2.2 Lógica I

• Se estudiarán elementos de la teoría de conjuntos, y las nociones de lenguaje y de

sistema formal. Se trabajará con cálculos de deducción natural y axiomáticos, y se
estudiarán en detalle el cálculo de enunciados. Se estudiarán pruebas de consistencia,
corrección y completud.

Se estudiará el cálculo de predicados, analizando los problemas de consistencia,

completud y decidibilidad.

Se analizará el problema de la verdad y los modelos, y de los modelos e interpretaciones

de teorías.

El procedimiento de evaluación será el de la presentación de tareas por escrito y de

exámenes parciales y finales.

Evaluación: Examenes parciales y un examen final escrito.

SUGERENCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS PARA LÓGICA I

Enderton, H. B., Una Introducción Matemática a la Lógica, IIF/UNAM, México, 1987.

van Fraassen, B., Semántica Formal y Lógica, IIF/UNAM, México, 1987.

Fraenkel, A., Teoría de los Conjuntos y Lógica, IIF/UNAM, México, 1976.

Mendelson, E., Introduction to Mathematical Logic, Nueva York, van Nostrand, 1979.

2.3 Teoria del conocimiento I

Se analizarán diversas concepciones sobre los conceptos de creencia y de conocimiento.

Se discutirán diversas concepciones sobre la caracterización, justificación y aceptación
del conocimiento. Se examinará el problema del conocimiento del mundo externo, así
como el problema de la certeza. Se discutirá la noción de racionalidad, en relación con
las razones para creer y el problema de la justificación de las creencias y del
conocimiento. Se abordará el problema de si existen diversos tipos de conocimiento y el
concepto de comunidades epistémicas.

La naturaleza y amplitud del tratamiento de estos problemas a lo largo de la historia de

la filosofía y en la reflexión contemporánea, hace imposible establecer una bibliografía
básica. A manera de ilustración, se propone la siguiente bibliografía.

Evaluación: Exámenes parciales y un examen final.

BIBLIOGRAFÍA

Ayer, A. (ed.), El Positivismo Lógico, Fondo de Cultura Económica, México, 1965.

Descartes, Rene, Meditaciones Metafísicas, (varias ediciones).

Foley, R., The Theory of Epistemic Rationality, Harvard University Press, Cambridge,
Mass., y Londres, 1987.

Hume, David, Tratado sobre la Naturaleza Humana, (varias ediciones) Investigaciones

sobre el Conocimiento Humano, (varias ediciones).

Kant, Immanuel, Crítica de la Razón Pura, (varias ediciones).

Kornblith, H., Naturalizing Epistemology, The MIT Press, Cambridge Mass., y

Londres, 1985.

Leherer, K., Knowledge, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1974.

Platón, Teeteto, (diversas ediciones).

Moser, P., Empirical Justification, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1985.

Polanyi, M., Personal Knowledge, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill, 1958.
Russell, B., The Problems of Philosophy, 1912, reimpreso por Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 1974.

Russell, B., Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits, Simon and Schuster, Nueva
York, 1948.

Scheffler, I., Las Condiciones del Conocimiento, IIF/UNAM, México, 1973.

Sosa, E., Conocimiento y Virtud Intelectual, IIF/UNAM-FCE, México, 1992.

Villoro, L., Creer, Saber, Conocer, Siglo XXI Editores, México, 1982.

2.4 Historia de la ciencia I

Se estudiarán críticamente los aspectos más sobresalientes de la relación entre filosofía

e historia de las ciencias, así como las principales historiografías contemporáneas de la
ciencia. Se analizarán tendencias y casos de estudio de la ciencia en el renacimiento, la
revolución científica y el surgimiento y la complejidad de la materia. El profesor deberá
seleccionar cuidadosamente los episodios científicos y las ideas científicas y filosóficas
que se analicen. Entre otras, se discutirán algunas de las ideas centrales de Bacon,
Vesalio, Copérnico, Kepler, Galileo, Harvey, Newton, Lagrange, Buffon, Lavoisier,
Priestley, Cavendish, Coulomb, Boyle, Hooke y la revolución darwiniana.

Los cursos en historia de la ciencia utilizarán fuentes primarias. Se harán accesibles a

los estudiantes las reproducciones de (las partes de) los trabajos originales que se
estudiarán en el curso.

Algunos títulos de fuentes secundarias que podrían utilizarse en los cursos en historia de
la ciencia son los siguientes (por supuesto la bibliografía posible es enorme, los títulos
que se señalan a continuación son meramente indicativos de la bibliografía secundaria
que podrían estudiar los alumnos):

Evaluación: Examenes parciales y un examen final escrito.

BIBLIOGRAFÍA

Bell, A., Newtonian Science, Londres, E. Arnold Ltd, 1961.

Boas, M., The Scientific Renaissance, 1450-1630. Harper and Brothers, New York,
1962.

Buchdahl, G., Metaphysics and the philosophy of Science: the Classical Origins.
Descartes to Kant, Oxford, Blackwell, 1969.
Bullough, V. L., The Scientific Revolution, Nueva York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1970.

Butterfield, H., Los orígenes de la ciencia moderna, México, CONACYT, 1981.

Cohen, I. B., The Newtonian Revolution, Cambridge University Press, 1980.

Cohe, I. B., Revolutions in Science, Cambridge, Harvard University, 1985.

Crombie, A. C., Historia de la Ciencia: de San Agustín a Galileo, Alianza Editorial,

Madrid, (2 vols.), 1959.

Dampier, W. C., A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy and Religion.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (4a. ed.), 1961.

Dampier, W. C., A Shorter History of Science, Meridian Books, Cleveland Press, 1966.

Drake, S., Galileo at Work. His Scientific Biography, The University of Chicago Press,
1978.

Farrington, B., The Philosophy of Francis Bacon. An Essay on its Development from
1603 to 1609, Liverpool University Press, 1964.

Gavroglu, K., Trends in the historiography of science, Kluwer, 1994.

Giere, "History and philosophy of science", British Journal for the philosophy of
science, 1973.

Hall, A. R. y Hall, M. B., A Brief History of Science. New York, Signet Books, 1964.

Hall, A. R., From Galileo to Newton. 1630-1720. New York, Harper and Row, 1963.

Hall, A. R., The Scientific Revolution, 1500-1800. Boston, The Beacon Press, 1956.

Knigth, D., Sources for the History of Science. The Sources of History Ltd., Londres,
1975.

Koyré, A., Estudios de Historia del Pensamiento Científico, México, Siglo XXI, 1978.

Koyré, A., Newtonian Studies, Londres, 1965.

Laudan, L., Beyond positivism and relativism, 1995.

Manuel F. E., A Portrait of Isaac Newton´s Scientific Carrer, Cambridge, Mass.

Olhy, et. al., Companion to the history of modern science, The University of Chicago,
1990.

Shapere, D., Galileo, A Philosophical Study, The University of Chicago Press, 1974.
Schaffer, Gooding y Pineda (eds.), The uses of experiment, 1989.

Singer, C., The Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood, Londres, Dowson and Sons,
1956.

Taton, R. (editor), Historia General de las Ciencias: vol. II La Ciencia Moderna (de
1450 a 1800), Orbis, Barcelona, 1988.

Yates Frances, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, The University of Chicago
Press, 1964.

Westfall, R. S., Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton, Cambridge University

Press, 1980.

2.5 Filosofía de la ciencia II

En este curso se abordarán problemas de la dinámica de la ciencia, en especial el

problema del cambio conceptual y del desarrollo científico. Se discutirán diversos
modelos de desarrollo científico y la noción de racionalidad aplicada a estos modelos.
Se discutirá también el problema del progreso en la ciencia y en la tecnología, así como
la producción social del conocimiento científico.

Por la naturaleza del tema no es conveniente fijar una bibliografía, pero el profesor se
asegurará que el alumno conozca y discuta los modelos de Popper, Kuhn y Lakatos, así
como las principales críticas que se les han hecho desde diferentes perspectivas,
especialmente las de Paul Feyerabend, Larry Laudan, Dudley Shapere y Wolfgang
Stegmüller.

Evaluación: Examenes escritos (parciales y final).

BIBLIOGRAFÍA que se sugiere:

Agassi, J. y Jarvie, I. C. (eds.), Rationality: The Critical View, Martinus Nijhoff

Publishers, Dordrecht, Holanda, 1987.

Campbell, D., "Evolutionary Epistemology", en Schilpp 1974, pp. 413-463.

Fayerabend, P., Contra el Método, Ariel, Barcelona, 1974.

Fayerabend, P., "Consuelos para el especialista", en Lakatos y Musgrave 1970.

Fayerabend, P., Límites de la Ciencia, Paidós, Barcelona, 1989.

Garber, D., "Learning from the past: reflections on the role of history in the philosophy
of science", en Synthese 67, pp. 91-114, 1986.
Hacking, I. (ed.), Scientific Revolutions, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1981.

Hesse, M., Revolutions and Reconstructions in the Philosophy of Science, Harvester

Press, Brighton, 1980.

Hull, D., Science as a Process, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago y Londres,
1988.

Kuhn, T., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2a. ed. aumentada, The University of
Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970. (La Estructura de las Revoluciones Científicas, F.C.E.,
México, la. ed. 1971), 1962.

Kuhn, T., "¿Lógica del descubrimiento o psicología de la investigación?, en Lakatos y

Musgrave 1970 a.

Kuhn, T., "Consideración en torno a mis críticos", en Lakatos y Musgrave, 1970 b.

Kuhn, T., "Notas sobre Lakatos", en Lakatos y Musgrave, 1970 c.

Kuhn, T., The Essential Tension, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1977. (La
tensión Esencial, CONACYT/FCE, México, 1a. ed. 1982)

Kuhn, T., "Second Thoughts on Paradigms", en Suppe 1977 a, pp. 459-499.

Kuhn, T., What are Scientific Revolutions?, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

Cambridge y Londres, 1987. (¿Qué son las revoluciones científicas?, Paidós/ICE de la
Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Barcelona- Buenos Aires-México, 1989).

Lakatos, I. y Musgrave, A. (eds.), La Crítica y el Desarrollo del Conocimiento, Trad. de

Francisco Hernán de la 2a. ed. inglesa y aumentada con Lakatos 1971 y Kuhn 1970c,
Grijalbo, Barcelona-Buenos Aires-México, 1975. (Criticism and the Growth of
Knowledge, 2a. ed., Cambridge University Press, Londres, 1972).

Lakatos, I., "La falsación y la metodología de los programas de investigación

científica", en Lakatos y Musgrave 1970.

Lakatos, I., "La historia de la ciencia y sus reconstrucciones racionales", en Lakatos y

Musgrave 1970. (la. ed. del original en inglés, Boston Studies in Philosophy of Science,
Vol. VIII, Dordrecht 1971, pp. 91-136.

Laudan, L., Progress and its Problems, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los
Angeles, 1977.

Laudan, L., Science and Values, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1984.

Laudan, L., "Some problems facing intuitionist meta-methodologies", en Synthese 67,

1986, pp. 115-129, 1986.

Laudan, L., "Progress or rationality? The prospects for normative naturalism", en

American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 1, 1987, pp. 19-31.
Martínez, S., "Método, evolución y progreso en la ciencia" en Crítica, 25 (73), 1993.

Olivé, L. (comp.), La Explicación Social del Conocimiento, IIF/UNAM, México, 1985.

Popper, K., "La ciencia normal y sus peligros", en Lakatos y Musgrave, 1970.

Pérez Ransanz, A. R., "Modelos del cambio científico" en U. Moulines (coord.),

Enciclopedia Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Trotta, Madrid, 1994.

Sarkar, H., "Imre Lakatos, meta-methodology: an appraisal", en Philosophy of the

Social Sciences 10, 1980, pp. 397-416.

Schilpp, P. (ed.), The Philosophy of Karl Popper, Open Court, La Salle, Ill, 1974.

Shapere, D., Reason and the Search for Knowledge, Reidel Publishing Co., Dordrecht,
1984.

Shapere, D., "Objectivity, Rationality and Scientific Change", en P. Kitcher y P.

Asquith (eds.), PSA 84, Vol. II, 1986.

Toulmin, S., "La distinción entre ciencia normal y ciencia revolucionaria ¿resiste un
examen?", en Lakatos y Musgrave, 1970.

Toulmin, S., Human Understanding, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.
(Trad. La Comprensión Humana, Alianza Universidad, Madrid, 1977).

Wykstra, S., "Toward a Historical Meta-Method for Assessing Normative

Methodologies: Rationality, Serendipity and the Robinson Crisoe Fallacy", en PSA
1980, Vol. 1, pp. 211-222.

2.6 Lógica II

Se estudiarán temas y problemas fundamentales de la lógica inductiva y se centrará en

dos temáticas: lógica de la probabilidad (especialmente bayesiana) y la estructura de
argumentos estadísticos).

Evaluación: Examenes escritos (parciales y final).

BIBLIOGRAFÍA

Campbel, D., Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research, Boston,

Houghton, Mifflin, 1996.
Earman, John., Inference, explanation, and other Philosophical Frustations: Essays in
the Philosophy of Science, Berkeley, Univ. of California Press, 1992.

Hacking, I., Logic of statistic Inference, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1965.

Hesse, M., Structure of Scientific Inference, London, McMillan, 1974.

Howson, Colin and Peter Urbach, Scientific Reasoning. The Bayesian Approach,
Chicago, Open Court, 1993.

Jeffrey, Richard, Probability and the Art of Judgment, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992.

Salmon, W., Foundation of Scientific inference, Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1967.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas
Posgrado en Filosofía de la Ciencia
Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoacán, México, D.F.
London Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology
MSc in History of Science, Medicine and Technology

OPTION: PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Second and third terms, 2003-04
Thursdays 10.30am-12.30pm
Seminar Rooms 1 & 2, second floor, Euston House (Wellcome Trust Centre)

Dr Hasok Chang
Dept of Science and Technology Studies
University College London
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT

Office: 22 Gordon Square, room 3.2

Telephone: 7679-1324 (office), 8341-6710 (home)
E-mail: h.chang@ucl.ac.uk
Office hours: to be announced.

AIMS OF THE COURSE

This course addresses some fundamental questions about the nature and development of
scientific knowledge, including the following:

• What differentiates science from other systems of thought and ways of engaging
with the natural world? Is there a "scientific method" that guarantees the superiority
and reliability of scientific knowledge?
• Is there progress in science, or merely change from one worldview to another,
each maintained by social agreement? Do scientists choose between competing theories
in a rational way?
• What is the relationship between observation, experimentation and theory?
• Does science give us an objectively true description of an independent physical
reality, or useful tools of thought, or both?

This course is an introduction to the philosophy of science specifically designed for

historians. All of the philosophical questions will be addressed through concrete
episodes from the actual development of science. Historiographical issues will also
continually arise from these philosophical debates. In both of those ways, connections
will be made with the content of the rest of the MSc programme.

The work in this course is also designed to get you into the general habit of thinking and
writing clearly and precisely about any issues you consider.

ASSESSMENT
Assessment is by two essays of 5,000 words each, and a written exam at the end of the
course. I will make suggestions on essay topics, but the crafting of the question is
ultimately your own task. Common essay deadlines will apply, with standard penalties
for lateness (2 points per day). Further guidance will be provided on the exam in due
course.

LOCATION OF READING MATERIALS

Most reading materials needed for this course are available in the UCL Libraries.
Please note that the philosophy of science materials are split between the Science
Library (mostly under History of Science) and the Main Library (mostly under
Philosophy). Many heavily used books can be found in the Science Library Short Loan
Collection, and some photocopied materials in the Teaching Collection (request these at
the Issue Desk). Many of the important texts are also available in the Science Museum
Library, the Wellcome Trust Library and the Senate House (University of London)
Library. A number of sources, particularly journal articles, are also available
electronically through the UCL Library.

Location Code for Reading Materials (see the end of each item below):
SL: Some or all copies of a book in the Science Library Short Loan Collection
(3-hour loan or 2-day loan).
TC: Photocopy in the Science Library Teaching Collection (3-hour loan);
request at the Issue Desk, quoting the four-digit reference number given in the catalogue
(eUCLid).
ELEC: Electronically available; further details about access will be given.
HC: Not easily available; consult the tutor in case of difficulty.
If no indication is given, the book or periodical is easily available on standard
loan from the UCL Libraries.

SCHEDULE OF SESSIONS AND READINGS*

* Lists of further recommended readings are available separately for individual topics.

The Structure of the Sessions: At the end of each session, I will give a brief lecture
introducing the topic designated for the following week. Then you should do the
assigned reading for that topic before the next session, at which we will examine it in
more depth, in a discussion format as much as possible. Therefore it is essential that
you do the reading listed under each session before coming to class.

As a backup text that gives an accessible introduction to many of the key issues we will
be discussing, I recommend Alan F. Chalmers, What Is This Thing Called Science?, 3rd
ed. (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999); the second edition can also be used.
Also recommended is Martin Curd and J. A. Cover, Philosophy of Science: The Central
Issues (New York and London: Norton, 1998), an anthology containing a number of
classic readings and some helpful commentary on them; several of the readings below
are contained in Curd and Cover, in which case an indication is given. Both books are
available for purchase in major bookshops, and there are multiple copies of each,
including some on short loan, in the UCL Libraries.

PART A. INTRODUCTION: THE NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

1. What is science? Popper vs. the inductivists (22 January 2004)

• Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, 3rd ed. (London: Routledge, 1969),
pp. 33-41 (sections 1.i-1.iii); you may use other editions. Read the rest of chapter 1 if
possible. Also reprinted in Curd and Cover, pp. 3-10. SL
Also recommended:
• A. F. Chalmers, What Is This Thing Called Science?, 3rd ed. (Buckingham:
Open University Press, 1999), chs. 1, 4, 5.
• Paul Arthur Schilpp, ed., The Philosophy of Karl Popper (La Salle: Open Court,
1974).

2. Paradigms and revolutions (29 January 2004)

• Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1970), pp. 10-51, 92-135 (chs. 2-5, 9-10); do not use the
first edition (1962); the third edition is essentially the same as the second. SL
• Paul Feyerabend, "How to Defend Society Against Science", Radical
Philosophy, no. 11 (1975), pp. 3-8; reprinted in E. D. Klemke, Robert Hollinger, and A.
David Kline, eds., Introductory Readings in the Philosophy of Science, revised ed.
(Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1988), pp. 34-44. SL (Klemke et al.), TC (photocopy)
Also recommended:
• Thomas S. Kuhn, "Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice", in The
Essential Tension (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), pp. 320-339.
• Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, eds., Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970).

3. Progress and rationality (5 February 2004)

• Imre Lakatos, "Science and Pseudoscience", in Philosophical Papers, vol. 1
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 1-7. Also reprinted in Curd and
Cover, pp. 20-26.
• Paul Thagard, "Why Astrology Is a Pseudoscience", in P. Asquith and I.
Hacking, eds., Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association 1978, vol. 1 (East
Lansing, Mich.: Philosophy of Science Association, 1978), pp. 223-234. Also reprinted
in Curd and Cover, pp. 27-37. ELEC, SL
Also recommended:
• Brendan Larvor, Lakatos: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 1998).
• Imre Lakatos, "Criticism and the Methodology of Scientific Research
Programmes", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 69 (1968-69), pp. 149-186.
TC.
• C. Howson, ed., Method and Appraisal in the Physical Sciences (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1976). This is a collection of historical case studies
carried out in the Lakatosian framework, including Musgrave's paper on oxygen and
phlogiston.

PART B. THE CHALLENGE OF SCIENTIFIC OBSERVATION

4. Reality, appearance, and artifacts (12 February 2004)

• Nicolas Rasmussen, "Facts, Artifacts, and Mesosomes: Practicing Epistemology
with the Electron Microscope", Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, vol.
24 (1993), pp. 227-265.
Also recommended:
• Alan Chalmers, "The Theory-Dependence of the Use of Instruments in Science",
Philosophy of Science, vol. 70 (2003), pp. 493-509.
• James Bogen and James Woodward, "Saving the Phenomena", Philosophical
Review, vol. 97 (1988), 302-352.
UCL Reading Week (16-20 February 2004): There will be no lecture on 19 February;
start working on the first essay.

5. Inference and observation (26 February 2004)

• Dudley Shapere, "The Concept of Observation in Science and Philosophy",
Philosophy of Science, vol. 49 (1982), pp. 485-525. ELEC
Also recommended:
• Trevor Pinch, Confronting Nature: The Sociology of Solar-Neutrino Detection
(Dordrecht: Reidel, 1986).
• Peter Kosso, "Dimensions of Observability", British Journal for the Philosophy
of Science, vol. 39 (1988), pp. 449-467.

6. Operationalism (4 March 2004)

• Percy W. Bridgman, The Logic of Modern Physics (New York: Macmillan,
1927), pp. 1-32 (ch. 1). HC
• Carl Hempel, Philosophy of Natural Science (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall,
1966), pp. 85-100 (ch. 7). SL
Also recommended:
• Philipp G. Frank, ed., The Validation of Scientific Theories (New York: Collier
Books, 1961), pp. 45-92 (ch. 2).
• Maila L. Walter, Science and Cultural Crisis: An Intellectual Biography of Percy
Williams Bridgman 1882-1961 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990).

7. Measurement and convention (11 March 2004)

• Henri Poincaré, "The Measure of Time", in The Foundations of Science, trans.
by G. B. Halsted (Lancaster, Pa.: The Science Press, 1946), pp. 223-234. Also reprinted
in A. B. Arons and A. M. Bork, eds., Science and Ideas (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1964), pp. 37-48. Also in Henri Poincaré, The Value of Science (New
York: Dover, 1958). HC
Also recommended:
• David Landes, Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern
World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983).
• Peter Galison, Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps: Empires of Time (New York:
Norton, 2003), ch. 4.

PART C. THE ACTIVE VIEW OF KNOWLEDGE

8. Representation vs. intervention (18 March 2004)

• Ian Hacking, Representing and Intervening (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1983), pp. 149-209 (ch. 9, 10, 11). SL
Also recommended:
• Paul M. Churchland and Clifford A. Hooker, eds., Images of Science, pp. 297-
300 (reply from Bas van Fraassen on Hacking's paper on microscopes).
• David B. Resnik, "Hacking's Experimental Realism", Canadian Journal of
Philosophy, vol. 24 (1994), pp. 395-412.
• Dudley Shapere, "Astronomy and Anti-Realism", Philosophy of Science, vol. 60
(1993), 134-150.
• Allan Franklin, "Experiment in Physics", 24pp, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, online at http://plato.stanford.edu
• David Gooding, Trevor PInch, and Simon Schaffer, eds., The Uses of
experiment: Studies in the Natural Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989).

9. Skills and rule-following (25 March 2004)

• Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), pp. 49-65 (ch. 4).
• Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 3rd ed., trans. by G. E. M.
Anscombe (New York: Macmillan, 1968[?]), §§66-87 and §§142-255 (pp. 31-41, 56-
61).
Also recommended:
• Harry Collins, Changing Order: Induction and Replication in Scientific Practice
(London: Sage, 1985).
• J. N. Findlay, Wittgenstein: a Critique (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1984), esp. ch. 7.
• Thomas A. Langford and William H. Poteat, Intellect and Hope: Essays in the
Thought of Michael Polanyi (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1968). Senate
House; HC.
• Stafania Jha, Reconsidering Michael Polanyi's Philosophy (Pittsburgh, Pa.:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002).
• Richard Gelwick, The Way of Discovery: An Introduction to the Thought of
Michael Polanyi (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977).

FIRST ESSAY due on Friday 26 March 2004

EASTER BREAK: 29 March to 26 April 2004

PART D. ONTOLOGY, EXPLANATION, AND EPISTEMOLOGY

10. The vitalism debate: mechanism vs. teleology (29 April 2004)
• Hans Driesch, "Experimental Morphogenesis", in The Science and Philosophy
of the Organism (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1908), pp. 56-70. TC=SCIENCE
4288.
• Hans Driesch, "The Empirical Proofs of Vitalism", in The History and Theory of
Vitalism, trans. by C. K. Ogden and revised for the author for the English edition
(London: Macmillan, 1914), pp. 207-215. TC=SCIENCE 4286.
• Henri Bergson, "Evolution of Life-mechanism and Teleology", in Creative
Evolution, trans. by Arthur Mitchell (London: Macmillan, 1911), pp. 64-102.
TC=SCIENCE 4301.
Also recommended:
• Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Science (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World,
1961), pp. 398-446 (ch. 12).
• Frederick Burwick and Paul Douglass, eds., The Crisis in Modernism: Bergson
and the Vitalist Controversy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
• Anne Harrington, Reenchanted Science: Holism in German Culture from
Wilhelm II to Hitler (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).
• Moritz Schlick, Philosophy of Nature, trans. by Amethe von Zeppelin (New
York: Philosophical Library, 1949), Ch. 14-16.
• Timothy O. Lipman, "Vitalism and Reductionism in Liebig's Physiological
Thought", ISIS, Vol. 58 (1967), pp. 167-185.

11. Truth, explanation, and the aims of science (6 May 2004)

• Nancy Cartwright, How the Laws of Physics Lie (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1983), pp. 54-73 (ch. 3).
• Nancy Cartwright, The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 1-34 (introduction and ch. 1).
Also recommended:
• Michael Friedman, "Explanation and Scientific Understanding", Journal of
Philosophy, vol. 71 (1974), pp. 5-19.
• Philip Kitcher, "Explanatory Unification", Philosophy of Science, vol. 48
(1981), 507-531.

PART E. THE DYNAMICS OF BELIEF

12. The rejection of successful ideas (13 May 2004)

• Carl Hempel, Philosophy of Natural Science (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall,
1966), pp. 3-18 (ch. 2). SL
• Donald Gillies, "Hempelian and Kuhnian Approaches in the Philosophy of
Medicine" (unpublished manuscript). HC
• NOTE: Donald Gillies will be giving a public lecture on this subject at UCL on
Monday 10 May at 5pm.
Also recommended:
• Naomi Oreskes, "The Rejection of Continental Drift", Historical Studies in the
Physical Sciences, vol. 18, no. 2 (1988), pp. 311-348.
• Larry Laudan, "A Confutation of Convergent Realism", Philosophy of Science,
vol. 48 (1981), pp. 19-49, esp. sections 1, 2, 5, and 8. Also reprinted in Curd and
Cover, pp. 1114-1135 ELEC, SL

13. The virtue of tenacity (20 May 2004)

• Paul Feyerabend, Against Method (London: New Left Book, 1975), pp. 55-108
(chs. 5-9). Later editions may be used, but chapter numbers vary from edition to
edition; look for chapters that discuss the case of Galileo's defence of Copernicanism.
HC
Also recommended:
• Gerald Holton, "Subelectrons, Presuppositions, and the Millikan-Ehrenhaft
Dispute", Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, vol. 9 (1978), pp. 161-224. HC
• Greg Bamford, "Popper and His Commentators on the Discovery of Neptune : A
Close Shave for the Law of Gravitation?", Studies in History and Philosophy of
Science, vol. 27 (1996), pp. 207-232.
• Norwood Russell Hanson, "Leverrier: The Zenith and Nadir of Newtonian
Mechanics", Isis, vol. 53 (1962), pp. 359-378.

14. Believing what one cannot observe (27 May 2004)

• Michael Gardner, "Realism and Instrumentalism in 19th-Century Atomism",
Philosophy of Science, vol. 46 (1979), pp. 1-34. ELEC
Also recommended:
• Mary Jo Nye, Molecular Reality: A Perspective on the Scientific Work of Jean
Perrin (London: Macdonald, 1972), esp. Ch. 1 (pp. 1-50). TC.
• Allan Franklin, "Millikan's Published and Unpublished Data on Oil Drops."
Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, vol. 11 (1981), pp. 185-201.
• Mary Hesse, The Structure of Scientific Inference (London: Macmillan, 1974),
pp. 9-44 (Ch. 1).
• A. F. Chalmers, What Is This Thing Called Science?, 3rd ed. (Buckingham:
Open University Press, 1999), ch. 15; in the second edition, see ch. 13

SECOND ESSAY due on Monday 31 May 2004

PART F. SUMMARY AND METHODOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS

15. Philosophy, history, and historiography (3 June 2004)

• Stephen Brush, "Should the History of Science be Rated X?", Science, vol. 183
(1974), pp. 1164-1172. ELEC
• Thomas Kuhn, "The Trouble with the Historical Philosophy of Science", in The
Road Since Structure, ed. by James Conant and John Haugeland (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 105-120. HC
Also recommended:
• Roger H. Stuewer, ed., Historical and Philosophical Perspectives of Science
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1970).
• John Losee, Philosophy of Science and Historical Enquiry (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1987).

Part of session 15 will also serve as a revision session for the exam.
Exam week: 14-18 June

SOURCES FOR BACKGROUND AND GENERAL REFERENCE

Introductory Textbooks
• A. F. Chalmers, What Is This Thing Called Science?, 3rd ed. (Buckingham:
Open University Press, 1999), or 2nd ed. (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press,
1982).
• Nicholas Everitt and Alec Fisher, Modern Epistemology: A New Introduction
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995).
• Rom Harré, The Philosophies of Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1972).
• Carl G. Hempel, Philosophy of Natural Science (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-
Hall, 1966).
• Peter Kosso, Reading the Book of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992).
• John Losee, A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, 3rd ed.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
• Alan Musgrave, Common Sense, Science and Scepticism: A Historical
Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1993).
• Anthony O’Hear, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1989).
• Samir Okasha, Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2002).

More Advanced General Texts in the Philosophy of Science

• George Couvalis, The Philosophy of Science: Science and Objectivity (London:
Sage, 1977).
• Donald Gillies, Philosophy of Science in the Twentieth Century (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1993).
• Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Science (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World,
1961).
• W. H. Newton-Smith, The Rationality of Science (London and New York:
Routledge, 1981).
• Alex Rosenberg, Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction (London:
Routledge, 2000).

Useful Anthologies
• Richard Boyd, Philip Gasper, and J. D. Trout, eds., The Philosophy of Science
(Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1991).
• Martin Curd and J. A. Cover, eds., Philosophy of Science: The Central Issues
(New York and London: Norton, 1998).
• Arthur Danto and Sidney Morgenbesser, eds., Philosophy of Science (Cleveland:
The World Publishing Company, 1960).
• Herbert Feigl and Grover Maxwell, eds., Current Issues in the Philosophy of
Science (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961).
• E. D. Klemke, Robert Hollinger, and A. David Kline, eds., Introductory
Readings in the Philosophy of Science, revised ed. (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1988).
• Joseph J. Kockelmans, ed., Philosophy of Science: The Historical Background
(New York: The Free Press, 1968).
• Jarrett Leplin, ed., Scientific Realism (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1984).
• Robert Nola and Howard Sankey, eds., After Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend:
Recent Issues in Theories of Scientific Method (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2000).
• William R. Shea, ed., Revolutions in Science: Their Meaning and Relevance
(Canton, Mass.: Science History Publications, 1988).
• Roger H. Stuewer, ed., Historical and Philosophical Perspectives of Science
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1970).
• Ryan Tweeney, Michael Doherty and Clifford Mynatt, eds., On Scientific
Thinking (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981).
• Philip P. Wiener, ed., Readings in Philosophy of Science (New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1953).
• Arthur Zucker, ed., Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (Upper Saddle
River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1996).

Reference works
• A Companion to the Philosophy of Science, ed. by W. H. Newton-Smith
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).
• Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by Paul Edwards (New York and London:
Macmillan and the Free Press, 1967).
• The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. by Ted Honderich (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1995).
• The Pimlico History of Western Philosophy, ed. by Richard H. Popkin (London:
Pimlico, 1999). First published as The Columbia History of Western Philosophy (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1998).
• Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by Edward Craig (London:
Routledge, 1998).

Bayesian Nets, Jon Williamson

http://personal.lse.ac.uk/willia11/jw.htm#philprob
INDUCTIVISM AND ITS DEFECTS

http://www.shef.ac.uk/~phil/courses/312/01inductiv.htm

George Botterill

Main Theme: Inductivism has been to modern philosophy of science as dualism

is to the philosophy of mind — the mistaken picture we need to escape from.

Inductivism

Inductivism may sound, like all –isms, a rather grand and unfamiliar thing. But the
term is intended as a label for a popular (or perhaps: once popular) conception of what
scientific method consists in. The basic idea of inductivism is that scientific progress
results from close, careful and accurate observation of the facts. That process of
observation reveals (we hope, if we are lucky) certain regularities in natural phenomena.
The scientist then moves by a process of inductive generalization from the observed
regularities to the formulation of laws and theories. The laws and theories just are
generalizations of the observed regularities. To make an inductive generalization is to
move from the evidence that a certain sequence or pattern has been observed in many
cases to the conclusion that the same pattern will hold for all similar cases.

It has been suggested that this account of scientific practice is both familiar and widely
accepted, among scientists and non-scientists alike. Here, for example, are quotations
from two philosophers of science, who are both setting up inductivism as a critical
target. Chalmers’ book What Is This Thing Called Science? begins with the following
passage:

“Scientific knowledge is proven knowledge. Scientific theories are derived in some

rigorous way from the facts of experience acquired by observation and experiment.
Science is based on what we can see and hear and touch, etc. Personal opinion or
preference and speculative imaginings have no place in science. Science is objective.
Scientific knowledge is reliable knowledge because it is objectively proven
knowledge.”

Chalmers AF [1976], What Is This Thing Called Science?, p.1

And here is Errol Harris, outlining a perhaps slightly less crude inductivism:

"The popular conception of science, its methods, the reason for and the nature of its
advance are somewhat as follows. Whereas other types of human speculation are based
upon mere opinion, science pursues and sticks to the facts. These facts are ascertained
by direct observation – by sense-perception – and they supply the scientist with his
data. He collects as large a mass of data as he can, classifies them and proposes
hypotheses to explain their nature and occurrence, which can then be tested by further
observation and by experiments devised to render specific observations more precise,
more selective and more easily obtainable. The outcome of this method is a body of
scientific laws, systematically related to one another, by reference to which the
phenomena investigated can be explained."

Harris E [1970], Hypothesis and Perception, p.19

Such is the thinking that underlies the inductivist view of science. True, these two
quotations are taken from writers who then go on to attack the inductivist view. But
that is understandable, since it is widely believed (in particular as a result of the
influence of Popper’s work) that inductivism has been exposed to a devastating critique
in the philosophy of science. Before going on to outline that critique, it would be as
well to see what the main credentials of this theory of science are. How influential has
inductivism been? And what were the reasons for its appeal?

There is not much doubt that inductivism, in some form or another, has been very
influential, at least from the time of Isaac Newton. Newton himself wrote that ‘the
whole business of natural philosophy is to reason from the phenomena’, and since by ‘to
reason’ he seemed to mean ‘to reason inductively’ this appeared to represent an
inductivist doctrine. Newton was not the first to advocate inductivism. The philosopher
and politician Francis Bacon had done so early in the 17th century. But naturally
Newton’s views carried the greatest authority with men of science. Where the great
Newton led, others were bound to follow, and that influence was lasting, both in actual
scientific practice and in the philosophical and common-sense conceptions of science.

For example, Charles Darwin published his epoch-making book The Origin of Species
in 1859. But he had worked out the basic argument in favour of his theory of evolution
by natural selection some twenty years before. In the meantime he had accumulated a
tremendous amount of empirical evidence in favour of his theory. In this he was
certainly prompted by the idea that inductive support was required to make his theory
respectable. He would have liked to have been able to present the theory as a conclusion
derived inductively from the evidence. But that is not the way in which he actually
arrived at his theory, and this is one instance in which the desire to accumulate inductive
support could certainly have hampered scientific progress. (There were, admittedly,
other factors at work. For one thing, Darwin was apprehensive of the notoriety that
publication would bring. In the end he published in something of a rush, because in the
meantime Alfred Wallace had independently arrived at the theory of natural selection.)

The familiarity of the inductivist image of science is in itself testimony to the profound
impact that it has had on common sense and the popular image of science. In the
meantime philosophers have been greatly perturbed by ‘the Problem of Induction’. This
is the problem of justifying the process of generalization by which, according to the
inductivist, the scientist reasons from what has been observed to be the case both to
what will be the case and also to what is always, invariably the case. The problem of
induction was first posed by David Hume in the 18th century, and to this day no fully
satisfactory solution to the problem has been found. To some this seemed a very serious
matter. For science has been regarded as the supreme achievement of human reason. On
the inductivist model science was entirely based upon inductive reasoning. So if
inductive reasoning could not be rationally justified, it seemed that the very nerve-
centre of human reason was tainted with irrationality. This reflection caused something
like despair in certain thinkers. (The situation for empiricists in relation to the problem
of induction was rather like that in which the followers of Pythagoras, those devotees of
mathematical understanding, found themselves in with regard to that awkward number,
the square root of 2.) This attitude is, for example, prominent in the epistemological
work of Bertrand Russell. He was too resilient a spirit to be reduced to despair for long,
but he did hold that a purely empiricist philosophy could not be fully satisfactory,
because our empirical knowledge of the world was founded upon an inductive principle
which could not itself be derived from experience.

Of the reasons for the appeal of inductivism, perhaps the principal one was that it was
thought the great flowering of science in the 17th century was due to the adoption of an
inductive approach. Perhaps you have heard the Italian philosopher–scientist Galileo
Galilei, one of the main movers of the scientific revolution, portrayed as a man who
appealed to direct observation of the facts, as against the wild and fanciful theories that
had been prevalent in the past (thanks to the stultifying influence of the bad old
Aristotelian philosophy). That, at least, used to be the “nutshell account”.

But it really is a travesty of how Galileo himself actually argued and debated. For
instance, there is a story that Galileo demonstrated his law of falling bodies by dropping
different sorts of objects from the top of a tower, thus ‘proving’ that the acceleration of
a falling body due to gravity was independent of its constitution. But it is very doubtful
whether Galileo ever carried out such an experiment: we have no firm historical
evidence that he did. On the other hand, this is certain: if he had done so, then he would
have learnt nothing of any use from it at all. Indeed, since the law of falling bodies only
strictly holds in a vacuum, naive experiments are more likely to seem to count against it,
than to confirm it. When astronauts finally reached the moon, they were able to conduct
the experiment and confirm the law – a feather and a steel hammer really did fall at the
same rate!
What Galileo himself actually said, in several places in the Dialogue Concerning the
Two Chief World Systems, is that he did not need to conduct such tests, because he
knew in advance, by mathematical reasoning, what their results must be. And in fact, as
we shall see later in the course in discussing thought-experiments, Galileo actually
argued that the rate at which unsupported objects fall is independent of their ‘heaviness’
by constructing a thought-experiment. (So much for relying on direct observational
experience! It is interesting to compare his attempt to determine the round-trip velocity
of light, an experiment he really did conduct, by unveiling lanterns on distant mountain
tops.)

However, there are areas in which the inductive approach could be fruitful, even if
mistaken as a general model of scientific method. Inductivism relies upon an appeal to
the authority of the facts. Historically, there was a time when scientists needed the
support of such a high authority as the facts, as nature itself. Remember that Galileo
was forced by the Inquisition to recant his astronomical views because, according to the
theologians of the day (1632), they were inconsistent with Holy Scripture. At that time
science was very much subordinate to theology, so that from an historical perspective a
strident inductivism can be seen as part of a drive towards intellectual independence on
the part of scientists.

Then again, there are phases in scientific investigation in which what is required is a
sort of preliminary spade-work, involving surveying, collecting specimens, and
classifying the phenomena. This was surely the case in the biological sciences in the
17th and 18th centuries, for example; the more particularly in view of the multitude of
new flora and fauna discovered in parts of the world that were then being explored by
Europeans for the first time. Before Darwin it was necessary that there should first come
the Swedish classifier and taxonomist Linnaeus (Carl Linné).

Before proceeding to the case against inductivism, there are a couple of important notes
or warnings that need to be inserted. The first is that there is a danger of thinking that
science is just one great movement that progresses like a vehicle travelling towards its
destination. This is not the way things are, even though some (notably Auguste Comte
and certain logical positivists) have seen it as an objective – the objective of unified
science, in which all scientific subjects would be united by being integrated within a
hierarchy in which subordinate laws were reduced to a small set of absolutely
fundamental natural laws. In practice, however, some sciences are more theoretical,
others more experimental, others mainly observational and collative. Why should we
assume that there can be a single philosophy of science, a single theory of scientific
rationality that will cover all these different areas and disparate concerns? Is it really
plausible that there should be such a thing as the scientific method, equally applicable to
the practicalities of soil science and the speculations of cosmology? Perhaps there are
some areas of science that inductivism fits, and others that it does not. [Philosophers of
science have been almost exclusively interested in the most theoretical reaches of
science – frontiers of physics, chemistry and cosmology. They tend not to pay so much
attention to (say) meteorology or geology.]

The second point is that the nature of inductivism depends upon what one takes
induction, as a method of reasoning, to consist in. Standard critiques of inductivism take
the induction involved to be induction by simple enumeration. It certainly is pretty clear
that this pattern of reasoning on its own is too impoverished to constitute the main
process of scientific thinking. Not everyone thinks of induction as consisting solely in
the pattern of inference by enumerative induction. Not surprisingly, the more relaxed
one is about what can count as inductive reasoning, the more plausible inductivism
becomes. More plausible, but also less distinctive as a methodological position. Some
writers have suggested that we should call any inference to the best explanation an
induction. If we do that, then I suppose we are all inductivists. But it is questionable
whether we should allow that degree of latitude to inductive inference. Since there is
quite widespread disagreement over what the criteria for a good explanation are, there is
a danger that taking inductive inference to be inference-to-the-best-explanation may
only result in making it unclear what is and what is not a warranted inductive inference.

To summarise, we can at any rate say that inductivism does have a certain appeal. It
stresses that we should base our theories very firmly upon observations; indeed, upon a
large number of carefully and accurately made observations, and upon observations that
have been made in as wide a variety of conditions as possible. Now, what is wrong
with that as an account of scientific method? You might think that it is a pretty
unexciting and vague account, and could be improved by refinement and added detail.
But surely it could not be very badly wrong? And yet, in the view of a number of highly
influential philosophers of science, inductivism is totally incorrect and completely
misleading. To the Popperians, and others who have been impressed by Popper’s
writings, inductivism is absolute anathema. So let us turn now to what have been seen
as the defects of inductivism.

THE DEFECTS OF INDUCTIVISM

· The Problem of Induction

The philosophical problem of induction is the problem of explaining why it is that

inductive inference is a rational procedure. Why should the fact that certain sequences
of events have always followed each other in our past experience provide a reason for
believing that the same sequences will occur again in the future? Or in all similar
circumstances – past, present and future, here and everywhere else in the universe?
Since inductivism relies upon inductive generalization (from particular instances to
general laws) as the main process of scientific reasoning, it is clear that if we are
inductivists about scientific method we will have to take the problem of induction
seriously.

**Note well: However, although this is a popular objection, I doubt whether this
can fairly be described as a defect of inductivism. After all, perhaps we do have to take
the problem of induction seriously anyway, whether we are inductivists or not.
Attempts to dispense with inductive inference altogether are, as we shall see, pretty
implausible. Taking Hume’s Problem of Induction as the main problem for inductivism
is, what’s more, quite definitely a big mistake. To see this, consider an analogy with
vegetarianism. Now vegetarianism may well be inadequate as a diet, just as inductivism
seems inadequate as a method of theory-formation. But what’s wrong with
vegetarianism isn’t that it involves eating vegetables! And the best way of reforming
vegetarianism (assuming it’s in need of any reform) isn’t to give up eating vegetables
altogether — even though Popper seems to advocate something very like this!**

· Inductivism’s Incorrect View of Observation

According to inductivism scientific progress is a movement from observation, via

inductive generalization, to general law-like principles. There are two main objections
to this idea:

(i) It suggests that scientific observation can begin in a sort of pre-theoretical

vacuum. But without some theoretical questions to be resolved how can a scientist tell
what is worth observing? [Note Darwin’s dictum: ‘every important observation is
either for or against some theory’.]

(ii) It presupposes that observation gives us direct access to the facts in a way that
does not involve any prior theorizing. Against this it has been argued by a number of
philosophers of science (e.g., Hanson, Kuhn, Feyerabend) that ‘all observation is
theory-laden’. Perhaps they overstate their case (surely some observations carry a
heavier theoretical load than others). But certainly many observational results will
presuppose theories – e.g., as to how various instruments work, how various forces and
quantities can be measured.

· Inductivism’s Incorrect Account of History of Science

No simple summary is possible under this heading beyond remarking that a common
refrain in recent history and philosophy of science has been to take some episode in the
history of science and show that it cannot be adequately understood as an instance of
inductivist methodology at work

· Inductivism’s Incorrect Account of Theorizing

The point is that inductive generalization may enable one to discover regularities or
general connection between phenomena, but it simply does not have the resources to
produce genuinely explanatory theories. This is a consequence of the fact that in
enumerative induction you cannot have predications in the conclusion that do not appear
in the premises (observational data). Consider, for example, the experimentally
discoverable connections between the pressure, volume and temperature of a gas, or the
observed phenomenon of industrial melanism, and theoretical explanations of why
gases behave in this way, why species change their colour.

[**This seems to me the single most serious defect of inductivism – far more damaging
than the problem of justifying inductive inference (which is arguably a problem for
everybody).**]

· The Context of Discovery v the Context of Justification

The objection under this heading is that inductivism is proposing the wrong sort of
scientific method – a sort of recipe for arriving at laws and theories. Against this it has
been urged (particularly forcefully by Popper) that how a particular hypothesis or theory
comes to be considered is not really relevant to its scientific status. That is part of the
context of discovery. As such, it may be of historical or psychological interest, like the
incident of an apple (supposedly) falling on Newton’s head. But such episodes which
prompt or inspire theoretical thought are not really of any methodological significance.
What matters is the way in which a hypothesis or theory is tested and assessed after it
has been proposed (the context of justification).

· The Superiority of Hypothetico-Deductivism

Finally, inductivism seems less satisfactory than a hypothetico-deductive model of

science, according to which testable consequences are deduced from theoretical
hypotheses – if only because any proposed illustration of inductivism at work can
equally be taken as an instance of hypothetico-deductivism. In that case it does not seem
to matter very much whether we say that the hypotheses have been arrived at by a
process of inductive generalization (inference from the phenomena) or that the
hypotheses have been suggested by an observed regularity (with the dea that there is a
law being prompted by observation). Either way, the proposed law or theory will have
to stand up to further testing of its consequences. So hypothetico-deductivism seems to
trump inductivism. Any scientific development inductivism can account for,
hypothetico-deductivism can also account for — but not vice versa!
Suggested Reading

Chalmers, AF What Is This Thing Called Science, chs.1-3

Hanson, NR Patterns of Discovery, ch.4, pp.70-92

Harman, G ‘The inference to the best explanation’, Philosophical Review

LXXIV, 1965, pp.88-95

Harré, HR The Philosophies of Science, ch.2, pp.34-61

Popper, KR ‘Conjectural knowledge: my solution to the problem of

induction’ in his Objective Knowledge

Popper, KR The Logic of Scientific Discovery, ch.X, pp.251-81

DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY Level 3
Module

PHI 312 : PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

MODULE SYLLABUS

Timetable: Monday 3-4 in 11.1; Thursday 12-1 and 2-3 in 11.31

LECTURER: George Botterill Office Hours Wed 1-2, Fri 1-2;

external tel: 222 0580; email: g.botterill@sheffield.ac.uk

OUTLINE

This course will deal with general issues in the philosophy of science, with particular
emphasis on the rationality of theory-change, explanation, the status of scientific laws,
observation, and the structure of scientific theories. Most of the course will be devoted
to the methodology of natural science; but some topics in the philosophy of the social
sciences will also be discussed.

Natural Science:

The issues presented revolve around two major debates in the philosophy of science:

(1) the dispute between Kuhn and Popper about theory change

(2) disagreements between positivist and realist conceptions of science.

Modern philosophy of science has become closely linked with the history of science,
and the course will reflect this by considering how well major developments in the
history of science accord with methodological rules about how scientists ought to
proceed. The Copernican Revolution in astronomy will be used as a specific case-
study.

Social Science:
Here the most important general question is whether the methods and mode of
explanation used in the natural sciences can also be applied to the study of society. This
is sometimes referred to as the issue of naturalism: pro-naturalists maintaining
(following in this John Stuart Mill in Book VI of his A System of Logic) that the study
of society — social science — can be scientific in much the same way that the natural
sciences are, whereas anti-naturalists offer various reasons why this can’t be so.

During this semester’s course we will only have time to fit in careful discussion
of one major topic in the philosophy of the social sciences, namely:

• Popper’s Critique of Historicism

However, for those with a particular interest in social science, and in particular in the
objectivity of social theory, a further topic — namely:

• Weber’s Doctrine of Wertfreiheit —

is available as an essay subject. (See the Coursework Summary for further details.)

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The main aims of the module PHI312 Philosophy of Science are:

· to introduce students to the debate about theory-change in science, deriving from

the work of Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend and Lakatos

· to help students acquire an understanding of some important problems in the

philosophy of science (concerning such topics as: explanation, observation, scientific
realism, and the nature of laws)

· to encourage students to enter into serious engagement with some of the major
problems in the philosophy of science.

There is a great deal of material to be covered in this course. But then the philosophy of
science is a large area, and one with many specialist brances (e.g. philosophy of
biology, philosophy of physics, probability and confirmation theory) — some of which
we must omit or discuss only in a limited way. But, most importantly, there are some
difficult and unresolved problems (such as: How to judge the outcome of the Popper-
Kuhn-Lakatos debate? or: Can we provide a general account of explanation? or: Is there
an acceptable form of scientific realism?) that pose challenges which should stimulate
students to active philosophical engagement in their own work.
GENERAL READING

Philosophy of science books are shelved in the Main Library in sections 140-143. There
are two leading periodicals that you will probably wish to consult: Philosophy of
Science and the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (both to be found in Stack
4 at PER 105).

· Two of the best general guides through the philosophy of science are:

Chalmers, A.F. 3rd edn. 1999. What Is This Thing Called Science?. Open UP.

Newton-Smith, W.H. 1981. The Rationality of Science. Routledge.

· Two good survey articles, both written by David Papineau, are:

‘Methodology: The elements of the philosophy of science’, ch.3 in A.C. Grayling ed,
Philosophy: a guide through the subject, Oxford UP: 1995

‘Philosophy of Science’, ch. 9 in N. Bunnin and E.P. Tsui-James ed, The Blackwell
Companion to Philosophy, Blackwell: 1996.

· A short and lively introduction to the thinking of one of the most influential figures
in 20th century philosophy of science:

Magee, B. 1973. Popper. Fontana.

· Modern classics:

Feyerabend, P.K. 1975. Against Method. New Left Books.

Kuhn, T.S. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Univ. of Chicago Press.

Popper, K.R. 1963; 5th edn.1989. Conjectures and Refutations. Routledge.

· Useful anthologies:

Boyd, R., Gasper, P. and Trout, J.D. 1991. The Philosophy of Science. Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press. [Boyd et al. 1991] at 142(P)

Hacking, I. Scientific Revolutions. Oxford readings in philosophy. Oxford University

Press.

Papineau, D. 1996. The Philosophy of Science. Oxford readings in philosophy. Oxford

University Press. [Papineau 1996] at 142(P)

Ruben, D-H. 1993. Explanation. Oxford readings in philosophy. Oxford University

Press. [Ruben 1993 —a very good collection, but sadly it has already been allowed to
go out of print.]
Newton-Smith, W.H. ed. 2000. A Companion to the Philosophy of Science. Oxford:
Blackwell. Comprehensive and so somewhat encyclopaedic in treatment, but useful for
purposes of reference. [Newton-Smith 2000] at 501 (C)

ASSESSMENT

Two methods of assessment are available for the course, standard assessment and
assessment by long essay (mini-dissertation).

1——Standard Assessment

Standard assessment is by a combination of coursework and examination, 50% of the

final grade being derived from an end of semester essay and 50% from a two hour
examination paper.

Coursework

Deadline: The essay must be submitted by 4pm on Monday of week 12, i.e.:

4pm on Monday 17 December 2001.

For essay titles and further details concerning coursework consult the Coursework
Summary.

Examination

Students will be allowed two hours in which to answer two questions.

The questions on the examination paper will be pre-released.

2——Assessment By Long Essay (Undergraduate Dissertation)

Students can also exercise an option to be assessed by dissertation/long essay (in one
module per semester for Single Philosophy, and in one module during the year for Dual
Honours) . Some topics in the philosophy of science would certainly be suitable for
students wishing to take this option. But you should only undertake the dissertation for
positive reasons — i.e., because there is a topic you have ideas about and wish to
investigate more deeply. Being assessed in this way will almost inevitably involve more
work than assessment by a combination of essay + exam. Those intending to submit a
long essay must notify the Departmental Office by Monday of week 8 (19 November),
by providing an A4 outline signed as having been discussed with and approved by the
lecturer (i.e., George Botterill in this case).
Deadline:

The deadline for submission of long essays is

4pm on Tuesday 29 January 2002.

For suggested titles and further details concerning the long essay/dissertation, consult
the Coursework Summary.

Advisory Tutorials:

All students should attend an advisory tutorial on coursework, for which they will need
to submit an essay plan in advance. Students intending to be assessed by long essay will
need two meetings: a short initial meeting before the end of week 7 to obtain approval
for their title and plan, and a subsequent meeting to discuss a draft. Submission of drafts
by email attachment is a useful and efficient procedure, both for standard assessment
and long essays.

CLASSES

I hope it won’t be necessary to distinguish between lectures and seminars. In other

words, not only will I pause to take questions but do interrupt me any time you want to!
In previous sessions this procedure has worked well. In general, at least a third of the
class-time should be spent in discussion.

***** Something to note: Lecturers are asked to write comments on record cards at the
end of the semester about attendance and contributions to discussion. These cards are
kept in store, largely so we have some information from which to give references in
future years, after students have graduated. It is therefore very much in your own
interests (e.g., with future career prospects in mind) to enable us to vouch for such
qualities as reliability, punctuality, and articulateness.*****

TOPICS AND READING

The following list gives topics for discussion, plus recommended associated reading.
We will be going through them in much this order on the course, starting from some
general methodological issues about how scientific theories are developed and assessed;
looking at a particular seminal, historical period in the development of science (the
Copernican Revolution); then taking up accounts of explanation and laws of nature; a
selected topic in social theory; and finally concluding with one or two special topics
(prediction v accommodation, thought-experiments).

#1 Inductivism and the Problem of Induction

It’s important to realise that whether inductive reasoning provides the basic method of
scientific theory-formation and whether induction can be rationally justified are distinct,
albeit interrelated, issues. For it seems that Inductivism is an inadequate methodological
view — because it confuses discovery and justification, and cannot do justice to the
creativity involved in theorizing — but that we do nonetheless need to rely on some
forms of inductive reasoning. Probably the main task in justifying induction is to give a
good description of what inductive inferences are to be justified. Many philosophers
think of induction as Induction by Simple Enumeration. This has the advantage of being
a well-defined formal process, but is definitely too simplistic as an account of our actual
inductive practices. See also the sections on Goodman’s Paradox and Inference to the
Best Explanation for further attempts to characterise defensible forms of inductive
inference.

Further Reading

Russell B .1912 The Problems of Philosophy, 33-8. Reprinted in Swinburne R

ed, The Justification of Induction, 19-25. A classic statement.

Chalmers AF What Is This Thing Called Science?, ch 2, 12-19.

Will FL.1947 Will the future be like the past?. Mind LVI, 332-47.

Edwards P.1949 Russell’s doubts about induction. Mind LXVIII, 141-63.

Reprinted in Swinburne R ed, The Justification of Induction, 26-47.

Strawson PF. 1952 Introduction to Logical Theory, ch 9.II The "justification" of

induction, 248-63.

Ayer AJ Probability and Evidence, ch 1 The legacy of Hume

Popper KR.1963 Conjectures and Refutations, paper 10

Popper KR. 1972 Objective Knowledge, ch 1

Blackburn S Reason and Prediction, ch 1. (against Strawson and Edwards!)

Stove DC. 1986 The Rationality of Induction

#2 Popper’s Falsificationism

According to Popper, a theory is only scientific if it is falsifiable. This is his famous

Demarcation Criterion, which is intended to differentiate genuine science from both
metaphysics and “pseudo-science”. Popperian falsificationism has several important
merits: it accounts for the emphasis on testability in scientific inquiry; it offers a
plausible diagnosis of what’s wrong with certain theories; it promises an account of the
rational and progressive nature of science; and it spares us many of the problems and
intricacies of confirmation theory.

There are, however, several serious objections to Popper’s position. A

particularly important one concerns the role of auxiliary hypotheses in scientific
theorizing. I shall refer to it as the Duhemian point (although it is more often — and
quite inaccurately — called “the Duhem-Quine Thesis”), after Pierre Duhem. Note that
this objection seems to have been independently discovered by Lakatos and Putnam.

Further Reading

Popper KR. 1963 Conjectures and Refutations, first paper

Popper KR. 1972 Objective Knowledge, ch 1

Putnam H. 1974 The ‘corroboration’ of theories. In Schilpp PA ed, The

Philosophy of Karl Popper Vol I, 221-40. Reprinted in Hacking I ed, Scientific
Revolutions, 60-79; and in Putnam H, Mathematics, Matter and Method, 250-69; and in
Boyd et al. 1991, 121-37.

Watkins J. Popper. In Newton-Smith 2000, pp.343-8

Duhem P 1906; trans. 1954 The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, ch VI, 180-
90.

Lakatos I 1974 Popper on demarcation and induction. In Schilpp PA ed, The

Philosophy of Karl Popper, 241-73. Reprinted in Lakatos I, The Methodology of
Scientific Research Programmes, Philosophical Papers Vol 1, 139-67.

#3 Kuhn on Normal and Revolutionary Science

‘Thomas Kuhn invites us to think of scientific progress as exercises in imitation

interrupted by changes in fashion.’ (Sylvain Bromberger)
Kuhn himself characterizes the general objective of his work:

‘as an attempt to show that existing theories of rationality are not quite right and that we
must readjust or change them to explain why science works as it does. To suppose,
instead, that we possess criteria of rationality which are independent of our
understanding of the essentials of the scientific process is to open the door to cloud-
cuckoo land.’ (Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, p.264)

Kuhn divides scientific activity into two mutually interdependent but quite
distinct categories: normal science and revolutionary science. Normal science is
‘research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements’. It consists
mainly in ‘puzzle-solving’ within a particular theoretical framework – within a
particular paradigm, in Kuhn's terminology. It’s a gradual, somewhat derivative activity,
filling in the details, elaborating on themes already conceived. Revolutionary science,
by contrast, is a period of discontinuity, one edifice being overthrown and another
theoretical structure raised up in its place. What strikes Kuhn's critics as particularly
alarming is that he does not think that in scientific revolutions new theories triumph
over old because of crucial experiments. On the contrary Kuhn maintains that
experiments are only thought of as crucial with hindsight, and moreover if theories were
only assessed on hard factual criteria (rather than on such factors as promise and
aesthetic appeal) there would be hardly any revolutionary changes in science.

While normal science proceeds through a series of struggles to eliminate anomalies

(apparent counterinstances), a revolutionary phase sets in when the weight of anomalies
encountered within that particular tradition grows too great for the scientific community
to bear. Such a situation makes scientists more receptive to novel theories – in
particular, novel theories that can deal with anomalies which a lavish expenditure of
scientific ingenuity has failed to reconcile with the old theory. Thus the ability to
explain previously anomalous phenomena is regarded as strongly confirming the new
theory:

‘Probably the single most prevalent claim advanced by the proponents of a new
paradigm is that they can solve the problems that have led the old one to a crisis. When
it can legitimately be made, this claim is often the most effective one possible...’ The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions, p.153

Further Reading

T.S. Kuhn.1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

[especially ch.III The Nature of Normal Science, ch.X Revolutions as Changes of
World View, and ch.XII The Resolution of Revolutions]

Rorty R. Kuhn. In Newton-Smith 2000, pp.203-6

K.R. Popper Objective Knowledge, pp.13-21

I. Lakatos & A. Musgrave, eds.1970. Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge [most of
the papers are relevant, but particularly J.W.N. Watkins: ‘Against normal science’,
pp.25-37; K.R. Popper: ‘Normal science and its dangers’, pp.51-8; and T.S. Kuhn on
‘Irrationality and theory-choice’, pp.259-66 — in which Kuhn denies that he is an
irrationalist.]

A.F. Chalmers What Is This Thing Called Science? ch.8

#4 The Copernican Revolution

We take the history of astronomy as our case-study (to see whether it fits any of the
methodological moulds provided by Popper, Kuhn, and Lakatos) because it is a widely
accessible subject, because the Copernican revolution was of such great historical
significance in the development of modern science, and because it is a well studied area
in the history of science, frequently cited in philosophical debates. A little study of the
history of planetary astronomy should also disabuse us of several popular
misconceptions. Thus, Greek astronomers realised as early as the 5th century BC that
the earth was spherical, not flat — why else would Eratosthenes go on to calculate its
circumference? The device of the epicycle, as used by Ptolemy, was not such a horribly
ad hoc and overcomplicated resource — and, besides, Copernicus used epicycles too. It
is of particular interest that heliocentrism — the ‘Copernican theory’ that the planets
revolve around the sun — had already been proposed by Aristarchus of Samos. As
Ptolemy (c.150AD) explains in The Almagest, however, it was regarded as refuted by
empirical observation, viz. 1) the absence of any observed stellar parallax, and 2) none
of the effects in the terrestrial environment that might be supposed to result from the
earth’s rotation.

Further Reading

Kuhn TS. 1957 The Copernican Revolution, chs 5-6

Dreyer JLE [1906/1953] A History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler, chs XIII-XV

Koestler A The Sleepwalkers, Pt I & Pt III

Feyerabend PK. 1975 Against Method, chs 6-11

Lakatos I & Zahar EG. 1976 Why did Copernicus’s programme supersede Ptolemy’s?.
In Westman R ed, The Copernican Achievement, 354-83. Reprinted in Lakatos I, The
Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, Philosophical Papers Vol 1, 168-92.
**** Library Guide to further reading: Solar system astronomy is shelved at 520 in the
Main Library; history of astronomy is at 520.9; and works on Copernicus and Galileo in
particular are at 520.92. ****

#5 Lakatos’ Methodology of Research Programmes

Lakatos’s MRP, although originally proposed as a sophisticated version of Popperian

falsificationism, looks to be a synthesis that combines what ought to be retained in the
views of Popper and Kuhn. Lakatos proposes that research programmes are to be
appraised over a period of time, according to whether they are progressive or
degenerative. He thus avoids the relativism of Kuhn, while allowing a theory to prove
its mettle by introducing modifications in the ‘protective belt’ of auxiliary hypotheses.

“Neither the logician’s proof of inconsistency nor the experimental scientist’s verdict of
anomaly can defeat a research programme in one blow. One can be ‘wise’ only after the
event.” [Lakatos, 1971]

The main point — against ‘naive falsificationism’ (Popper) — is that theories of

a certain sort (of a mature science / in the ‘hard core’ / of a high level of theoreticity /
framework theories) are not sharply falsifiable. They can be cumulatively disconfirmed
by exhibiting ‘degenerating problem-shift’, but they can’t be decisively refuted or
knocked out by a single crucial experiment. This has further consequences — notably,
that Popper’s Demarcation Criterion cannot be upheld. Lakatos went on to suggest (see
‘History of science and its rational reconstructions’ in the Howson volume) that
methodologies can be checked out by the degree to which they accord with the history
of science.

One can only be wise after the event. But when is that? Feyerabend (1971)
objected that Lakatos’ criteria for rational theory change in science were bogus because
it was not possible to specify any particular time at which assessment for progress or
degeneration of a research programme should be carried out. A theory had to be given a
chance ‘to prove its mettle’. But it is always possible that a previously degenerating
research programme might be on the brink – after the next modification of auxiliaries –
of a period of glorious progress.

Further Reading

Kuhn TS. 1962 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, ch XII The Resolution of
Revolutions.

Lakatos I. 1970 Falsification and the methodology of scientific research

programmes. In Lakatos I & Musgrave A eds, Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge.
Reprinted in Lakatos I, Philosophical Papers Vol 1.
Lakatos I. 1971 History of science and its rational reconstructions. In Howson C
ed, Method and Appraisal in the Physical Sciences. Also in Hacking I ed, Scientific
Revolutions; Lakatos I, Philosophical Papers Vol 1.

Feyerabend PK. 1971 On the critique of scientific reason. In Howson C ed, Method and
Appraisal in the Physical Sciences. Reprinted in Feyerabend PK, Philosophical Papers
Vol II Problems of Empiricism, under the title ‘The methodology of scientific research
programmes’.

Hacking I. 1979 Imre Lakatos’s philosophy of science. British Journal for the
Philosophy of Science XXX, 381-410. Revised extracts reprinted in Hacking I ed,
Scientific Revolutions, 128-43.

Larvor, B. 1998 Lakatos: an introduction. Routledge.

Nickles, T. Lakatos. In Newton-Smith 2000, pp.207-12.

#6 Feyerabend the Anarchist

After the great triumvirate of Popper, Kuhn and Lakatos, a very special place in 20th
century philosophy of science is occupied by Paul Feyerabend. His distinctive and
provocative views (the Incommensurability Thesis of the 60s and 70s, the
Methodological Anarchism of the 80s) have been vigorously attacked and almost
universally rejected. But haven’t we been enriched by the process?

Further Reading

Preston JM 1997. Feyerabend: Philosophy, Science and Society. Cmbridge: Polity

Press.

Preston JM. Feyerabend. In Newton-Smith 2000, pp.143-8.

On Incommensurability —
Feyerabend PK 1965 On the ‘meaning’ of scientific terms. Journal of Philosophy
LXII, 266-74. Reprinted in his Philosophical Papers Vol I, Realism, Rationality &
Scientific Method.

Feyerabend PK 1970 Consolations for the specialist. In Lakatos I & Musgrave A eds,
Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Reprinted in his Philosophical Papers Vol II,
Problems of Empiricism.
Shapere D Meaning and scientific change. In Colodny RG ed, Mind & Cosmos, 44-85.
Abridged version reprinted in Hacking I ed, Scientific Revolutions.

Achinstein P 1968 Concepts of Science, ch 3

Kordig CR 1971 The Justification of Scientific Change, ch 3

Newton-Smith WH The Rationality of Science, ch VII

On Anarchism —

Stove DC 1982 Popper and After

Feyerabend PK1975 Against Method, passim, but especially chs 6-11

Chalmers A 1985 Galileo’s telescopic observations of Venus and Mars. British

Journal for the Philosophy of Science 36, 175-84

#7 Explanation

Explanations are obviously a highly diverse bunch, differing in many ways. But is it
nonetheless possible to give an analysis of what makes an explanation explanatory? It is
quite a natural philosophical ambition to try to set out what all genuine explanations
have in common with each other. A terminological start can be made by separating the
explanandum (Latin for that which is to be explained) from the explanans (Latin for
what does the explaining). That bit of jargon may save a few words; and we can further
safely say that the explanans must supply some information. But then it gets difficult.
Just what are the conditions that information must satisfy, in relation to a given
explanandum, in order to constitute an explanation?

The Deductive-Nomological (or Covering Law) Model claims that adequate

scientific explanations involve subsuming what is to be explained (the explanandum)
under a general law, by displaying it as a deductively entailed consequence of
statements of laws and initial conditions (the explanans). So on this view an explanation
has the form of an argument, with the explanans as the premises and the explanandum
as the conclusion – which makes giving an explanation much like deriving a prediction,
only with hindsight. This is frequently cited, outside philosophy of science, as the
conventional or orthodox view of scientific explanation. But, as you will see, within the
philosophy of science the D-N Model has had few supporters since its great advocate,
Carl Hempel. See, for example, Achinstein 1969 and Brody 1972 for severe objections.

One diagnosis of where the D-N Model goes wrong is that it fails to require that
the information supplied in the explanans should be about causes of the phenomenon to
be explained. That in turn suggests that theories of causal explanation should be
explored – e.g., Woodward 1984, Lewis 1986.
 An important point to note is that requests for explanation are often formulated
in terms of a contrast — Why P rather than Q? So there has been considerable interest
over the past decade or so in contrastive explanation (which can be seen as a kind of
causal explanation — see Lipton 1990).

Another point that should not be forgotten is that explaining is something that
we do. Indeed, it is a kind of speech act. Without us in the world, there would be no
shortage of causation. But absent humans and other intelligent life-forms, no explaining
would go on. If we take this point seriously then we should heed the importance of
context. It’s tempting to suggest that what is the right (or best) explanation depends, at
least to some extent, upon context. Would you offer the same explanation to a young
child? To an intelligent layman? To an expert in the field?

Further Reading

Newton-Smith WH. Explanation. In Newton-Smith 2000, pp.127-33.

Achinstein P 1969 Law and Explanation, ch V, pp.99-109

Achinstein P 1981 Can there be a model of explanation?. Theory and Decision 13, 201-
27. Reprinted in Ruben 1993.

Brody B 1972 Towards an Aristotelian theory of scientific explanation. Philosophy of

Science 39, 20-31. Reprinted in Ruben 1993.

Coffa JA 1974 Hempel’s ambiguity. Synthese 28. Reprinted in Ruben 1993.

Gasper P 1990 Explanation and scientific realism. In D. Knowles ed, Explanation and
its Limits, 285-95

Harré HR The Philosophies of Science, p.56, p.61, and pp.168-83

Harré HR The Principles of Scientific Thinking, ch 1, pp.15-21

Hempel CG Explanation in science and in history. In R.G.Colodny ed, Frontiers of

Science and Philosophy, 7-33. Reprinted in P.H.Nidditch ed, The Philosophy of
Science, 54-79; and in Ruben 1993.

Hempel CG & Oppenheim P 1948 Studies in the logic of explanation. Philosophy of

Science 15, 135-78

Hempel CG 1965 Aspects of Scientific Explanation, 245-95. Extract reprinted in

Ruben 1993.

Hempel CG 1966 Philosophy of Natural Science, ch 5. Reprinted in Boyd et al. 1991.

Kim J 1987 Explanatory realism, causal realism, and explanatory exclusion. Midwest
Studies in Philosophy 12, 225-39. In Ruben 1993.
Kinoshita J 1990 How do scientific explanations explain?. In D. Knowles ed,
Explanation and its Limits, 297-311

Kitcher P 1981 Explanatory unification. Philosophy of Science 48, 507-31. Reprinted

in Boyd et al. 1991.

Lewis D 1986 Causal explanation. In his Philosophical Papers, 214-40. Reprinted in

Ruben 1993.

Lipton P 1990 Contrastive explanation. In D. Knowles ed, Explanation and its Limits.
Reprinted in Ruben 1993.

Matthews RJ 1981 Explaining and explanation. American Philosophical Quarterly 18,

71-7. In Ruben 1993.

Nagel E 1961 The Structure of Science, chs 2 and 3

Ryan AR The Philosophy of the Social Sciences, ch 3

Scriven M 1962 Explanation, prediction and laws. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy
of Science Vol.III, 170-230

Taylor DM Explanation and Meaning, ch 2

van Fraassen B 1977 The pragmatics of explanation. American Philosophical Quarterly

14,143-50. Reprinted in Boyd et al. 1991.

Woodward J 1984. A theory of singular causal explanation. Erkenntnis 21. In Ruben

1993.

— Also: An electronic version of the paper ‘Difference, explanation and causal history’
by George Botterill and Mark Day (presented to the 2000 Hang Seng Conference on
The Roots of Scientific Reasoning and currently subject to pre-publication refereeing) is
available on request.

#8 Functional Explanation

This is in itself a large topic, for which the entry-level problems are:

1 The Problem of Causal Order: functions are effects, so doesn’t functional

explanation invert the ordinary causal order?

2 The Normative Problem: a thing’s function is what it ought to do, but isn’t this
worryingly evaluative?
A standard selectionist/adaptationist account appears to solves these two:

The function of C is F (where C is some anatomical feature or behavioural pattern)

because

1. Under normal environmental conditions the presence of C in an organism tends

to result in F.

2. F is adaptively valuable, i.e. it increases an organism's chances of survival and

reproduction.

3. Therefore, lack of C is an adaptive disadvantage.

4. Therefore, organisms that lack C will be eliminated (will not be able to survive
or reproduce in competition with organisms that possess C).

So, functional explanations in evolutionary biology work through the mechanism of

elimination.

the problem of causal order resolved: what the functional explanation explains is the
diffusion and continued presence of the functional ‘element', not its initial appearance (a
lucky genetic accident). In other words, functional explanations in evolutionary biology
explain why something sticks and spreads; they do not explain its causal origin.

the normative problem resolved: the process of selection simulates design, because
only those organisms that are in fact well-adapted will be able to survive and reproduce.

Further Reading

Ayala, FJ.1970. Teleological explanation in evolutionary biology. Philosophy of

Science 37

Beckner, M.1969. Function and teleology. Journal of the History of Biology 2.

Reprinted in M. Grene & E. Mendelsohn eds [1976], Topics in the Philosophy of
Biology, 197-212.

Bigelow, J & Pargetter, R. 1987. Functions. Journal of Philosophy 84. pp.181-96

Boorse, C.1976. Wright on functions. Philosophical Review, pp.70-86

Canfield, J. 1964. Teleological explanations in biology. BJPS 14

Cummins, R The Philosophy of Biology (MIT Press)

Cummins, R.1975. Functional analysis. Journal of Philosophy 72, pp.741-65

Darden, C. & Cain, J.A. 1989. Selection type theories. Philosophy of Science 56,
pp.106-29
Griffiths, P.E. 1993. Functional analysis and proper functions. British Journal for the
Philosophy of Science 44, pp.409-22

Kernohan, A. 1987. ‘Teleology and logical form', BJPS 38, 27-34

Lehman, H. 1965. Functional explanations in biology. Philosophy of Science 32

Millikan, RG.1989. In defence of proper functions. Philosophy of Science 56, 288-302

Millikan, RG. 1990. Truth rules, hoverflies, and the Kripke-Wittgenstein paradox.
Philosophical Review XCIX, 323-53

Nagel, E.1977. Teleology revisited. Journal of Philosophy 84, pp.261-301

Neander, K.1988. What does natural selection explain? Correction to Sober.

Philosophy of Science 55, pp.422-6

Neander, K. 1991a. The teleological notion of "function". Australasian Journal of

Philosophy 69, pp.454-68

Neander, K. 1991b. Functions as selected effects: the conceptual analyst’s defence.

Philosophy of Science 58, pp.168-84

Ruse, M. 1971. Function statements in biology. Philosophy of Science 38

Wright, L. 1973. Functions. Philosophical Review 82, 139-98. Reprinted in M. Grene

& E. Mendelsohn eds [1976], Topics in the Philosophy of Biology, 213-42.

#9 Two Famous Paradoxes

— Goodman’s Grue

Let something be grue iff

for any time t<T, it is green, or

for any time t>T, it is blue.

Informally, we may say an object is grue just in case it’s green up to some specified
time T or blue thereafter, if still in existence.
The paradox is supposed to be generated by the following considerations, taking T to be
some time in the future:

everything that we have observed to be green we have also observed to be grue

so every pre-T observation that is a positive instance of ‘All emeralds are green’
is also a positive instance of ‘All emeralds are grue’

BUT ‘All emeralds are green’ and ‘All emeralds are grue’ are different
hypotheses which yield mutually inconsistent predictions about the colour of emeralds
after T

We could make T any time we like (8 am tomorrow, the beginning of next week, the
start of the 21st century, etc.). Does this mean that previous observations of emeralds –
every one of them green – provide just as good evidence for thinking that future
emeralds will be blue as for thinking they will be green?

Projectively paradoxical predicate pairs

A pair of predicates, F and G, will produce paradoxical projections if the following

conditions are met:

#1 Past (pre-T) observations that something is F are also observations that it is G

#2 Future projection of the predicates F and G yield inconsistent predictions

#3 F and G are symmetrical with respect to confirmation: i.e., observed members of

some kind K having been found to be G is just as good a reason for thinking that other
members of kind K are G as is the fact that observed members of kind K have been
found to be F is for thinking that other members of kind K are F

In attempting to resolve Goodman’s Paradox it’s #3 that looks the most promising
requirement to question. Is the fact that previously observed emeralds have been grue
any reason at all to think that ‘All emeralds are grue’? If not, why not? Can a scientific
realist dissolve the paradox by saying that positive instances do not confirm in the
absence of some underlying theoretical process or generating mechanism?

Further Reading

Trout, JD. Confirmation, Paradoxes of. In Newton-Smith 2000, pp.53-5.

Goodman, N. 1955. Fact, Fiction and Forecast, ch 3

Barker, S & Achinstein, P. 1960 On the new riddle of induction. Philosophical Review
LXIX, 511-22. See also the reply ‘Positionality and pictures’ that follows by Goodman,
pp.523-5. Both are reprinted in Nidditch PH ed, The Philosophy of Science, 149-61 and
162-4.

Thompson, JJ. 1966. Grue. Journal of Philosophy LXIII, 289

Fain, H. 1967. The very thought of grue. Philosophical Review LXXVI, 61-73.

Hooker, CA. 1968. Goodman, ‘grue’, and Hempel. Philosophy of Science 35, 232-47.

Blackburn, S. Goodman’s paradox. In Studies in the Philosophy of Science, American

Philosophical Quarterly monograph series, 128-42.

Blackburn, S. Reason and Prediction, ch 4

Hesse, MB. 1969. Ramifications of grue. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
XX, 13-25.

Hesse, MB. The Structure of Scientific Inference, ch 3

— Hempel’s Ravens

The paradox is generated by the following propositions, each of which seems quite
plausible in itself:

1) Observations of black ravens confirm ‘All ravens are black’ (and, more generally,
positive instances confirm).

2) Observations of non-ravens are neutral with respect to the confirmation of ‘All

ravens are black’.

3) If observations confirm one formulation of a hypothesis, then they confirm any

logically equivalent formulation.

[3) is known as the Hypothesis Equivalence Condition, one version of which is: If h and
h* are logically equivalent, and e confirms h*, then C(h/e) = C(h*/e).]
BUT :

(a) ‘All ravens are black’ is logically equivalent to

(b) ‘All non-black things are non-ravens’; and also to

(c) ‘Anything whatsoever, whether a raven or not, is either black or a non-

raven’.

Positive instances of (a) are black ravens; positive instances of (b) include such items as
white handkerchiefs, green leaves, red post-boxes, etc. (anything that satisfies both
antecedent and consequent, i.e. anything that is both non-black and not a raven); and
positive instances of (c) are anything at all except for non-black ravens (note that (c) has
more positive instances than (b) — e.g., such items as black shoes, black swans, etc.).

Now, by 1) and 3), positive instances of (b) and (c) should also confirm ‘All ravens are
black’. But by 2) they should be neutral with respect to the confirmation of ‘All ravens
are black’. This constitutes the paradox.

#10 LAWS OF NATURE (and universally quantified conditionals)

It’s important to remember that one may be referring to two different sorts of things
when speaking of ‘laws’. One may be talking about law-statements or about whatever it
is in nature that makes such statements true, when they are true. Laws are things that we
discover. (This may be a realist prejudice, but it does at least need to be argued against
by someone who takes a subjectivist or epistemological view of laws.)

Philosophers of science, particularly logical positivists, had been tempted to

suppose that law-statements were statements of the logical form: (x) (Fx ® Gx).
However, it’s quite obvious that there are many true statements of the form (x) (Fx ®
Gx) which are not laws. So it was concluded that there is a distinction to be drawn
between accidentally true generalizations and nomic (law-like) generalizations. Perhaps
laws where what was expressed by (x) (Fx ® Gx) generalizations which also satisfied
some further condition (such as having purely qualitative predicates, not being spatio-
temporally restricted, supporting counterfactuals). But it was really difficult to specify
that extra condition!

There are, in any case, several major problems with the idea that law-statements
have the form (x) (Fx ® Gx). E.g.: (1) Laws are referentially opaque, not transparent;
(2) (x) (Fx ® Gx) can be vacuously true; (3) Arguably, laws can be confirmed in ways
that (x) (Fx ® Gx) statements cannot.
 But perhaps the major issue dividing realists and positivists about laws is this: is
a sufficiently widespread regularity a law? Or can there be laws without regularities and
regularities without laws? Consider the following test: Can two possible worlds differ in
their laws, without differing in actual regularities? Yes = you’re a realist! No = you’re a
positivist! We’ll be considering Tooley’s thought-experiment in favour of a realist
answer.

Further Reading

Nagel, E. 1961. The Structure of Science, ch 4

Ayer, AJ. What is a law of nature?. In his The Concept of a Person.

Harré, HR.1970. The Principles of Scientific Thinking, ch 4

Achinstein, P. Law and Explanation, chs 1-3; but esp. ch 3.

Dretske, F.1977. Laws of nature. Philosophy of Science 44, 248-68.

Tooley, M. 1977. The nature of laws. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7, 667-98.

Armstrong, DM. 1983 What is a Law of Nature?, Cambridge UP

Urbach, P. 1988 What is a law of nature? A Humean answer. British Journal for the
Philosophy of Science XXXIX, 193-210.

Harré, HR. Laws of Nature. In Newton-Smith 2000, pp.213-23.

Drewery, A. 2000. Laws, regularities and exceptions. Ratio, pp.1-9.

#11 Realism — For and Against

Realism about scientific theories seemed to be firmly established after the rejection of
positivism that started in the 1960s. Theories actually do postulate previously
unobserved forces and entities and do attempt to describe the structure of the universe
and its contents. (Though van Fraassen stubbornly holds out against this view, arguing
that since in the end we could never discriminate between theories that are empirically
adequate and theories that are actually true, we have no reason to aim for the latter
rather than the former; see van Fraassen 1976, 1980, for his ‘constructive empiricism’.
Seems like positivism to me — and wrong for much the same reasons!) Ian Hacking
(Hacking 1982, 1983) has been influential, arguing that experimental manipulation and
intervention commit us to realism more deeply than theory alone can. As he memorably
put it, ‘If you can spray them, they exist!’.

But there are two aspects to realism in science, which we can label realism of
intent and realism of fact (see Botterill & Carruthers, 1999. The Philosophy of
Psychology, ch.2). So, we are trying to describe causal mechanisms, micro-structures,
and lawful connections between properties (realism of intent). But the realist surely
wants to go further and say that science has been largely successful in this enterprise
(realism of fact) — that the world actually is the way scientific theories tell us it is.

Here two notorious arguments have been advanced, pointing in oppositie

directions:

· According to the No Miracles Argument, scientific theories make so many

successful predictions and work so well in technological application that we ought to
believe they are true, at least in the main. For it would just be miraculous, if they were
false and so successful. The best explanation for their success is that they are
(approximately, at any rate) true.

· The contrary case is urged by the Pessimistic Meta-Induction (see Laudan 1981):
most successful theories in the past have ultimately come to be rejected as false. Why
should our theories be any different? The lesson that the history of science teaches (the
meta-induction) is that, however successful they may be at any one time, scientific
theories are probably false.

Further Reading

Boyd, R. 1983 On the current status of scientific realism. Erkenntnis 19, 45-90.
Reprinted in Boyd et al. 1991.

Boyd, R. 1990 Realism, approximate truth, and philosophical method. In C.W. Savage,
Scientific Theories, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 14, 355-91.
Reprinted in Papineau 1996.

Fine, A. 1984 The natural ontological attitude. In J. Leplin ed, Scientific Realism,
Univ. of California Press, 83-107. Reprinted in Boyd et al. 1991; and in Papineau 1996.

Hacking, I. 1982 Experimentation and scientific realism. Philosophical Topics 13, 71-
87. Reprinted in Boyd et al. 1991.

Hacking, I. 1983 Representing and Intervening. Cambridge University Press.

Laudan, L. 1981 A confutation of convergent realism. Philosophy of Science 48, 19-48.

Reprinted in Boyd et al. 1991; and in Papineau 1996.

Laudan, L. 1987. Progress or rationality? The prospects for normative naturalism.

American Philosophical Quarterly 24, 19-31.

Lipton, P. 1993 Is the best good enough?. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society
XCIII, 89-104. Reprinted in Papineau 1996.

Quine, W. 1969 Natural kinds. In his Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, 114-38.
Reprinted in Boyd et al. 1991.
van Fraassen, B. 1976 To save the phenomena. Journal of Philosophy LXXIII, 623-32.
Reprinted in Boyd et al. 1991; and in Papineau 1996.

van Fraassen, B. 1980 The Scientific Image. Oxford University Press.

Worrall, J. 1989 Structural realism: the best of both worlds?. Dialectica 43, 99-124.
Reprinted in Papineau 1996.

Leplin J. Realism and Instrumentalism. In Newton-Smith 2000, pp.393-401.

[Note: Almost all the papers in Papineau 1996 are on this topic.]

#12 Popper Against Historicism

Popper advanced a whole battery of arguments against the idea that the aim of social
theory was to discover laws of historical change that would enable future social
developments to be predicted, viz. (all quotations from The Poverty of Historicism):

1 The Unique Process Argument: “The most careful observation of one developing
caterpillar will not help us to predict its transformation into a butterfly.”

2 The Multiplicity of Laws Argument: “... no sequence of, say, three or more causally
connected concrete events proceeds according to any single law of nature.”

3 The Laws v Trends Argument: “This, we may say, is the central mistake of
historicism. Its ‘laws of development’ turn out to be absolute trends...”

4 The Prophecy v Prediction Argument: “They are the basis of unconditional

prophecies, as opposed to conditional scientific predictions.”

There is no doubt that the main target Popper had in mind was Marxism. But the
arguments are interesting in their own right — not least because in some respects they
are difficult to reconcile with Popper’s own falsificationism!

Further Reading

Popper K.R. The Poverty of Historicism, especially section IV.

Popper K.R. Prediction and prophecy in the social sciences; paper 16 in his
Conjectures and Refutations.

Addis, L. 1968.Historicism and historical laws of development. Inquiry 11, 155-74.

Shaw P.D. 1971. Popper, historicism and the remaking of society. Philosophy of the
Social Sciences 1, pp. 299-308.
Suchting, W.A. Marx, Popper and ‘Historicism’. Inquiry 15 [1972], pp.235-66.

Donagan A. Popper’s examination of historicism. In P.A. Schilpp ed, The

Philosophy of Karl Popper, pp. 905-24.

Urbach P. Is any of Popper’s arguments against historicism valid?. British Journal

for the Philosophy of Science 29 [1978], pp. 117-30.

Olding A. A defence of evolutionary laws. British Journal for the Philosophy of

Science 29 [1978], pp. 131-43.

#13 Observation

Positivist philosophy of science (e.g. up to E. Nagel’s The Structure of Science, 1961)

supposed that there was a given level of observation, which had a special epistemic
status. Reports of observations were the sorts of thing we could directly know to be true.
(This is a form of Epistemological Foundationalism.) This corresponded to a dichotomy
between the observable and the unobservable. The problem for the positivists was how
statements about unobservable theoretical entities could be meaningful. This they
attempted to explain by means of upward seepage of meaning (the so-called ‘partial
interpretation' account of theoretical significance).

But from the early 1960s a number of philosophers of science – notably Kuhn
(‘Revolutions as Changes of World-View’), Feyerabend (‘Consolations for the
Specialist’), and N.R. Hanson (Patterns of Discovery) – argued very vigorously that all
observation is theory-laden.

Further Reading

Chalmers, AF. What Is This Thing Called Science?, ch 3

Newton-Smith, WH. The Rationality of Science, ch II

Kuhn, TS. 1962 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, ch X Revolutions as changes

of world-view.

Maxwell, G. 1962 The ontological status of theoretical entities. Minnesota Studies in

the Philosophy of Science Vol 3, 3-27.

Achinstein, P. 1965. The problem of theoretical terms. American Philosophical

Quarterly 2, 193-203.
Achinstein, P. 1969 Concepts of Science, ch 6, 179-201.

Hanson, NR. Patterns of Discovery, ch 1 (also 2 & 3).

Ryle, G. Dilemmas, ch VI, 82-92.

Churchland, PM. Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind, chs 1 & 2.

Spector, M. 1966. Theory and observation. British Journal for the Philosophy of
Science 17, part I 1-20, part II 89-104.

Kordig, CR. 1971. The theory-ladenness of observation. Review of Metaphysics 24.

Shimony, A. 1977. Is observation theory-laden? A problem in naturalistic

epistemology. In Colodny RG ed, Logic, Laws & Life, 185-208.

Shapere, D. 1982. The concept of observation in science and philosophy. Philosophy of

Science XLIX, 485-525.

Fodor, J. 1984. Observation reconsidered. Philosophy of Science LI, 23-43.

Torretti, R. 1986 Observation. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 37, 1-23.

Bogen, J. & Woodward, J.1988 Saving the phenomena. Philosophical Review XCVII,
303-52.

Churchland,PM.1988. Perceptual plasticity and theoretical neutrality: a reply to Jerry

Fodor. Philosophy of Science 55, 167-87.

Fodor, J. 1991. The dogma that didn’t bark. Mind C, 201-20.

Achinstein, P. Observation and Theory. In Newton-Smith 2000, pp.325-34.

#14 Inference to the Best Explanation

The view that we reason inductively from the phenomena by means of inference to the
best explanation is currently rather popular. But what does inference to the best
explanation involve? Is there really any such single distinctive process of reasoning?
Presumably we will prefer better explanations to ones that are less good. But are there
any general grounds for such preferences that are not already dependent upon evidential
support?
 We will also be considering the main claims of a Bayesian approach to the
confirmation of theories. Bayesianism insists that we should view the degree of
confirmation of a theory as a subjective probability which is to be updated in
accordance with the axioms of the probability calculus. Part of this approach is
uncontentious: if we are to assign probabilities to hypotheses, then surely we should do
so in a way that is consistent with axioms of mathematical probability. But there is a
question over whether Bayesianism is really in help in assessing genuine scientific
theories — one reason for this being that one may doubt whether, in the case of genuine
theories, the relevant probabilities are suitably quantifiable.

Further Reading

Peter Lipton Inference to the Best Explanation, Routledge: 1991, esp. chs. 4-5

Harman, G. 1965. The inference to the best explanation. Philosophical Review 74,
pp.88-95.

Howson, C. & Urbach, P. 1989. Scientific Reasoning: the Bayesian approach. Open
Court: La Salle, Illinois.

Lipton P. Inference to the Best Explanation. In Newton-Smith 2000, pp.184-93.

#15 Accommodation And Prediction

Does ‘prediction’ [the derivation from a theory of previously unknown results] provide
stronger evidence in favour of a theory than ‘accommodation’ [fitting known results in
the process of theory-construction]?

Suggestive example: Mendeleyev’s Periodic Table

The fact that Mendeleyev included the 60 then known elements did not impress fellow
scientists nearly so much as his prediction of two previously unknown elements. Lipton,
p.134: ‘Sixty accommodations paled next to two predictions.’ So, is there a general
advantage of prediction over accommodation? And, if so, why?

Further Reading

Peter Lipton Inference to the Best Explanation, ch.8

Paul Horwich 1982. Probability and Evidence, Cambridge UP, pp.108-17

#16 Thought-Experiments

To anyone with empiricist sympathies the operation of learning something just by

thinking about a possible situation ought to seem like a bit of cognitive magic. In
carrying out any experiment we want to know what the results are. But in order to get
any genuine results, surely we have actually to perform an experiment. Just imagining a
situation, and then imagining a result — how could that be good for anything?

Further Reading

T.S. Kuhn A function for thought-experiments. In his The Essential Tension,

University of Chicago Press: 1977, pp.240-65

J.R. Brown The Laboratory of the Mind, Routledge: 1991

R.A. Sorensen Thought Experiments, Oxford University Press: 1992

George Botterill

The University of Sheffield,

Autumn Semester, 2001

--

Interesante resumen de Lakatos MRP-SRP:

http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/ug_study/ug_phil_sci1h/phil_sci_files/L9_SRP.ppt

--

interes

http://www.angelfire.com/mn2/tisthammerw/science.html

--
interes:

http://www.usfca.edu/philosophy/pdf%20files/Abstract%20Popper%20and
%20Lakatos.pdf

Friday, June 25 PM 1:30-4:30, Room 140

Session 2 (room 140): Popper and Lakatos
Stefania Jha, “Popper transcended – the Lakatos – Polanyi connection”
Stefano Gattei, “Karl Popper’s Philosophical Breakthrough”
William M. Shields: Popper's Quantum Ghost
Yuann, Jeu-Jenq, “Lakatos, A Methodologist of Research Programmes or A
Philosopher of Political Practices?”
----------
“Popper transcended – the Lakatos – Polanyi connection”
Stefania Jha
Popper opposed Lakatos’s several attempts to improve his doctrines instead of
promoting Popperism. Lakatos saw that Popper’s formulation of the logic of scientific
discovery and the logic of research, although had the merit of simplicity, was not based
on fact. No significant scientific discovery in history was made by Popper’s method.
The Popper, Lakatos and Polanyi archives give insight into Lakatos’s relationship with
Popper and into his theoretical growth – from ‘loyal pupil’ to excommunicated heretic.
Popper excommunicated him for criticism, independence and seeing merit in the
theories of Popper’s ‘enemies’, Polanyi, Kuhn, and other excommunicated pupils.
Lakatos’s analytical mind saw at an early stage, that Popper’s conjectures and
refutations formula and his notion of demarcation needed major revision in the general
direction Polanyi has pointed out. After Popper’s retirement from the London School of
Economics, Lakatos invited Polanyi to give the paper “Genius in Science” summarizing
his philosophy of science.
Polanyi holds that scientists do not set out to refute their first guesses for an explanation
of a phenomenon. Hypotheses are not abandoned at the first disconfirming test.
Scientists are not mainly interested in demarcating ‘metaphysics’ from ‘science,’ rather,
in distinguishing between good science and bad. This line is drawn by the community of
practice. All scientific understanding has metaphysical and psychological
underpinnings, even if undeclared. Personal judgment is involved in recognizing a
coherence in nature, a good problem, in choosing the best process to investigate a
particular problem (heuristics), and in sensing the implications of a solution. Rationality
in science is not formal deductive logic, in spite of Popper’s method of testing
conjectures.
Lakatos recognized that Popper’s campaign against inductivism not-withstanding,
something other than deductive logic is used in scientific work. Polanyi’s ‘personal
knowledge philosophy’ offered a rather complex structure which included a version of
Peirce’s notion of retroduction.
In his last papers, Lakatos not only noted that inductivism plays a part in the scientific
game, that theories are not rejected at the first negative result but often are adjusted by
auxiliary hypotheses, and that judgment in choice of methodologies is a combination of
methodological appraisal and heuristic advice.
As he noted in one of his letters to Polanyi, Popperites have much to learn from Polanyi
(a practicing scientists capable of analyzing his own scientific thinking and activities).
Although Lakatos is often thought of as basically a follower of Popper who adapted his
former Hegelian-Marxist intellectual framework to Popper’s philosophy, this
interpretation seems to me deterministic. It is more likely, that his preoccupation was
with methods of thinking (heuristics), as would be indicated by his use of Polya’s
explorations in his dissertation (later reworked into Proofs and Refutations), by his
correspondence with Kuhn, Feyerabend and his readings of Polanyi on this topic.
His 1973 lectures given at the London School of Economics would indicate he gained
his independence from Popper and opened up his investigations further by taking
Polanyi’s philosophy into consideration.
(stefania1@jha.net)
----------
“Karl Popper’s Philosophical Breakthrough”
Stefano Gattei
Karl Popper’s critical rationalism is well-known for its strict deductivism: as the author
of The Logic of Scientific Discovery and of many later works clearly states, not only
science does not proceed by inductive inferences, but also there simply is no such
logical entity as an inductive inference.
However, the young Popper thought quite differently. Indeed, if we read his early
(unpublished) writings, and particularly Popper’s 1927 thesis, “Gewonheit” und
“Gesetzerlebnis” in der Erziehung, we see that he clearly held an inductivist position.
Contrary to Freud’s, Adler’s and others’ psychological theories, which often go beyond
what is factually verifiable and impose on empirical facts, he argued, natural science
theories only abstract from empirical data, never asserting something beyond the facts.
In his later reconstructions of the development of his own thought, Popper seemed
determined to remove any traces of this early inductivism. However, contrary to what
he later urged us to believe, he did not arrive at his criticism of induction in the years
between 1926 and 1928, nor did he formulate his famous criterion of demarcation.
Moreover, instead of being involved in abstract epistemological and methodological
problems, in those years Popper was actually attempting to find his way in the different
fields of psychology. Viewing science as an adventurous revolutionary project, an
“uneneded quest” for ever growing but never certain knowledge, Popper undertook an
autobiography in which a sort of rationality of scientific revolutions dominates the
narrative, concealing the plurality of directions in which his thought developed, the
diverse options, the intellectual impasses, and the decisive turning points.
However, I think we do not have to look for a sort of continuity between Popper’s early
writings and his published works. Instead, I think we should look for a break and
inquire the reasons for that break. Such a break, I suggest, dates to his third thesis,
Axiome, Definitionen und Postulate der Geometrie, completed in 1929: up to this year
epistemology entered Popper’s reflections as far as the problem is that of the
justification of the scientific character of these fields of research. But in 1929 Popper
explicitly
discussed the cognitive status of geometry without referring to psycho-pedagogical
aspects, thus turning from cognitive psychology to the logic and methodology of
science. Applied geometry sets the context for Popper’s discussion of scientific
rationality. In the following years, he will be applying the hypothetico-deductive model
to all natural sciences.
(stefano.gattei@tiscali.it)
----------
Popper's Quantum Ghost
“William M. Shields”
-insert abstract here—
----------
“Lakatos, A Methodologist of Research Programmes or a Philosopher of Political
Practices?”
Yuann, Jeu-Jenq
In the field of philosophy of science, I. Lakatos is first of all considered a philosopher of
scientific research programmes. Resent researches demonstrate that an essential part of
what Lakatos has achieved in his LSE period reflects the influences he received before
settling in England. These researches have their origin consisting in I. Hacking’s paper
on Lakatos’ philosophy of science. According to Hacking, Lakatos’ papers published
during the period of LSE time would not constitute a coherent picture unless the
Hungarian conception of the events of modern philosophy is incorporated into the
attempt of a complete understanding of Lakatos. The ‘incoherence’ refers to the fact that
the methodology of scientific research programmes as a ‘synthesis’ of Popper and
Kuhn’s philosophy of science is insufficient to vindicate the image that science is an
enterprise of objective rationality and of constant growth. While Lakatos expresses
explicitly that the image is crucial to any inquiry of science, it is not convincing unless
something more is added. This paper intends to demonstrate this needed part by an
application of Lakatos’ distinction between ‘internal history’ and ‘external history’
explicated in his rational construction of the history of science. We attempt to manifest
that the ideas Lakatos gained from the Hungary political practices are not ‘external’ and
hence have to be ‘internalized’ in the philosophical development of his ideas. Once the
‘internalization’ is carried out, we will be better situated to fully comprehend the
profound meaning of Lakatos’ philosophy of science.
(jjyuann@mail.thu.edu.tw)

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interes
http://www.sunspot.noao.edu/sunspot/pr/science-main.html

What Is Science?
Science is a method of finding explanations of how anything in the world or universe
works or came to be, by figuring out which explanation best predicts what actually
happens, or best fits the observations

You can read all about it below, or you can first test your scientific skills. Are you a
scientist?

The scientific way often works somewhat as listed below.

In science, some observation lies at the basis of many new bits of knowledge: The
scientist sees something happening and wonders why it happened at all or why it
happened just that way.
Then the scientist thinks up one or more hypotheses: ways to explain what happened.
Sometimes scientists invent a hypothesis not based on any direct observations. Such
hypotheses are sometimes derived from "What if ...?"-questions, such as "What if the
Earth were flat instead of round?". Each hypothesis predicts what will happen in some
specific case.
Next, the scientist thinks of and performs one or more experiments: ways to test the
hypotheses and see which one best predicted what happens. Sometimes (for instance,
often in astronomy) one cannot do direct experiments. Then one has to make do with
statistical experiments that study many existing or new records of the topic of your
hypothesis.
And finally, the scientist notes which, if any, of the hypotheses fits the outcome of the
experiments. It might be that one of the hypotheses fits the results of the experiments, or
that more than one of them fit, or that none of them fit. If any of the hypotheses fits the
results of the experiments, then that hypothesis is assumed to tell us something about
our universe. If none of the hypotheses fits, then the scientist discards all of them and
has to invent new hypotheses. If more than one fits, then the scientist needs to invent
new experiments that can tell the difference between the hypotheses.

Hypotheses, Theories, Laws, and Models

"Hypothesis" and similar words does not mean the same thing to all people. In daily
life, "hypothesis" means an explanation for which there is no or hardly any evidence
("It's only a hypothesis") but which the person that discusses it thinks to be true
("What's your hypothesis or theory about what happened here?"). "Theory" is used for
the same thing, but often means that there is more evidence for it. A "law of nature" is a
statement about a relation between things in nature that has been found to be always
true (under certain conditions that are implicitly part of the law). For instance, it's called
a law of nature that things always fall toward the ground, and never upward.

In science, "hypothesis" does not say anything about how much evidence there is for the
explanation or what the inventor thinks is true. A hypothesis is whatever explanation or
statement is being tested in an experiment. If I want to test the proposition that gravity
makes things come down, then that is my hypothesis. If instead I want to test the
assumption that gravity makes things fly away, then that is my hypothesis.

Theories and laws of nature in science are comparable to their counterparts outside of
science, but are generally stated with much more precision and detail. For instance, the
scientific form of the law of gravity is that (if no other forces are present) objects attract
each other with a force that is proportional to the product of the masses of the objects
and inversely proportional to the square of their mutual distance. On Earth, this makes
things fall toward the ground, just as the daily-life form of the law says, but the
scientific law allows one to calculate how fast things fall and where they land.

If you combine a large number of scientific hypotheses about a particular object (such
as a black hole) then you have a model of that object. Model making is a favorite
passtime of many scientists.

There are a couple of things to remember when reading, thinking about, or doing
science:

Science makes detailed predictions that can be accurately tested. By keeping the
hypotheses whose predictions work the best and throwing away the hypotheses that
don't predict so good scientists keep improving their knowledge.
In empirical science, there is no "absolute truth", and nothing is "self-evident". There
are only hypotheses at various levels of trustworthiness. Any claim or hypothesis is only
as good as the evidence that there is for it (and the lack of evidence against it), and only
tests of predictions that were made based on the hypothesis count as evidence for or
against the hypothesis.
Science tries to find out how things are or come to be, regardless of anyone's belief of
how things are, or anyone's opinion of how things should be. You can only find out how
things are by studying them. Of course, which things scientists investigate and which
hypotheses they think of to test may depend on their beliefs, but their conclusions
should not depend on their beliefs, just like different mountain climbers agree where the
top of each mountain is, even though they may get there by different routes.
Science invites anyone to try to prove that any of its claims are wrong. Scientists are
expected to accurately describe all the evidence for their claims and how they got that
evidence, so that anyone else (for instance, people who don't believe the results) can try
to do the exact same experiments to see if they find the same answers.
If many people try to prove some scientific hypothesis to be wrong but fail, then the
hypothesis gains trust and becomes more useful. If any one person proves some aspect
of a scientific claim to the wrong, then we can adjust the hypothesis and improve its
predictive power (and therefore its usefulness).

This built-in error correction makes science different from many other systems of
claims to knowledge or world views.

Not all hypotheses are equally useful. A hypothesis is useless to science if it cannot
conceivably be proved wrong (for instance, "Your hair turns green but only as long as
nobody's watching"). Scientists say that a hypothesis must be falsifiable.
Not all experiments are equally good. The experiments should be able to tell the
difference between the hypotheses. If each of the hypotheses predicts the same outcome
for an experiment, then that experiment cannot help us find out which of the hypotheses
is the best.
If a hypothesis fits the facts in one or a set of experiments, then that does not mean that
the hypothesis is correct in all cases - or even correct at all. Usually a set of experiments
does not cover all possible combinations that the hypothesis applies to, and the
supposed correctness of the hypothesis in all of its possible cases is inferred by
induction. In addition, there may still be other hypotheses that explain the observations
equally well.
You cannot use an observation both as a basis and as evidence for a hypothesis. You
can only test a hypothesis by predicting the outcome of some experiment and then
checking whether the prediction has come true.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Sometimes science cannot decide one
way or the other whether something is true or not.
Science is performed by people, so unfortunately there is some bad science between all
the good science.

As an example of how science works, I have a description of how the possibility and
properties of black holes were discovered.
Diccionario

Cómo se hace una hipótesis?

Por Hugo Müler.

Cuando se emprende una investigación científica, al postular o formular una hipótesis

conviene remitirse al sentido original y común de la palabra, entendida como suposición
o conjetura provisional acerca de algún fenómeno u objeto de estudio, y que tiene como
función principal delimitar el problema a investigar, teniendo en cuenta algunas
variables que naturalmente refieren a las características propias del fenómeno
investigado.

Desde una perspectiva etimológica, el término hipótesis deriva del griego, upo, que
significa 'lo que se pone a la base de algo', lo cual remite a la idea de apoyo de algo, en
el mismo sentido del término latino suppositio, suposición. Esta definición permite un
primer acercamiento intuitivo al concepto de hipótesis y su utilización en el campo
científico. Por lo general, se formula una hipótesis como una forma de predicción que
describe de un modo concreto lo que se espera sucederá con determinado objeto de
estudio si se cumplen ciertas condiciones (por ejemplo, al lanzar un plan piloto escolar
que incorpora nuevos métodos didácticos).

Es a Galileo Galilei a quien se le adjudica la creación del método experimental

hipotético-deductivo, del cual deriva el empleo consciente de las hipótesis y su
inserción orgánica y funcional en el método científico. En la lectura de Dialogo sopra i
due massimi sistemi del mondo (1632) y Discorsi et dimostrazioni matematiche intorno
a due nuove scienze se plantean los pasos a seguir en el desarrollo de una investigación
científica, que en síntesis son los siguientes:

1) Se determinan los datos de observación.

2) El investigador concibe una hipótesis explicativa de los datos observados.

3) El investigador desarrolla algunas consecuencias o efectos concretos que derivan de

la hipótesis formulada.

4) Trata de averiguar experimentalmente si estas consecuencias que ha inferido

responden a hechos reales.

Formulación de hipótesis

En la formulación de la hipótesis se deben emplear términos claros y concretos, de

modo que puedan ser definidos de modo operacional, a los fines de que otros
investigadores puedan refutar o corroborar la investigación realizada. Por lo tanto, toda
hipótesis, en el campo de la investigación científica, debe estar sujeta a referencias y a
una contrastación empírica. Por otra parte, deben ser objetivas y no se pueden incluir en
ellas juicios de valor, del tipo que tal elemento o condición es "mejor o peor" que otro,
sino simplemente plantearse tal como el investigador objetivamente postula que el
fenómeno estudiado sucede en la realidad.
Otro punto importante en la formulación de la hipótesis es la especificidad, de tal modo
que se determinen los indicadores a emplear para medir las variables estudiadas.
Asimismo, la hipótesis debe ser afín con los recursos y las técnicas de investigación
disponibles, puesto que de su alcance y limitaciones dependerá la comprobación de la
misma, y a la vez, debe sostenerse a partir del marco teórico empleado en la
investigación, el cual brinda un soporte también para el análisis una vez que se inicie el
proceso de contrastarla con los datos derivados de la metodología empleada para su
contrastación. Es así que la hipótesis debe ayudar a la explicación de los fenómenos
estudiados a partir de las relaciones que establece entre variables.

Tipos generales de hipótesis

Hipótesis nula: La hipótesis nula se utiliza en toda investigación en que se estudian las
características de dos o más grupos, siendo aquella que establece que no existen
diferencias significativas entre los grupos. Por ejemplo, un investigador se propone
verificar una hipótesis, la cual sostiene que la práctica de ajedrez mejora el rendimiento
escolar de los alumnos de escuela primaria. Para ello, divide al azar una muestra de
niños en dos grupos: uno que denominará experimental, el cual recibirá clases
intensivas de ajedrez durante un mes, y otro que se llamará grupo control, que no
recibirá clases del "juego ciencia". En este caso, la hipótesis nula será aquella que
postula que no habrá diferencias en el rendimiento escolar entre el grupo que recibió las
clases y el que no la recibió.

La importancia de la hipótesis nula radica en que es de directa comprobación, o sea, se

acepta o se rechaza según el resultado de la prueba realizada, además de contribuir a
determinar las diferencias entre los grupos sometidos a prueba (el experimental y el de
control), y si dichas diferencias son significativas.

Hipótesis conceptual: Es la hipótesis que se formula en base al marco teórico aplicable

al problema de investigación, y debe explicar desde alguna perspectiva el fenómeno
estudiado. Este tipo de hipótesis orienta la investigación focalizando el problema como
base para la búsqueda de datos que la corroboren o refuten, y debe ser acorde con los
objetivos propuestos. Se puede enunciar como relación causal o determinante derivada
del planteamiento del problema, e implicar variables comprendidas en el marco teórico.

Hipótesis de trabajo: Es la hipótesis que responde a las inferencias o creencias del

investigador, es decir, aquella que utilizará para dar una explicación al fenómeno
investigado, y que de algún modo se contrapone a la hipótesis nula. En otros términos,
la hipótesis de trabajo es operacional, ya que muestra cuantitativamente lo planteado en
la hipótesis conceptual.

Hipótesis alternativa: En toda investigación científica resulta más que conveniente

proponer una hipótesis alternativa en la cual se incluyan variables independientes
distintas de las que aparecen en la hipótesis de trabajo. De este modo se podrá contar
con respuestas alternativas al problema de investigación, que tomen en cuenta otras
variables y condicionamientos que también deberían estar sujetos a una comprobación.

Hipótesis estadística: En el campo de la utilización y aprovechamiento de la estadística,

las decisiones se toman siempre sobre determinadas hipótesis. La eficiencia de las
campañas publicitarias o de los proceso de producción se fundan en criterios numéricos,
y tales hipótesis se expresan en función de parámetros estadísticos. En el análisis de
todo problema de investigación, la contrastación de una hipótesis dada se realiza
aceptando o negando una alternativa lógica. Cuando se estudian fenómenos que
obedecen a leyes estadísticas se busca establecer relaciones numéricas bastante
regulares, siendo más significativa esta regularidad cuando mayor es el número de
fenómenos o la población (el alcance de su carácter cuantitativo), perdiendo validez el
criterio estadístico cuando la muestra tiende a ser poco representativa desde una
perspectiva numérica: Las condiciones que se requieren para aplicar hipótesis
estadísticas son las siguientes: a) una gran masa de elementos, b) independencia de estos
entre sí, c) el establecimiento de una relación de causalidad.

Hipótesis causal: Toda hipótesis plantea una relación funcional entre variables. Esta
relación puede ser causal, cuando una variable produce un efecto determinado sobre
otra variable, o correlacional (cuando las variaciones de una se relacionan de algún
modo con las variaciones de la otra). En una hipótesis que sustenta una relación causal,
las variables se llaman dependiente e independiente. La variable que se supone causa el
efecto en la otra -manejada por el investigador-, es la variable independiente, y sobre la
que se produjo el efecto es la variable dependiente. La modificación entonces de la
variable independiente produce un cambio en un parámetro (probabilidad, magnitud o
frecuencia) en determinada variable dependiente. Cuando se pretende contrastar una
hipótesis causal, el cambio que una variable produce en otra, se deben modificar los
valores de la primera variable, independiente, y registrar si los valores de la segunda
variable cambian en consecuencia. Un ejemplo de hipótesis causal sería: "La rebaja del
precio de las entradas a las canchas de fútbol produce un aumento de los concurrentes a
los estadios".

Hipótesis correlacional: La formulación de hipótesis correlacionales supone la

evaluación de la relación entre variables. La investigación correlacional tiene de por sí
un valor explicativo, ya que saber que dos conceptos o variables se relacionan de
determinada manera, aporta información explicativa que establece una relación entre
variables (en una correlación que puede ser múltiple), sin necesidad de plantear cómo se
dan estas asociaciones. En una hipótesis correlacional, por lo tanto, no importa tanto el
orden en que se coloquen las variables. A determinadas condiciones de prueba o
contrastación, se busca ver cómo se comportan las variables objeto de estudio.

Las hipótesis también se diferencian de acuerdo con el tipo de investigación al cual

responden o desde donde son formuladas.

En las investigaciones exploratorias el objetivo suele ser más modesto en términos

científicos, y se trata simplemente de obtener datos que permitan la formulación o la
elaboración de una hipótesis. Por tanto, una hipótesis planteada en una investigación
exploratoria puede resultar más flexible y ser un tanto menos precisa. Si bien existen
metodólogos que niegan la posibilidad de plantear una hipótesis en investigaciones
exploratorias -ya que al tratarse la investigación de un objeto de estudio en principio
desconocido por el investigador, por consiguiente no pueden establecerse hipótesis de
un fenómeno desconocido-, otros autores clasifican a estas hipótesis como heurísticas,
que están propuestas con el fin de encontrar algo nuevo o descubrir otras hipótesis más
generales o sugestivas. Presentamos a continuación un ejemplo de una hipótesis que se
da en el marco de una investigación exploratoria que tiene como objeto de estudio a las
empresas de Internet chilenas, y el volumen de operaciones que concretan a través de e-
commerce, siendo la hipótesis la siguiente: "Las empresas .com chilenas no han
desarrollado estrategias para aumentar el caudal de operaciones que realizan por
Internet".

Las investigaciones descriptivas presentan hipótesis más precisas, y por lo general dan
cuenta de diferentes tipos de relaciones. A continuación describimos en forma sucinta
cuáles son las hipótesis que es posible formular en una investigación descriptiva. En
principio, la relación se da a partir de determinadas características que presenta el objeto
de estudio, por ejemplo, "en las zonas más empobrecidas de México hay un notorio
rezago educativo y altos índices de analfabetismo". También, en este tipo de
investigación, la hipótesis puede plantear una relación del tipo "X pertenece a Y o a Z".
En este caso, se describe al objeto de estudio incluyéndolo en un orden superior. Un
ejemplo de esta relación se manifiesta en la siguiente hipótesis: "Los funcionarios y
directivos de organismos públicos en la Argentina aplican los mismos criterios y
políticas administrativas en boga en el ámbito privado (las mismas recetas
neoliberales)". Por último, la hipótesis de una investigación descriptiva se puede
construir a partir de una relación entre variables, en una ecuación del tipo "X produce (o
afecta) a Y de determinada manera", y un ejemplo de este tipo de relación planteada en
una hipótesis sería "En Venezuela, el nuevo régimen aduanero y el control ejercido por
las nuevas leyes tributarias reducen los casos de contrabando".

Es en las investigaciones explicativas donde resulta imprescindible formular con suma

claridad las hipótesis de la investigación, dando cuenta de las variables intervinientes, su
conexión y su incidencia en el fenómeno investigado. En el desarrollo de una
investigación explicativa, antes de formular la hipótesis se debe evaluar la adecuación
del marco teórico utilizado, asegurarse de que se hace una utilización lógica de dicho
marco y tener en cuenta las técnicas de investigación a emplearse en la conformación de
la hipótesis. Generalmente, al intervenir dos o más variables, en la formulación de la
hipótesis se suele recurrir a la estructura "si se da tal condición, entonces se producirá
determinado efecto o resultado", si X, entonces Y, bajo las condiciones R y S. A
continuación, un ejemplo de este tipo de relación, que es la más compleja que se da en
las investigaciones explicativas: "La situación de desempleo, el aumento de las olas
inmigratorias, y la mejoría de las condiciones laborales en las Fuerzas Armadas
Españolas ha provocado un aumento de los inscriptos a ingresar como soldado
profesional en los últimos años".

Bibliografía

Coraminas, Joan. Diccionario Etimológico de la Lengua Castellana. Gredos, Madrid,

1997.

Sabino, Carlos A. El Proceso de Investigación. Buenos Aires. Ed. Lumen - Humanitas.

1996.

Tenorio Bahena, Jorge. Investigación Documental. 3ª ed. México. Ed. Mac Graw - Hill.
1988

Tamayo, Mario. El Proceso de la Investigación Científica. 3ª ed. México Ed. Limusa

S.A., 1998.
Más diccionario

Hipótesis
Se trata de un término procedente del griego que designa, etimológicamente, "aquello
que se encuentra debajo de algo sirviéndole de base o fundamento". A nivel más simple,
una hipótesis es un planteamiento inicial cuya validez ha de ser confirmada por la
experimentación o el razonamiento.

En lógica filosófica, se entiende por hipótesis un enunciado (o un conjunto de

enunciados) que precede a otros enunciados y constituye su fundamento. Asimismo,
puede definirse como una proposición cuya verdad o validez no se cuestiona en un
primer momento, pero que permite iniciar una cadena de razonamientos que luego
puede ser adecuadamente verificada.

Un razonamiento por hipótesis es el que comienza suponiendo la validez de una

afirmación, sin que ésta se encuentre fundamentada o sea universalmente aceptada.

La formulación de hipótesis adecuadas y correctamente fundamentadas en la

experiencia es uno de los rasgos esenciales del método científico, desde Galileo e Isaac
Newton.

Sobre el nacimiento de la ciencia

Una primera relación establecida entre objetos, sucesos y condiciones de lo que

llamamos ciencia -vista ésta desde una panorámica puramente temporal- habrá de
llevamos a localizar o rescatar tres posturas que podemos considerar filosóficas, y que
habrán de mostrar diferencias de fondo al compararlas con las ideas que en otros
tiempos, para cada una de ellas, estaban comúnmente aceptadas.

La primera de esas posturas queda situada explícitamente en el mundo griego, unos

cuatro o cinco siglos antes de Cristo, cuando filósofos como Anaxímenes,
Anaximandro, Empédocles, Heráclito, Tales de Mileto y otros, cada quien a su modo,
proponen una respuesta diferente a la que entonces se admitía como válida para la
antigua pregunta sobre la composición del universo. Aire, agua, fuego y tierra...
sabemos hoy que no son los elementos constitutivos de aquél, pero no es eso lo
importante; lo que hace verdaderamente trascendente su respuesta no es lo explícito, no
es lo propuesto en primer término, no es la propuesta directa: es lo que se excluye lo que
da valor a esa postura! Ninguno de ellos, sabios o filósofos, habla de titanes, del
Olimpo, de Cronos, de Zeus; todos ellos se refieren siempre a un elemento de la
realidad, a una parte de la naturaleza, a un ente objeto o partícula que se puede examinar
objetivamente, y verificar o medir si es o no verdadero. ¡En eso estriba su importancia
para la ciencia!

La segunda postura subtiende un amplio periodo de consolidación; importa en ella una

característica fundamental: la sustitución de las grandes preguntas (¿Quién construyó el
universo" ¿Cuál es el destino del hombre?, etc.) por otras más simples, alcanzables,
interrogantes que eran y continúan siendo susceptibles de respuesta), verificación física.
Este cambio en la manera de pensar se traduce también en algo trascendente: hace que
la filosofía, reina única del conocimiento, tome el lugar que habría de corresponderle.
Aparecen entonces -valga la expresión- los precursores de las diferentes ciencias
actuales.

Por último, no obstante que la renuncia a las grandes preguntas era necesaria, no era
suficiente para el surgimiento de la ciencia. Hacía falta otra renuncia: la de considerar a
la razón, al principio de consistencia lógica interna, como único medio de descubrir la
verdad de los fenómenos naturales.

Sobre Galileo

Como principal mérito de Galileo se tiene el descubrimiento del método experimental

propiamente dicho, más importante aun que sus descubrimientos en los campos de la
mecánica y de la astronomía. Galileo, dice E Amerio "...nos parece el primer gran
científico de la edad moderna; ha creado la ciencia teorizando su naturaleza y su
método, teniendo conciencia del problema del método y de la naturaleza de la ciencia".

En cuanto al método, pensemos que, si bajo alguna circunstancia se presentara la

necesidad de indagar sobre la caída libre de los cuerpos, podríamos hacerlo siguiendo
alguno de estos dos caminos:

a) Experimentar, anotar los resultados obtenidos y encontrar una ley congruente con
tales resultados.

b) Proponer a priori tal ley y observar si es verificable por la experiencia

De la segunda manera es como procede Galileo, y esto se conoce porque es en sus

trabajos sobre la caída libre de los cuerpos donde "dibujó" la marcha del pensamiento
que lo lleva finalmente a la verificación de la ley propuesta: e = 1/2 (gt.t).

A Galileo se le considera el creador del método experimental hipotético-deductivo, del

cual resulta el empleo consciente de las hipótesis y su inserción orgánica en el método
científico. En la lectura de sus escritos Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo
(1632) y Discorsi et dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze se observa
que los pasos seguidos durante el desarrollo del estudio reproducen las sucesivas etapas
del método hipotético-deductivo, a saber:

1) Ante los datos de observación. 2) El científico concibe una hipótesis explicativa. 3)

Después, desarrolla algunas consecuencias concretas que se siguen de la hipótesis y 4)
Trata de averiguar experimentalmente si estas consecuencias que se ha imaginado son
hechos reales.

Como un aspecto a destacar, resulta ventajoso en este método que los hechos a verificar
en la cuarta de las etapas discrepen de los que dieron inicio al proceso al formar la
hipótesis, y que no puedan confundirse de alguna manera, porque ello va a permitir, de
alguna manera, verificar la pertinencia de la hipótesis en un tiempo prudente.

Es necesario explicar que observar y experimentar son acciones diferentes. J.J.

Ziminermann se expresaba así a este respecto: "...Un experimento difiere de una
observación en que el conocimiento que una observación nos procura parece presentarse
por sí mismo, mientras que el que nos suministra un experimento, es fruto de una
tentativa que se hace con el deseo de saber si una cosa es o no es... " C. Bernard cita
que: "...La observación sería la comprobación de las cosas o de los fenómenos, tal como
nos los ofrece ordinariamente la naturaleza, mientras que el experimento sería la
comprobación de los fenómenos provocados o determinados por el experimentador" ,
proponiendo él mismo que la observación puede ser activa o pasiva. Asimismo, señala
que un investigador científico puede ser observador y experimentador, siendo
observador aquél que aplica los procedimientos de investigación simples o complejos al
estudio de fenómenos que no hace variar y que, por consiguiente, recoge tal como se los
ofrece la naturaleza, mientras que el experimentador es el que emplea los
procedimientos de investigación simples o complejos, para hacer que los fenómenos
naturales varíen o se modifiquen con un fin cualquiera, haciéndolos aparecer en
condiciones en que no los presenta la naturaleza.

En este sentido, "el experimentador" reflexiona, ensaya, combina, compara a fin de

encontrar las condiciones experimentales más apropiadas para alcanzar el objeto que se
propone. En cambio, "el observador" comprueba pura y simplemente el fenómeno que
tiene a la vista; es como el fotógrafo de la naturaleza, pues su observación busca
representar exactamente a ésta.

La observación tiene lugar en las ciencias donde no es posible reproducir a capricho del
científico los fenómenos que se han de estudiar. Cabe señalar que ciencias como la
astronomía o la cosmología, consideradas como ciencias de observación (así definió
Laplace a la astronomía), es posible incluírlas como ciencias activas si el observador
emplea una metodología científica como la utilizada, por ejemplo, en el descubrimiento
de Neptuno, o la usada en estudios de cosmología: agujeros negros, masa del universo,
formaciones galácticas lenticulares, etc. En esos estudios podemos observar que la
comprobación, como último estadio del método hipotético deductivo, no es un
experimento sino que éste fue sustituido por una observación activa.

Hipótesis científica, hipótesis de trabajo

El método científico reposa sobre la comprobación experimental de una hipótesis

científica, comprobación que puede ser obtenida unas veces por la observación
(descubrimiento de Neptuno) y otras por el experimento. La hipótesis científica no solo
sirve como instrumento para la investigación, sino que se presenta como una conjetura
verosímil de la realidad y una anticipación probable de la verdad, necesariamente
fundada en una observación anterior. No hay reglas que se puedan ofrecer para hacer
que, como consecuencia, de una observación dada, nazca una hipótesis justa y fecunda;
tampoco hay métodos para ello; más bien parece que su aparición es de "chiripa",
espontánea o de improviso, de naturaleza individual por completo.

La palabra hipótesis, derivada del verbo griego hypotithemi, colocar debajo, significa
etimológicamente base, principio fundamental, tal como sería usada en matemáticas.
Pero en la ciencia experimental el término hipótesis se toma en el sentido de explicación
provisional de los hechos que requiere ser verificada. Si se tratara de aspectos de
matemática pura, entonces, como se señala renglones antes, se considera como principio
fundamental y éste habrá de demostrarse.
En 1959 C. Gini escribía: 'Los éxitos obtenidos por la física han ceñido de una aureola
el método hipotético-deductivo, el que consiiste en hacer una hipótesis provisional
llamada hipótesis de trabajo, y en verificar después, sobre los hechos, las deducciones
que se sacan de ella; aceptándola en definitiva, modificándola o rechazándola según lo
que sugieran los resultados obtenidos por la verificación. Aun en el caso que la hipótesis
de trabajo no fuese comprobada, resulta valiosa si orienta e impulsa la investigación en
el descubrimiento de nuevos o diferentes fenómenos". En el campo de la ciencia, una
hipótesis bien seleccionada contribuye poderosamente al desarrollo de ella, lo cual es
innegablee; pero la desaparición, sustitución o fusión de dos hipótesis tiene una
importancia todavía mayor. cuanto más restringido es el número de hipótesis tanto más
avanzado está el desarrollo de la ciencia. Según Ostwald, la ciencia "...no intenta
establecer hipótesis, sino eliminar las que existen". La ciencia habría alcanzado su
objeto si no contuviera más que una sola hipótesis, de donde fluyera como consecuencia
necesaria la ley de dependencia de todos los fenómenos del mundo exterior. (Como
ejemplo la búsqueda de la teoría del campo unificado de A. Einstein).

Ley, teoría y modelo

Una ley, antes de serlo, fue hipótesis, pero ésta fue verificada por los hechos. Las leyes
físicas son proposiciones que expresan modos constantes de verificarse los fenómenos
en determinadas circunstancias.

El método hipotético- deductivo de Galileo presenta otra novedad: en él, la ley reviste
forma matemática. Será típico de la ciencia el estudio de los aspectos cuantitativos del
mundo material, y es que la medición de los aspectos cuantitativos de los cuerpos trae la
posibilidad de descubrir una relación constante entre ellos. Tal relación constante,
expresable en términos matemáticos, constituye una ley.

La ley que liga unas con otras diversas magnitudes medibles, reviste matemáticamente
la forma de un enlace de tipo funcional (dando valores a la variable independiente se
encuentra el valor de la variable dependiente) y el valor así calculado debe
corresponder, dentro de los limites de los errores experimentales, al valor que resultaría
de una medición directa de esa magnitud.

Leyes

De manera general venimos aceptando que una ley física es un enunciado o proposición
que expresa modos constantes de verificacíón de los fenómenos en determinadas
circunstancias. Ampliando esa idea, habremos de distinguir dos clases de leyes:
cualitativas, que sólo afirman la existencia de un hecho en determinadas circunstancias,
vgr. cuando un cuerpo se calienta, éste se dilata, o bien, los rayos de luz al pasar de un
medio a otro de diferente densidad cambian de dirección, o también, los rayos de luz
blanca, al atravesar un prisma se descomponen en los colores del espectro. Y leyes
cuantitativas, que se refieren a la dependencia constante de índole cuantitativa entre
determinadas magnitudes variables con las que la ciencia intenta conocer la realidad por
lo que en ésta hay de cuantitativo, siendo la medición el procedimiento fundamental de
establecer esas magnitudes.

Ley estadística
Aplicado inicialmente en el estudio de eventos sociales, y luego en los juegos de azar, el
cálculo de probabilidades ha llegado a tener como herramienta matemática para captura
de información un valor indiscutible; su uso en la actualidad se ha extendido a
prácticamente todas las ciencias. D. Papp dice al respecto: "El cálculo de probabilidades
parte del azar, lo avasalla, lo encadena y logra encontrar nuevas leyes". Los métodos
estadísticos y el cálculo de probabilidades permiten al estudioso captar con gran
exactitud el comportamiento medio de una colectividad de eventos, sean éstos choques
de moléculas sobre las paredes del recipiente que las contiene, desintegración atómica
de un elemento radiactivo, o grupo de votantes en una elección presidencial, el diseño
de un presupuesto gubernamental o la estandarización de un test.

Según L. von Bortkiewicz, leyes estadísticas son "ciertos resultados de la estadística,

ciertos números relativos o medios que se distinguen por su constancia o su estabilidad
aproximada", o dicho en otros términos, ley estadística es el enunciado de constancia o
regularidad de que dan muestra las colecciones de casos. Una ley estadística se deduce
de tablas o concentrados organizados de numerosas observaciones, llamados también
masa estadística, o sea, una multitud de fenómenos de seres o eventos que tienen alguna
regularidad.

Cuando se estudian los fenómenos que obedecen a leyes estadísticas se advierte que es
posible definir, entre estos fenómenos, relaciones numéricas bastante regulares,
apareciendo la regularidad de manera más significativa cuanto más con 1derable es el
número de fenómenos, de tal manera que a un número mínimo de fenómenos, esa ley ya
no tiene sentido. Las condiciones requeridas para que pueda darse una ley estadística
son:

a. Una nutrida masa de elementos.

b. Independencia de ellos entre si.

c. Casualidad.

Teoría

Por lo escrito en párrafos anteriores, podemos intuir que las leyes ponen de manifiesto
cierta regularidad, constancia o legalidad descubierta en la naturaleza. El enunciado de
una ley, como descripción de las relaciones constantes entre los fenómenos, es uno de
los objetivos más inmediatos de la ciencia, y la presentación de la misma en forma de
función matemática es indispensable para el logro del progreso científico, pero la
comprensión y explicación de los fenómenos es en sí el interés primordial de la ciencia;
de aquí la existencia de las teorías en los dominios de ésta.

En lo general, podemos entender que una teoría responde a esa necesidad constante en
el hombre de contestar el cómo y el porqué de los fenómenos observados. La ciencia,
escribía Albert Einstein reproduciendo a Mayerson, "...no se contenta con formular
leyes de experiencia; más bien intenta construir un sistema lógico que se base en un
mínimo de premisas y comprenda en sus consecuencias todas las leyes de la
naturaleza". Una teoría -continúa Einstein- "encuentra su razón de ser en el hecho de
enlazar el mayor número de conocimientos aislados". "A lo que la ciencia tiende -dice
ahora Mayerson de modo más inmediato es a establecer una relación lógica entre los
fenómenos, y a deducirlos unos de otros".

Por teoría podemos entender un conjunto, lo más reducído,,posíble, de proposiciones,

de las cuales puedan deducirse lógicamente las leyes experimentales. En el progreso de
la ciencia hay que observar que siempre se va pasando a síntesis cada vez más
generales, con el objetivo último de llegar a una teoría única que abarque todos los
fenómenos naturales (en su caso).

Ahondando un poco en esas ideas, podemos decir que una teoría, en este caso física, es
un sistema hipotético deductivo; un conjunto de hipótesis ligadas por la relación de
deducibilidad o implicación (l-). En una teoría todo enunciado es una suposición básica
(axioma o postulado), o una consecuencia lógica de fórmulas ya admitidas (a menos que
sea una definición); lo que es importante resaltar es que estas teorías contienen
suposiciones semánticas o hipótesis interpretativas que confieren un significado físico a
sus símbolos básicos; las teorías físicas deben entenderse como formalismos físicamente
interpretados. Esos formalismos requieren para serlo de una estructura tanto lógica
como matemática.

Estructura lógica: Sabemos que cualquier enunciado bien formado es una fórmula de
cálculo de predicados con identidad (CP =); ahora bien, desatendiendo
momentáneamente a la estructura matemática fina, una teoría es, en cuanto a forma, un
conjunto de fórmulas (F) del (CP

Además, para tener una teoría requerimos que (F) sea cerrado bajo deducción. Entonces,
una teoría es una estructura relacional T=<F, l-> donde la relación es la de
deducibilidad, la cual tiene las pro piedades de la relación de orden parcia K = ).

La relación (l- ) que ordena el conjunto (F) de fórmulas de una teoría científica (T) está
caracterizada por las reglas de inferencia de (CP =), no siendo permisible romper la
unidad de la lógica de la ciencia proponiendo una teoría que emplee algún sistema de
lógica "no clásica ". Si otra lógica distinta subyaciera a una teoría científica, todas las
demás teorías tendrían que ser reformuladas sobre la base de Ja misma lógica "no
clásica", porque de otra manera Sería imposible aplicarlas conjuntamente a la
explicación de los hechos y al diseño e interpretación de experimentos, ya que cada uno
de esos procedimientos requieren de varias teorías diferentes.

Estructura matemática

Toda teoría que presuponga la matemática tiene, además de su estructura lógica, una
estructura matemática, la cual no discierne la lógica por ser tan universal; incluso las
teorías lógicas como el cálculo proposicional tienen una estructura matemática; la
estructura matemática del cálculo proposicional es el álgebra Boleana. Las estructuras
lógica y matemática de una teoría constituyen su estructura formal.

Modelo
Una teoría con una estructura formal Conocida es una teoría matemática mayor, o
formalismo, a la que se le debe asignar una interpretación física si es que va a contar
como una teoría física. Algunos teóricos consideran que las teorías, además de una
estructura lógica y una estructura matemática, habrán de tener un tercer componente que
es el modelo, que observamos en palabras de M. Bunge: "Una teoría abstracta es un
sistema deduc1vo que contiene sólo símbolos no interpretados aparte de los lógicos;
interpretando los símbolos básicos (primitivos) de una teoría abstracta, ésta adquiere
significado. Cada teoría interpretada es llamada una realización o modelo de la teoría, si
de hecho satisface los axiomas de la teoría. No hay limite al número de modelos de una
teoría, pero estos deberán ser interpretaciones que respeten tanto la estructura de los
conceptos como los axiomas".

Continuando las palabras de M. Bunge, se concluye que: "una teoría física es un

formalismo dotado de una interpretación. El formalismo es un conjunto de fragmentos
de teorías matemáticas y por lo tanto no tiene compromiso referencial: es la
interpretación física la que coordina algunos de los símbolos matemáticos con
propiedades de un sistema físico. Entendiendo que esta interpretación debe distinguirse
de los medios por los cuales el valor de verdad de una teoría es aseverado".

El texto anterior, podemos considerar, de alguna manera finiquita las ideas sobre
ciencia, hipótesis, ley, teoría y modelo, tan importantes al diseñar, desarrollar y
defender un trabajo formal de investigación científica. La intención, se habrá observado
implícitamente a lo largo de estos párrafos, es apoyar al docente en la otra de sus
posibles labores: la investigación.

Quizá en otro trabajo estudiemos nuevos horizontes y posibilidades de la ciencia, ahora

bajo puntos de vista más dirigidos al ámbito del comportamiento humano: el social-
educativo.

Tesis

{f.} | thesis, dissertation, theme (Del lat. thesis); sust. f. [Nota: el plural es
igualmente "tesis"].
1. Proposición que una persona sostiene por medio de razonamientos: todas las tesis que
expuso en la conferencia sobre la comunicación no verbal en los simios, fueron
acreditadas por datos empíricos.
2. Opinión de alguien sobre algo: nunca llegaremos a un acuerdo ya que sostenemos
tesis muy distintas.
3. Disertación escrita de investigación que se presenta ante un tribunal universitario para
la obtención del título de doctor: se doctoró en Psicología con una tesis sobre el
autismo.
4. [Música] Golpe en el movimiento de la mano con que se marca alternativamente el
compás.

Sinónimos

Razonamiento, argumento, proposición, exposición, testimonio, juicio, opinión,

teoría, consideración, noción, suposición, interpretación, memoria, estudio, escrito.

Tesis -desde la filosofía-

 El término "tesis" proviene del verbo griego tiqhmi, que significa "poner", por lo
que el vocablo podría traducirse como "acción de poner". Aunque en principio podía ser
cualquier cosa lo que se pusiera, en sentido más específico se usaba para significar la
acción de "poner" una doctrina, principio o proposición. De esta forma se comprende la
habitual traducción actual de "afirmación".
En sentido todavía más específico, Aristóteles concibió la tesis como un principio
inmediato del silogismo que sirve de base para la demostración. Se encuentra en el
mismo nivel que el axioma, aunque difiere de éste en que la tesis no es un principio
evidente e indemostrable, ni tampoco es indispensable para aprender algo, mientras que
el axioma sí que lo es. También opina el filósofo griego que toda tesis es un problema,
aunque no todo problema es una tesis. Y, por último, clasifica las tesis en dos clases
principales: definiciones como aclaraciones semánticas de un término, y definiciones
como posiciones de la existencia de una realidad, caso este último en que las tesis han
de llamarse con más propiedad "hipótesis".
Quintiliano contrapuso al sentido lógico que Aristóteles había dado al término
"tesis" un sentido retórico, con el cual quería hacer hincapié en la fuerza de persuasión
de ciertas afirmaciones. Ya en la modernidad, Kant, Fichte y algunas concepciones
dialécticas (véase dialéctica) usaron el término "tesis" en un sentido técnico (véase, por
ejemplo, antinomia en Kant). A este respecto, la tesis es uno de los momentos
fundamentales del método dialéctico propuesto por Hegel, que se basa en la estructura
triádica tesis-antítesis-síntesis.

Hipótesis

{f.} | hypothesis, supposition, guess. 2 [Filosofía] logical proposition. 3

[Lingüística] protasis, the clause expressing the condition in a conditional sentence (Del
lat. hypothesis, y éste del gr. ÛpÕqesij); sust. f. [Nota: El plural es hipótesis.]
1. Idea o suposición no demostrada a partir de la cual se pretende deducir una
determinada consecuencia: tus hipótesis son muy atractivas, pero carecen de una base
sólida.
2. [Filosofía] Según la lógica tradicional, proposición particular incluida en la tesis.
3. [Filosofía] Según la lógica moderna, fórmula de carácter transitorio que encabeza una
deducción.
4. [Lingüística] Prótasis o cláusula subordinada dentro de una oración condicional.

Modismos

Hipótesis alternativa. [Estadística] La opuesta a la nula.

Hipótesis de trabajo. Suposición que sirve de guía en una investigación científica.
Hipótesis nula. [Estadística] La que se hace sobre la población de la que se ha
extraído la muestra o sobre la probabilidad que se considera que la representa.

Sinónimos

Suposición, supuesto, conjetura, presunción, idea, teoría, creencia, barrunto,

proposición, cláusula, prótasis.

Antónimos
 Realidad, verdad, efectividad, seguridad, apódosis.

Hipótesis -desde la filosofía-

Atendiendo a su origen etimológico, el vocablo "hipótesis" procede de los griegos

qesiV ("tesis", "algo puesto") y upo ("debajo"), con lo cual podría traducirse como "algo
puesto debajo", "lo que se pone debajo". Hablando de enunciados, la hipótesis sería un
enunciado que constituye el fundamento de otros.
Las cuestiones que más preocupan actualmente con respecto a las hipótesis son las
que hacen referencia a su posible verificación o contrastación, a su posible clasificación
y a la naturaleza del llamado "razonamiento hipotético". En su forma más simple, una
hipótesis es un enunciado que se expresa mediante un condicional, acompañado de uno
o varios enunciados que certifican si la consecuencia del condicional es o no verdadera,
junto con una conclusión. Cuando se prueba que la consecuencia del condicional no es
verdadera, entonces queda probado que el antecedente no es verdadero, con lo que hay
que descartar la hipótesis; si, por el contrario, se prueba que el consecuente es
verdadero, ello no es motivo suficiente para admitir la validez del antecedente (ya que
las leyes de la lógica lo impiden), aunque la sucesiva confirmación de la verdad del
consecuente puede llevar a la progresiva aceptación del antecedente desde un punto de
vista intuitivo. Así, el fundamento más importante de aceptación de una hipótesis es,
según muchos, su capacidad de predecir; aunque otros opinan que tal predictibilidad no
es tan importante como la confirmación. Vistos los problemas lógicos que plantea tal
confirmación, cabría preguntarse qué entienden los autores que así piensan por
"confirmación". La respuesta es que "confirmación" puede entenderse de dos posibles
modos: en primer lugar, una hipótesis se confirma más cuantos más ejemplos tiene; en
segundo lugar, una hipótesis se ve confirmada cuando existen varios ejemplos que la
apoyan en varias condiciones de cambio de las correspondientes variables.
Pero, al margen de este significado general, lo cierto es que pueden encontrarse
diferencias de matices en los usos que del término han hecho diversos autores a lo largo
de la historia. Uno de los primeros autores en utilizar este término fue Platón, para quien
una hipótesis es un supuesto del que pueden extraerse diversas consecuencias, como por
ejemplo los supuestos que utilizan los matemáticos y geómetras. En este sentido, una
hipótesis se distingue de un axioma en que este último es admitido como si se tratase de
una verdad evidente, mientras que la hipótesis es más bien un postulado cuya verdad ha
de probarse posteriormente.
Aristóteles consideró el término "hipótesis" en dos sentidos principales; como un
posible sinónimo de "principio" (así, por ejemplo, cuando habla de los "principios de la
demostración"), y como una afirmación de la cual es posible deducir determinadas
consecuencias. Además, este filósofo distinguió no sólo entre hipótesis y axioma, sino
también entre hipótesis y postulado.
Sin embargo, a pesar de estas menciones tempranas, lo cierto es que los autores antiguos
y medievales no se preocuparon demasiado de dilucidar el significado de la hipótesis, y
fue necesario esperar hasta la época moderna para que empezaran a abundar los análisis
y reflexiones acerca de la naturaleza de este tipo de enunciados y, sobre todo, acerca de
su posible justificación. Tal resurgir del interés por las hipótesis se vio motivado por el
nacimiento de la física moderna, en el seno de la cual las hipótesis desempeñaban un
papel fundamental. En este contexto, uno de los autores que más se ocupó de las
hipótesis fue Newton, aunque, paradójicamente, parecía no tenerlas en muy buena
estima. En efecto, en varios pasajes de su obra subraya que él no hace hipótesis
(Hypotheses non fingo), y manifiesta entender por "hipótesis" todo aquello que no se
deduce estrictamente de los fenómenos, lo cual no tiene ningún sentido en el ámbito de
lo que él llama "filosofía experimental". De cualquier forma, el sentido que el término
"hipótesis" tiene en la obra de Newton ha sido objeto de diversas controversias por parte
de los comentaristas, ya que algunos subrayan que, a pesar de su rechazo a "hacer
hipótesis", lo cierto es que Newton las utilizó en algunos casos, como por ejemplo
cuando propuso una causa de la naturaleza de la luz. Sea como fuere, reminiscencias de
los planteamientos de Newton pueden encontrarse posteriormente en autores como
Kant.
Kant elaboró toda una teoría sobre la noción de hipótesis en su "Doctrina del
Método", incluida en la Crítica de la Razón Pura. Allí afirma que las hipótesis no deben
ser asunto de mera opinión, sino que han de fundarse en la "posibilidad del objeto". En
este último caso las hipótesis son legítimas; no así en el caso de las llamadas "hipótesis
trascendentales", que son simplemente una actividad de la "razón perezosa", que emplea
una idea determinada sin darle una correspondiente explicación.
Los autores positivistas, particularmente Auguste Comte, rechazaron la legitimidad
de la utilización de hipótesis al identificarlas con la pretensión injustificada de formular
enunciados que se refieran a causas, ya que para tales autores todo juicio relativo a las
causas es hipotético, y las causas no pueden nunca descubrirse. Fraguar hipótesis es,
según Comte, propio del pensamiento teológico y metafísico, pero no de un
pensamiento positivo, que en lugar de buscar el "porqué", se limita a conocer el "cómo",
lo único que puede conocerse. A pesar de que otros positivistas defendieron posiciones
menos radicales que la de Comte, lo cierto es que la mayoría de ellos rechazaron las
hipótesis cuando éstas se presentaban bajo la forma de especulaciones, pero las
admitieron cuando se expresaban en forma de proposiciones condicionales y, en
principio, verificables.
En otro sentido, autores también positivistas como Ernst Mach, entre otros, han
utilizado la expresión "hipótesis de trabajo", en el sentido de "explicación provisional"
de un determinado fenómeno. La función de tales hipótesis sería comprender mejor los
fenómenos de los que trata, sin necesidad de verse confirmada o refutada por los
fenómenos, caso en el que dejaría de ser una hipótesis.
En oposición a los autores que manifiestan su rechazo a la utilización de hipótesis,
han existido también otros que consideran que las hipótesis científicas no sólo están
justificadas, sino que son indispensables. Entre éstos pueden mencionarse a Whewell o
Meyerson.
En cuanto a la posible clasificación de las hipótesis, se han propuesto distintas
posibilidades. Hugues Leblanc, por ejemplo, propone la diferenciación entre "hipótesis
amplificadoras", que constituyen la conclusión de cualquier inferencia inductiva
permisible con un enunciado de observación como premisa; e "hipótesis explicativas",
que constituyen la premisa de alguna inferencia permisible con un enunciado de
observación o una hipótesis como conclusión. El primer tipo de hipótesis se refieren a
predicciones o retrodicciones de hechos y permiten ampliar nuestro conocimiento; las
segundas, por el contrario, permiten conocer por qué determinado enunciado verdadero
es tal, y permiten profundizar nuestro conocimiento.
Ciencia

La manera de proceder característica de la ciencia se ha dado en llamar el método

científico. Bertran Russell (1969) señala que el método científico consiste en observar
aquellos hechos que permiten al observador descubrir las leyes generales que los rigen.,
y describe así el proceso de investigación científica: "Para llegar a establecer una ley
científica existen tres etapas principales: la primera consiste en observar los hechos
significativos; la segunda en sentar hipótesis que, si son verdaderas, expliquen aquellos
hechos; la tercera en deducir de estas hipótesis consecuencias que pueden ser puestas a
prueba por la observación. Si las consecuencias son verificadas, se acepta
provisionalmente la hipótesis como verdadera, aunque requerirá ordinariamente
modificación posterior, como resultado del descubrimiento de hechos ulteriores."

No obstante hoy en día las concepciones modernas de la filosofía de la ciencia descartan

la idea de que la observación y la experimentación sean un fundamento seguro y
sostengan la ciencia. En esta línea están por ejemplo el radical Feyerabend (1974) y
también Chalmers (1986:5), que afirma que "no hay ningún método que permita probar
que las teorías científicas son verdaderas (...) no hay método que permita refutar de
modo concluyente las ideas científicas". Y es que no puede afirmarse que la práctica del
método científico elimine toda forma de sesgo personal o fuente de error, ni tampoco
que asegure la verdad de las conclusiones. La epistemología (del griego "episteme",
ciencia del saber absoluto, es el "estudio de la constitución de los conocimientos
científicos que se consideran válidos" (Pérez Gómez, 1978:20). ) ha demostrado que el
científico no es consciente de la totalidad de los factores (sociales, políticos, culturales e
ideológicos) implicados en su actividad, ni sus propósitos y gestos son totalmente
objetivos, ni las hipótesis son perfectamente conocidas y explícitas, ni su método
totalmente transparente y protegido de toda influencia extraña. A partir de estas
consideraciones, se va abriendo paso la idea de que el método científico consiste sobre
todo "... en exponer una teoría (...) a la crítica constante y aguda del investigador. Sólo
podrá seguir siendo válida una teoría que resista al continuo esfuerzo de falsación" (Von
Cube, 1981:53)

Con todo, frente a Popper que afirma categóricamente que la ciencia avanza sobre la
falsación de los enunciados que formula "todas la teorías son hipótesis tentativas, que
prueban de ver sin funcionan o no. Y la corroboración experimental es sencillamente el
resultado de pruebas realizadas con espítiru crítico, para saber donde yerran nuestras
teorías"), otros autores como Kuhn propugnan que esta teoría de la falsación es errónea
ya que propicia la supervivencia de muchas teorías ante la imposibilidad de rechazar
muchas de las hipótesis que generan, y relaciona la madurez de una ciencia con la
existencia de un paradigma ("una realización científica universalmente reconocida que,
durante un cierto tiempo proporciona modelos de problemas y soluciones a una
comunidad científica" según Kuhn) compartido por la comunidad científica,
identificando la función de la ciencia no tanto con la exigencia de la conquista objetiva
e imparcial de conocimientos, sino con la necesidad de dar pruebas fehacientes de su
progreso. Un posicionamiento intermedio es el de Lakatos, que busca la objetividad de
la ciencia a través de la objetividad de la metodología, pero coincidiendo con Popper en
que son los datos los que propician los cambios teóricos. Para Lakatos lo que caracteriza
a una teoría como científica es su capacidad para explicar hechos nuevos. En este
marco, Sarramona (1991:257) apunta que "el conocimiento científico y la manera de
acceder a él son relativos y están en función de cada momento histórico, lo que nos debe
motivar a seguir investigando permanentemente en la búsqueda de conocimientos cada
vez más amplios y estables".

--
UNAV encuentra
Intelecto agente y el a priori formal kantiano
http://www.encuentra.com/includes/documento.php?IdDoc=2211&IdSec=405
Rosmini, Balmes, Marechal,

Por José Angel García Cuadrado

1. La interpretación renovadora de Antonio Rosmini

2. El escolasticismo ecléctico de Jaime Balmes
3. La interpretación trascendental de Maréchal
4. La antropología trascendental de Rahner
5. Conclusiones

Uno de los pasajes más controvertidos de la historia de la Filosofía antigua y medieval

ha sido, sin duda, el capítulo V del libro III del De Anima. En este oscuro texto
Aristóteles presenta la doctrina del entendimiento agente para explicar de qué manera la
percepción sensible pasa a ser un conocimiento intelectual. La propuesta aristotélica fue
ampliamente debatida por sus comentadores, con posturas dispares cuando no
claramente enfrentadas. Sin embargo, en la filosofía moderna y contemporánea la
doctrina del intelecto agente parece haber caído en el olvido; incluso dentro de la
tradición escolástica de inspiración aristotélica se ha propuesto el abandono de dicha
explicación gnoseológica.

¿Cabe todavía mantener la actualidad de la doctrina del entendimiento agente, o debe

ser considerada como un objeto de estudio meramente arqueológico del pensamiento
medieval? En mi opinión, recogiendo la afirmación del profesor García González, "en la
filosofía moderna la doctrina del intelecto agente ha desaparecido. Pero su función
gnoseológica no. Y Kant ha propuesto una dimensión a priori en el conocimiento
intelectual, a su juicio pluralmente formal, pero derivada de la unidad de la conciencia
trascendental; igual que Husserl, en nuestro siglo, ha buscado con la segunda reducción
y en el ego trascendental el a priori del conocimiento intelectual. La doctrina del
intelecto agente -concluye este mismo autor- es la versión metafísica tradicional del
tema de la prioridad en el ámbito cognoscitivo intelectual".
En mi exposición, dejaré a un lado el tratamiento fenomenológico y me detendré en la
semejanza de la filosofía trascendental kantiana con la doctrina aristotélica del intelecto
agente. Para ello me serviré de las interpretaciones de cuatro filósofos que de manera
explícita han advertido los paralelismos entre entre ambas propuestas. Estos filósofos
son: Rosmini, Balmes, Maréchal y Rahner. Los cuatro son pensadores católicos y
conocedores de la filosofía escolástica, pero que buscaron la actualización de la filosofía
aristotélico-tomista a partir de las aportaciones del criticismo kantiano.

1. La interpretación renovadora de Antonio Rosmini

Antonio Rosmini (1797-1855) publica en 1830 el Nuovo Saggio sulla origine delle idee,
en abierto diálogo y confrontación con el empirismo y con el trascendentalismo
idealista. A lo largo de su exposición, el pensador italiano percibe el paralelismo
existente entre el "a priori" formal kantiano y la luz del intelecto agente. La postura
rosminiana se puede comprender mejor desde la perspectiva renovadora en la que se
sitúa su filosofía. Así se entiende el intento de conciliar en la idea de ser la noción de
lumen intellectus de la tradición, con el a priori formal kantiano.
En efecto, Rosmini "cree que el punto neurálgico de toda la teoría del conocimiento
debe situarse en torno a dos conceptos extremadamente próximos, cuando no
coincidentes en el fondo: aquel del lumen mentis de la filosofía tradicional y el famoso
a priori formal tan exigido en la alternativa kantiana". Para ello el pensador italiano
propone una sugerente interpretación de la luz intelectual asignada al entendimiento
agente. "Los principios innatos de Sto. Tomás, sean especulativos sean prácticos, están
habitualmente insertos (habitus principiorum), y luego con ocasión de las sensaciones
(phantasmata) son llevados al acto por el intelecto agente, y casi diría se recuerdan. Pero
hay que observar, que el doctor de Aquino, además de estas nociones innatas en hábito,
y no en acto, pone un intelecto agente, que está verdaderamente en acto, y que hace
actualmente presente todas las cosas al pensamiento con su luz. Ahora bien, yo juzgo
que esta luz del intelecto agente, que se expresa con el manto de la metáfora, y que no
se encuentra en los escritos antiguos o raramente y como de paso, quitada la metáfora,
es la idea del ser".
La génesis de la afirmación rosminiana hay que buscarla en su intución fundamental, es
decir, en la centralidad de la idea de ser. Para él, todo nuestro conocer viene mediado
por la captación original, aunque no consciente, de la idea de ser: todo hombre al
conocer posee la idea primigenia del ser universal, de tal modo que la idea de ser es lo
primero que ontológicamente se necesita para conocer. Esa idea de ser es la única idea
innata.
Pues bien, en este planteamiento gnoseológico, la luz del intelecto agente viene a
coincidir con esa idea innata del ser, en tanto que es un "medio de conocer el cual es
como una luz que ilumina para la mente las cosas cognoscibles y este medio fue
llamado por los antiguos filósofos «bajo el cual», medium sub quo". La luz del intelecto
agente, es decir, la idea de ser, es puramente indeterminada y coexistencial al
pensamiento.
La semejanza con el "a priori" formal kantiano se puede advertir en la indeterminación
del entendimiento agente como medio de conocer, que precisa de la sensación como
materia o contenido sobre la cual actúa la luz del intelecto agente. Así lo explica el
Roveretano: "si en nosotros se diese sólo la simple aprehensión, esto es, la pura idea, y
no estuviese allí presente lo real, esto es, lo sentido, no se diría que nuestra mente
entienda, sino sólo que tiene el medio de entender. Y tal es la condición de la mente que
tiene sólo la idea innata del ser, sin ningún fantasma recibido del sentido: no se dice
entonces que conoce algo, o que entiende algo, sino sólo que tiene la potencia de
conocer y de entender".
No obstante, para Rosmini, el intelecto agente no es sólo medio de conocer (obiectum
quo cognoscimus), sino también y primariamente objeto conocido (obiectum quod
cognoscimus). Este parece ser un punto central de la tesis rosminiana a juzgar por sus
mismas palabras: "convencer al hombre de que ve esta luz en sí misma, la cual es –a la
vez– principio de todo conocimiento, ha sido todo el objetivo del Nuovo Saggio". Y en
otra ocasión dice: "La luz es algo que se ve, sin reducirse al ojo ni al acto de visión; es
aquello que es visto y hace ver las cosas. Del mismo modo, la luz de la mente humana
es un objeto visto, con el que se ve todo lo demás".
En la propuesta rosminiana resulta interesante constatar de qué manera se percibe la
relación existente entre el intelecto agente y el ser. La analogía de la luz se presentaba
ya en la filosofía clásica ligada tanto a la luz intelectual del entendimiento agente como
al acto de ser. No obstante, tal y como está formulada la propuesta rosminiana, ésta
resulta un tanto ambigua. Parece difícilmente aceptable que la luz del intelecto agente
sea la idea de ser. En la tradición aristotélica el entendimiento agente es el principio
activo que manifiesta, es decir, "hace ver la realidad" mediante su iluminación, pero este
principio activo no se presenta en dicha tradición como una idea, ni mucho menos como
una idea innata. En otras palabras, el intelecto agente es más bien un principio
ontológico real y no meramente ideal. Se podría afirmar que el problema metafísico
acerca de la prioridad intelectual lo resuelve Rosmini decantándose hacia un cierto
idealismo; en efecto, la prioridad intelectual no es una acto, sino una idea innata. No me
quiero extender más en este punto, puesto que sería preciso una exposición más
completa de la interpretación rosminiana.
No obstante, me interesa subrayar ahora el esfuerzo de Rosmini por conciliar en la idea
de ser, la doctrina de la luz intelectual de la tradición con el "a priori" formal kantiano.
Pero una vez expuesto el paralelismo de fondo, Rosmini marca las distancias con el
criticismo. Es cierto que Kant ha tenido el mérito de haber visto la necesidad de
informar la experiencia sensible y analizar minuciosamente este hecho, pero el defecto
capital del filósofo de Königsberg consistiría en que con el método trascendental se
examina sólo el acto por el que el sujeto conoce, sin reparar en el objeto que constituye
en "acto primero" la mente misma. Esta limitación hace exclamar al filósofo italiano:
"las múltiples formas de Kant tienen el pecado original de ser subjetivas". Así pues, la
crítica rosminiana al sistema kantiano advierte la carga subjetivista de su planteamiento,
lo que dificulta un verdadero conocimiento de la realidad objetiva. Esta podría ser, en
síntesis, la valoración rosminiana de la gnoseología trascendental kantiana.

2. El escolasticismo ecléctico de Jaime Balmes

Jaime Balmes (1810-1848), comparte con Rosmini la preocupación por renovar la

filosofía escolástica con las aportaciones filosóficas de la Modernidad. Durante los años
1842-1847 realizó diversos viajes que le permitieron entrar en contacto con pensadores
franceses y más concretamente con el cardenal Mercier. El resultado de su filosofía
puede ser denominado como un escolasticismo ecléctico, puesto que reconociendo la
indudable autoridad de Santo Tomás, recibe influencias de Suárez, Leibniz y Descartes.
En cuanto al método crítico kantiano, le reconoce un valor filosófico, siempre y cuando
no sea utilizado de modo exclusivo.
En su Filosofía Fundamental, publicado en 1848 pero elaborado durante sus estancias
europeas, Balmes dedica todo el libro IV, a tratar de la génesis de la idea. El propósito
fundamental del filósofo catalán es rebatir las explicaciones empiristas representadas
por Condillac, el cual elimina las diferencias entre sensación e intelección reduciendo el
conocimiento humano a percepción sensible. Frente al sensualismo de Condillac,
Balmes acude a la doctrina aristotélica del entendimiento agente: "La escuela de los
aristotélicos tomaba las sensaciones como punto de partida, pero no las consideraba
como productoras de la inteligencia; por el contrario, deslindaba muy cuidadosamente
entre el entendimiento y las facultades sensitivas, reconociendo en aquél una actividad
propia, innata, muy superior a todas las facultades del orden sensitivo", y más adelante
afirma que en la escolástica "se reconoce expresamente una actividad primordial de
nuestro espíritu, no comunicada por las sensaciones, sino anterior a todas ellas. El
entendimiento agente, (...) era una condenación permanente del sistema de la sensación
trasformada, sostenido por Condillac".
En efecto, en la gnoseología aristotélica "se hacía una separación entre el orden
sensitivo y el intelectual, y como, por otro lado, era preciso establecer una
comunicación entre estos dos órdenes, si se quería salvar el principio de que nuestros
conocimientos venían de los sentidos, fue necesario echar un puente que uniese las dos
riberas (...) y éste fue el entendimiento agente". Balmes explica a continuación la
iluminación de las imágenes sensibles llevada a cabo por el intelecto agente, y cómo
éste las despoja de sus condiciones materiales. Y concluye: "Esta invención, más bien
que ridícula, debiera llamarse poética, y antes merece el título de ingeniosa que el de
extravagante. (...) Quítese a la explicación de las escuelas la parte poética, y véase si lo
que en ella se envuelve vale tanto, por lo menos, como lo dicho por Kant al combatir el
sensualismo".
La autoridad de Kant le sirve a Balmes para refutar desde una perspectiva moderna, el
sensualismo de Condillac, el cual no alcanzó ha notar "que las sensaciones por sí solas
no bastan a explicar todos los fenómenos de nuestro espíritu, y que, además de la
facultad sensistiva, era preciso admitir otra muy diferente, llamada entendimiento".
Comienza entonces la comparación de la gnoseología kantiana con la aristotélica,
"semejanza que tal vez no ha sido notada hasta ahora, no obstante de que salta a los ojos
a la simple lectura del filósofo alemán". Balmes no parece conocer las obras de
Rosmini, a pesar de compartir con él la idea de que se ha de abandonar el valor
metafórico de la luz aplicada al intelecto agente para reconocer en el fondo la misma
concepción kantiana.
Según Balmes, el acierto de Kant es considerar "las sensaciones como materiales
suministrados al entendimiento y que éste combina de varias maneras, reduciéndolos a
conceptos. «Pensamientos sin materia, dice, son vanos, intuiciones sin conceptos son
ciegas. Es, pues, igualmente indispensable el hacer sensibles los conceptos, esto es,
darles un objeto en intuición, y el hacer inteligibles las intuiciones, sometiéndolas a
conceptos» (Lógica trascendental. Introducción). ¿Quién no ve en este pasaje –continúa
Balmes– el entendimiento agente de los aristotélicos, bien que expresado con otras
palabras? Sustitúyase a intuición sensible, especie sensible; a concepto, especie
inteligible, y nos encontraremos con una doctrina muy semejante a la de los
escolásticos". Balmes, se detiene en establecer las concomitancias entre el sistema
kantiano y el aristotélico, proponiendo una sugerente "traducción" de los términos
kantianos al lenguaje escolástico.
Sin embargo, Balmes también hace ver las profundas divergencias entre el
planteamiento aristotélico y el kantiano. En la filosofía trascendental el conocimiento no
puede traspasar el límite de la sensibilidad puesto que no es posible hacer un uso
trascendental de los conceptos puros. La crítica de Balmes al sistema kantiano es
tajante: "Difícilmente se puede encontrar doctrina más dañosa. ¿Qué le resta al espíritu
si se le quitan los medios para salir de la esfera sensible? ¿A qué se reduce nuestro
entendimiento si sus ideas más fundamentales y sus principios más elevados no tienen
ningún valor para enseñarle algo sobre la naturaleza de las cosas? Si el mundo corpóreo
no es más para nosotros que un conjunto de fenómenos sensibles, y nada podemos
conocer fuera de ellos, nuestros conocimientos nada tienen de real, todos son puramente
subjetivos, el alma vive de ilusiones y se envanece con creaciones imaginarias a las que
nada corresponde en la realidad. Forma subjetiva el espacio, forma subjetiva el tiempo,
conceptos vacíos las ideas puras, todo es subjetivo en nosotros; nada sabemos de los
objetos".
En definitiva, Balmes y Rosmini (aparentemente sin relación entre ellos aunque con un
mismo afán renovador de la filosofía tradicional), advierten el paralelismo existente
entre la doctrina aristotélica del intelecto agente y el "a priori" formal kantiano, pero no
dejan de marcar las diferencias que se esconden en sus planteamientos fundamentales de
orden ontológico.
3. La interpretación trascendental de Maréchal

La sugerente lectura llevada a cabo por Rosmini y Balmes, coincide en su propósito con
la interpretación de Joseph Maréchal (1878-1944). El filósofo belga intenta asumir lo
esencial del kantismo en el pensamiento escolástico: éste parece ser el hilo conductor de
su gran obra, El punto de partida de la filosofía (la primera edición es de 1926). Para
ello tratará de traducir al lenguaje crítico la terminología metafísica tomista.
Al tratar de la doctrina del intelecto agente Maréchal apunta que se trata de una
"verdadera teoría de la espontaneidad intelectual", con la cual se intenta conciliar la
espontaneidad y la pasividad de la inteligencia, una cuestión gnoseológica típicamente
kantiana. Poco después afirma: "Al estar siempre en acto, el entendimiento agente no
tiene ninguna necesidad de un acto extraño para entrar en ejercicio: los efectos
particulares de su «acto», es decir, las prolongaciones de su acto en «acciones», serán
puestas o no según que ciertas condiciones formales extrínsecas se encuentren o no
realizadas; pero su actividad, considerada en sí misma, es completamente a priori y
espontánea" . Por lo tanto, según Maréchal, la actividad del intelecto agente es a priori
porque es previa al inteligible en acto y previa a la sensibilidad. De esta manera el
entendimiento agente pasa a pertenecer al sujeto trascendental como condición de
posibilidad del conocimiento.
Continúa el filósofo belga: "el entendimiento agente no basta, por sí sólo, para
determinar al entendimiento posible; la parte verdaderamente espontánea de su
intervención no sobrepasa ciertos caracteres absolutamente generales, cuya
especificación próxima depende del fantasma. Kant decía lo mismo en términos críticos:
el concepto no es totalmente a priori ni totalmente espontáneo: es a posteriori (o
empírico) en cuanto a su materia (su contenido diverso), a priori y espontáneo en cuanto
a su forma sintética (su forma de universalidad)". Para Maréchal el intelecto agente es
un "a priori" del conocimiento humano, porque todavía no cuenta con la base empírica
que hace posible el concepto. Y en este sentido, el entendimiento agente se debe colocar
del lado trascendental, previo a la experiencia sensible y condición de posibilidad del
conocer humano.
En la concepción marechaliana del intelecto agente, se deja sentir también la noción del
ser ideal de Rosmini cuando dice que el intelecto agente presenta "a priori" unos rasgos
absolutamente generales e indeterminados, condición de posibilidad de todo otro
conocimiento. Pero se distancia del filósofo italiano en que el intelecto agente no se
pone de parte del objeto: "La actualidad del entendimiento agente difiere totalmente de
la actualidad de un inteligible en acto, ya que no es, de ninguna manera, el objeto
propio, conocido por el entendimiento pasivo". En otras palabras, el intelecto agente
ilumina el objeto, pero no comparece en la operación. Con la tradición escolástica
podemos decir que es medium quo cognoscitur, pero no objeto quod cognoscitur.
Con todo, podemos concluir que la lectura de Maréchal coincide básicamente con las
realizadas por Rosmini y Balmes. Sin embargo, no parecen advertirse en la
interpretación merechaliana las reservas que éstos ponen a la doctrina kantiana. ¿Es
posible conciliar las dos visiones de la metafísica del conocimiento aquí confrontadas?
¿Es totalmente asimilable el intelecto agente aristotélico con el "a priori" formal
kantiano?

4. La antropología trascendental de Rahner

La interpretación marechaliana de la gnoseología clásica es recogida y ampliada por la
antropología trascendental de Karl Rahner (1904-1984). En efecto, resulta bien
conocido que el teólogo alemán recibió una formación escolástica fuertemente
mediatizada por la filosofía de Maréchal. Ya en 1939 (sólo trece años después de la
aparición de la obra del filósofo belga) Rahner publica el libro Espíritu en el mundo, en
donde recoge su síntesis entre la teoría del conocimiento tomista y la kantiana.
También para Rahner el intelecto agente es una condición de posibilidad del pensar, es
decir, un a priori del sujeto: "En lo conocido intelectualmente es copercibido un
elemento apriórico, que el espíritu comporta consigo (...), y éste es la condición de todo
conocimiento objetivo (...). Este elemento a priori de todo conocimiento no es idea
innata alguna, porque es sólo copercibido como condición de posibilidad de la
aprehensión intelectual de lo sensiblemente dado, a saber, cuando ejerce una función
«formal» con respecto al material de la sensibilidad".
Adviértase cómo de manera explícita se separa de la concepción rosminiana, según la
cual el intelecto agente es una idea innata, a través de la cual percibimos toda la
realidad. Esta caracterización del intelecto agente parecería responder mejor a la
concepción escolástica, como se manifiesta a la hora de explicar la metáfora de la luz
aplicada al entendimiento agente: "Una de las imágenes más usadas para la descripción
de la función del intellectus agens, es la representación de que los phantasmata son
iluminados por el intellectus agens como lumen. ¿Qué quiere decir esta imagen? Si nos
atenemos sencillamente a la imagen misma, se nos dice por de pronto que se trata de un
hacer visible al phantasma por el intellectus agens. Ésta es, en general, la tarea de la luz
con respecto al objeto iluminado por ella".
Pero la propuesta rahneriana parece ir más lejos de la interpretación clásica cuando a
continuación parece fundar la "visibilidad" exclusivamente en la conciencia y no en la
realidad misma. En efecto, para el pensador alemán, "el «ser visible» es en nuestro caso,
naturalmente, la conciencia". En esta sencilla afirmación parece condensarse el giro
gnoseológico operado por la antropología trascendental de Rahner. Continuando con la
analogía de la visión intelectual, la inteligibilidad parece descansar sólo en la
espontaneidad de la conciencia y no en la inteligibilidad ontológica de la realidad.
Por otro lado, la antropología trascendental de Rahner hace coincidir también la
iluminación del intelecto agente con la conversio ad phantasmata del entendimiento
agente. "Al concebir el acontecer de la abstractio en cuanto información del contenido
sensiblemente dado por la luz del intellectus agens, incluye ya una conversio intellectus
ad phantasma como aplicación de la luz a lo sensiblemente sabido. En tal proceso se
cumple tanto la abstractio como la conversio, y con todo derecho pueden caracterizarse
como illuminatio, bien, en primer término, la abstractio como tal, es decir, unida con el
contenido sensible; bien en segundo lugar, la conversio ad phantasma, o sea, la unión de
la forma apriórica con el contenido sensible". Comentando este texto, Fabro apunta que
para Rahner tanto la abstracción como la conversión a las imágenes no son más que dos
momentos de la autoaclaración del espíritu mediante la reditio completa del alma sobre
sí misma, pero de esta manera desembocaremos en una gnoseología de corte
inmanentista, como el mismo Fabro con estas palabras. "Si, como quiere el pensamiento
moderno, el objeto del conocer es el acto de conciencia, la abstracción no puede
consistir en tener conciencia del phantasma, ya que de éste el hombre tiene conciencia
mediante la sensibilidad y no tiene necesidad de una nueva conciencialidad". "Por lo
tanto, el acto de ser extra animam que para Sto. Tomás es el estímulo que lleva al
entendimiento a «tomar conciencia de» (la realidad), en el tratamiento rahneriano se
convierte en el acto de conciencia de sí misma".
Como hace ver Possenti, la noción de intencionalidad cognoscitiva, presente en toda la
tradición aristotélica, parece olvidada en los planteamientos gnoseológicos rahrenianos.
En efecto, en el planteamiento clásico, el conocimiento intelectual se encuentra
intencionalmente "volcado" hacia lo conocido, es decir, la misma realidad. Pero sin
intencionalidad cognoscitiva la conciencia se vuelve hacia sí misma. De esta manera,
Rahner concibe la abstracción intelectual no como la aprehensión intencional de la
realidad sino como una vuelta del sujeto sobre sí mismo.
La interpretación apriórica del intelecto agente realizada por la antropología
trascendental de Karl Rahner, se encuentra también presente en otros autores como De
Petter, Coreth, Mertens y Verbeke. Estos autores llevan a cabo una particular exégesis
de los textos tomistas lo que les lleva a concebir los primeros principios metafísicos no
fundados en la realidad misma, sino inscritos en ella gracias a la actividad del intelecto
agente debido a su carácter trascendental y a priori. Así por ejemplo, Verbeke de
manera explícita afirma que según Santo Tomás el intelecto agente es capaz de
"introducir" la inteligibilidad en los datos sensibles, y en última instancia, el que torna
inteligible el mundo material. Pero si el mundo no está dotado de inteligibilidad propia,
y si es el entendimiento agente la única causa de la inteligibilidad del mismo nos
situamos bien lejos de la postura aristotélica.

5. Conclusiones

En 1852, Ernest Renan publicó su célebre tesis doctoral sobre el pensamiento de

Averroes, en la deja constancia también de los paralelismos existentes entre las posturas
aristotélicas y kantianas. "Al traducir a lenguaje moderno la teoría del entendimiento,
expuesta en el libro III Del Alma , y desprendiéndola de las formas demasiado
substanciales del estilo aristotélico, se llega a una teoría del conocimiento bastante
análoga a la que desde hace medio siglo ha ganado el asentimiento de todos los espíritus
filosóficos". "Pero este método de analogías —continúa Renan— es siempre peligroso.
Los sistemas antiguos deben tomarse tales como son, y deben ser aceptados como
curiosos productos del espíritu humano, sin que se deba tratar de interpretarlos con
arreglo a las opiniones de la filosofía moderna".
¿Hemos de renunciar a una lectura moderna de la doctrina del intelecto agente,
siguiendo el consejo de Renan? ¿Resultan tan dispares las respuestas acerca del modo
de conocer en el planteamiento clásico y en el kantiano? Si tenemos en cuenta que la
gnoseología aristotélica y la kantiana son intentos por superar tanto la concepción
empirista –que acaba reduciendo el conocimiento humano a la sensación– como al
innatismo –ya sea en su versión platónica o cartesiana–, ambas concepciones muestran
paralelismos válidos. Esta base común hace posible captar las semejanzas entre la
gnoseología crítica de Kant y el realismo cognoscitivo de la tradición aristotélica. En mi
opinión, si se pretende superar una gnoseología empirista debemos recuperar un teoría
del conocimiento estructuralmente similar a la propuesta aristotélica del intelecto
agente. Con esto no afirmo más que la necesidad de seguir abriendo nuevas perspectivas
de estudio que nos ayuden a comprender mejor el problema de la prioridad del
conocimiento intelectual.
En este sentido, el intento por traducir en términos kantianos la gnoseología escolástica
supone sin duda un esfuerzo especulativo para hacer más comprensible la oscura
doctrina del intelecto agente. De esta manera puede ser legítimo afirmar que el intelecto
agente es un "a priori" del conocimiento humano, porque todavía no cuenta con la base
empírica que hace posible el concepto. Y consecuentemente, el entendimiento agente se
debe colocar del lado trascendental, previo a la experiencia sensible y condición de
posibilidad del conocer humano.
Es preciso, sin embargo, ahondar en estas aparentes coincidencias. Rosmini y Balmes
advierten explícitamente que la propuesta kantiana pone el acento en el sujeto
trascendental, pero se deja en entredicho la objetividad del conocer. Sin embargo,
Maréchal, y sobre todo, Rahner no parecen marcar explícitamente las distancias con el
planteamiento trascendental kantiano. El giro gnoseológico kantiano en favor de la
conciencia parece ser plenamente asumido en esta última interpretación: nos
encontramos, a mi modo de ver, frente a una lectura kantiana del entendimiento agente
aristotélico. Pero hacer una lectura kantiana de Aristóteles ¿no es deformar al mismo
Aristóteles? De la misma manera, se puede intentar hacer una lectura aristotélica de
Kant, pero ¿no sería esto deformar la originalidad del planteamiento kantiano? Parece
útil y necesario establecer paralelismos entre los planteamientos de estos dos filósofos,
mostrando la perenne actualidad de los problemas gnoseológicos. No obstante, sería
necesario no obviar sus profundas divergencias metafísicas y gnoseológicas: sólo así
estaremos en condiciones de hacer justicia a cada uno uno de ellos, y, sobre todo, hacer
justicia a la filosofía misma.

José Angel García Cuadrado

Facultad eclesiástica de Filosofía
Universidad de Navarra
31008 Pamplona (España)
jagarcia@unav.es

--
Stanford Enciclopedia of Philosophy

Bayesian Epistemology
‘Bayesian epistemology’ became an epistemological movement in the 20th century,
though its two main features can be traced back to the eponymous Reverend Thomas
Bayes (c. 1701-61). Those two features are: (1) the introduction of a formal apparatus
for inductive logic; (2) the introduction of a pragmatic self-defeat test (as illustrated by
Dutch Book Arguments) for epistemic rationality as a way of extending the justification
of the laws of deductive logic to include a justification for the laws of inductive logic.
The formal apparatus itself has two main elements: the use of the laws of probability as
coherence constraints on rational degrees of belief (or degrees of confidence) and the
introduction of a rule of probabilistic inference, a rule or principle of conditionalization.
Bayesian epistemology did not emerge as a philosophical program until the first formal
axiomatizations of probability theory in the first half of the 20th century. One important
application of Bayesian epistemology has been to the analysis of scientific practice in
Bayesian Confirmation Theory. In addition, a major branch of statistics, Bayesian
statistics, is based on Bayesian principles. In psychology, an important branch of
learning theory, Bayesian learning theory, is also based on Bayesian principles. Finally,
the idea of analyzing rational degrees of belief in terms of rational betting behavior led
to the 20th century development of a new kind of decision theory, Bayesian decision
theory, which is now the dominant theoretical model for the both the descriptive and
normative analysis of decisions. The combination of its precise formal apparatus and its
novel pragmatic self-defeat test for justification makes Bayesian epistemology one of
the most important developments in epistemology in the 20th century, and one of the
most promising avenues for further progress in epistemology in the 21st century.

1. Deductive and Probabilistic Coherence and Deductive and Probabilistic Rules of

Inference
2. A Simple Principle of Conditionalization
3. Dutch Book Arguments
4. Bayes' Theorem and Bayesian Confirmation Theory
5. Potential Problems
6. Other Principles of Bayesian Epistemology
Bibliography
Other Internet Resources
Related Entries

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Deductive and Probabilistic Coherence and Deductive and Probabilistic Rules of

Inference
There are two ways that the laws of deductive logic have been thought to provide
rational constraints on belief: (1) Synchronically, the laws of deductive logic can be
used to define the notion of deductive consistency and inconsistency. Deductive
inconsistency so defined determines one kind of incoherence in belief, which I refer to
as deductive incoherence. (2) Diachronically, the laws of deductive logic can constrain
admissible changes in belief by providing the deductive rules of inference. For example,
modus ponens is a deductive rule of inference that requires that one infer Q from
premises P and P Q.
Bayesians propose additional standards of synchronic coherence -- standards of
probabilistic coherence -- and additional rules of inference -- probabilistic rules of
inference -- in both cases, to apply not to beliefs, but degrees of belief (degrees of
confidence). For Bayesians, the most important standards of probabilistic coherence are
the laws of probability. For more on the laws of probability, see the following
supplementary article:

Supplement on Probability Laws

For Bayesians, the most important probabilistic rule of inference is given by a principle
of conditionalization.
2. A Simple Principle of Conditionalization
If unconditional probabilities (e.g. P(S)) are taken as primitive, the conditional
probability of S on T can be defined as follows:
Conditional Probability:
P(S/T) = P(S&T)/P(T).
By itself, the definition of conditional probability is of little epistemological
significance. It acquires epistemological significance only in conjunction with a further
epistemological assumption:
Simple Principle of Conditionalization:
If one begins with initial or prior probabilities Pi, and one acquires new evidence which
can be represented as becoming certain of an evidentiary statement E (assumed to state
the totality of one's new evidence and to have initial probability greater than zero), then
rationality requires that one systematically transform one's initial probabilities to
generate final or posterior probabilities Pf by conditionalizing on E -- that is: Where S is
any statement, Pf(S) = Pi(S/E).[1]
In epistemological terms, this Simple Principle of Conditionalization requires that the
effects of evidence on rational degrees be analyzed in two stages: The first is non-
inferential. It is the change in the probability of the evidence statement E from Pi(E),
assumed to be greater than zero and less than one, to Pf(E) = 1. The second is a
probabilistic inference of conditionalizing on E from initial probabilities (e.g., Pi(S)) to
final probabilities (e.g., Pf(S) = Pi(S/E)).
Problems with the Simple Principle (to be discussed below) have led many Bayesians to
qualify the Simple Principle by limiting its scope. In addition, some Bayesians follow
Jeffrey in generalizing the Simple Principle to apply to cases in which one's new
evidence is less than certain (also discussed below). What unifies Bayesian
epistemology is a conviction that conditionalizing (perhaps of a generalized sort) is
rationally required in some important contexts -- that is, that some sort of
conditionalization principle is an important principle governing rational changes in
degrees of belief.

3. Dutch Book Arguments

Many arguments have been given for regarding the probability laws as coherence
conditions on degrees of belief and for taking some principle of conditionalization to be
a rule of probabilistic inference. The most distinctively Bayesian are those referred to as
Dutch Book Arguments. Dutch Book Arguments represent the possibility of a new kind
of justification for epistemological principles.
A Dutch Book Argument relies on some descriptive or normative assumptions to
connect degrees of belief with willingness to wager -- for example, a person with degree
of belief p in sentence S is assumed to be willing to pay up to and including $p for a
unit wager on S (i.e., a wager that pays $1 if S is true) and is willing to sell such a wager
for any price equal to or greater than $p (one is assumed to be equally willing to buy or
sell such a wager when the price is exactly $p).[2] A Dutch Book is a combination of
wagers which, on the basis of deductive logic alone, can be shown to entail a sure loss.
A synchronic Dutch Book is a Dutch Book combination of wagers that one would
accept all at the same time. A diachronic Dutch Book is a Dutch Book combination of
wagers that one will be motivated to enter into at different times.

Ramsey and de Finetti first employed synchronic Dutch Book Arguments in support of
the probability laws as standards of synchronic coherence for degrees of belief. The first
diachronic Dutch Book Argument in support of a principle of conditionalization was
reported by Teller, who credited David Lewis. The Lewis/Teller argument depends on a
further descriptive or normative assumption about conditional probabilities due to de
Finetti: An agent with conditional probability P(S/T) = p is assumed to be willing to pay
any price up to and including $p for a unit wager on S conditional on T. (A unit wager
on S conditional on T is one that is called off, with the purchase price returned to the
purchaser, if T is not true. If T is true, the wager is not called off and the wager pays $1
if S is also true.) On this interpretation of conditional probabilities, Lewis, as reported
by Teller, was able to show how to construct a diachronic Dutch Book against anyone
who, on learning only that T, would predictably change his/her degree of belief in S to
Pf(S) > Pi(S/T); and how to construct a diachronic Dutch Book against anyone who, on
learning only that T, would predictably change his/her degree of belief in S to Pf(S) <
Pi(S/T). For illustrations of the strategy of the Ramsey/de Finetti and the Lewis/Teller
arguments, see the following supplementary article:

Supplement on Dutch Book Arguments

There has been much discussion of exactly what it is that Dutch Book Arguments are
supposed to show. On the literal-minded interpretation, their significance is that they
show that those whose degrees of belief violate the probability laws or those whose
probabilistic inferences predictably violate a principle of conditionalization are liable to
enter into wagers on which they are sure to lose. There is very little to be said for the
literal-minded interpretation, because there is no basis for claiming that rationality
requires that one be willing to wager in accordance with the behavioral assumptions
described above. An agent could simply refuse to accept Dutch Book combinations of
wagers.
A more plausible interpretation of Dutch Book Arguments is that they are to be
understood hypothetically, as symptomatic of what has been termed pragmatic self-
defeat. On this interpretation, Dutch Book Arguments are a kind of heuristic for
determining when one's degrees of belief have the potential to be pragmatically self-
defeating. The problem is not that one who violates the Bayesian constraints is likely to
enter into a combination of wagers that constitute a Dutch Book, but that, on any
reasonable way of translating one's degrees of belief into action, there is a potential for
one's degrees of belief to motivate one to act in ways that make things worse than they
might have been, when, as a matter of logic alone, it can be determined that alternative
actions would have made things better (on one's own evaluations of better and worse).

Another way of understanding the problem of susceptibility to a Dutch Book is due to

Ramsey: Someone who is susceptible to a Dutch Book evaluates identical bets
differently based on how they are described. Putting it this way makes susceptibility to
Dutch Books sound irrational. But this standard of rationality would make it irrational
not to recognize all the logical consequences of what one believes. This is the
assumption of logical omniscience (discussed below).

If successful, Dutch Book Arguments would reduce the justification of the principles of
Bayesian epistemology to two elements: (1) an account of the appropriate relationship
between degrees of belief and choice; and (2) the laws of deductive logic. Because it
would seem that the truth about the appropriate relationship between the degrees of
belief and choice is independent of epistemology, Dutch Book Arguments hold out the
potential of justifying the principles of Bayesian epistemology in a way that requires no
other epistemological resources than the laws of deductive logic. For this reason, it
makes sense to think of Dutch Book Arguments as indirect, pragmatic arguments for
according the principles of Bayesian epistemology much the same epistemological
status as the laws of deductive logic. Dutch Book Arguments are a truly distinctive
contribution made by Bayesians to the methodology of epistemology.

It should also be mentioned that some Bayesians have defended their principles more
directly, with non-pragmatic arguments. In addition to reporting Lewis's Dutch Book
Argument, Teller offers a non-pragmatic defense of Conditionalization. There have
been many proposed non-pragmatic defenses of the probability laws, the most
compelling of which is due to Joyce. All such defenses, whether pragmatic or non-
pragmatic, produce a puzzle for Bayesian epistemology: The principles of Bayesian
epistemology are typically proposed as principles of inductive reasoning. But if the
principles of Bayesian epistemology depend ultimately for their justification solely on
the laws of deductive logic, what reason is there to think that they have any inductive
content? That is to say, what reason is there to believe that they do anything more than
extend the laws of deductive logic from beliefs to degrees of belief? It should be
mentioned, however, that even if Bayesian epistemology only extended the laws of
deductive logic to degrees of belief, that alone would represent an extremely important
advance in epistemology.

4. Bayes' Theorem and Bayesian Confirmation Theory

This section reviews some of the most important results in the Bayesian analysis of
scientific practice -- Bayesian Confirmation Theory. It is assumed that all statements to
be evaluated have prior probability greater than zero and less than one.
Bayes' Theorem and a Corollary
Bayes' Theorem is a straightforward consequence of the probability axioms and the
definition of conditional probability:

Bayes' Theorem:
P(S/T) = P(T/S) × P(S)/P(T) [where P(T) is assumed to be greater than zero]
The epistemological significance of Bayes' Theorem is that it provides a straightforward
corollary to the Simple Principle of Conditionalization. Where the final probability of a
hypothesis H is generated by conditionalizing on evidence E, Bayes' Theorem provides
a formula for the final probability of H in terms of the prior or initial likelihood of H on
E (Pi(E/H)) and the prior or initial probabilities of H and E:
Corollary of the Simple Principle of Conditionalization:
Pf(H) = Pi(H/E) = Pi(E/H) × Pi(H)/Pi(E).
Due to the influence of Bayesianism, likelihood is now a technical term of art in
confirmation theory. As used in this technical sense, likelihoods can be very useful.
Often, when the conditional probability of H on E is in doubt, the likelihood of H on E
can be computed from the theoretical assumptions of H.

Bayesian Confirmation Theory

A. Confirmation and disconfirmation. In Bayesian Confirmation Theory, it is said that
evidence confirms (or would confirm) hypothesis H (to at least some degree) just in
case the prior probability of H conditional on E is greater than the prior unconditional
probability of H: Pi(H/E) > Pi(H). E disconfirms (or would disconfirm) H if the prior
probability of H conditional on E is less than the prior unconditional probability of H.
B. Confirmation and disconfirmation by entailment. Whenever a hypothesis H logically
entails evidence E, E confirms H. This follows from the fact that to determine the truth
of E is to rule out a possibility assumed to have non-zero prior probability that is
incompatible with H -- the possibility that ~E. A corollary is that, where H entails E, ~E
would disconfirm H, by reducing its probability to zero. The most influential model of
explanation in science is the hypothetico-deductive model (e.g., Hempel). Thus, one of
the most important sources of support for Bayesian Confirmation Theory is that it can
explain the role of hypothetico-deductive explanation in confirmation.

C. Confirmation of logical equivalents. If two hypotheses H1 and H2 are logically

equivalent, then evidence E will confirm both equally. This follows from the fact that
logically equivalent statements always are assigned the same probability.

D. The confirmatory effect of surprising or diverse evidence. From the corollary above,
it follows that whether E confirms (or disconfirms) H depends on whether E is more
probable (or less probable) conditional on H than it is unconditionally -- that is, on
whether:

(b1) P(E/H)/P(E) > 1.

An intuitive way of understanding (b1) is to say that it states that E would be more
expected (or less surprising) if it were known that H were true. So if E is surprising, but
would not be surprising if we knew H were true, then E will significantly confirm H.
Thus, Bayesians explain the tendency of surprising evidence to confirm hypotheses on
which the evidence would be expected.
Similarly, because it is reasonable to think that evidence E1 makes other evidence of the
same kind much more probable, after E1 has been determined to be true, other evidence
of the same kind E2 will generally not confirm hypothesis H as much as other diverse
evidence E3, even if H is equally likely on both E2 and E3. The explanation is that
where E1 makes E2 much more probable than E3 (Pi(E2/E1) >> Pi(E3/E1), there is less
potential for the discovery that E2 is true to raise the probability of H than there is for
the discovery that E3 is true to do so.

E. Relative confirmation and likelihood ratios. Often it is important to be able to

compare the effect of evidence E on two competing hypotheses, Hj and Hk, without
having also to consider its effect on other hypotheses that may not be so easy to
formulate or to compare with Hj and Hk. From the first corollary above, the ratio of the
final probabilities of Hj and Hk would be given by:

Ratio Formula:
Pf(Hj)/Pf(Hk) = [Pi(E/Hj) × Pi(Hj)]/[Pi(E/Hk) × Pi(Hk)]
If the odds of Hj relative to Hk are defined as ratio of their probabilities, then from the
Ratio Formula it follows that, in a case in which change in degrees of belief results from
conditionalizing on E, the final odds (Pf(Hj)/Pf(Hk)) result from multiplying the initial
odds (Pi(Hj)/Pi(Hk)) by the likelihood ratio (Pi(E/Hj)/Pi(E/Hk)). Thus, in pairwise
comparisons of the odds of hypotheses, the likelihood ratio is the crucial determinant of
the effect of the evidence on the odds.
F. The typical differential effect of positive evidence and negative evidence. Hempel
first pointed out that we typically expect the hypothesis that all ravens are black to be
confirmed to some degree by the observation of a black raven, but not by the
observation of a non-black, non-raven. Let H be the hypothesis that all ravens are black.
Let E1 describe the observation of a non-black, non-raven. Let E2 describe the
observation of a black raven. Bayesian Confirmation Theory actually holds that both E1
and E2 may provide some confirmation for H. Recall that E1 supports H just in case
Pi(E1/H)/Pi(E1) > 1. It is plausible to think that this ratio is ever so slightly greater than
one. On the other hand, E2 would seem to provide much greater confirmation to H,
because, in this example, it would be expected that Pi(E2/H)/Pi(E2) >>
Pi(E1/H)/Pi(E1).

These are only a sample of the results that have provided support for Bayesian
Confirmation Theory as a theory of rational inference for science. For further examples,
see Howson and Urbach. It should also be mentioned that an important branch of
statistics, Bayesian statistics is based on the principles of Bayesian epistemology.

5. Potential Problems
This section reviews some of the most important potential problems for Bayesian
Confirmation Theory and for Bayesian epistemology generally. No attempt is made to
evaluate their seriousness here, though there is no generally agreed upon Bayesian
solution to any of them.
5.1 Objections to the Probability Laws as Standards of Synchronic Coherence
A. The assumption of logical omniscience. The assumption that degrees of belief satisfy
the probability laws implies omniscience about deductive logic, because the probability
laws require that all deductive logical truths have probability one, all deductive
inconsistencies have probability zero, and the probability of any conjunction of
sentences be no greater than any of its deductive consequences. This seems to be an
unrealistic standard for human beings. Hacking and Garber have made proposals to
relax the assumption of logical omniscience. Because relaxing that assumption would
block the derivation of almost all the important results in Bayesian epistemology, most
Bayesians maintain the assumption of logical omniscience and treat it as an ideal to
which human beings can only more or less approximate.
B. The problem of the priors. Are there constraints on prior probabilities other than the
probability laws? Consider Goodman's "new riddle of induction": In the past all
observed emeralds have been green. Do those observations provide any more support
for the generalization that all emeralds are green than they do for the generalization that
all emeralds are grue (green if observed before now; blue if observed later); or do they
provide any more support for the prediction that the next emerald observed will be
green than for the prediction that the next emerald observed will be grue (i.e., blue)?
This question divides Bayesians into two categories:

(a) Objective Bayesians (e.g., Rosenkrantz) hold that there are rational constraints on
prior probabilities that require that observations support the green-generalization and the
green-prediction much more strongly than the grue-generalization and the grue-
prediction. Objective Bayesians are the intellectual heirs of the advocates of a Principle
of Indifference for probability. Rosenkrantz builds his account on the maximum entropy
rule proposed by E.T. Jaynes. The difficulties in formulating an acceptable Principle of
Indifference have led most Bayesians to abandon Objective Bayesianism.
(b) Subjective Bayesians (e.g., de Finetti) do not believe that rationality alone places
enough constraints on one's prior probabilities to make them objective. For Subjective
Bayesians, it is up to our own free choice or to evolution or to socialization or some
other non-rational process to determine one's prior probabilities. Rationality only
requires that the prior probabilities satisfy relatively modest synchronic coherence
conditions.

Subjective Bayesians believe that their position is not objectionably subjective, because
of results (e.g., Doob or Gaifman and Snir) proving that even subjects beginning with
very different prior probabilities will tend to converge in their final probabilities, given
a suitably long series of shared observations. These convergence results are not
completely reassuring, however, because they only apply to agents who already have
significant agreement in their priors and they do not assure convergence in any
reasonable amount of time. Also, they typically only guarantee convergence on the
probability of predictions, not on the probability of theoretical hypotheses. For example,
Carnap favored prior probabilities that would never raise above zero the probability of a
generalization over a potentially infinite number of instances (e.g., that all crows are
black), no matter how many observations of positive instances (e.g., black crows) one
might make without finding any negative instances (i.e., non-black crows). In addition,
the convergence results depend on the assumption that the only changes in probabilities
that occur are those that are the non-inferential results of observation on evidential
statements and those that result from conditionalization on such evidential statements.
Because of the problem of the priors, it is an open question whether Bayesian
Confirmation Theory has inductive content, or whether it merely translates the
framework for rational belief provided by deductive logic into a corresponding
framework for rational degrees of belief.

5.2 Objections to The Simple Principle of Conditionalization as a Rule of Inference,

Especially as an Explanation of Theory Confirmation in Science
A. The problem of uncertain evidence. The Simple Principle of Conditionalization
requires that the acquisition of evidence be representable as changing one's degree of
belief in a statement E to one -- that is, to certainty. But many philosophers would
object to assigning probability of one to any contingent statement, even an evidential
statement, because, for example, it is well-known that scientists sometimes give up
previously accepted evidence. Jeffrey has proposed a generalization of the Principle of
Conditionalization that yields that principle as a special case. Jeffrey's idea is that what
is crucial about observation is not that it yields certainty, but that it generates a non-
inferential change in the probability of an evidential statement E and its negation ~E
(assumed to be the locus of all the non-inferential changes in probability) from initial
probabilities between zero and one to Pf(E) and Pf(~E) = [1 Pf(E)]. Then on Jeffrey's
account, after the observation, the rational degree of belief to place in an hypothesis H
would be given by the following principle:

Principle of Jeffrey Conditionalization:

Pf(H) = Pi(H/E) × Pf(E) + Pi(H/~E) × Pf(~E) [where E and H are both assumed to have
prior probabilities between zero and one]
Counting in favor of Jeffrey's Principle is its theoretical elegance. Counting against it is
the practical problem that it requires that one be able to completely specify the direct
non-inferential effects of an observation, something it is doubtful that anyone has ever
done. Skyrms has given it a Dutch Book defense.

B. The problem of old evidence. On a Bayesian account, the effect of evidence E in

confirming (or disconfirming) a hypothesis is solely a function of the increase in
probability that accrues to E when it is first determined to be true. This raises the
following puzzle for Bayesian Confirmation Theory discussed extensively by Glymour:
Suppose that E is an evidentiary statement that has been known for some time -- that is,
that it is old evidence; and suppose that H is a scientific theory that has been under
consideration for some time. One day it is discovered that H implies E. In scientific
practice, the discovery that H implied E would typically be taken to provide some
degree of confirmatory support for H. But Bayesian Confirmation Theory seems unable
to explain how a previously known evidentiary statement E could provide any new
support for H. For conditionalization to come into play, there must be a change in the
probability of the evidence statement E. Where E is old evidence, there is no change in
its probability. Some Bayesians who have tried to solve this problem (e.g., Garber) have
typically tried to weaken the logical omniscience assumption to allow for the possibility
of discovering logical relations (e.g., that H and suitable auxiliary assumptions imply
E). As mentioned above, relaxing the logical omniscience assumption threatens to block
the derivation of almost all of the important results in Bayesian epistemology, so there
is no general agreement among Bayesians on how to solve this problem. Other
Bayesians (e.g., Lange) employ the Bayesian formalism as a tool in the rational
reconstruction of the evidentiary support for a scientific hypothesis, where it is
irrelevant to the rational reconstruction whether the evidence was discovered before or
after the theory was initially formulated.

C. The problem of rigid conditional probabilities. When one conditionalizes, one applies
the initial conditional probabilities to determine final unconditional probabilities.
Throughout, the conditional probabilities themselves do not change; they remain rigid.
Examples of the Problem of Old Evidence are but one of a variety of cases in which it
seems that it can be rational to change one's initial conditional probabilities. Thus, many
Bayesians reject the Simple Principle of Conditionalization in favor of a qualified
principle, limited to situations in which one does not change one's initial conditional
probabilities. There is no generally accepted account of when it is rational to maintain
rigid initial conditional probabilities and when it is not.

D. The problem of prediction vs. accommodation. Related to the problem of Old

Evidence is the following potential problem: Consider two different scenarios. In the
first, theory H was developed in part to accommodate (i.e., to imply) some previously
known evidence E. In the second, theory H was developed at a time when E was not
known. It was because E was derived as a prediction from H that a test was performed
and E was found to be true. It seems that E's being true would provide a greater degree
of confirmation for H if the truth of E had been predicted by H than if H had been
developed to accommodate the truth of E. There is no general agreement among
Bayesians about how to resolve this problem. Some (e.g., Horwich) argue that
Bayesianism implies that there is no important difference between prediction and
accommodation, and try to defend that implication. Others (e.g., Maher) argue that there
is a way to understand Bayesianism so as to explain why there is an important
difference between prediction and accommodation.

E. The problem of new theories. Suppose that there is one theory H1 that is generally
regarded as highly confirmed by the available evidence E. It is possible that simply the
introduction of an alternative theory H2 can lead to an erosion of H1's support. It is
plausible to think that Copernicus' introduction of the heliocentric hypothesis had this
effect on the previously unchallenged Ptolemaic earth-centered astronomy. This sort of
change cannot be explained by conditionalization. It is for this reason that many
Bayesians prefer to focus on probability ratios of hypotheses (see the Ratio Formula
above), rather than their absolute probability; but it is clear that the introduction of a
new theory could also alter the probability ratio of two hypotheses -- for example, if it
implied one of them as a special case.

6. Other Principles of Bayesian Epistemology

Other principles of Bayesian epistemology have been proposed, but none has garnered
anywhere near a majority of support among Bayesians. The most important proposals
are merely mentioned here. It is beyond the scope of this entry to discuss them in any
detail.
A. Other principles of synchronic coherence. Are the probability laws the only standards
of synchronic coherence for degrees of belief? Van Fraassen has proposed an additional
principle (Reflection or Special Reflection), which he now regards as a special case of
an even more general principle (General Reflection).[3]

B. Other probabilistic rules of inference. There seem to be at least two different

concepts of probability: the probability that is involved in degrees of belief (epistemic
or subjective probability) and the probability that is involved in random events, such as
the tossing of a coin (chance). De Finetti thought this was a mistake and that there was
only one kind of probability, subjective probability. For Bayesians who believe in both
kinds of probability, an important question is: What is (or should be) the relation
between them? The answer can be found in the various proposals for principles of direct
inference in the literature. Typically, principles of direct inference are proposed as
principles for inferring subjective or epistemic probabilities from beliefs about objective
chance (e.g., Pollock). Lewis reverses the direction of inference, and proposes to infer
beliefs about objective chance from subjective or epistemic probabilities, via his
(Reformulated) Principal Principle.[4]

C. Principles of rational acceptance. What is the relation between beliefs and degrees of
belief? Jeffrey proposes to give up the notion of belief (at least for empirical statements)
and make do with only degrees of belief. Other authors (e.g., Levi, Maher, Kaplan)
propose principles of rational acceptance as part of accounts of when it is rational to
accept a statement as true, not merely to regard it as probable.

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Other Internet Resources
[Please contact the author with suggestions]
Related Entries
Bayes' Theorem | logic: inductive | probability, interpretations of
Acknowledgements
In the preparation of this article, I have benefited from comments from Marc Lange,
Stephen Glaister, Laurence BonJour, and James Joyce.

Copyright © 2001
William Talbott
wtalbott@u.washington.edu

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Epistemologia

Brian Ellis
THE NEW ESSENTIALISM AND THE SCIENTIFIC IMAGE
OF MANKIND

1. INTRODUCTION
There are two very different theories about how the laws of nature relate
to the world. On the first of these, the world is made up of intrinsically
passive objects obeying laws of nature which are externally imposed upon
them. On this theory, the laws of nature are contingent, and things of the
same kinds as those existing in this world might well exist in other
worlds where different laws of nature apply. On the second theory, the
world consists ultimately of things belonging to natural kinds whose
essential properties include all of their causal powers, capacities and
propensities. In such a world, the fundamental things are essentially
active and bound by their natures to exercise their powers. This second
theory entails that the laws of nature are immanent in the world, and
that the things in it could not possibly have existed in other worlds with
different laws affecting their behaviour.
The first of these two theories is currently the most widely accepted, as
indeed it has been since at least the Seventeenth Century. The second is
an essentialist viewpoint of a kind which has not been strongly advocated
since classical times. There is, however, good reason now to take the
essentialist viewpoint seriously. For we have reason to believe in the
existence of strict natural kinds of both objects and processes, and
therefore in things having essential natures — as the essentialist theory
requires. We also have reason to believe that the essential properties of
things, i.e. those properties in virtue of which they are things of the
natural kinds they are, always include at least some causal powers,
capacities or propensities which determine how things of these kinds are
intrinsically disposed to behave.
It is impossible in the space of a brief paper to defend the new
essentialism adequately. Aspects of the thesis have been defended in a
number of other places, and the new essentialist theory, which I call
‘scientific essentialism’ is the subject of a book-length study which I
hope to publish shortly1. Here my aim is to consider the impact which the
new essentialism must have on the
scientific image of mankind, and to argue that the manifest image of
ourselves is much more easily accommodated to the new essentialist theory
than it is to the more traditional neo-mechanistic one.
Specifically, I wish to argue that the image we have of ourselves as
thinking, more or less rational beings, who are capable of acting
according to our beliefs and considered desires, is one which requires a
scientific image of ourselves as active beings, with causal powers to act
in accordance with our considered wishes, and with meta-causal powers to
change our priorities, if we
should see fit to do so. The view that the mental processes which are
involved in all such deliberations are really just physical processes
involving only essentially passive objects behaving as the universal laws
of God or Nature dictate lies uneasily with this self-image. Scientific
essentialism can give a much better account of the processes involved in
choosing to act in one way rather than another.

2. THE MANIFEST AND THE SCIENTIFIC IMAGES

OF THE WORLD
Wilfrid Sellars [1963] speaks of two very different images of reality. He
calls them the ‘manifest’ and the ‘scientific’ images. The manifest image
is the view of ourselves, the world, and of our place in it, which derives
from common experience, and from critical reflection on such experience.
The scientific image is the view of reality which derives from science,
when its laws and theories are understood realistically. The two images
are not obviously compatible. The scientific image, as it is presented to
us by scientific realists, is objective, but seemingly dead and
impoverished; the other, the manifest image, is often held to be dependent
somehow on us as observers (or thinkers, or language-users), but it is a
rich image, inhabited by living creatures, and things with genuine causal
powers.
The scientific image of Seventeenth Century mechanism was of a passive
world consisting entirely of atoms which, in themselves, were neither
coloured nor colourless, hot nor cold, sweet nor bitter, nor any other
perceptible quality. The atoms, of which all things were thought to be
composed were supposed to be infinitely hard and impenetrable, but, apart
from their impenetrability, they were thought to have only the mechanical
properties of shape, size, and (sometimes) mass, and the capacity to move
or change orientation when pushed. According to E.A. Burtt [1932], the
mechanistic world was one that was ‘hard, cold, colourless, silent, and
dead; a world of quantity, a world of mathematically computable motions in
mechanical regularity’ (p. 237). The manifest image, by contrast, was not
passive, but inhabited by things having real causal powers, and by living,
thinking, experiencing, conscious beings whose actions were often
intentional, and intended to shape the world around them to suit their
purposes. The world of our experience could not, it seemed, be reduced to
events occurring in the dead mechanistic world of science.
The most common response of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century
philosophers to this problem was to divide the world into mental and
physical components. Mental events were thought to be essentially
different from physical events, to occur in different substances, and
occupy different realms. Science was taken as providing a description of
the physical world, but not of the world of our experience. We are
ourselves not even in the scientific picture, they thought. The scientific
account of reality would include descriptions of our bodies, perhaps, but
it could not also include descriptions of our inner selves or of our
experiences.
Such dualism did not solve the problem. If the material universe consisted
of one kind of substance (having the primary characteristics of matter in
a mechanistic world), but the human mind was made of a different kind of
substance (having the capacities for experiencing, thinking, deciding,
willing, and so on), then what is the relationship between the two? How
can physical
events produce mental events (e.g. in perception), or mental events
produce physical ones (e.g. in acts of will)? In which domain do the
answers to these questions lie? Dualism thus created at least as many
problems as it solved. It removed the need to provide a mechanistic theory
of mind, but it provided no clue what an alternative theory would be like,
or how its processes would be
related to the mechanisms of the body.
Dualism may not be acceptable, but the scientific image, as it is
presented to us by scientific realists today is also unacceptable. It is
so because it presents an essentially Humean view of causation, and has no
natural place within it for many of those most human qualities and
capacities which inform the manifest image we have of ourselves as
rational agents observing and responding to each other, and to the world
around us. So, the big question is: how can these two very different
images of reality be reconciled.
Of all of the problems of philosophy, this is perhaps the most
intractable. It cannot be solved just by focussing on the manifest image,
and attempting to articulate it. Nor can it be solved by resolutely
attending to the nature of scientific inquiry, and ignoring its
relationship to ordinary human experience. The two images must somehow be
brought together, so that each can be seen in relationship to the other
for what it is. The scientific image is far too powerful to be dismissed
as a fabrication, with no implications for our conception of ourselves. On
the other hand, the particular scientific image which has dominated
Anglo-American philosophy since the Eighteenth Century seems too bare and
passive to yield even a satisfactory account of causation. And it is quite
manifestly inadequate to provide a sound basis for understanding human
experience.
It will be argued here that the scientific image, as it has traditionally
been portrayed by philosophers, is much more impoverished than it needs to
be. For it represents what is still really an Eighteenth Century view of
the world. It does this by portraying inanimate nature as intrinsically
passive, and therefore as being prima facie incapable of acting, except
under the influence of external forces2. To bring the two images closer
together, the scientific image needs to be updated. Specifically, it has
to be recognised that the natural world is not intrinsically passive, but
essentially active and interactive.
Scientific essentialism is a metaphysic in which this fact about nature is
recognised as being fundamental. It is a metaphysic which promises to
create a scientific image of the world which is very different from the
Humean one which mostly dominates the thinking of scientific realists. The
scientific essentialist’s image is of an active world in which things have
intrinsic causal powers; it is not that of a passive world of the kind in
which Hume, his mechanistic predecessors, and his many followers believed
(and still believe). In an active world of the kind envisaged by
scientific essentialists, many things have causal powers, and many things
are therefore agents of one kind or another. So the power of agency is not
something unique to human beings, or other living creatures. It is a
pervasive feature of reality. This is not to say that human agency is not
something rather special: it clearly is. On the other hand, it is not as
alien to the essentialist’s view of the world as it is to the Humean one.

3. SCIENTIFIC ESSENTIALISM3
The fundamental thesis of scientific essentialism is that the world is
structured into hierarchies of natural kinds4 of objects and processes. It
is not an amorphous world on which we must somehow impose our own system
of categories. There is a pre-existing grid of objective categories, and
it is the aim of natural science to reveal and describe them.
The distinctions between the chemical elements, for example, are real and
absolute. There is no continuum of elementary chemical variety which we
must arbitrarily divide somehow into chemical elements. The distinctions
between the elements were there for us to discover, and the sharp
distinctions between them are guaranteed by the limited variety of quantum
mechanically possible atomic nuclei. Many of the distinctions between
kinds of physical and chemical processes are also real and absolute. There
is no continuum of processes within which the process of b-emission
occurs, and from which it must be arbitrarily distinguished. The world is
just not like that. At a fundamental level, the processes that occur often
allow real and absolute distinctions of kind to be made. Therefore, if
there are natural kinds of objects or substances, there are also natural
kinds of events and processes.
Scientific essentialism is thus concerned with natural kinds which range
over events or processes as well as with the more traditional sort which
range only over objects or substances. The natural kinds of these two
types evidently occur in natural hierarchies. At the apex of the
hierarchies, there are two very general natural kinds. The most general
natural kind in the category
of objects or substances includes every other natural kind of object or
substance that exists, or can exist, in our world. This is the global
kind, for our world, in this category. The most general kind in the
category of events is the global kind which includes every other natural
kind of event or process which occurs, or can occur, in the world.
Scientific essentialists argue that the most general laws of nature
describe the essential properties of these global kinds, and therefore
hold necessarily of all objects, or of all events and processes. The law
of conservation of energy, for example, states that every event or process
of this global kind is one that is intrinsically conservative of energy.
Hence, any event which was not intrinsically conservative of energy could
not be one of a kind that could occur in our world. The laws we think of
as causal laws are generally more specific in their direct application.
The laws of electromagnetism, for example, apply directly to all
electromagnetic radiation, and hold necessarily of all such radiation.
Therefore, if there is any radiation which is not propagated according to
these laws, it cannot possibly be electromagnetic.
A second fundamental tenet of scientific essentialism is its claim that
the essential properties of the most fundamental kinds of things are not
just the passive primary qualities of classical mechanism, but also
include a number of causal powers, capacities and propensities — powers to
act, and powers to interact5. In other words, the basic things in the
world are essentially active and dynamic. They are not just passive
objects obeying blindly the commands of God, as most Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Century philosophers believed; but things which have their own
internal dynamics, which are essential to their natures, and which are
determinative of their behaviour.
It is this second tenet of scientific essentialism which sets it apart
most strongly from other theories about the nature of reality.
The claim that the world is structured into hierarchies of natural kinds
of objects, and so on, could, in principle, be accepted by philosophers
who were otherwise sympathetic to mechanism. Things of different natural
kinds, they might say, are just things made up of different basic
ingredients, or of the same ingredients, but put together different ways.
But there is nothing in their natures, they would add, which requires that
they should behave in one way rather than another. How they are disposed
to behave, they would say, depends on what the laws of nature happen to
be.
Scientific essentialism rejects this claim. It denies that the things
existing in the world are as passive as this claim makes them out to be.
According to scientific essentialism, all things are essentially active
and reactive. At the most basic level, what they are intrinsically
disposed to do is what makes them the kinds of things they are. Things of
given kinds must always be disposed to behave in certain kinds of ways,
just by virtue of being things of these kinds. Their identities as members
of these kinds depends on their being so disposed to act.
If this thesis of scientific essentialism is correct, then the laws of
nature are not contingent, as nearly everyone else supposes, but
metaphysically necessary, and hence true in all possible worlds. That is,
it must be metaphysically impossible for things, constituted as they are,
to behave other than in accordance with the laws of nature. Even God
(assuming Him to exist and be all powerful) couldn’t make them behave
contrary to their natures. He might change their natures, perhaps, so that
they might become, or be replaced by, different kinds of things. But there
is no possible world in which things, constituted as they are, could
behave any differently. For them to behave differently, they would have to
be or become things of different kinds, or be made up of things of
different kinds.

4. ESSENTIALISM AND THE LAWS OF NATURE

With very few exceptions, modern philosophers of science have accepted
that the laws of nature are somehow imposed upon the world. Religious
people still think of them as the commands of God; the non-religious
generally think that it is a kind of cosmic accident that the laws are
what they are. The laws of nature happen inexplicably to be what they are,
they would say, but they could very well have been otherwise. Things with
mass happen to attract one another gravitationally, more or less as
Newton’s laws say they do, but these very same things, they would say,
constituted just as they are, might well have attracted each other in some
other way, if the laws of nature had been different. For example, they
might have attracted each other according to an inverse cube law, rather
than an inverse square one.
This paper is based on the scientific essentialist claim that the laws of
nature are immanent in the world, and derive from the essential natures of
the things it contains. They are, according to this viewpoint, not
externally imposed upon the world, as the divine command theory of laws
implies; nor are they just universal regularities which happen, as a
matter of unexplained fact, to
regulate the behaviour of things in the world (as Hume believed, and as
most Anglo-American philosophers still believe). The laws derive from the
essential natures of the natural kinds of things that exist. For example,
according to the new essentialism, it is not just a nomological accident,
or due to an arbitrary command of God, that hydrogen has the spectrum it
has. It is part of what it is
for a substance to be hydrogen that it should have such a spectrum. A
substance simply would not be hydrogen, if it were not naturally disposed
to display such a spectrum in appropriate circumstances.
To summarise: According to modern essentialism, the world consists
ultimately of things belonging to natural kinds. The members of these
kinds are distinguished by their essential properties and structures.
These essential properties and structures constitute the kind essences of
the members of these kinds. The kind essences of the most fundamental
kinds of things, include various causal powers, capacities and
propensities, i.e. properties which are essentially dispositional in
nature, implying dispositions to act or react in various ways, depending
on the circumstances. Traditionally, such properties have been thought to
be ontologically dependent on underlying categorical (i.e.
non-dispositional) properties, and on the laws of nature. According to the
new essentialism, however, at least some of these dispositional properties
are fundamental, and not dependent on any other properties. The
relationship of dependence between the causal powers and the laws of
nature is the other way around, scientific essentialists say, i.e. the
laws depend on the properties, not the properties on the laws.
If all this is right, then things belonging to natural kinds must be
naturally disposed to behave as these properties dictate.
Specifically, if P is a causal power which disposes its bearer to Ei in
circumstances Ci, and P is an essential property of things of the kind K,
then anything of the kind K must be disposed to Ei in circumstances Ci.
Indeed, it is part of what it is for anything to be a thing of the kind K
that it should be so disposed. For every such case, the following law
holds:
L1: For all x and i, necessarily, if x is a thing of the kind K, then x is
naturally disposed to Ei in circumstances Ci.
Note that the necessity operator falls within the scope of the universal
quantifier, and therefore in de re position. It is legitimate, therefore,
to instantiate L1 to
L2: Necessarily, if a is a thing of the kind K, then a is naturally
disposed to Ei in circumstances Ci.
Note also that if the individual essence of a thing includes its kind
essence6, as many are inclined to say it does, then, if we are in a
position to know that a is a thing of the kind K, we may detach and
conclude that:
Necessarily, a is naturally disposed to Ei in circumstances Ci.
The essentialist theory, according to which things are necessarily
disposed to act according to their natures, is not one which has been
widely accepted in modern times. One has to go all the way back to
Aristotle to find a truly notable defender of such a position. Yet,
essentialism is precisely the sort of theory that one would expect any
modern scientific realist to accept. For a realist would now be hard
pressed to make much sense of the passive, and intrinsically inert, world
on which the laws of nature are supposed to operate. The world, according
to modern science, seems not to be innately passive, as mechanism
requires, and modern Humeans presuppose, but fundamentally active and
reactive. It is certainly not a world of things having only the attributes
of extension and impenetrability, as Descartes’ and Locke’s worlds were.
Rather, it is a dynamic world consisting of more or less transient objects
which are constantly interacting with each other.
Moreover, the real defining characteristics of the most fundamental kinds
of things that we know about, e.g. things like protons and electrons,
would all appear to lie in their laws of interaction. Things of these
kinds would appear to have no real defining characteristics at all apart
from their causal roles. A proton, for example, might be defined (by way
of real definition) as any particle which behaves as protons do. For no
proton could possibly fail to behave in these ways, and no particle other
than a proton could possibly imitate this behaviour. Its identity, qua
proton, might thus be defined by its causal role. Similarly, one might say
that an electron is, by real definition, any particle for which the laws
of interaction are precisely those of electrons. Nothing other than an
electron could possibly behave in such a way, and whatever does behave in
this way has to be an electron. Again, a photon might really be defined as
being a quantum of electromagnetic energy which behaves as all such quanta
must. The kind identities of at least some of these more or less
fundamental things in the world would thus appear to depend simply on
their kind classifications and their distinctive causal roles. Whether
this is so or not, does not matter much here. But it is at least highly
implausible to suppose that the kind identities of these things are
independent of their causal roles, as Humeanism implies they must be.
If this speculation is right, then the laws concerning the behaviour of
protons, and their interactions, cannot be just accidental, i.e. laws
which could well have been otherwise. On the contrary, it is essential to
the nature of a proton that it should be disposed to interact with things
of various kinds precisely as it does. The proton’s causal powers,
capacities and propensities, therefore, are, on this conception, not just
amongst the accidental properties of protons, which depend on what the
laws of nature happen to be, but amongst their essential properties,
without which there would be no protons, and which protons could not lose
without ceasing to exist. The traditional view that the laws of particle
physics are imposed on intrinsically passive things which have
kind-identities which are independent of the laws of their behaviour is
thus implausible from the point of view of modern science. Essentialism is
a much more plausible position to take.

5. CASUAL POWERS AND AGENCY

Most philosophers today believe that the question of what causes what
ultimately depends on what universal regularities hold. In Hume’s original
theory, A is said to be the cause of B, if and only if, A precedes B, A is
contiguous (both spatially and temporally) with B, and events of the kind
A are regularly followed by events of the kind B. This theory is called
the ‘regularity
theory’ of causation. On Hume’s original theory, there are no genuine
causal powers. An effect is not something which is somehow necessitated or
brought about by its cause; it is just an event of a kind which happens to
follow with universal regularity on events of the kind to which the cause
belongs. Those who postulate that there are causal powers inherent in
objects which are displayed in causal processes are accused of trading in
obscurities. According to Hume, there are no such things as causal powers,
and causes do not necessitate their effects.
Hume’s theory thus creates a problem for anyone who wishes to account for
human agency. If Hume is right, then our conscious decision-making
processes, and the actions which we say stem from them, must all be
understood in terms of regularities, constant conjunctions, and the like,
concerning which we, as conscious beings, can be nothing other than
introspective spectators. But this is clearly not how they are in the
manifest image we have of ourselves. We do not see ourselves as being in
such a passive role.
Rather, we see ourselves as acting, and doing things for reasons. We see
our processes of deliberation as ones which are thoroughly under our
control, and which we can continue, suspend, or eventually act upon.
Acceptance of a Humean theory of causation thus makes it very difficult
for anyone even to suggest a plausible theory of human agency.
More recent accounts of causation which belong to the Humean tradition are
not, of course, all the same as Hume’s. But most modern theories of
causation which depend on counterfactual analyses, are not really very
different from Hume’s. They are all agreed that a case of causation is
ultimately just an instance of a universal generalisation. They disagree
with each other mainly
about the nature and status of this generalisation. But more importantly,
from our point of view, they all cast the agent into the role of spectator
to his or her own decision-making processes.
Scientific essentialism turns all this on its head. For a scientific
essentialist, all effects are displays of causal powers, or due indirectly
to such displays, (as is the darkening of the room when the blinds are
pulled). Effects are not just events which happen to follow the triggering
of causal powers; they are (or are consequences of) their manifestations.
If the mousetrap is not set off by
the taking of the cheese, then presumably the disturbance was not
sufficient to release the causal power latent in the spring. Unless there
are extraordinary defeating circumstances, there can be no question of the
catch being released and the mousetrap not snapping shut. Such an unlikely
event could only occur if something were to intervene to prevent the
mousetrap snapping shut.
In the absence of any such defeaters, the mouse will be a dead mouse.
The most elementary kinds of things all have fixed causal powers, i.e.
their dispositional properties are all fixed by their essential natures. A
copper atom, for example, has the same dispositional properties wherever
or whenever it might occur. The same is true of a proton or an electron.
They are things which belong to what might be termed ‘fixed natural
kinds’. Their distinguishing feature is that you cannot change any of
their dispositional properties. They do what things of these kinds always
do, and you cannot teach them any new tricks. There can be no question of
a copper atom, for example, being disposed to behave in one way at one
time, but in a different way at another time. Nothing with such variable
powers could possibly be a copper atom.
For fixed natural kinds there are universal laws of action. These laws are
the causal laws. According to the new essentialism, all such laws are
metaphysically necessary. They are metaphysically necessary, because
things of these kinds have all of their dispositional properties
essentially, and therefore could not possibly behave in ways other than as
these properties dictate. The laws of chemical combination, for example,
are causal laws which are necessary in this sense, as are the laws
governing the behaviour of the fundamental particles. Things of these
kinds must be disposed to behave as they do, because their identities as
things of these kinds depend on their being so disposed.
As we ascend to more complex structures, we find that things which
plausibly still belong to natural kinds have more variable dispositional
properties. A piece of iron, for example, is plausibly a member of a
natural kind, the members of which are all essentially crystalline
structures of metallic iron. But pieces of iron can become fatigued, and
hence brittle, or they may become magnetised, and hence acquire a capacity
to attract other pieces of iron, generate electric currents, and so on. So
pieces of iron may gain or lose causal powers, depending on their
histories or circumstances.
Such changes in the causal powers of a thing do not normally add up to a
change of essential nature. For the essential nature of a thing belonging
to a natural kind is just the core set of its causal powers, capacities,
structures, and so on, in virtue of which it is a member of the kind. Any
intrinsic properties or structures which a thing may either gain or lose
while yet remaining a member of the kind are properties or structures
which it has only accidentally.
At the next stage of organisational complexity, it seems that things may
not only acquire or lose dispositional properties, accidentally, as it
were, they may also gain or lose them by the exercise of higher powers of
control, i.e. by the exercise of meta-powers. How meta-powers arise in the
first place, I am not able to say. But that such powers exist seems
evident enough from our own case. When someone acts to do something, they
display a certain, perhaps very temporary, disposition. In at least some
cases, this disposition results from an internal process of deliberation,
a process which always involves the exercise of meta-powers. A deliberate
action is not just an event of a kind which happens regularly to follow
when intentional states of mind of a certain kind come into being. It is
something that is done by the agent as a result of an intentional state of
mind which is itself brought about by the agent, viz. by deliberation.
Thus, it seems that human beings not only have variable dispositional
properties, as most complex systems have, but also meta-powers, i.e.
powers to change dispositional properties. Other animals, no doubt, have
similar meta-powers, but that such powers exist, and are exercised, seems
quite evident from our own case. We exercise such meta-powers whenever we
deliberate about what to do, and we call any action which may result from
this process a deliberate act of will.
Scientific essentialism thus promises to reshape the scientific image of
man. It promises to do so in a way which will bring the scientific and
manifest images of ourselves closer together. For it deals with one aspect
of the apparent conflict between them by providing a scientific image of
human agency, an image which bears enough resemblance to its manifest
counterpart for it to be
taken seriously as telling us what human agency really is. If scientific
essentialism is accepted, then human agency could be accepted as the
manifest image of actions brought about by people exercising their
meta-causal powers, i.e. their powers of control.
But what of consciousness, thoughts, beliefs, desires, and the other
mental phenomena, which have traditionally been seen by scientific
realists as problematic? My hypothesis is that these are all
manifestations of aspects of things referred to in the kind of dynamic
scientific image of man which the essentialist perspective generates. If
this is so, then the problem for science is to identify the
neuro-physiological processes or structures which are our thoughts,
beliefs, desires and so on. Many years ago, J.J.C. Smart and U.T. Place
made the philosophically bold claim that sensations are brain processes of
certain kinds. I think that this claim was correct. But it is far less
plausible to suppose that thinking, believing, desiring, and consciousness
itself, can be identified with brain processes, if the brain processes of
which they are supposed to be manifestations are just regularities in the
behaviour of brain tissues which are essentially inert or passive.
For a Humean, the problem of identifying neuro-physiological bases for
passive things like sensations, the having of which would seem to require
no action on our part (other than keeping our eyes open, and things like
that), is not acute. The problem for Humeans is much greater, however, if
they are seeking to identify the neuro-physiological bases for those
mental activities which appear in the manifest image to be more or less
under our control. It is even more acute for consciousness itself, which
is germane to all human experience.
If human agency is, as I would suppose, the exercising of our meta-powers
to alter our own dispositions to act in one way rather than another, then
it follows that we must be able to monitor our mental processes, including
our thinking, believing, desiring, and so on. That is, we must have a kind
of second-order or meta-perception, or ability to know directly by
experience something of what is going on in our own heads when we are
engaged in any of these activities. The neuro-physiological basis for this
meta-perception must be something like a meta-level neuro-physiological
process which scans the first-order processes involved in our various
mental activities, including, it seems the activity of scanning.
Consciousness, I would think, is such a meta-level scanning process.
Department of History and Philosophy of Science
The University of Melbourne, Victoria (Australia)

NOTES
1 The book is Scientific Essentialism. The papers referred to include
Ellis [1996, 1998, 1999a, 1999b, 1999c, and forthcoming], Bigelow, Ellis
and Lierse [1992], and Ellis and Lierse
[1994].
2 Internal forces are really just external forces acting between the parts
of things.
3 For a summary of some of the main theses of scientific essentialism, see
Appendix A.
4 For an explication of the concept of natural kind that is used in this
paper, see Appendix B.
5 David Armstrong [1999] argues that such intrinsic causal powers are
Meinongian properties, and thus objectionable. In principle, he says,
there could be causal powers which happen never to be exercised. If such
properties have no categorical bases, as I would allow is possible, then
he says, such powers can be defined only by relationships between
non-existent objects, i.e. between the kind of circumstances which would
trigger them and the kind of display which would then result. For my
reply, see Ellis [1999c].
6 However, this is a controversial thesis, which would be endorsed by
those whom I call strong essentialists. John Bigelow [1999], for one, has
urged me to accept the stronger theory. For reasons given in my reply to
Bigelow (Ellis [1999b]), I am inclined to reject it. To elaborate on these
reasons, it is plausible to say that an atom of Uranium might lose a
nuclear electron to become an atom of Neptunium, and hence something of an
essentially different kind. For the purposes of this paper, nothing much
hinges on whether we allow that this is possible. My inclination, is to
allow that things can sometimes undergo changes of kind-identity, provided
that the processes by which they do are natural ones. The process by which
a Uranium atom decays to become an atom of Neptunium is b-emission, which
is, of course, a natural process. There is no objection in principle,
therefore, to allowing that such a change could take place.
That the atom remains the same atom after b-emission has occurred is a
trickier question. But since individual identity depends more on
spatiotemporal and causal history than on intrinsic causal powers or
internal constitution, it seems plausible to allow that the atom does
indeed survive the change.

REFERENCES
D.M. Armstrong [1999], "Reply to Ellis", in Causation and Laws of Nature,
H. Sankey (ed.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1999, pp. 43-48.

D.M. Armstrong [forthcoming], "The Causal Theory of Properties: Shoemaker,

Ellis and Others", Philosophical Studies.
J.C. Bigelow [1999], "Scientific Ellisianism", in Causation and Laws of
Nature, H. Sankey (ed.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1999, pp.
56-76.
J.C. Bigelow, B.D. Ellis and C. Lierse [1992], "The World as One of a
Kind: Natural Necessity and Laws of Nature", British Journal for the
Philosophy of Science 43 (1992), pp. 371-388.
E.A. Burtt [1932], Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, Routledge
and Kegan Paul, London, 19322.
B.D. Ellis [1996], "Natural Kinds and Natural Kind Reasoning", in Natural
Kinds, Laws of Nature and Scientific Methodology, P. Riggs (ed.), Kluwer
Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1996, pp. 11-28.
B.D. Ellis [1998], "An Essentialist Perspective on the Problem of
Induction", Principia 2 (1998), pp. 103-124.
B.D. Ellis [1999a], "Causal Powers and Laws of Nature", in Causation and
Laws of Nature, H. Sankey (ed.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht,
1999, pp. 21-42.
B.D. Ellis [1999b], "Bigelow’s Worries about Scientific Essentialism", in
Causation and Laws of Nature, H. Sankey (ed.), Kluwer Academic Publishers,
Dordrecht, 1999, pp.77-97.
B.D. Ellis [1999c], "Response to David Armstrong", in H. Sankey (ed.),
Causation and Laws of Nature, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1999,
pp. 49-55.
B.D. Ellis [forthcoming], "Causal Laws and Singular Causation", Journal of
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
B.D. Ellis and C.E. Lierse [1994], "Dispositional Essentialism",
Autralasian Journal of Philosophy 72 (1994), pp. 27-45.
W. Sellars [1963], Science, Perception and Reality, Routledge and Kegan
Paul, London, 1963, Ch. 1, pp. 1-40.

Appendix A
SOME THESES OF SCIENTIFIC ESSENTIALISM
Scientific essentialism challenges orthodoxy in philosophy in a number of
ways. As well as holding that matter is essentially passive, orthodox
philosophers of science generally subscribe to the following theses:
(a) that causal relations hold between logically independent events,
(b) that the laws of nature are behavioural regularities of some kind
which could, in principle, be found to exist in any field of inquiry,
(c) that the laws of nature are contingent,
(d) that the identities of objects are independent of the laws of nature,
and
(e) that the dispositional properties of things are not genuinely
occurrent properties, which would have to be the same in all possible
worlds, but somewhat phoney world-bound properties which depend on what
the laws of nature happen to be.
Against these theses, scientific essentialists would argue that nature is
active, not passive, and that:
(a) causal relations are relations between events in causal processes. If
an event of a natural kind which would activate a given causal power in a
certain way occurs, then an event of a natural kind which would then be an
appropriate display that power must also occur (even though the effect may
sometimes be masked by other effects).
(b) the laws of nature are not just behavioural regularities, although
they imply the existence of underlying patterns of behaviour, but
descriptions of natural kinds of processes arising from the intrinsic
properties of things belonging to natural kinds. There are, accordingly,
no laws of nature in fields such as sociology or economics.
(c) the laws of nature are not contingent, but metaphysically necessary
The same things in the states in which they currently exist would have to
have the same behavioural dispositions in any world in which they might
exist.
(d) the identities of objects are not independent of the laws of nature.
If the laws of nature were different, the things existing in the world
would have to be different.
(e) there are natural dispositional properties which are genuinely
occurrent, and which therefore act in the same ways in all possible
worlds. These include the causal powers of the most fundamental kinds of
things; so that things of these same kinds, existing in any other world,
would have to be disposed to behave in just the same ways.

Appendix B
THE PROPERTIES OF NATURAL KINDS
1. The distinctions between natural kinds depend on real and absolute
differences. They do not depend on how we may find it useful, convenient
or natural to classify them. Membership of a natural kind is thus decided
by nature, not by us; and the question of whether something is or is not a
member of a given natural kind can never be settled just by fiat or
arbitration. This question can only be settled by discovering whether what
is to be classified has the jointly distinctive (essential) properties or
structure of the kind in question. It follows that the identity of a
natural kind can never be dependent only on our interests, psychologies,
perceptual apparatus, languages, practices or choices. If the identity of
a kind depended on any of these things, then it might well be a kind of
our own making, not one that exists in the world prior to our knowledge,
perception or description of it.
2. Natural kinds are categorically distinct from each other. They are
ontologically grounded as kinds, and exist as kinds independently of our
conventions. Hence, where we are dealing with natural kinds, there cannot
be any gradual merging of one kind into another, so that it becomes
indeterminate to which kind a thing belongs. If there were any such
merging, we should have to draw a line somewhere if we wished to make a
distinction. But if we have to draw a line anywhere, then it becomes our
distinction, not nature’s. Natural kinds must therefore be ontologically
distinguishable from each other.
3. The distinctions between natural kinds are based on intrinsic
(internal) differences. That is, the members of two different natural
kinds do not differ only extrinsically (i.e. externally), depending on how
things in the world happen to be arranged, or happen to be related to one
another. If a thing’s membership of a natural kind were to depend on its
relations to other things, for example, then its membership of the kind
would be an accidental matter. It would be a relationship which depended
on its accidental circumstances.
Therefore, if there are any natural kinds in the world, they must exist
as kinds independently of any such extrinsic relations, and their
identities must be dependent only on the intrinsic natures of their
members, not what their extrinsic relations to other things happen to be.
To illustrate: it might be the case that the only gold in the universe is
to be found on earth. But the natural kind distinction between gold and
other substances does not depend at all on this fact. A substance could
obviously be gold, but not located on earth. For a substance to be gold,
it must be constituted as gold. It must have those intrinsic properties
which make it gold. Likewise, for a process to be meiosis, it must be
constituted as meiosis, and involve the same kinds of substances changing
in the same kinds of ways.
4. If two members of a given natural kind differ intrinsically from each
other, and these intrinsic differences are not ones that can be either
acquired or lost by members of the kind, then they must be members of
different species of the kind. This is the speciation requirement. The
isotopes of uranium, U235 and U238, differ intrinsically from each other.
However, they both have the essential nuclear and electron structures of
uranium, and are therefore species of uranium. Electromagnetic radiation
of frequency 2000 differs intrinsically from electromagnetic radiation of
frequency 3000. However, electromagnetic radiation of either frequency is
propagated according to Maxwell’s equations, and both are species of
electromagnetic radiation.
5. Natural kinds belong in hierarchies. If anything belongs to two
different natural kinds, these natural kinds must both be species of
some common genus. In other words, the memberships of two distinct natural
kinds cannot overlap, so that each includes some, but not all, of the
other, unless there is some broader genus which includes both kinds as
species. The requirement is satisfied trivially if one of the two kinds
is a species of the other. This is a feature of hierarchical structures
generally.
6. Natural kinds are distinguished from other sorts of things by their
associations with essential properties. If what makes an object or process
one of a certain kind depends only on its intrinsic nature, then any
object or process which has this nature must be one of this kind. The set
of properties or structures in virtue of which a thing is something of the
kind it is constitutes its kind essence.

Brian Ellis
IL NUOVO ESSENZIALISMO E L'IMMAGINE SCIENTIFICA DELL'UOMO
Riassunto

Vi sono due teorie molto diverse circa il modo in cui le leggi di natura
sono correlate al mondo. Secondo la prima, il mondo è composto di oggetti
intrinsecamente passivi, i quali obbediscono a leggi naturali che vengono
imposte ad essi dall’esterno. Questa teoria afferma che le leggi di
natura sono contingenti, e che le stesse cose esistenti nel nostro mondo
potrebbero esistere in mondi con leggi naturali differenti. La seconda
teoria invece sostiene che il mondo consiste di cose appartenenti a generi
naturali le cui proprietà essenziali includono la totalità dei loro
poteri, capacità e propensioni causali. In un simile mondo, i componenti
fondamentali sono essenzialmente attivi e costretti dalla loro stessa
natura ad esercitare i loro poteri. La seconda teoria ha caratteri
essenzialisti, il che significa che le leggi di natura sono immanenti alla
realtà, e che le cose in essa contenute non potrebbero esistere in altri
mondi dotati di leggi naturali differenti. Nell’articolo si sostiene che,
malgrado il suo essenzialismo e l’apparente rigidità, la seconda teoria
produce una spiegazione dell’azione umana che risulta plausibile sia da
ogni punto di vista.
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