a philosophy of science primer - part I
Naively one would expect science to adhere to two basic notions:
- common sense, i.e., rationalism,
- observation and experiments, i.e., empiricism.
Interestingly, both concepts turn out to be very problematic if applied to the question of what knowledge is and how it is acquired. In essence, they cannot be seen as a foundation for science.
But first a little history of science…
Classical Antiquity
The Greek philosopher Aristotle was one of the first thinkers to introduce logic as a means of reasoning. His empirical method was driven by gaining general insights from isolated observations. He had a huge influence on the thinking within the Islamic and Jewish traditions next to shaping Western philosophy and inspiring thinking in the physical sciences.
Modern Era
Nearly two thousand years later, not much changed. Francis Bacon (the philosopher, not the painter) made modifications to Aristotle’s ideas, introducing the so called scientific method where inductive reasoning plays an important role. He paves the way for a modern understanding of scientific inquiry.
Approximately at the same time, Robert Boyle was instrumental in establishing experiments as the cornerstone of physical sciences.
Logical Empiricism
So far so good. By the early 20th Century the notion that science is based on experience (empiricism) and logic, and where knowledge is intersubjectively testable, has had a long history.
The philosophical school of logical empiricism (or logical positivism) tries to formalise these ideas. Notable proponents were Ernst Mach, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, Rudolf Carnap, Hans Reichenbach, Otto Neurath. Some main influences were:
- David Hume’s and John Locke’s empiricism: all knowledge originates from observation, nothing can exist in the mind which wasn’t before in the senses,
- Auguste Comte’ and John Stuart Mills’ positivism: there exists no knowledge outside of science.
In this paradigm (see Thomas Kuhn a little later) science is viewed as a building comprised of logical terms based on an empirical foundation. A theory is understood as having the following structure: observation -> empirical concepts -> formal notions -> abstract law. Basically a sequence of ever higher abstraction.
This notion of unveiling laws of nature by starting with individual observations is called induction (the other way round, starting with abstract laws and ending with a tangible factual description is called deduction, see further along).
And here the problems start to emerge. See part II…
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