Philosophy Exam 3

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Questions of science about a specific realm of scientific study where scientists are the authorities.

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First-order questions

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Philosophical questions about science

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Second-order questions

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Science itself is the object of study, and one applies a general philosophical understanding of reality (metaphysics), knowing (epistemology) and logical structure to episodes of science, evaluating the episodes as good or bad science.

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External philosophy of science (EPS)

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Philosophy is a branch of science.

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Internal philosophy of science (IPS)

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Investigates the process of discovering scientific laws and theories, how we use those laws and theories to explain things, and how laws and theories receive confirmation from various sources like successful predictions.

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Epistemology of science

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Focuses on the realism-antirealism debate.

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Ontology of science

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Given that we accept scientific realism, how should our scientific beliefs about what is real factor into our broad worldview about reality in general?

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Philosophy of nature

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A view of scientific method wherein scientists are seen as starting with unbiased observations of facts, progressively piling up more and more facts by means of those observations, generalizing them by enumerative induction into laws, combining these generalizations into broader and broader generalization by piling up more facts and, finally, arriving at various levels of scientific laws whose contents are nothing but the facts in general form.

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Inductivism

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A form of inference wherein the truth of the premises does not guarantee but only supports the truth of the conclusion to one degree or another.

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Induction

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Refers to a description of the temporal, psychological process that an individual scientist or community of scientists goes through in a step-by-step fashion to form laws and theories.

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Psychology of discovery

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Inductively deriving generalizations from past observations

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Enumerative induction

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Refers to the normative, logical structure by which a scientist or community of scientists justifies scientific laws and theories.

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Epistemology of justification

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Refers to the fact that those data, do not unambiguously select one and only one law.

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Undetermination of theories by data

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This view sees scientists as forming and putting forth a hypothesis, deriving test implications from it, then seeing if observations corroborate with the hypothesis.

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Hypothetico-deductive method

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Shows that scientific methodology is a cluster of different methodologies and not one single method worthy of the title "the scientific method"

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Ecletic model of scientific methodology

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The process of inventing a theory to explain observed facts.

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Adduction or abduction

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Questions that begin with "What"

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"what" questions

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Questions that begin with "Why"

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"why" questions

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Questions that begin with "How"

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"how" questions

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Anything about the world of observations that strikes us as odd and in need of explanation

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Empirical problem

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Problems not adequately solved by any rival theory

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Unsolved problems

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Problems that are solved by all rivals, perhaps in different ways

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Solved problems

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Problems solved by one rival but not another

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Anomalous problems

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Problems that arise when the concepts within a theory appear to be vague, ambiguous, circularly defined or contradictory.

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Internal conceptual problems

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A problem that arises for some scientific theory "T," when "T" conflicts with some proposition of another theory "T1," when "T" is rationally well founded, regardless of what discipline "T1" is associated with

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External conceptual problem

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Two facts make an explanation a scientific one: The logical form of the explanation and the nature of the explanation's premises.

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Covering-law or inferential model of explanation

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The explanans contains only universal generalizations and the argument is deductive.

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Deductive-nomological version

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The explanation is an inductive argument that includes at least one statistical generalization in the explanans.

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Inductive-statistical version

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Scientific explanation goes beyond what can be observed by building models of theoretical entities and processes that are causally responsible for observational phenomena.

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Realist, causal model of explanation

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The properties of an object are explained in terms of the properties or structural relations of its parts.

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Compositional or structural explanations

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Explain the properties and existence of an object in terms of the temporal development and history of the object and its ancestors.

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Historical explanations

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The capacities of an object are explained in terms of the function they play in some system.

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Functional explanations

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A change of state in some object in terms of some disturbance in the object and the state of the object at the time of the disturbance.

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Transitional explanations

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Explain the behavior of an organism or the existence of some state of affairs in terms of the beliefs, desires, fears and intentions of that organism.

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Intentional explanations

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Focuses on how the natural world operates in a repeatable and regular way.

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Empirical science

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Focuses on single, past events and attempts to explain how things came to be or why some event happened.

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Historical science

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Positive test results only show a theory to be possibly true.

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Falsificationism

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Positive test results increase the degree of probability that a theory is true.

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Justificationism

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Refers to a case where a theory is relatively new, undeveloped and untested, but nevertheless, it appears to hold promise.

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Rationality of pursuit

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Refers to a theory that has been around long enough to be accepted or rejected and for some reason or other, accepting the theory is rationally justified.

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Rationality of acceptance

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A normative property that, if possessed by a theory, confers some degree of rational justification on that theory.

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Epistemic virtue

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Roughly a hypothesis.

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Theory

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A theory that, once confirmed, graduates.

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Law

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Goals are the motives or reasons that scientists do science.

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Extrinsic goals of science

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The epistemic virtues that scientists seek.

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Intrinsic goals of science

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The view that science is the very paradigm of truth and rationality.

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Scientism

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The view that some proposition or theory is true and/or rational to believe if and only if it is a scientific proposition or theory.

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Strong scientism

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Allows for the existence of truths apart from science and is even willing to grant that they can have some minimal, positive rationality status without the support of science.

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Weak scientism

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Problem of justifying inferences usually associated with David Hume.

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Problem of induction

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The future will resemble the past

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Uniformity of nature

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God's normal way of operating by which God sustains natural processes in existence and employs them mediately to accomplish some purpose through them.

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Secondary causes

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God's unusual way of operating, which involve direct, discontinuous, miraculous actions by God.

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Primary causes

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Science and theology involve two different, complementary approaches to and descriptions of the same reality from different perspectives.

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Complementary view

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Science and theology involve descriptions that can directly interact with each other in mutually reinforcing or competing ways.

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Theistic science

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Change over time or all organisms are related by common ancestry or the blind watchmaker thesis.

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Evolution

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God's work of creation took place in six literal, consecutive days of 24 hours and that the original creation of the universe took place recently.

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Young earth creationism

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There is strong scientific and biblical evidence for the claim that God has acted through primary causation to create at various times.

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Progressive creationism

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Holds that theology is complementary to science, that Scripture is not a science textbook, and that methodological naturalism is the correct posture to take while doing science.

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Theistic evolutionism

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Rejects methodological naturalism and is committed to the in-principle legitimacy of theistic science.

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Intelligent design (ID) movement

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The sciences of chemistry, physics, biology, geology and other branches of science usually taken to be the "hard" or "natural" sciences.

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Natural sciences

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Answers to questions are sought within nature, within the contingent created order.

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Methodological naturalism

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The philosophical doctrine that the natural world is all there is and that God, angels and the like do not exist.

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Philosophical naturalism

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Stating a set of necessary and/or sufficient conditions for something to count as science.

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Line of demarcation

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One state of affairs serves as a cause for another state of affairs.

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Event-event (or state-state) causation

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The cause of an action is a substance-the agent himself-and not a state of affairs in the agent.

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Agent causation