The Modern

PhilosophiesJoemarie E. SolaresBSE-3B (Bio.Sci.Maj)

Introduction• Modern philosophies:

– Romanticism.• A philosophy of social and cultural sciences.

– Positivism.• A philosophy of all sciences based on natural science.

– Contemporary pragmatism.• A philosophy of all empirical sciences.

• Functional topics:–Aim of Science.

• The institutionalized aim of basic research.

–Discovery.• Development of new theories.

–Criticism.• Criteria for evaluating theories.

–Explanation.• Scientific explanation - the final

result.

Aim of Science Discovery Criticism Explanation

Romanticism

Positivism

Pragmatism

• Relation of the three philosophies and the four

topics:

• Perspectives on language:– Object Language

• Language describing nonlinguistic reality

– Metalanguage• Language describing language

Aim of Science Discovery Criticism Explanation

Metalinguistic terms

"theory" "law"

"observation""scientific

explanation"

Romanticism

Positivism

Pragmatism

• Meanings of common metalinguistic terms differ

among the philosophies

Three Modern Philosop

hies

• Romanticism - Aim of Science:–The aim of the social and cultural sciences is “interpretative understanding” of “human action”, by which is meant description of the culturally shared subjective ideas and motives that guide the social interactions of social members.

• Romanticism - Discovery:– “Theory” is language describing

subjective mental states including notably culturally shared ideas and motivations. • The development of theory in social science involves the social scientist’s introspective reflection on his own motivations, to understand by imputation the subjective mental states of the social members.

• Romanticism - Criticism:–The criterion for criticism is

“interpretative understanding”, because the subjective ideas and motives described in social theory are deemed to be the causal factors of observed social behavior.

•Social theory will thus “make sense” in the particular investigator’s own subjective personal or vicarious experience.

• Romanticism - Explanation:–Only theory describing subjective motives can “explain” conscious human action.• Motives are the causal factors identified in “theoretical” explanations.

• Positivism - Aim of Science:–To produce explanations having objectivity grounded in observation language.

• Positivism - Discovery:–Empirical laws are created by

inductive generalization based on repeated observations.

–“Theories” referencing unobservable entities or phenomena are developed by the scientist’s creative imagination by processes that are unexplained by positivists.

• Positivism - Criticism:–The criterion for criticism is

publicly accessible observation expressed in observation language.

–Theories are indirectly and tentatively warranted by empirical laws, when the laws can be logically derived from the theories.

• Positivism - Explanation:– According to the “covering-law”

thesis of explanation, predictions of observable events are derived deductively from observation-language statements together with “covering” universal empirical laws.

• This form has also been called the “deductive-nomological model” of explanation.

• Pragmatism - Three fundamental theses formulated in the 1920’s by the Nobel laureate physicist Werner Heisenberg that anticipated the contemporary pragmatism:– Thesis I: Relativized semantics.– Thesis II: Empirical under

determination.– Thesis III: Ontological relativity.

• Thesis I: Relativized semantics.– In 1925 Einstein told

Heisenberg that “theory decides what the physicist can observe”. • Thus contrary to positivists

observational description is not independent of theory.

• Thesis II: Empirical under determination.– A plurality of alternative but

empirically adequate theories can be consistent with the same observational description.

– Examples of empirical under determination:

• Vagueness, which can be reduced but never completely eliminated.

• Measurement has error, which in nontrivial cases can be reduced but never completely eliminated.

• Thesis III: Ontological relativity.–The semantics of language

accepted as true describes ontology.• Einstein construed his relativity

theory as a realistic description of physical reality.

• Heisenberg imitated Einstein by construing his uncertainty relations in quantum theory as a realistic description of physical reality.

• Pragmatism - Aim of Science:–The aim of basic science is

explanation.• Explanations contain laws from

which descriptions of concrete events are logically derived.

• Laws are former theories that have been tested and not falsified.

• Pragmatism - Discovery:–“Theory” and “observation”

language are defined pragmatically instead of semantically.

–The pragmatics of theory is empirical testing.• Theories are individuated

semantically.

• Pragmatism - Criticism:–Empirical testing is the only

valid decision criterion for theory evaluation.• Theories can be logically

schematized as nontruth-functional hypothetical-conditional statements.

• The modus tollens deductive logic is used for empirical testing.

• Pragmatism - Explanation:–Scientific laws can be logically schematized as non truth-functional hypothetical-conditional statements.• The modus ponens deductive logic is used for explanation.

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