Some important personalities in

HPS
A. Francis Bacon F. Thomas Kuhn

B. Rene Descartes G. Paul Feyerabend

C. Pierre Duhem H. Evelyn Fox Keller

D. Carl Hempel I. Elliot Sober

E. Karl Popper J. Nancy Cartwright

 A. Francis Bacon
• Francis Bacon was an English Renaissance statesman and philosopher,
best known for his promotion of the scienti c method.

• Empirical scienti c methods

• His approach, unlike Aristotle and Plato, placed an emphasis on

experimentation and interaction, culminating in "the commerce of the
mind with things."

• His new scienti c method involved gathering data, prudently analyzing

it and performing experiments to observe nature's truths in an organized
way.

• He believed that when approached this way, science could become a tool
for the betterment of humankind.
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 The scienti c method (in Novum Organum):

1st "Tables of Investigation"

2nd "Table of Presence," -list of circumstances under which the event being studied occurred.

3rd "The Table of Absence in Proximity" -to identify negative occurrences.

4th "Table of Comparison" allows the observer to compare and contrast the severity or degree of the event.

• Father of Induction
the gathering of large numbers of facts and the detection of patterns.

maximum objectivity, we must entertain only a minimum of preconceptions.

pyramid of disciplines with natural history forming the base, physics above and subsuming it,
and metaphysics at the peak, explaining everything below–though perhaps in powers and
forms beyond the grasp of man. (-from E.O. Wilson)
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Theories of errors

Idols of the Tribe

Idols of the Cave

Idols of the Marketplace

Idols of the Theatre

 B. Rene Descartes
Cogito, ergo sum
I think, therefore I am

Cartesian mind-body dualism

• introduce deductive reasoning, in which the scientist rst formulates an

educated hypothesis, and then seeks evidence to support or disprove that
hypothesis; did not replace inductive method but was an added useful tool.

• proponent of order and rationality

• skepticism to achieve certainty; sense experience as false

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The common picture of Descartes is as one who proposed that all
science become demonstrative in the way Euclid made geometry
demonstrative, namely as a series of valid deductions from self-
evident truths, rather than as something rooted in observation and
experiment. Descartes is usually portrayed as one who defends
and uses an a priori method to discover infallible knowledge, a
method rooted in a doctrine of innate ideas that yields an
intellectual knowledge of the essences of the things with which we
are acquainted in our sensible experience of the world.
https://iep.utm.edu/rene-descartes-scienti c-method/
#:~:text=The%20common%20picture%20of%20Descartes,rooted%20in%20observation%20and%20experiment.
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 C. Pierre Duhem
•best known for his work on the relation between theory and experiment,
arguing that hypotheses are not straightforwardly refuted by experiment
and that there are no crucial experiments in science.

•Underdetermination of theory by facts (Duhem Thesis)

•a thesis explaining that for any scienti cally based theory there will
always be at least one rival theory that is also supported by the
evidence given, and that that theory can also be logically maintained in
the face of any new evidence.
• the evidence available to us at a given time may be insuf cient to
determine what beliefs we should hold in response to it; the information
underdetermines what conclusions we can draw from the situation.
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 Duhem

• Holistic underdetermination- when predictions fail, we can’t validly conclude

the hypothesis incorrect; nothing is falsi able

• Contrastive underdetermination - when predictions succeed, we can’t validly

conclude the theory correct; nothing is veri able

•Duhem-Quine Thesis a form of the thesis of the underdetermination of

theory by empirical evidence. The basic problem is that individual
theoretical claims are unable to be con rmed or falsi ed on their own, in
isolation from surrounding hypotheses. For this reason, the acceptance or
rejection of a theoretical claim is underdetermined by observation.

•For Duhem“the only thing the experiment teaches us is that, among all the
propositions used to predict the phenomenon and to verify that it has not
been produced, there is at least one error; but where the error lies is just
what the experiment does not tell us”
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D. Carl Hempel
The Raven Paradox
The Paradox of Con rmation
https://youtu.be/Ca_sxDTPo60?
si=fHvDhyWMTJedLC3J

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 All ravens are black

Finding a black raven con rms that

nding a red ant does nothing to it

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 E. Karl Popper

Falsi cation

Demarcation between Science and Pseudoscience

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F. Thomas Kuhn

Paradigm Shift
E. Thomas Kuhn

Phases

1. Pre-paradigmatic

2. Normal Science

3. Crisis

4. Scienti c revolution

incommensurability and progress

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 Francis Bacon- Induction and the scienti c method

Rene Descartes- Deduction and rationalism; i think therefore i am

Pierre Duhem - Underdetermination -holistic (cannot take in isolation) and contrastive (questions
the ability of the evidence to con rm any given hypothesis against alternatives)

Carl Hempel - Paradox of Con rmation; Raven paradox; two opposing hypotheses, couldn’t there
be a third?

Karl Popper - Falsi cation; what cannot be falsi ed is not science

Thomas Kuhn - Paradigm Shift

Paul Feyerabend - Against method; no speci c method

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