The philosophy of knowing:

can empirical research tell us

anything?

Tony Mercer
4th September 2019
 Introduction

 Why this presentation?

 My personal position

 Structure:
 Observation
 Inference
 Explanation
 Conclusions

Socratic Dialogue
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Smoking causes lung cancer !

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 Observation

 Scientific communities and “Theory laden” observation

 “ Scientific observation involves more than simply letting nature act on
our senses…we cannot accept that facts are prior to and independent of
theory” (Chalmers 1999)
 “The "consistency condition” and the "thesis of meaning invariance" are
examples of empiricist dogma which if imposed as methodological rules
will restrict which new theories can be considered” (Feyerabend 1975)

 “Theory dependence of instruments”

 “Scientists hold particular theories on how the instrument works - if
they are the same theories they are seeking to test through the
observations made by the instrument, then the whole testing process is
circular and this is problematic” (Agbo 2014)
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 Inference
 Deduction: from premises to conclusion
 Induction: accumulation of evidence through
observation
 Abduction: provisional, testable and revisable
hypotheses (hypothetico-deductive theory -
falsification)
 “We cannot describe a hypothesis as probably true, or a good
explanation, only that it is not yet refuted” (Johns 2008)
 “The scientist does not infer a law from the data. He invents it, guesses
it, imagines it, and then derives consequences from it which he tests”
(Achinstein 1970)
 “Scientific theories and laws are free creations of our own minds, the
result of an almost poetic intuition” (Popper in Achinstein 1970)
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 Inference

 Retroduction: combination of deduction, induction &

abduction
 “Retroduction is what makes science the powerful instrument
of discovery that it has become” (McMullin 1992)

 Inference to the Best Explanation: “the explanatory virtues”

of “scope, precision, mechanism, unification and simplicity”
 “Self-evidencing explanation…the phenomena that is being
explained provides an essential part of the reason for
believing the explanation is correct, thus inverting the
commonly held view that inference precedes explanation”
(Lipton 2000)

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 Explanation
 Formal, Material, Efficient and Final Causation (Aristotle)
 Probabilistic V Deterministic Causation (Hume)
 Regular laws of nature through inductive accumulation of
empirical observations - empiricists (Hempel 1935 and Carnap
1995)
 “Empiricists have often seen science as a system of rules for
predicting experience… conflating argument and explanation”
(Godfrey-Smith 2003)
 Unificationist model unifying disparate phenomena with as few
explanations as possible (Friedman and Kitcher in Chambers
1999)

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 Explanation
 Teleological model focussing on final causation (Rosenberg)
 Teleological models can “reveal the intelligibility of the universe or
show that the way things are in it is the only way they could be”
(Rosenberg 2005)

 “We cannot compare existing explanations to other explanations that

no one has yet formulated”(Lipton 2005)

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 Explanation

 Realist models V Antirealist (Epistemic) models

 “Orientation to truth may play little practical role in the everyday
activities of scientists who are more concerned with matching their
hypotheses with data or comparing rival theories” (Murphy 2017)

 Pluralist models
 “The idea of explanation operates differently within different parts of
science – and differently within the same part of science at different
times” (Godfrey-Smith 2003)

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 Conclusion
 “We should drop the demand that the acquisition of facts should come
before the formulation of laws and theories that constitute scientific
knowledge” (Chalmers 1999)

 “Scientific knowledge that was once considered to be well established

has been superseded and so we cannot say that we have arrived at “the
truth” in any branch of science” (Chalmers 1999)

 “Truth doesn’t matter in the sciences any more than it does than it
does in any other intelligent human activity, such as religious faith,
personal relationships, and so forth” (Murphy 2017)

 “Science and the state should be separated in the same way that
religion and the state has been separated” (Feyerbend 1978)
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 Conclusion
 “Observational reports can yield data that can be utilised in scientific
knowing if it can be tested by routine, objective procedures though it
will always be subject to revision” (Chalmers 1999)

 “Background knowledge and group learning afforded by scientific

communities can actually increase objectivity” (Chalmers 1999)

 “Because we may not be able to get to certain knowledge through

logical deductive reasoning, it does not automatically follow that there
is no truth” (Murphy 2017)

 “We should consider scientific progress in terms of increasing nearness

to the truth (verisimilitude), which would retain an objective standard
of evaluation” (Bird 2016)
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A causal relationship between smoking
and
 lung cancer is the best explanation
 that can be inferred from the
 theory laden observation data
 but this
 remains open to future falsification!

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 References
 Achinstein, P. (1970) 'Inference to Scientific Laws', Minnesota Studies in
Philosophy of Science 5,87-111.
 https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/184662/5-04_A
chinstein.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
 Agbo, J. N. (2014) The Post-Modern Scientific Thoughts of Thomas Kuhn
and Paul Feyerabend; Implications for Africa. Filosofia Theoretica:
Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions Vol. 3 No. 2
 https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ft/article/view/111241/101027
 Carnap, R. (1995) An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, ed.
Gardner, M. New York: Dover
 Chalmers, A. (1999) What is this Thing Called Science? London: Open
University Press
 Feyerabend, P. K. (1975) Against Method. New York: Verso Press
 Feyerabend, P. K. (1978) Science in a free Society. London: New Left
Books 13
 References
 Godfrey-Smith, P. (2003) Theory and Reality. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press
 Hempell, C. G. (1935) “On the Logical Positivists’ Theory of Truth” Analysis,
2 (4): 50-59
 Johns, R. (2008) Inference to the Best Explanation
 http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/rjohns/ibe.pdf
 Lipton, P. Inference to the Best Explanation. Newton-Smith, W. H. (ed) A
Companion to the Philosophy of Science (Blackwell, 2000) 184-193.
 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.330.8872&rep=re
p1&type=pdf
 McMullin, E. (1992) The Inference that Makes Science. Wisconsin: Marquette
University press
 Murphy, S. (2017) Philosophy of Science II: Scientific Development.
Birmingham: Maryvale Institue
 Rosenberg, A. (2005) Philosophy of Science. New York & London.
14 Routledge