Logical Empiricism
An argument in which it is impossible for the conclusion to be false given that the premises are true.
What is a deductively valid argument?
Ex: X1 is a pig with a nose.
X2 is pig with a nose.
X3 is a pig with a nosee.
Therefore, all pigs have noses.
Induction, or more precisely, enumerative induction.
Belief, suspension of judgment, and rejection
What are epistemic attitudes?
Feminist analysis in the history of ideas and the history of science.
Feminist anlaysis of scientific fields and theories, particularly social science, biology, and medicine.
Feminist epistemology, that is, feminist analysis of basic epistemological concepts, such as knowelge, reason, rationality, justification, and so on.
What are three main strands of feminist philosophy?
The belief that philosophy and science should be separate, with the philosophy of science being external to science. Philosophers should suspend judgment about the success of scientific results and their promise. “Before a philosophical theory is established,” Godfrey-Smith writes, “scientific work is in doubt” (150).
What is foundationalism?
A statement is meaningful if and only if it can be verified, that is, confirmed by actual or possible observations.
What is the verificationist theory of meaning?
The problem of induction
Epynomous recogition. Ex: Newton's Law, Boyle's Law, L'Hopital's Rule, etc.
Priority Disputes, like that between Leibniz and Newton on the calculus, are evidence that this type of recognition was the most important.
What is the highest reward, according to Robert Merton, that a scientist can achieve (within science's reward system)?
The study of basic epistemological concepts, such as reason, evidence, justification, truth, and so on through a feminist lens. This usually assumes that such concepts in western society are implicitly sexist.
What is feminist epistemology?
The belief that philosophy (and philosophy of science) should be continuous with the sciences, by using science's results and some scientific tools to better philosophize.
What is naturalism?
If P, then Q.
Not Q.
Therefore, not P.
What is modus tollens, a deductively valid argument?
The relationship between between evidence such that the evidence supports the theory.
What is the problem of confirmation?
A body of theories and research that evolve over time. They make-up a lineage of theories in which successive theories where formed once solutions to earlier problems were found. Hard core and protective belt are key ideas.
What is Lakatos' notion of a research program? (contrasted with a Kuhn's notion of a paradigm).
feminist analysis of and critique of prejudice in science, particular social aspects, which falls short of criticizing basic ideals, methods, and norms in science.
What is feminist empiricism and what is standpoint epistemology--two (out of many) strands of feminist epistemology?
The phenomena in which there is point when adding more resources to a research does NOT affect its rate of efficiency. In fact, adding more resources has no bearing on whether the research group will better solve the problem
What is the phenomena of decreasing marginal return when dividing scientific labor/resources across different research groups?
Propositions in which the predicate is contained in the subject; propositions in which the predicate says something new about the subject.
All bachelors are unmarried men; all bachelors are young.
What is the analytic and synthetic distinction?
The property a theory has when it has withstood numerous attempts of refutation.
What is corroboration?
the thesis that there should not be any guiding principles or constraints on scientific methodology, justification, and scientific beliefs/processes. Any rules results in constraining creativity and scientific progress.
What is Feyerabend's epistemological anarchism?
The context in which scientific theories are subjecto to rigorous scrutiny, tested, and justified.
What is the context of justification and the context of discovery?
Two inconsistent theses about the aims of science:
That an aim of science to reveal true representation and description of the world that we all actually inhabit.
That the aim of science and its theories are to be useful tools for navigating the world. They help predict and understand nature insofar as it is useful or we find that it serves some practical purpose (like survival).
What is (Godfrey-Smith's) scientific realism and what is instrumentalism?
According to logic, the general propositions, "All ravens are black" is formalized as For all x, if x is an r, then x is b. Logically equivalent to this statment, is for all x, if is not a b, then x is not an r. So, all non-bs are non-rs. Because this statement is logically equivalent to 'all ravens are black', any evidence that confirms 'all non-bs are non-rs' will confirm the ravens statement. So, white shoes can confirm 'all ravens are black.'
The way that science changes is via a two-step process:
Conjectures - Scientists produce bold, risky, and novel hypotheses that describe and explain an event.
Refutations - Scientists subject the hypotheses to stringent testing to show that it’s false.
Repeat (1) and (2)
What is Popper's method of conjecture and refutation--how Popper thinks scientific change happens.
The thesis that observations are biased and inevitably “tainted” by the observers theoretical beliefs. This means that testing rival theories (paradigms, programs, traditions) by unbiased observations is futile and cannot be done.
What is theory-ladeness of observation?
The underdetermintion of the theories by the available evidence--there is no single theory that the evidence will point to as indicating that that theory is the one that best accounts for the evidence. There are in principle an infinite amount of rival theories that can account for the evidence. So, if the evidence itself cannot determine which theory is the best one, what other factors are in play? Hint: Sociological ones (35).
What is the under-determination thesis?
Probability of a hypothesis, given some evidence is the probability of the evidence given the hypothesis times the probability of the hypothesis, and then divided by the probability of the evidence.
What is bayes' theorem, or what is bayesian updating?