Philo Of Science And Social Science

What is philosophy?  

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Useless skills A four syllabus word: qiang ci duo li 强词 夺理 How to argue Love of wisdom Foundation of all knowledges

Early philosophers looked for answers to problems of human existence, e.g. beauty, morality, truth, etc…the result was more questions. Modern demarcation of philosophical subdisciplines:  Metaphysics  Epistemology  Ethics  Aesthetics

What is the purpose of studying philosophy?    

To seek truth To find answers To understand the world around us To train our thinking skills

Or simply because it is fun, because I am curious But the consequence would be something else: testing the limits of human reason, which could lead to various phenomena: anger, spite, bitterness, peace, calmness, and humor Philosophy either makes or breaks: you cannot unknow what you know

Why science and social science? 

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Philosophy teaches us to question the selfevident assumptions we hold, without which we would simply ________ (fill in the blanks) Questioning assumptions can be a scary and painful process Therefore it is pedagogical to start with something that we believe in, but without any emotional/spiritual attachment to To ease us into others which are more personal, e.g. ethics and religion

Science and Social Science Rene Descartes: distinction between mind

Rene Descartes: distinction between mind and body, between spirit and matter

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Science deals with matter - object Religion deals with spirit - subject

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Social science deals with…what’s the matter with spirit?

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Social science is the study of meaning

Philosophy of science

“What Is This Thing Called Science” by Chalmers Four metaphysical principles of science:    

Atomism Ontological invariance Universality of explanation Explanatory reductionism

Purpose of science: Eklaren: causal explanation in order to predict and control Method of science: Logico-empiricism

Deduction and Induction Two types of logic: deduction and induction  Deduction is truth-preserving while induction is knowledge-expanding Example of deductive logic: 1. If pigs fly, then I am a monkey’s uncle 2. Pigs fly 3. Therefore, I am a monkey’s uncle Example of inductive logic: 1. All the pigs I’ve seen fly 2. Therefore, all pigs fly

Russell’s “The Inductivist Turkey” 1.

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I am always fed once a day, just before my owner’s dinner, regardless of whether it is winter or summer, raining, or sunny. Therefore, I shall be fed tomorrow, just before my owner’s dinner

Tomorrow happens to be 24th December.

The Problem of Induction Example: All metals expand when heated. How do we know that? 1. All observed metals expand when heated 2. Therefore, all metals expand when heated What is the probability that this piece of metal will expand when I heat it? Ans: 100%? 95%

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Induced theories do not stand up to the criteria for deduction, because the conclusions out-warrant the premises Induced theories cannot be used to predict Induced theories cannot be used to generalize Therefore, scientific theories are only tentatively true – until falsified

Karl Popper: Falsificationism

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Scientific theories are not eternally and universally true, they are true only until they are falsified

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Good scientific theories must be falsifiable, they must make noble predictions, and they must explain more than the one which has been falsified

e.g. Einsteinian vs. Newtonian physics

Falsifiability Problem 1 - Semantics: how precise is the wording of our theories? E.g. Darwin: “the fittest survive”. What do we mean by ‘fit’? I am fit because I can run faster or I am fit because I can sleep longer. E.g. fortune tellers and horoscopes: “You will become rich by the age of 45”. What do we mean by ‘rich’? I am rich with happiness, I am rich with health, I am spiritually rich, etc…

Problem 2: How do we know what to falsify? 1) The core theory 2) The auxiliary theories 3) The observation 4) The instruments E.g. According to Newtonian physics, all masses possess gravity, therefore planets, with their huge masses, collapse towards their centre and are therefore roundish Galileo looking through his telescope and saw that Mars is squarish. Does that falsify Newtonian theory?

Falsifying processes 

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Falsify the auxiliary hypotheses: planets do not necessarily have to be roundish Falsify the instruments: Galileo’s telescope is messed up Falsify the observation: Planets look squarish but they are in fact roundish Falsify the person: Galileo’s eyesight is not good Falsify the core: Newton is wrong

Unfalsifiability I Post-hoc auxiliary hypotheses: The story of phlogiston: when things are burnt, they give off phlogiston, therefore they become lighter Some elements, however, became heavier Post-hoc auxiliary hypothesis: phlogiston has negative weight

Unfalisiability II Circularity or ‘begging the question’ “I am strong because I can run very fast. How could I run very fast? Because I am strong” 

Darwin: The fittest survive, the survival of the fittest

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Mencius: the one who has the mandate of heaven will become the emperor, the one who is the emperor has the mandate of heaven

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Christian theology: God exists because the bible says so, what the bible says is true because it contains the word of God

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There’s more than meets the eyeball: Empiricism and theory-laden observations Seeing X and seeing X as X are two different things

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Did Galileo see Mars? Or was it swamp gas? Gestalt figures: duck-rabbit, girl-old woman, B-13

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Can we trust our senses? Why only five senses?

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Only observations provide us with facts, and we can only observe with the five senses. How do we know we've got only five senses? Through observations.

Heinrich Hertz (Hz) and Radio Waves    

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1888: Hertz wanted to find out the wavelength of radio waves Measurements all turn out inconsistent Does it falsify the theory that wavelengths are consistent? Turned out that he did his experiments in a room with walls that rebounded the waves and therefore messed up his measurements But how would he know that the walls are relevant or that they are irrelevant? – commonsense.

Boiling point of water 

Boiling point of water is 100 degrees centigrade

How do we know? How about the shape of the container? The color? The smell? The height of the person?

“As Blind as a Bat, as Deaf as a Frog”

Bats are able to avoid obstacles even with the lights off Hypothesis: Bats see with their ears Experiment: Scientists glued a bat’s ears shut, set it free in a dark room, and observe it slamming into walls. Conclusion: Bats become blind with their ears glued shut 

Blow a horn, the frog moves Hypothesis: frogs listen with their legs Experiment: cut off one leg, blow a horn, the frog moves, cut off another leg, blow a horn, frog moves…cut off all its legs, blow a horn, the frog doesn’t move. Conclusion: frogs become deaf with their legs cut off 

Causal relations vs. Spurious Correlations: David Hume What do we mean by ‘cause’? E.g. the spinning and rotation of the Earth around the Sun causes the latter to rise from the East Three criteria of causality: in order for A to cause B  A must happen before B  A must happen before B regularly  A and B must exist in the same space and time (spatial-temporal contiguity) According these criteria, the rising of the Sun from the East is caused by the rooster crowing

Miscellaneous notes 

Ockham’s Razor: the simplest explanation is the best explanation. Why so?

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Fallacy of composition: the whole can be explained by the simplest parts. How about life? Despite knowing the components of a cell, biologists could not create life.

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Reductionism: if the whole can be explained by the simplest parts (atomism), then quantum physics should be able to explain why I am giving this lecture, and that it should be the only form of knowledge worth pursuing.

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Philosophy of Social Science Application of scientism onto the study of humans Humans are subjects, i.e. we have freewill, therefore, we can choose Does that mean that all the metaphysical assumptions of science cannot apply to social science? Does that mean that disciplines like economics, psychology, sociology, and political science are arts rather than sciences? Does that mean that social scientists can only adopt the methods of science and not its metaphysics? Should we conduct experiments on humans? Should we subject humans to natural laws?

Some distinctions 

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Wilhelm Dilthey: naturwissenschaften vs. geisteswissenschaften Johann Gustav Droyson: Erklaren vs. Verstehen Wilhelm Wildelband: nomothetic vs. idiographic Naturalism vs. Scientism: objectivity, causal explanation, empirical adjudication vs. commitment to metaphysical principles about subject-matter and scope of explanations prevalent at particular historical periods

Purpose of social sciences: 1. Prediction and control: It is possible to predict human behaviors? The Cartesian duality: humans are both biological and cultural, we are both minds and bodies Problem: if human behaviors are predictable, does that mean that we have no freewill? Even if they are predictable, how about the problem of induction? Ethical problem: should social scientists contribute to the control of humans?

Law and Causality in the social sciences 

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Is there such a thing as a ‘law’ that governs human behaviors? i.e. the oxymoron: freewill law Even if there is, remember what Hume says about causality Any law describing social phenomena can be falsified simply by one case of agency Social phenomena not invariant in space and time No way to establish “Ceteris Paribus” because society is not a closed system Understanding social phenomena in terms of ‘laws’ takes the meaning out of ‘meaning’ No generalizations of social phenomena approach the universality required of ‘natural laws’ The usual suspects: economics and psychology

Purpose of social science II Understanding (verstehen)  

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Explication of meaning behind human actions Causal explanation of meaningful action – human intention as the ‘cause’ of ‘action’? (How do we know that nothing comes before or between my intent and my action?) Hermeneutic circle: to understand the whole we must understand the part and vice versa. But how partial and how holistic should we go? Do psychologists need to know about globalization in order to explain why I have this hairstyle? Is there then, no such thing as ‘objectivity’ in the social sciences? Two anthropologists writing about the same thing will generate different interpretations. How then can we claim to be scientific? The usual suspects: sociologists and anthropologists

Methodological reductionism vs. holism

Ontological question: are social facts distinct from facts about populations of individuals? 

Durkheim (holist): “Society is not the mere sum of individuals…the system formed by their association represents a specific reality that has its own characteristics”

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Jarvie (reductionist): “Army is merely the plural of soldier and all statements about the army can be reduced to statements about the particular soldiers comprising the army”

Methodological reductionism vs. holism II Explanatory question: Are social explanations distinct from explanations in terms of the psychology of individuals? Marx (holist): “In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into relations…the totality of these relations…constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation on which arises a legal and political superstructure, and to which corresponds definite forms of social consciousness…” Mill (reductionist): “The laws of the phenomena of society are…the laws of individual human nature”

Arguments for and against holism 1. Pro: descriptions of actions and psychological states presuppose social

phenomena (A Chinese likes to gamble  ethnicity is a social category) Counter: descriptions of social collectives presuppose psychological facts (The Chinese like to gamble  gambling is likeable to the gambler) 2. Pro: social collectives have properties that members do not (Temple is rich but Daoists are poor) Counter: statements about collectives can be translated into statements about properties of individuals (crowd emotion of football fans) 3. Pro: social structural explanations not reducible to aggregation of individual psychological explanations (Durkheim’s explanation of suicide rates) Counter: some successful explanations of social phenomena in terms of aggregate psychological explanations (rational-choice theory used in economics)

Durkheim’s solution/copout “I have never said that sociology contains nothing that is psychological and I fully accept…that it is a psychology, but distinct from individual psychology” (1895) Does he mean that society is a sentient being? That we are merely organs of this sentient organism? How about our freewill?

The Mark of the Social (John Greenwood)

What is the difference between a society and an aggregate of individuals? i.e. what is the “mark” of the social? E.g. a group of individuals simultaneously opening their umbrellas. Is that social or individual behavior? The social is marked by: “a set of recognized arrangements, agreements, conventions, shared by a group of individuals” Methodological question: How do we know it is shared? We have to get into the minds and souls of people to know that! Even if it is indeed shared, could it not be an accident, or a biological necessity? E.g. smiling when happy.

Functionalist explanation: a future for sociobiology? Essentially a teleological explanation, that all things exist for a reason (if that is the case, then what is the reason for all things existing for a reason?) Structure of explanation: P (practice) persists in S (society) because it produces B (benefit) for S (satisfies condition for survival/health of S). i.e. P persists because it is functional. E.g. Religious practices ensure social cohesion (Durkheim, Radcliff-Brown)

Problems with functionalism 

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Teleological fallacy: function not equivalent to purpose because society is not a sentient being Description of norms become prescriptive (religion is essential for social cohesion so all atheists are rebel rousers) Practices that serve useful function does not mean that they persist because they serve useful function Other practices can produce B but why only P persists? (Atheists have no social cohesion? How about Richard Dawkins’ organization?) What do we mean by ‘benefit’ or ‘health’? What is the objective of a particular function? Is Singapore a healthy society? Religion causes conflict as well. Appeal to biological theories but which is unfalsifiable: a biological phenomenon exist because it has allowed the organism to survive, but if the organism has not survived, then no one could have even noticed the existence of that biological phenomenon, if no one has noticed the existence of that biological phenomenon, how can anyone show that this biological phenomenon is ‘dysfunctional’? Why do organisms die? Isn’t death dysfunctional? Are there societies that have not survived? Societies are not like organisms, we cannot see it as a closed system. If it is not a closed system, then it cannot die. If it cannot die, then everything that it possesses is functional. If everything is functional, how can functionalist explanations be falsifiable and therefore scientific?

Miscellaneous notes 

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Experimentation in psychology: does not replicate real life Theory-laden observation, prejudice, ethnocentrism. E.g. Cartesian dualism in social theory Is it possible to understand the Others when the interpretive grid is itself a cultural system? Is history a social science? It seems to employ haphazard tools from the other social sciences.

Conclusion  

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What is Truth? What do we mean by ‘proof’ or ‘evidence’ or ‘fact’ or ‘actually’ or ‘in fact’? Why are we so concerned with truth, that we are afraid that it does not exist? Is there a social scientific explanation for this fear? Could this fear be the master of our belief in something true? Can science tell us about the true nature of nature? Can social science tell us about the true nature of culture? Why do we seek to explain ‘change’ when it is ‘un-change’ that is the exception? Is reality really after all, socially constructed? Isn’t there anything that I can be absolutely sure of? What if there isn’t? Does that mean that I am screwed?