The Burden of Proof in Philosophy and Science
In Language, Truth, and Logic, Alfred J. Ayer describes the
revolutionary idea that philosophy is only useful and significant if
it can be proven. This can be otherwise said as the elimination of
metaphysics from the practice. While metaphysics focuses on a priori
knowledge questions which are unanswerable to scientific observation
and analysis, Ayer feels that one must at least be able to establish a
"criterion of verifiability" of a statement- by which one can at least
determine if truth or falsity can be discovered. This is also known as
the verifiability principle.
"We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person,
if, and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which it
purports to express-that is, if he knows what observations would lead
him… to accept the proposition as being true, or reject it as being
false." Pg. 35. In other words, Ayer and those who believed like him-
the Logical Positivists, wanted philosophy to become much more black
and white, because that which cannot be verified at least on some
level has little credibility or meaning. After all, how can we make an
assumption or criticism of a statement if we have no means by which to
do so. Ayer believed sentences had to be either verifiable in their
truth/falsity, or conceptual truths. The sentences that fit neither of
these criteria are nonsensical. Looking back at past philosophers and
their works, the large majority of their metaphysical claims are
nonsensical.
In his dialogues Plato makes the claims that there exists a
transcendent realm of forms which we cannot understand or relat...
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..., we do not have the means to take it as
knowledge; it is merely a musing. Ayer's beliefs undermine many of the
philosophers before him. Until he came along, the vast majority of
philosophy was metaphysical, and therefore unverifiable. It generally
focused on that which exists outside of the realm of mortality, which
by Ayer's principles means nothing. Because we have no experience of
life outside this world, and no means to predict the future, these
previous philosophers did not discover anything. What they
accomplished, while useful perhaps on a moral or inspirational level,
means little more to society than a young child pondering what will
happen after he dies. Philosophy can be beneficial to the world, but
only when applied in a scientific or verifiable manner, because only
then can anything "true" be established.
Although, Plato’s Republic seems to be a philosophy of long ago, many of his ideas are still relevant in our society in ways we do not even realize. They show that man, left to his own thoughts outside of God, basically comes back to the same point or thought
Rebecca Skloot’s novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks told the story of the injustice done a a young African American woman, and her family. Henrietta’s cancerous cells were taken from her without her consent, and turned out to be immortal. They were sold all over the world for billions of dollars, while her family, struggling to put food on the table, did not receive a penny of it. Rebecca Skloot uncovers the hidden story of the HeLa cells, and provides a novel not only highly informational, but also with insight to the workings of science. This book outlines the process of scientific inquiry, reveals the contrary forces of altruism and profit that influenced HeLa, and the risks and benefits of profit guiding research as well as the obstacles faced when conducting research for purely altruistic reasons.
Firstly, I shall expound the verification principle. I shall then show that its condition of significant types is inexhaustible, and that this makes the principle inapplicable. In doing so, I shall have exposed serious inconsistencies in Ayer's theory of meaning, which is a necessary part of his modified verification principle.
The title asks one to what extent is truth different among mathematics, the arts and ethics; it does not question the existence of truth. I interpret truth as justified belief and categorize it into three approaches: personal, social and universal. Personal is what one perceives to be true, social is what a group perceives to be true, and universal is what the whole perceives to be true (Bernardin). In this essay, it will be shown that the approach towards finding the truth within mathematics, the arts and ethics vary, but upon further investigation, the final truth is intertwined.
Life’s purpose remains as a variable for mankind. There are three possible choices for this variable: no purpose, a purpose, or the purpose. These choices can be analogous to nihilism, existentialism, and belief in a divine being respectively. But how should one live? From a nihilistic viewpoint, an existentialistic perspective, or just in plain faith? The answer: the latter. However, humans tend to believe their thinking is rational, but one can only say one’s thinking is rational if one knows everything. According to Jesús Mosterín, “Humans are not rational by definition but they can think and behave rationally… depending on whether they apply… the thoughts they accept” (Infosources). In the context of these words, humans create what they believe is rational depending on their knowledge, but in actuality humans cannot be rational because they do not possess omnipotence. Since humans are irrational, there must be a being that is rational who knows the explanations to all questions; everything must have an opposite. With this, nihilism and existentialism are creations of the human mind making it irrational; both of these philosophies do not explain the fundaments to our existence. Rather they are merely a replacement for what humans cannot understand. Hence, people should live by faith in a divine being as it is rational whereas both nihilism and existentialism are irrational.
“Arguments Concerning Scientific Realism” is Bas van Fraassen’s attack on the positive construction of science. He starts by defining scientific realism as the goal of science to provide a “literally true story of what the world is like;” and the “acceptance of a scientific theory” necessitates the “belief that it is true”. This definition contains two important attributes. The first attribute describes scientific realism as practical. The aim of science is to reach an exact truth of the world. The second attribute is that scientific realism is epistemic. To accept a theory one must believe that it is true. Van Fraassen acknowledges that a “literally true account” divides anti-realists into two camps. The first camp holds the belief that science’s aim is to give proper descriptions of what the world is like. On the other hand, the second camp believes that a proper description of the world must be given, but acceptance of corresponding theories as true is not necessary.
In psychology, the six principles of scientific thinking are extraordinary claim, falsifiability, Occam razor, replicability, ruling hypotheses of rival, and correlation vs. causation. We know that gaining new knowledge always help the growth of our mind, but sometimes a claim may contradict what we have already known, then we need more persuasive evidences to prove this claim before we accept it. It is natural that people doubt something extraordinary and a very basic thinking skill that is known as extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Specifically, it can be presented as I did not come to class today and I tell my instructor that I ate bad seafood last night and had diarrhea, then she might believe me. If I tell her it was because an aerolite hit my house, but there is no one media reported this news, then she would not believe my claim because it is extraordinary in nature, and there is no extraordinary evidence.
The Fear of Science To live in the today's world is to be surrounded by the products of science. For it is science that gave our society color television, the bottle of aspirin, and the polyester shirt. Thus, science has greatly enhanced our society; yet, our society is still afraid of the effects of science. This fear of science can be traced back to the nineteenth century, where scientists had to be secretive in experimenting with science. Although science did wonders in the nineteenth century, many people feared science and its effects because of the uncertainty of the results of science.
Philosophy is a subject where there is no sound answer or argument for any question. Plato's beliefs were created through educated assumptions and provide a valid argument. One can continue their journey on this Earth trying to finding true perfection, however the chances are very slim according to Philosophy. Rather, one should embark in a more adventurous journey, a journey into the mind since it is the only housing of true perfection. A journey into a Philo Sophia
Philosophy is the study of examining and thinking about questionable ethical problems and/or generally accepted certainties. Philosophy aims at knowledge that combines a variety of academic fields as well as convictions, prejudices and beliefs.
Research philosophy, refers to the development of knowledge adopted by the researchers in their research (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009). In other words, it is the theory that used to direct the researcher for conducting the procedure of research design, research strategy, questionnaire design and sampling (Malhotra, 2009). It is very important to have a clear understanding of the research philosophy so that we could examine the assumptions about the way we view the world, which are contained in the research philosophy we choose, knowing that whether they are appropriate or not (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009). According to Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009), three major ways of thinking about research philosophy are examined: ontology, epistemology and axiology. Each of them carries significant differences which will have an impact on the way we consider the research procedures. Ontology, “is concerned with nature of reality”, while epistemology “concerns what constitutes acceptable knowledge in a field of study and axiology “studies judgements about value” (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009, p110, p112, p116). This study is intent on creating some “facts” from objective evaluations which are made by the subjects. Therefore, epistemology will be chosen for this study as the way of thinking about the research philosophy.
Each person needs to learn to respect, have integrity and be unique in their own way. One will learn that through struggle and a lot of effort to overcome different situations. I think that like me the world needs a balance where some need to be more than others, for example some people need to be kinder in contrast to cruelty to learn from each other to either be a better person or stay the same. This world needs people who are open to accept changes to change themselves and how they live, because for this world to be a more healthy and happy place we need to start changes within our own.
The human sciences and natural sciences are considered knowledge by many worldwide, as their arguments having convinced people one way or another. While the natural sciences focus on swaying belief by showing duplicable evidence through a strict and standardized methodology, the human sciences focus on explaining how things are and how they came to be using logic, reason, and an understanding of human behavior.
Nature of science or NOS is a term that refers to the epistemic knowledge of science, the knowledge of constructs and values that are intrinsic to the subject. The constructs and values include historical groundwork to scientific discovery and social incorporation such as sociology, philosophy, and history of science (“Nature of Science”). Nature of science, in my opinion, should not be explicitly taught in high school science curriculum. The basis for my standing on the issue is representative of the lack of a fundamental standard understanding of what Nature of Science is, as well as the lack of effectiveness in explicitly teaching Nature of Science which I will expand on further in
He wrote many dialogues, and one of them includes his famous dialogue called “Allegory of the Cave.” This dialogue explained how we were born into being very naïve people about our surroundings and taking things for granted, but eventually with the right education we grow to be philosophers that know the Form of Good. Society closes our eyes and whispers things to us in our ears and we believe it, in order to break free we need to educate ourselves into being more knowledgeable about our surroundings. We need to analyze even the smallest things, nothing is to be taken for granted because everything is more complex than what it seems (Plato, p. 26). Plato also states in his idea of self, the soul, that the soul is composed of three parts, our desires, the conscious awareness of reason and the spirited part which gets angry at injustice (Plato, p.40). His allegory and this idea about the parts of the soul connect with each other and might as well lead us to understanding what his idea truly means. Like the first argument, we could say that because our souls is what makes us alive, we are aware of the life we live, therefore we become philosophers only when we do not forget where we came from. This though, sounds contradicting to itself if we take the second argument in hand. If our soul is our life and our body is what carries it, than our ability to become philosophers depends solely on our ability to remove our soul from the body in