Empiricism I will explain in the following paper why I believe that realism and instrumentalism are erroneous approaches to science and why empiricism seems to be the more valid approach. I believe that truth is relative to language. The word theory in greek means "to be in front of". Our science is limited by our language, because we use our language as a way to construct our world. We use our language and theories to paint over the world what we think exists and while we use that language to create that reality, we paint over other "realitites", which we don't acknowledge, because we know no better. Scientific claims can be true in their own proper domain but they don't tell the whole story, or even that there is a whole story to tell. The distinguishing features of realism are twofold: realism seeks truth as a goal and when a realist accepts a theory it is accepted as true. So to argue realism would be to argue that no other realities have any causal effect on the observed phenomenon. There can be other truths -- different stories about the world -- each of which it may be proper to believe. I think its quite narcissistic, not to mention egotistical, to think that we know the totality of science to the extent that we think we're qualified to make such conjectures about the true nature of the world in which we live. Therefore, I consider realism to be an erroneous approach to science. Before determining the validity of instrumentalism, I think we must look at history to help us determine science's overall purpose. I believe that science precipitates from an inner curiosity how about how the world works. I believe that after looking into the past, we can deduce that science has had a dual function: to explain observable or unobservable phenomenon and to help predict the outcome of our actions. For example, with the gravitational theory, at first we attempted to explain the motion of falling objects and then assuming that this force that we call "gravity" would stay relatively static, we could predict the outcome of other falling objects. Instrumentalist is a noble theory, but I don't believe it to be historically consistent with the aims of science as it was created. Consequently I propose an empiricism approach to science. Empiricism takes empirical adequacy (not truth) as the goal of science and when it accepts a theory it accepts it as empirically adequate.
...concrete theories and empirical truths, no matter how factual, that we may attempt to use
B.F. Skinner was a empiricist in my opinion he believed that only basically after experience one can formulate a theory. Another reason why I believe Skinner was a empiricist do to his book published in 1957 "Verbal Behavior. Which, had set the way for behaviorism which means basically it's like a child born with a blank slate feeling them up with knowledge that is obtained through experience so in actuality this is related to empiricist. Empiricist is a "Philosophy. the doctrine that all knowledge isderived from sense experience." (Dictionary.com) Skinner was already relating to empiricist when he created this book in 1957 and making it clear what is view on life was. Furthermore Skinner is know for his famous quote "Education is what survives
Longino defines her account of scientific knowledge relative to positivist and wholist accounts. Though many regard positivism as offering an untenable account of science, because "no comparable sweeping and detailed philosophical view has replaced it," Longino believes that it still needs to be reckoned with (L1990, 21). Wholists are significant because they have been the greatest critics of positivism. After presenting these accounts, and explaining the difficulties that Longino has with them, I will present Longino's own account of scientific knowledge and inquiry.
Rationalism and empiricism were two philosophical schools in the 17th and 18th centuries, that were expressing opposite views on some subjects, including knowledge. While the debate between the rationalist and empiricist schools did not have any relationship to the study of psychology at the time, it has contributed greatly to facilitating the possibility of establishing the discipline of Psychology. This essay will describe the empiricist and rationalist debate, and will relate this debate to the history of psychology.
Messenger, E., Gooch, J., & Seyler, D. U. (2011). Arguing About Science. Argument! (pp. 396-398). New York, NY: Mcgraw-Hill Co..
Pseudo sciences resting on the priori method carefully stated their information and follow logical rules to arrive at acceptable conclusions. In this approach, the conclusions are derived by using logic through some a set of facts and/or declarations. The a priori method is more intellectual and respected approach compared with other methods such as tenacity and authority. Furthermore, is t has shown to be quite strong in the hands of that mathematicians and philosophers. Nevertheless, accurate scientific conclusions depend on both the reasoning and the exactness of the premises. This is where it comes the use of the scientific method; science meets reasoning and empiricism, using logical reasoning, but by means of a careful methodology, (Graziano & Raulin, 2010; Rosnow & Rosenthal,
Both Marxist and positivist stress the need for a rigorous scientific method, for scientific analysis of the social phenomenon and natural world.
Realism, in philosophical terms, refers to the concept that there is a reality beyond our perception. This means that how we see things and what we believe about them has no impact on the nature of said things. For example an individual may see an object as blue and another see the same object to be red, this is merely a disagreement between both parties about how they should label the colour. This wouldn’t mean that both parties are discussing different objects, this shows that no matter what individual’s beliefs or thoughts on the real world are only ever approximations and do not accurately capture reality. (O’Brien, M and Yar, M, 2008)
Philosophy uses a term for empirical knowledge, “posteriori”, meaning that knowledge is “dependent upon sense experience”. (Markie, 2008, section 1.2) Yet, philosophical empiricism is defined in such an absolute way; which causes philosophical empiricism to be an inaccurate philosophical position from which to address all aspects of human life. Philosophical empiricism is defined as “the belief that all human knowledge arises from sense experience.” (Nash, 1999, page 254) Yet, medical empiricism is so far to the other extreme as to be insulting, while this empiricism is still said to be based on all sensory experience; only the scientific sensory experience is valued and counted. This form of empiricism excludes the experience of non-scientific persons. This is just one manner in which empiricism has “proved inadequate to explain many important human ideas”. (Nash, 1999, page 254) I believe that human truth is in a combination of empiricism and rationalism. Although, sensory data can inform us of the external world; yet, reason gives humanity access to equally important intangibles.
“Science is a religion of skepticism. To escape from the microcosm of our childhood experience, from the microcosm of our culture and its dogmas, from the half-truths our parents told us, it is essential that we be skeptical about what we think we have learned to date. It is the scientific attitude that enables us to transform our personal experience of the microcosm into a personal experience of the macrocosm.
We acquire and use knowledge every day and yet we rarely stop and think about the process through which we acquire knowledge. Epistemology is an area of philosophy that deals with the questions and theories concerning knowledge (Lawhead). There are multiple theories in epistemology with the main ones being rationalism, empiricism, and constructivism. Each theory seeks to answer the important epistemological questions in their own way with some being more convincing than others. I believe constructivism provides the strongest theory of knowledge by combining elements of both rationalism and empiricism in a manner that fixes some of the flaws in each theory.
Introspection is a notoriously unreliable method for gathering information for scientific theories. There are 2 problems:
...tful and thought provoking opinions on scientific realism. Each perspective explains science in its own unique way. As a result, I was drawn to know how entity realism defines success in science. According to Steven French, success for entity realism depends on more than just the “supposed truth of theories”. Entity realist defines success as the ability for us to “intervene in the world”. This intervention enables us to create new technologies and observe new phenomena. Our new technologies allow us to believe in unobservable entities like electrons. I found this to be important because this is essentially a description of scientist’s day-to-day task. It is their job to identify phenomena, research it and come up with an explanation of why the phenomena occurs. Scientist spend their entire careers intervening in hopes to grasp a better understanding of the world.
W. V. O. Quine (1908-2000) did not conceive of philosophy as an activity separate from the general province of empirical science. His interest in science is not best described as a philosophy of science but as a set of reflections on the nature of science that is pursued with the same empirical spirit that animates scientific inquiry. Quine’s philosophy should then be seen as a systematic attempt to understand science from within the resources of science itself. This project investigates both the epistemological and ontological dimensions of scientific theorizing. Quine’s epistemological concern is to examine our successful acquisition of scientific theories, while his ontological interests focus on the further logical regimentation of that theory. He thus advocates what is more famously known as ‘naturalized epistemology’, which consists of his attempt to provide an improved scientific explanation of how we have developed elaborate scientific theories on the basis of meager sensory input. Quine further argues that the most general features of reality can be examined through the use of formal logic by clarifying what objects we must acknowledge as real given our acceptance of an overarching systematic view of the world. In pursuing these issues, Quine reformulates and thus transforms these philosophical concerns according to those standards of clarity, empirical adequacy, and utility that he takes as central to the explanatory power of empirical science. While few
The scientific method is used to answer phenomenons in the world, whether they be specific or general. Experimenters use this tool solely to prove their claim and ensure the results are reliable. As stated by professor Frank Wolffs,” the process by which scientists, collectively and over time, endeavor to construct an accurate (that is, reliable, consistent and non-arbitrary) representation