Here are the readings: Seminar 2 Readings in Epistemology: Locke, Bacon, Popper
As in the first seminar, you are to prepare ahead of time six questions, two based on each of the readings. Your questions should deal with topics the emerge from the readings and that have to do with Epistemology.
Your questions should include a quote from the reading to ensure the connection.
Your answers should include references, direct quotes, use of theories of not only the philosopher that wrote the reading but at least one other, preferably two other philosophers which can lend support to your point of view in answering the question you've posed.
You should also be very clear about connecting the Epistemological ideas with links to society today or through history in order to make the topic relevant to life.
Everyone got that? Direct quotes from more than one philosopher, societal links, use of theories.
Today we'll spend going over the documents as a class so that the language used is understandable and that the main ideas are clear to everyone.
Below are notes on the readings:
Seminar # 2 Readings
Essay Concerning Human Understanding – John Locke [1690 "All ideas come from sensation or reflection".]
Let us suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas; how comes it to be furnished? He's really asking, "Where does our knowledge come from?" Whence (i.e. from what source) has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience. Locke is suggesting that our knowledge comes from experience - empiricism, also a posteriori knowledge Our observation, employed either about external sensible objects, or about the internal operations of our minds is that which supplies our understandings with all the materials of thinking. These two are the fountains of knowledge, from which all the ideas we have, or can naturally have, do spring. He's talking about empiricism and then rationalism as the sources of knowledge. In other words, we collected information, data, sensory-supplied etc. and then we think about it.
The object of sensation is one source of ideas. First, our senses do convey into the mind several distinct perceptions of things, according to those various ways wherein those objects do affect them; we collect data/information through our senses and thus we come by those ideas we have of yellow, white, heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet, and all those which we call sensible qualities. This great source of most of the ideas we have, depending wholly upon our senses, and derived by them to the understanding, I call sensation. Further clarification of what he means by sensory information - he calls it sensation.
The operation of our minds is the other source of them. Secondly, the other fountain, from which experience furnishes the understanding with ideas, is the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got; Locke is suggesting that a second source of ideas/information is our mind, which thinks about, processes, the sensory data it gets which operations do furnish the understanding with another set of ideas which could not be had from things without; and such are perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and all the different actings of our own minds; which we, being conscious of, and observing in ourselves, do from these receive into our understandings as distinct ideas. I call this reflection, understood to mean that notice which the mind takes of its own operations. Further clarifying what he means by the actions of the mind - he calls it reflection.
All our ideas are of the one or the other of these. Locke's big statement - it's either sensation, reflection or both The understanding seems to me not to have the least glimmering of any ideas which it does not receive from one of these two. Ideas MUST come from experience first, no such thing as a priori knowledge for Locke External objects furnish the mind with the ideas of sensible qualities, which are all those different perceptions they produce in us; and the mind furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own operations.
Observable in children. He that attentively considers that the state of a child at his first coming into the world will have little reason to think him stored with plenty of ideas that are to be the matter of his future knowledge. Locke suggests that we are NOT born with knowledge or innate ideas, in other words, NO a priori knowledge It is by degrees he comes to be furnished with them.
Men are differently furnished with these according to the different objects they converse with. Men then come to be furnished with fewer or more simple ideas from without, according as the objects they converse with afford greater or less variety; and from the operations of their minds within, according as they more or less reflect on them. Knowledge varies according to the different experiences that people have. He suggests that potential for knowledge is generally the same, but environment then plays a role
Novum Organum (The New Method) – Sir Francis Bacon [The New Method, 1620, Book 1. London: Routledge, pp. 259-266]
Where did people at that time (1620) in Europe get their ideas/knowledge? Church, religion, government, old wives' tales, superstition, other people, family traditions, etc.
As all the sciences we now have do not help us in finding out new works, so neither does the logic we now have help us in finding out new sciences. The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors what errors? which have their foundations in commonly received notions. if the source of your information is from the list above, notably the church, does it leave room for EMPIRICAL information? No, because most of what was "known" was based on faith So it does more harm than good.
The discoveries which have hitherto (i.e. up to this time) been made in the sciences are such as lie close to vulgar [everyday, commonplace] notions, scarcely beneath the surface. In order to penetrate into the more and further recesses of nature it is necessary to determine a more sure and guarded way; and that a method of intellectual operation be introduced altogether better and more certain. Introduces the need for a "new method" of discovery
It is idle [pointless] to expect any great advancement in science from the engraving of new things upon old. If we base new ideas on old, incorrect ones, it will surely hinder our advancement We must begin anew from the very foundations, unless we would revolve forever in a circle with contemptible [useless] progress. He calls for change, what we now know as the beginning of the Scientific Method
One method of discovery alone remains to us, which is simply this: we must lead men to the particulars themselves by particulars here, he's referring to data/information etc. while men on their side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions aside and begin to familiarize themselves with facts. What facts does he refer to? Something NOT based on faith alone
The idols and false notions which are now in possession of the human understanding, and have taken deep root therein, so beset men’s minds that truth can hardly find entrance. Old ways of thinking and getting information actually prevent us from finding the truth (thus, let's consider the new Scientific Method)
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Science and Falsifiability - Karl Popper [“Science: Conjectures and Refutation.” In British Philosophy in Mid-Century, ed. By C.A. Mace, 1957. London: Routledge, 1963 (3rd ed. 1969), chap 1.]
The problem which troubled me was that I wished to distinguish between science and pseudo-science [“pseudo-science” means “non-science” or “false science” in this context], knowing very well that science often errs, and that pseudo-science may happen to stumble on the truth. He's suggesting that both methods can actually arrive at the truth.
I know, of course, the most widely accepted answer to my problem: that science is distinguished from pseudo-science by its empirical method, which is essentially inductive, proceeding from observation or experiment. But this did not satisfy me. I often formulated my problem as one of distinguishing between a genuinely empirical method and a non-empirical or even a pseudo-empirical method – that is to say, a method which although it appeals to observation and experiment, nevertheless does not come up to scientific standards. The latter method may be exemplified by astrology, with its stupendous mass of empirical evidence based on observation – on horoscopes and on biographies. For fun we checked some horoscopes today and yes, they had lots of truth to them. Clearly we find truth in our horoscopes, but are they a valid method of searching for the truth? In the examples below Popper suggests that we find ways to make the data fit into our preconceived notions/theories - therefore it's not valid to use pseudo-science to search for the truth
I found those of my friends who were admirers of Marx, Freud and Adler, were impressed by a number of points common to these theories, and especially by their apparent explanatory power. These theories appeared to be able to explain practically everything that happened within the fields to which they referred. The world was full of verification of the theory. Whatever happened always confirmed it.
A Marxist could not open a newspaper without finding on every page confirming evidence for his interpretation of history. The Freudian analysts emphasized that their theories were constantly verified by their “clinical observations.” It would seem that everywhere they looked they gathered evidence that supported their theories. Is this valid? According to Popper, no, it's not a valid method to search for the truth.
With Einstein’s theory the situation was strikingly different. Take one typical instance – Einstein’s prediction that light must be attracted by heavy bodies. [This was confirmed by Eddington’s expedition which measured the shift in the light coming from a star.]
Now the impressive thing about this case is the risk involved in a prediction of this kind.
These considerations led me in the winter of 1919-20 to conclusions which I may now reformulate as follows:
1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verification, for nearly every theory – if we look for confirmations. As seen in the examples of Freud, Adler, Marx and others, we'll probably always find confirmations if we look for them, thus, not entirely scientific.
2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions.
3. Every “good” scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is. Limit the variables, i.e. discounting as many other possibilities as possible
4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific.
5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it. To falsify something means to prove it incorrect.
E.g. All swans are white.
Is this statement falsifiable? Yes, because all someone has to do is find a swan that's not white. It would help to find every existing swan and check its colour. Swans in Australia are, in fact, black
E.g. Is it possible to DISprove the existence of God? Therefore, the realm of something that is not falsifiable is "faith", or belief.
6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory. Evidence should only be accepted as evidence if it's been collected considering # 4 & 5 above.
7. The belief that science proceeds from observation to theory is still so widely and so firmly held that my denial of it is often met with incredulity. He's saying that Scientific Method comes first, then we use it to collect information etc. etc.
But in fact the belief that we can start with pure observations alone, without anything in the nature of a theory, is absurd; as many be illustrated by the story of the man who dedicated his life to natural science, wrote down everything he could observe, and bequeathed his priceless collection of observations to the Royal Society to be used as inductive evidence. This story should show us that though beetles may profitably be collected, observations may not.
I tried to bring home the same point to a group of physics students in Vienna by beginning a lecture with the following instructions: “Take pencil and paper, carefully observe, and write down what you have observed!” They asked, of course, what I wanted them to observe. Clearly the instruction, “Observe!” is absurd. Observation is always selective. It needs a chosen object, a definite task, an interest, a point of view, and a problem. An eloquent (simplified) version of his call for Scientific Methods to collect information and draw meaning from it.
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