scholarly journals Verifiability and Falsifiability as Parameters for Scientific Methodology

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 130
Author(s):  
Sandhya Shankar
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Method ◽  
Scientific Methodology ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Sense Experience ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mind

The question of „how do we come to know‟ has been the search of mankind since time immemorial. Neither has there been a consensus for that question nor there will be. Many a great minds have looked into this, coming up with various perspectives. Two such varying perspectives in this field are empiricism and rationalism. While the former emphasizes that experience (through senses) is the only source of knowledge the latter upholds that there is something beyond the sense experience, the mind that is the source of knowledge. The shift towards a scientific phase from that of the earlier theological and metaphysical phase gained popularity with positivism, where progress of human knowledge was considered in identifying truths through scientific methods. In this scientific journey towards knowing the world emphasis was on empirically observable things. It was believed that there are no ideas which come into our head without being dependent on our perceptions, thereby on our experience. The basis of classical science was considered getting empirical observations. It had to be a systematic way of studying what is out there. Purpose of science was considered to be limited to things which can be observed, thus being connected to a means of being verified. This paper thus looks into the notion of verifiability as an important parameter of scientific methodology and its importance as asserted by logical positivists. But this criteria of scientific method was challenged by another criteria, that of falsifiability. The next section will look into falsifiability as another parameter of scientific methodology. Since these parameters have been discussed widely among philosophers, this paper shall be focusing on the views of A. J. Ayer and Sir Karl Popper regarding the same. Furthermore, its application and relevance to the field of linguistics will also be discussed.

Bonaventure (c.1217–74)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonnie Kent
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Sense Experience ◽  
The World ◽  
Union With God ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Higher Purpose

Bonaventure (John of Fidanza) developed a synthesis of philosophy and theology in which Neoplatonic doctrines are transformed by a Christian framework. Though often remembered for his denunciations of Aristotle, Bonaventure’s thought includes some Aristotelian elements. His criticisms of Aristotle were motivated chiefly by his concern that various colleagues, more impressed by Aristotle’s work than they had reason to be, were philosophizing with the blindness of pagans instead of the wisdom of Christians. To Bonaventure, the ultimate goal of human life is happiness, and happiness comes from union with God in the afterlife. If one forgets this goal when philosophizing, the higher purpose of the discipline is frustrated. Philosophical studies can indeed help in attaining happiness, but only if pursued with humility and as part of a morally upright life. In the grander scheme of things, the ascent of the heart is more important than the ascent of the mind. Bonaventure’s later works consistently emphasize that all creation emanates from, reflects and returns to its source. Because the meaning of human life can be understood only from this wider perspective, the general aim is to show an integrated whole hierarchically ordered to God. The structure and symbolism favoured by Bonaventure reflect mystical elements as well. The world, no less than a book, reveals its creator: all visible things represent a higher reality. The theologian must use symbols to reveal this deeper meaning. He must teach especially of Christ, through whom God creates everything that exists and who is the sole medium by which we can return to our creator. Bonaventure’s theory of illumination aims to account for the certitude of human knowledge. He argues that there can be no certain knowledge unless the knower is infallible and what is known cannot change. Because the human mind cannot be entirely infallible through its own power, it needs the cooperation of God, even as it needs God as the source of immutable truths. Sense experience does not suffice, for it cannot reveal that what is true could not possibly be otherwise; so, in Bonaventure’s view, the human mind attains certainty about the world only when it understands it in light of the ‘eternal reasons’ or divine ideas. This illumination from God, while necessary for certainty, ordinarily proceeds without a person’s being conscious of it.

scholarly journals Gregory Bateson’s Ecology of Mind and the Understanding of Human Knowledge

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Elzbieta Magdalena Wasik
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Gregory Bateson ◽  
Ecology Of Mind ◽  
The World ◽  
Living Species ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

<p>Departing from the biological notion of ecology that pertains to mutual relationships between organisms and their environments, this paper discusses theoretical foundations of research on the nature of human mind in relation to knowledge, cognition and communication conducted in a broader context of social sciences. It exposes the view, explicitly formulated by Gregory Bateson, that the mind is the way in which ideas are created, or just the systemic device for transmitting information in the world of all living species. In consequence, some crucial points of Bateson’s reasoning are accentuated, such as the recognition of the biological unity of organism and environment, the conviction of the necessity to study the ecology in terms of the economics of energy and material and/or the economy of information, the belief that consciousness distorts information coming to the organism from the inside and outside, which is the cause of its functional disadaptation, and the like. The conception of the ecology of an overall mind, as the sets of ideas, notions or thoughts in the whole world, is presented against the background of theoretical and empirical achievements of botany and zoology, anthropology, ethology and psychiatry, sociology and communication studies in connection with the development of cybernetics, systems theory and information theory.</p>

The Epistemological Promise of Externalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Stroud
Keyword(s):  
Central Problem ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Challenging Problem ◽  
Sense Experience ◽  
Epistemological Problem ◽  
Perceptual Illusions ◽  
The World

This chapter discusses the promise of an ‘externalist’ or ‘anti-individualist’ account of the contents of the thoughts and beliefs that one must have even to be faced with the challenging problem associated with ‘externalist’ definitions of the concept of knowledge. It first considers the central problem for philosophy since the time of Socrates: to understand the role of sense-experience in human knowledge, and to see whether or how we can know what we do about the world on the basis of what we perceive to be so. It suggests that threatening reflections about sense perception start from the undeniable fact of perceptual illusions or mistakes. It also examines efforts that have been made to define the concept of knowledge and concludes by explaining how externalism can be helpful in the diagnosis and dissolution of the traditional epistemological problem.

Hegels Philosophie des Geistes

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-86
Author(s):  
Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Empirical Observation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Philosophie Des Geistes ◽  
Object Level ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

In order to understand Hegel’s form of philosophical reflection in general, we must read his ‘speculative’ sentences about spirit and nature, rationality and reason, the mind and its embodiment as general remarks about conceptual topics in topographical overviews about our ways of talking about ourselves in the world. The resulting attitude to traditional metaphysics gets ambivalent in view of the insight that Aristotle’s prima philosophia is knowledge of human knowledge, developed in meta-scientific reflections on notions like ‘nature’ and ‘essence’, ‘reality’ (or ‘being’) and ‘truth’, about ‘powers’ and ‘faculties’ – and does not lead by itself to an object-level theory about spiritual things like the soul. We therefore cannot just replace critical metaphysics of the human mind by empirical investigation of human behaviour as empiricist approaches to human cognition in naturalized epistemologies do and neuro-physiological explanations propose. Making transcendental forms and material presuppositions of conceptually informed perception and experience explicit needs some understanding of figurative forms of speech in our logical reflections and leads to other forms of knowledge than empirical observation and theory formation.

Substance, mode, and accident in modern philosophy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Silverman
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Aristotelian Tradition

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries inherited, and were witness to, the decline of the metaphysics of substance, mode, and accident of the Aristotelian tradition. The causes of this decline can be gleaned from an investigation of various puzzles which arose during the period, and of the ways in which different philosophers reacted to these puzzles. One such puzzle concerns independence. A substance is meant to be something that exists independently – but what meets this standard, other than God? Another puzzle concerns identity. A substance is meant to be something which in some sense supports (etymologically, stands under) its modes or accidents – but how can we penetrate to the nature, or identity, of the substance itself? A third puzzle concerns unity. A substance is meant to be unified in a way that a heap of stones is not – but what qualifies as a genuine unity? The puzzles were initially raised by those, such as Descartes and Locke, who did not intend for them to radically modify our understanding of substance, mode, and accident. But radical changes followed shortly thereafter nonetheless. Spinoza maintained that God or Nature is the only substance, all other things being mere modes of God. Conway, Leibniz, and Berkeley argued that the world is fundamentally spiritual or mind-like. And eventually, Hume and Kant questioned whether the notions of substance, mode, and accident were, in some sense, unavoidably problematic. As an investigation of this debate reveals, theories of substance, mode, and accident were intertwined with many other enduring philosophical themes, including the nature of reality, the mind–body relation, and the limits of human knowledge.

scholarly journals The Role of Theory in Empirical Second Language Acquisition Research: An Introduction

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Beccia ◽  
Paige Yi
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
Empirical Testing ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Critical Rationalism ◽  
The World

Theory plays a central role in the development of human knowledge. In essence, theory solves puzzles, or questions about observable phenomena that need to be answered, (Kuhn, 1996). Theorizing about solutions to these puzzles requires working at the edge of uncertainty, making bold postulations, and engaging in what renowned philosopher of science Karl Popper terms critical rationalism; it is through the development of theories that are falsifiable and the subsequent empirical testing of those theories that our knowledge about the world (i.e., of natural phenomena) will progress (Popper, 1968).

scholarly journals Interview: Joseph Agassi

2016 ◽  
pp. 116
Author(s):  
Mauro L. Condé ◽  
Raffaele Pisano ◽  
Michael Segre
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Method ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
The World ◽  
Historiography Of Science

Joseph Agassi is an Israeli scholar born in Jerusalem on May 7, 1927. He has many books and articles published contributing to the fields of logic, scientific method, foundations of sciences, epistemology and, most importantly for this Journal, in the historiography of science. He studied with Karl Popper, who was definitely his biggest influence. He taught around the world in different universities. He currently lives in Herzliya, Israel. For his important contribution to the historiography of science, we chose to open the first issue of this journal with this interview recognizing his importance for the field, as well as paying our homage to him.

AI and Neuroeconomics

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-48
Author(s):  
Ernesto D'Avanzo
Keyword(s):  
Computational Neuroscience ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
Interesting Aspect ◽  
Probability Calculation ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Lord Chancellor

This article describes how Plato proposed the dualistic solution to the mind-body problem, providing an explanation along the lines of his epistemology. Francis Bacon, in 1600, formulated his vision of the scientific method that will be valid until the 1960's when Karl Popper proposed his version, entering into controversy with the Lord Chancellor. Thanks to recent developments in artificial intelligence and computational neuroscience these problems have new empirical tools to be analyzed. An interesting aspect of this research program, better known as neuroeconomics, is the use it makes of the probability calculation tool for dealing with so-called decisions under uncertainty. The paper is an attempt to tell the birth, development, and some examples of these toolboxes, available to all those who want to apply them to improve knowledge inspired organizations.

Some Difficult Problems

1930 ◽  
Vol 23 (8) ◽  
pp. 474-476
Author(s):  
Karl A. Zeller
Keyword(s):  
Number System ◽  
General Idea ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Know How ◽  
Good Citizen ◽  
Guiding Principle ◽  
The World ◽  
Teaching Of Mathematics ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Insight Into

If, As The writers of our year book would have us believe, it is certain that the schools of our day do not know how to teach arithmetic successfully; if our present day civilization is one which depends on the universal recognition of the importance of the idea of precision, since precision is the soul of science and commerce; if number is an ever guiding principle of life; if the number system has changed the life of men and is a mode of thinking that cultivates a general idea of regularity, arrangement and order in all thinking; if the number system, formulas of Algebra and Geometry have helped the race to organize and arrange the world in which we live; if mathematics is linked up with a large number of the branches of human knowledge; if every educated man or woman should know what mathematics means, what its greatest uses are, and something of its soul; if it enters into the making of a good citizen because of its value as a mental discipline; if the contact with absolute truth, the style of reasoning, the habit of rigorous thinking, the love for beauty develops transferable power for independent investigation and gives a keener insight into life; if these should emerge in the mind of the student, the conception of an ordered, lawful universe, a universe in which the reign of law is absolute; then these facts make the teaching of mathematics a problem that challenges our skill and study, and makes our work top the pinnacle of life service.

scholarly journals The Quest for a Sure Foundation of Cognitive Beliefs: Karl Popper’s Fallibilist Critique of Rationalism and Empirisism

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
I Ndianefo
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Fundamental Assumption ◽  
Dead End ◽  
Cognitive Beliefs ◽  
The World

The question of sure foundation of cognitive beliefs is a problem in epistemology and has defied solution. Both rationalism and empiricism lead to a common philosophical dead end: all we know is idea so that the existence of the external world remains an unjustifiable posit. This realization unleashed epistemology from its foundationalist moorings and occasioned theoretical renunciations. Karl Popper is one of the formidable contemporary thinkers to break ranks with foundationalism. He abandoned the search for proof which is a fundamental assumption of foundationalism and asserted that such rejection is necessitated by virtue of the fallibility of human knowledge. He therefore held that our problem is to find better and bolder theories; and that critical preference counts, but not belief. The upshot is that the search for a sure foundation or certainty of our cognitive belief is a philosophical will o’ the wisp. All we need is a pragmatic choice of methods and theories to get on in the world.

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