Chapter 7
Does Science Tell Us the
Whole Truth and
Nothing but the Truth?
Introduction
 Philosophy of Science – critical
analysis of various sciences and their
methodology
 Scientism – blind faith in the power of
science to determine all truth
How do we come to belief?
 Charles Sanders Peirce built the
foundation of pragmatism
 Abduction – the method for discovering
the best scientific hypotheses for a given
situation
The Fixation of Belief
Charles Sanders Peirce
 Examines the difference between doubt and
belief
 Doubt causes one to struggle for belief
 Simply asking a question does not produce a
struggle for belief
 An inquiry does not need to begin with first
principles, but from something which one does
not doubt
 When doubt ceases, the struggle ends and
would be without purpose if it continued
The Fixation of Belief
Charles Sanders Peirce
 Beliefs become fixed using:
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Method of tenacity
Method of authority
A pirori method
Method of scientific investigation
The Growth of Scientific
Knowledge
 Science is based on laws
 Deductive-nomological model
(covering law model) – an explanation
of an event consists in “covering” the
event under some law from which the
explanation is deduced
 How are conclusions validated?
Conjectures and Refutations
Karl Popper
 The growth of scientific knowledge
comes from overthrowing theories and
replacing them with better, more
satisfactory ones
 Rejects the idea that science grows
through making conjectures based on
theoretical laws
Conjectures and Refutations
Karl Popper
 Stronger theories can be distinguished
because they:
 Contain the most empirical information
 Are logically stronger
 Can be more severely tested
 A new theory must be tested empirically
Scientific Revolutions
 Hypothetico-deductive method – involves
deducing consequences that should hold if the
hypothesis is correct and then testing it
experimentally
 Normal science – the idea that science
accumulates truth by building on previous
theories over time
 Revolutionary science – scientists sometimes
reject traditional, time-honored theories in favor
of new, incompatible ones
Scientific Revolutions
 Anomalies – new events that do not fit
within the prevailing beliefs
 Paradigm – scientific achievement so
deep and impressive that it defines daily
practice for a community of scientists
 Incommensurable – describes the
incompatibility of two paradigms and the
lack of ability to determine which is more
accurate
The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions
Thomas S. Kuhn
 Defines normal science as research that is
based on past scientific achievements
 Paradigms are scientific achievements that
attract more adherents than others and are
open-ended enough to leave room for more
discoveries
 Scientific revolutions occur when an old
paradigm is replaced with a new one
 When paradigms change, there are usually a
significant shifts in the criteria for determining
the legitimacy of the problems and solutions
Objectivity and Science
 Prejudice is a prejudgment and should be
avoided
 A bias is the perspective a person has and it
cannot be avoided but a person should be
aware of it
 Standpoint theory – every person has a
personal, social, cultural, and historical
standpoint that limits and makes possible what
they can know through discovering, analyzing,
and critiquing standpoints. Popular among
feminists and others.
Strong Objectivity
Sandra Harding
 The recognition of the role of standpoints
in science and the production of
knowledge leads to “strong objectivity”
 Standpoint theory
 Is not about understanding marginal lives
more objectively, but about starting research
from the location of the marginal life
 Is not arguing that there is a universal
description of a woman’s life that is a starting
point for research
Science and Traditional
Thought
 How is scientific belief different from
traditional religious belief?
 Theodicy – explains why bad things
happen
Old Gods, New Worlds
Kwame Anthony Appiah
 Explores the relationship between his
background of traditional African belief and his
understanding of European scientific belief
 To understand how irrational beliefs are
sustained, one must understand
 The ritual and beliefs that support it
 Historical sources of ritual and belief
 What sustains the ritual and belief
Old Gods, New Worlds
Kwame Anthony Appiah
 Rationality is an ideal because it is something
that should be reached for (truth) but that
cannot be completely realized
 Traditional religious theory is like natural
science in that they both explain, predict, and
control
 Religious belief explains life in terms of
personal forces, while natural science explains
it by impersonal forces (Robin Horton)
 Modernity is more accommodative than
traditional cultural beliefs
The Will to Truth
 “discursive formations” are what Foucault
describes as something that operates
independently of the intentions and
beliefs of individuals, such as language
 What are the discursive formations of
knowledge, science, or the desire for
truth?
The Discourse on Language
Michel Foucault
 In every society, discourse is determined
by certain procedures that are meant to
avert the powers and dangers of
discourse, cope with chance events, and
avoid materiality
 Discourse is determined by:
 Rules of exclusion
 Opposition between reason and folly
 Will to truth or knowledge
Truth and Power
Michel Foucault
 The “political economy” of truth is
characterized by truth being:
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Centered on scientific discourse
Subject to economic and political demand
Circulated widely
Produced and transmitted under control of
political and economic apparatuses
 The issue of political debate and social
confrontation