Phil of Science
Wimsatt
4/28/11
Special note Emily loves Wimsatt. (Don’t get your hopes up Wimsatt next week may be a different story)
Wimsatt
-emphasis on biology, psychology, social science
-post doc in the field of population genetics
-reductionist
-however we have termed him a “friendly” reductionist
-philosopher of biology
Chapter 1
-Reduction
-good but not limited
-p.4
-Wimsatt says you can move up and down levels without taking away from the levels
-does not accept vulgar reductionist
-Re-engineering
-reassigning what is at hand in a new context
-everything that is used was once used for something else
-example, evolution and genetics
Philosophy grad student thoughts on Wimsatt
-Ross
-Did not deal with a problem
-was psychoanalyzing philosophers
-however his argument does not rest on this
-Roger
-philosophers do not engage in this type of argument
P.7 quote discussion
-Cody
-can not dissociate science from culture
-Roger
-How close is that to predicate logic?
-Cody
-In a social situation people do not follow predicate logic
-Roger
-How do we deal with that?
-Anton
-logic is good, people are wrong
-Wimsatt would say we should develop a new set of logic
-Anton
-some logic is invalid but still useful
-Emily
-Science is one step ahead, how can you have a philosophy of current science
-does philosophy lead science.
-Cody
-I think Wimsatt would be ok with science leading Philosophy
-Roger tell story about Philosopher’s thesis
-Anton
-there needs to be Phil at the beginning of science
Real World
-Idealations
- Better models to be made
-fear discussion
-Kolbyn
-real world is irrational
-Cody
-Truth become expression of culture
-Roger
-Kitcher epist. Attitude
-do they get useful perceptions? Does it disappear when they
turn their head?
-Wimsatt
-ask all the questions
-we have perverse perceptions of the world
-Anton
-talk on Jose’s presentation
-how philosophers developed their theories
P.10 quote – first paragraph
-we make inferences based on different things
-perplexing to a logician
-we learn when to apply inference mechanisms
-Wimsatt attempting to build philosophy on this
-require a lot of empirical work
Heuristics – common sense rule of making good decision based on previous work
-rule of thumb
-Wimsatt says this is how we should do Philosophy of science
-pick out axiom
-alternative to heuristics
-adaptive mechanisms outlined on p. 11
-axioms try to eliminate errors
-need to identify them to understand philosophy
Chapter 2
-technology
-airplane fly’s itself example
-humans must check
-have humans fly and computer check
-re-engineering comment
-should philosophy incorporate a system of error
-studying systems
-how/when/where things break down
-gene knockdown
Chapter 3
-Complex system generalization – should be ceteris paribus
-all things being equal
-except for one variable
-no ceteris paribus in physics
p.33
-considering applying certeris paribus to science and philosophy of science
-makes invalid the objection by counter example
-how do you accept Phil based on this?
-scientism simplifies models
-Rick “can you just study theory choice?”
-Roger
-Phil of science do not do case study
-look at why scientists rely on methods
-not study in Phil of science
-Anton
-Heuristics depend on particular subjected matter