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Philosophy of science Part I — Transcript

by Universitetet i Agder · 4,070 words · 664 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00[Music]
0:09we live in a time where science plays an
0:12important role in society
0:14we also live in a time of scientific
0:17pluralism and there are big divides and
0:19disagreements among scientific positions
0:24at the same time science is going into
0:28more fields involving more researchers
0:30and using a larger repertoire of
0:33methodologies and methods than ever
0:35before furthermore we live in a
0:39knowledge society where there is
0:41conflicting interest and conflicting
0:43knowledge
0:45but where we are also dependent on a
0:48common reason
0:52[Music]
0:54how can science be diverse and
0:56contribute to pluralism in society and
0:59at the same time provide valid knowledge
1:02in order to try to answer this question
1:04I will take you on a journey through the
1:07history of European science and make a
1:10few stops on the way and look at how
1:12philosophers and scientist at different
1:14times had tried to understand what
1:17science is
1:19[Music]
1:22in this first part of our journey we
1:25will look at how science emerged in
1:27antiquity how it was rediscovered in the
1:30medieval time and how it gradually
1:33became an independent institution in
1:35society along the route we will look at
1:39how science has been understood and
1:41conceptualized
1:43[Music]
1:57the roots of today's science can be
1:59found in Greece in the antiquity at the
2:02academy in Athens around 350 BC the
2:07Academy was founded by Plato and was a
2:10school for higher education it got its
2:14name from the place in which it was
2:15located a place that was dedicated to
2:18Athena the goddess of wisdom
2:22one of the Academy's most prominent
2:25students was Aristotle the works of
2:29Plato and Aristotle would become the
2:31most important references for science up
2:34to modern time
2:38[Music]
2:54they were struggling with trying to
2:58understand this whole phenomenon of
3:03general concepts where are they what are
3:06they are they real are they not so it
3:10was it that was a not only a controversy
3:15but a discussion that has followed you
3:18know science and philosophy for 2,000
3:20years this discussion should turn about
3:23to be the first big controversy in
3:25science that still defined some of its
3:28most fundamental disagreements the
3:32Renaissance painter Raphael captured
3:34this disagreement between Plato and
3:36Aristotle in his painting of the Academy
3:39letting Plato point upwards towards the
3:42ideas while Aristotle points downwards
3:45at nature what was this disagreement
3:50about and why is it so important as we
3:54shall see the disagreement would be a
3:57major divide in scientific reasoning up
4:00to modern times there were differences
4:02obviously I mean Plato was very much
4:07concerned with his own conception of
4:11ideas or forms that were in a way
4:16standards of measurement for things here
4:19on earth there was for horses and human
4:22beings and everything there was a sort
4:24of ideal type idea existing separately
4:30and Aristotle was very much in
4:32disagreement with this he had a
4:33different different thoughts about the
4:38status of these form for our ideas
4:41the disagreement escalated because it
4:44had also implications for how to do
4:47science Plato believed in reasoning from
4:51ideas Aristotle believed that in order
4:54to understand the forces that govern
4:56nature we need to study nature itself
4:59and for some reason this disagreement
5:04led Aristotle to the Greek island of
5:07it's quite a coincidence why iris total
5:09ended up here in Cologne eBay the story
5:12is told that it was a dispute with the
5:15nephew of Pluto specifics when he took
5:18over the Academy in 347 before Christ
5:21and the dispute was about methodology if
5:25that is the case it's actually the first
5:26big methodological dispute in science he
5:30came here because his student
5:32Theophrastus lived in this island and
5:35Theophrastus was interested in in botany
5:37here aristotle discovered biology
5:41because obvious of the fantastic
5:44wildlife and animal life and sea life
5:46that he discovered in this bay and
5:48together they made works that became
5:51reference for these fields these
5:54scientific fields for century after
5:56aristotle wrote several books where he
5:59classified political systems literature
6:02ethics and nature so Aristotle started
6:05the was actually the first to
6:08systematically start to research the
6:14natural world in a way in a scientific
6:18way if you like Plato believed that we
6:21can know how things logically have to be
6:24even if we cannot observe them
6:26iris totally used his observation to put
6:29both the nature and the human world into
6:31categories that would reveal the natural
6:34order of things and he described this
6:36eternal order so in spite of the science
6:41and differences the antiquity had the
6:44world picture that everything was
6:46governed by divine forces
6:55after antiquity science decayed and it
6:59would go 1,500 years before Aristotle
7:02was rediscovered in Europe the migration
7:06period in Europe from the fall of the
7:08Roman Empire to the early Middle Ages
7:10was marked by profound changes it was
7:14also a period when science was ignored
7:17ideas forgotten and books simply locked
7:21away
7:22[Music]
7:48after a long period of decay there is a
7:51renewed interest in science in Europe
7:53and it manifests itself around 1150 with
7:56the establishment of the new European
7:58universities first in bologna and then
8:01in oxford and here in paris universities
8:05derive the name from a latin concept of
8:08community of teachers and scholars the
8:11universities grew out of clerical school
8:13that got permission to give higher
8:15education in the Middle Ages that
8:18followed the Roman Empire the church
8:21gradually built and rebuilt institutions
8:23in Europe it was the church that
8:27controlled the teaching institutions
8:28where intellectual discussions took
8:30place by this the Catholic Church gained
8:34control over science the church was
8:37sitting on all authority in Europe at
8:41the church in the church institutions
8:44for the libraries the learned people
8:47read the researchers ever and of course
8:51the theologians and the church was had
8:56at hand
8:57of all kind of knowledge
8:59[Music]
9:10the church was in a dilemma it supported
9:14development of knowledge but for natural
9:16reasons would not allow ideas that could
9:18compete with a Bible and their world
9:20picture in this picture the earth was in
9:24the center and everything was ranked
9:27according to its relation to God
9:29however after 1100 the church started to
9:33take a more liberal view on what was
9:35acceptable Aristotle was again relevant
9:38and the good intention behind this is
9:40that church should care about nature and
9:42he was the expert on nature it was of
9:45course aristotle one of the Scholastic's
9:53that influenced the way the Catholic
9:54Church adopted Aristotelian thinking was
9:57Thomas Aquinas in the mid 1200 he came
10:02to the University of Paris first as a
10:04student and later as a teacher he found
10:09that the systematic logic of religious
10:12thinking could be combined with
10:14Aristotle's method of classification he
10:17wrote it is natural to a human being to
10:21attain to what is intelligible through
10:23objects of senses because our knowledge
10:25originates from senses now a discussion
10:30started about science but on the
10:33church's premises
10:38one of the scholars that came to the
10:41University of Paris in the earlier
10:43period was raga bacon he came here in
10:461237 and his work came to have a lasting
10:49influence on science he developed a new
10:52perspectives on method in order to study
10:54mate nature Roger Bacon argued that we
10:57should open up the fields that Aristotle
10:59had investigated and look at them in a
11:01new and more systematic way not only
11:04observing but also experimenting he got
11:09interested in optics because he believed
11:11that we need instruments to help us look
11:13deeper into things like the microscope
11:16or wider on things like the telescope
11:21this inspired the new interest in the
11:24ideas of the antiquity which would
11:27define the next 300 years in Europe the
11:30Renaissance
11:40[Music]
11:50this new Liberty to study things
11:53culminated when nicolaus copernicus in
11:561443 published his book on the
11:59revolutions of the celestial spheres
12:01here he presented his heliocentric
12:04hypothesis that the earth circulates the
12:08Sun and not the other way around it was
12:12presented as a theory but would create a
12:15lot of controversies for the next 200
12:18years it inspired scholars to study the
12:22planetary system and thereby became the
12:24start of the Scientific Revolution this
12:28was a revolution that would gradually
12:30question Aristotle's research and as the
12:34Catholic Church had identified with
12:35Aristotle it was on the defensive when
12:38our Estados findings were proven wrong
12:40and now this church's Authority was
12:45shaken and people was bewildered because
12:49the church had done something wrong and
12:52Aristotle was a reason so now the people
12:57looked around for some new ground to
13:00stand on they would increasingly find
13:03that ground in science during the
13:07Renaissance research activities had
13:10spread and was done in different places
13:12not only in universities but at courts
13:15and in laboratories Roger Bacon had
13:18discovered gunpowder Johannes Gutenberg
13:21invented the printing machine in 1439
13:24making books more available astronomers
13:28had redefined the Earth's place in the
13:30universe and Christopher Columbus used
13:32new insight in navigation to sail to
13:35America in 1492 there was power in
13:39scientific knowledge Kings princes and
13:43wealthy families like the Medici in
13:45Florence hired scientists in order to
13:47invent new things
13:49science and research was now spread all
13:52around Europe
14:06the Scientific Revolution that happened
14:08during the Renaissance period had
14:10convinced people about the power of
14:13scientific discovery and from there on
14:16science gained a much more independent
14:19position in society as an independent
14:21institution I was allowed develop on
14:24their their their it's own account the
14:26new discoveries in science were made
14:29both by better techniques and
14:30instruments to observe things but also
14:33through application of mathematics and
14:35logic in a way the great authorities
14:38leaves the scene and the discovery of
14:40the universe becomes something that
14:43everyone can try to participate in and
14:46that was in itself a kind of revolution
14:49and this is a part of this change of
14:53perspective which came in the
14:56Renaissance that you put man the human
14:58being the ordinary human being in the
15:02center not not God not the authorities
15:08but man any man
15:15[Music]
15:32what follows has been called the
15:34Enlightenment period it's a period where
15:37people in general became more educated
15:38and more engaged in scientific
15:41discoveries new branches of science
15:45appear and new discoveries are made in
15:48fields like biology and medicine it is
15:51also a period where the universities
15:53develop and where both universities and
15:56science are struggling for independence
15:59the Enlightenment period becomes a new
16:02start for science the Renaissance had
16:05corrected many Aristotle's observations
16:08now was a time to take reckoning both
16:10with a whole philosophy of knowledge
16:12that Aristotle and Plato had based their
16:14ideas on and also with a Catholic and
16:18medieval worldview that a dominated
16:20Europe for thousand years the man that
16:24more than others would take that role
16:25was a French lawyer and mathematician
16:28Rene Descartes one of the main things he
16:31had to sort out was a relation between
16:33the physical world and metaphysics the
16:36court used the metaphor of a tree to
16:39describe the relationship between
16:42metaphysics and physics the roots of the
16:45tree is like metaphysics we cannot see
16:47them but we can imagine how they are the
16:50trunk of the tree is like physics that
16:52is something we can observe by this
16:54argument they cut managed to make a
16:57divide between our mental existence our
16:59mind thoughts religion and beliefs and
17:03our physical existence this dualism
17:08decoupled the study of the physical
17:10world from metaphysical speculation for
17:14the cut the physical world consists of
17:16mechanics medicine and ethics but a cat
17:21also strived to establish the foundation
17:23for metaphysics so it was a very
17:27ambitious man and it was certain that he
17:30had found the answer and the answer lay
17:32in one single axiom this is one thing I
17:37can be sure of and that is I am thinking
17:40even if I'm doubting everything I'm
17:44still thinking because
17:45doubt is a kind of thinking and because
17:48I'm thinking I know that I exist and
17:50that is my basic axiom to try to
17:54understand myself in the world the
17:58revolutionary with the COTS philosophy
18:00is that it puts man's thinking in the
18:02center of everything not God not the
18:06world not the divine science and
18:09philosophy is simply our human minds
18:12attempt to understand the world science
18:15is human thinking about the world
18:18thus he gives hines a new start
18:22however his dualism would become
18:25controversial after our own time
18:27in the early 17th century science had to
18:31be able to proceed without worrying
18:33about religion so they had a division of
18:35the territory Descartes gave God the
18:38soul and immortality to religion and the
18:41physical world was a property of science
18:43the dualism of Descartes would lead to a
18:46divide that would set the scene for the
18:48further development of science
18:51[Music]
18:57[Music]
19:09we are about to take the train out from
19:12Paris to London it's a journey that
19:15takes a little bit more than two hours
19:16but in terms of philosophy we are moving
19:19from one world to the other while
19:21continental philosophy continued to be
19:24concerned with what the court had
19:26discussed namely the relation the
19:28epistemological issues related to the
19:31relationship between metaphysics and
19:33physics in the British philosophy one
19:37more or less neglected the whole
19:40metaphysical discussion and concentrated
19:42on the visible world that we can
19:44experience what we will call empiricism
19:53[Music]
20:03[Music]
20:11[Music]
20:31[Music]
20:41the man that inspired empiricism in
20:43Britain was Francis Bacon he was a
20:47student at Trinity College in Cambridge
20:49in his book the new scientific method
20:53published in 1620 he criticized Plato
20:56for his unfounded idea theory an
20:59Aristotle for unfounded categorizing
21:03about Aristotle II wrote he corrupted
21:06natural philosophy by logic
21:08thus he formed the world of categories
21:12bacon called for a new way of doing
21:15science purely based on observation this
21:18new scientific method was called
21:20induction the perspective of Francis
21:23Bacon was not that we study nature in
21:26order to understand nature as nature we
21:30study nature from the perspective of
21:33being human being its we study it from
21:36the perspective of man so Francis Bacon
21:39and haneda craft were both part of the
21:42Enlightenment period and shared this new
21:44vision of science as being man's
21:45thinking of the world but bacon did not
21:49believe that we can gain knowledge from
21:51thinking alone actually the right way of
21:54producing knowledge is a thoroughly
21:56study investigate experiment and so on
22:00and gradually build up knowledge about
22:02the phenomena where you'll get more and
22:04more verification of the truth of
22:07something and through that science could
22:09produce truth and as he formulated also
22:12in this book
22:13knowledge is power truths from knowledge
22:17becomes extremely powerful and that is
22:19also more or less the slogan of the
22:21Enlightenment period but the
22:23disagreement about how to reason about
22:25knowledge would be a new big
22:28methodological dispute in the history of
22:29science the one between induction and
22:33deduction and it was a dispute that
22:36would continue even after some of the
22:38greatest scientific discoveries were
22:39made by Isaac Newton in the second half
22:42of the 17th century he became known for
22:46being able to give a mathematical
22:48description to phenomena one was a basic
22:51equation of mechanic's
22:53and mechanics is a science about how
22:57things move when they are subject to
23:00forces the others was mathematical
23:05description or one of the most important
23:08forces of the world namely gravitation
23:11modern science had tried to rid itself
23:14of metaphysics and superstition one of
23:17the big questions that had occupied
23:19minds for thousands of years and led to
23:22speculations of divine forces with how
23:25we can explain the movement of things
23:26from planets to small objects with
23:31newton's discoveries this problem seems
23:33to have been solved
23:34so Newton shaped the science for
23:39hundreds of years to come and he was the
23:44founder of physics which was the valid
23:48physics until the twentieth century
23:50still in the debate on philosophy of
23:53science the discussion was how didn't
23:57even managed to reach his conclusions
23:59did his discoveries represent induction
24:02or deduction philosophers at both sides
24:05of the canal would engage in this
24:07discussion
24:33as science grew in importance throughout
24:36the Enlightenment period one started to
24:40invest in universities in beautiful
24:42places like here in Cambridge and to
24:45build houses to celebrate knowledge and
24:48and science like the Wren library that
24:51we see in the background
24:54[Music]
25:01while libraries in the medieval time
25:04often had been dark hidden and sometimes
25:07forbidden to enter the idea of the rent
25:10library was openness space and light
25:14knowledge in the form of books should be
25:17accessible to everyone the window on the
25:20south wall behind me is called the chip
25:23Leon II window
25:24it's a painted glass window designed by
25:27Jan Battista piane in the 1770s and it's
25:32very interesting because it shows the
25:33king who was on the throne at that time
25:35George the third and behind George the
25:38third is Britannia Isaac Newton is being
25:41introduced to the King by the spirit of
25:44Trinity or the muse of the college and
25:47Francis Bacon is sitting at the bottom
25:49right hand corner and he's recording the
25:52scene for posterity
25:53now this is a bit of 17th century fun
25:57because both Newton and Bacon were dead
25:59by the time George the third came to the
26:01throne it's an allegory it's an allegory
26:04of Trinity's greatness because at that
26:07time and that came at the end of a
26:09period where the college had decided to
26:11memorialize all its great men at that
26:14time
26:14Newton and bacon were considered the
26:17greatest men the college had produced so
26:20this shows Trinity's greatness in the
26:221770s and as a beautiful piece of work
26:24painted glass the colors change
26:27throughout the day because the light in
26:28the building is so wonderful and it
26:31wasn't a popular window in the
26:33nineteenth century because the
26:35Victorians didn't like allegory and they
26:37thought the window was a bit gaudy and
26:39brash and the well attempts to have it
26:42removed but thankfully that didn't
26:44happen and we can still enjoy it today
26:47[Music]
27:24it was a very typical aspect of science
27:27in the Enlightenment period that it
27:30celebrated its heroes this is the death
27:33mask of Isaac Newton this was made
27:36immediately after his death celebrating
27:39the luminescent they made it they made
27:43it and the suit people's here there are
27:47several versions of this dotted around
27:51even if the Enlightenment celebrated the
27:54new heroes the philosophers and
27:56scientists there was still no agreement
27:59among them of what constituted the right
28:01way of developing knowledge the Scottish
28:05philosopher David Hume was one of the
28:08skeptics among the empiricists Hume
28:11questioned the inductive method he
28:14argued that we cannot know things for
28:16sure
28:17beyond our immediate observation an
28:20example is the Black Swan even if all
28:24swans we observe are white we cannot
28:27rule out the possibility of a Black Swan
28:30when we form knowledge we do it as much
28:33based on customs and habits as on solid
28:36individual reification x' from sense
28:38impressions hume also argued that norms
28:44and habits were not necessarily
28:46deliberately chosen but had developed
28:48through evolution you Mar good that
28:51there are two ways in which we can
28:53develop knowledge about the world and
28:55it's these two ways are very often
28:58referred to as Humes fork on the one
29:02hand we can have knowledge about the
29:04ideas and on the other hand we can have
29:07knowledge about facts there by huge
29:10acted the crafts idea that by doubting I
29:13can prove that I think and thereby
29:15deduct truth about the world from
29:17thinking tomes great achievement was to
29:21show that skepticism cannot be answered
29:23within a Cartesian framework what he
29:25didn't do was get out of that framework
29:27and the crucial thing that he could not
29:30get out of was that when we perceive
29:33something we actually perceive objects
29:35and states of affairs in the world
29:37[Music]
29:47at the continent one observed the debate
29:50in Britain and the man who tried to
29:53reconcile the disagreement between the
29:55cat and Hume was Immanuel Kant he lived
29:59his whole life in königsberg but
30:01published his articles through the
30:03university in Berlin and managed to be
30:06one of the Western world's most central
30:08thinkers Cannes achievement was to bring
30:11together different ideas that had
30:13dominated his time he disagreed with
30:17Francis Bacon and the empiricists with
30:19their claim that all knowledge comes
30:21from impressions and experience he
30:25thought that a cat was right in pointing
30:27out the dualism on the one hand the
30:30question we're thinking comes from on
30:32the other hand the question how we use
30:36thinking in practice but he did not call
30:39the answer to the first of these
30:40questions metaphysics rather he defined
30:44it as the epistemology kant agreed that
30:48David Hume had pointed at something
30:49important how do we get from specific
30:52knowledge to general knowledge come to
30:56argue that Isaac Newton could not have
30:58made his discovery based on induction
31:01time and space that are very central in
31:04Newton theory does not come from
31:07induction if we did not have a concept
31:10of time and space a priori we would not
31:13be able to perceive it we have two
31:16capacities in our reason Kant argued we
31:20have the capacity to understand general
31:22and abstract things and we have the
31:24capacity to understand specific things
31:27through sensing and experiencing if you
31:31adopt the assumption all you can ever
31:33perceive are your own experiences then
31:36how do you ever get objective knowledge
31:38how to get knowledge of things in
31:40themselves and in particular how to get
31:43synthetic a priori truths and his answer
31:48was what he called a Copernican
31:49revolution instead of seeing our mind
31:53having to be responsible to reality
31:56think of reality as having to be rich
31:59possible to our mind and then you're off
32:02and running then you can get synthetic a
32:04priori propositions because what you're
32:05dealing with is the capacity of the mind
32:08to create representations that give us
32:11objective reality how can I be objective
32:14reality well underneath the appearances
32:17are things in themselves which we can
32:20never know but we have to oppose that
32:22they're there Deckert Hume and Kant
32:25would continue to be main references in
32:28philosophy of science in the centuries
32:30to come and their disagreement would
32:33dominate the discussion in Europe of
32:35what science is they represented three
32:39main directions in philosophical
32:40thinking that had impact on the three
32:43main discourses in three different
32:45countries the curtain rationalism in
32:48France Hume and empiricism in Britain
32:52and Canton idealism in Germany during
32:58the Enlightenment period society has
33:00developed and across Europe there is
33:03progress both in technology and in
33:06economic political and social
33:07institutions at the same time that can
33:12sits in coningsburgh and think at the
33:15University of Glasgow in Scotland James
33:17what invents the steam engine and Adam
33:20Smith is sorting out the economic
33:22principles of industrial production
33:25scientific discovery started to
33:27materialize in technical and social
33:30improvements thus anticipating the
33:33Industrial Revolution
33:34[Music]
33:41can't celebrated enlightenment and gave
33:45Frederic the grades credit for having
33:47introduced individual freedom freedom of
33:49speech and the rule of law
33:51during his reign as King of Prussia it
33:55is the free thinking among free persons
33:57that constituted enlightenment
34:01[Music]
34:06a good expression of the Enlightenment
34:09period is this pump not building in
34:11Paris this architecture is harmonic and
34:14symmetric and with references to Greek
34:17and Roman times which is also was the
34:20case of the Enlightenment period and
34:22also this was a building that originally
34:25was attended as a church but in 1791
34:28during the French Revolution it was
34:30converted into a celebration hall for
34:33French thinkers and also you could say
34:35for friends thinking
34:37[Music]
34:40we have so far followed European science
34:43over more than 2,000 years history from
34:46its beginning in antiquity through his
34:49revival in the Middle Ages and into the
34:52Scientific Revolution in the Renaissance
34:55from then on we have seen how science
34:59developed as a more and more independent
35:01institution liberating itself from the
35:04dominance of the church
35:05questioning many of the ideas of
35:07antiquity opening new areas of research
35:10and trying to establish a philosophical
35:13foundation for scientific knowledge
35:18after the French Revolution as we move
35:22into the 19th century science would
35:25increasingly be influencing society and
35:28the discussion about what is scientific
35:30knowledge would continue
35:38[Music]
36:05you
36:22you

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