Understanding Scientific Knowledge and Truth in Philosophy

Posted on Dec 15, 2024 in Philosophy and ethics

I: Scientific Knowledge

We can begin by asking: what is science? (Latin scientia, which means knowledge, or scire, or know)

Science is a way of knowing something. That which one wants to know in science is called the object of knowledge. The process we follow is called the method of knowledge. Both object and method are aspects that define scientific knowledge. The sciences can be grouped into three areas:

Axiomatic = incontrovertible evidence, a set of definitions, axioms, and postulates underlying scientific theory. It is objective.

The experimental method or hypothetical-deductive method has four steps:

1. Set up problems
2. Formulate a hypothesis
3. Observation and experimentation (practical work)
4. Theory, law, and paradigm.

The natural sciences assume the following assumptions:

• Metaphysical: identify reality with the cosmos, universe, nature. There is no supernatural reality, even assuming that there is, it is irrelevant to scientific knowledge as natural phenomena have natural causes (a common cause, same effect).
• Epistemological: The order of the universe is described mathematically. The truth or falsehood of this description is shown by observation and experimentation. The mathematical description predicts. Its objectivity makes it valid for the entire world, that is, universal.
• Ethical: The scientific prediction about the behavior of nature is the basis of technological control. The natural sciences are linked with technology or subject to be a historic project of man, undergoing general knowledge through technology.

IV: Approaches to Truth or Falsity in Philosophy

A) Immediate or intuitive:

4.1A (direct) sensitive: It is direct and immediate knowledge

We perceive through our senses experimentation transmitted. We only apply it to the verification or falsification of special or unique propositions (The chair is hard)

4.2A for intellectual or spiritual insight: It is direct because it does not need

Other supporting intellectual truths and because it can dispense with the senses (What does not exist cannot cause anything. Killing an innocent man is despicable).

B) Mediated or discursive: (Requires assumptions to reach conclusions)

4.3A Deduction: If the premises are true the conclusion also

It is, even adding information.

Deduction, in logic, is a form of reasoning which infers a conclusion from one or more premises. In a valid deductive argument the conclusion is true if all premises are also true (A = B, A = C à B = C = view logical syllogism 3 premises). They start from the general to the particular. All premises must be true. Missing premises are to be found not to miss.

4.4A Induction: Even with true premises, the conclusion can

Be false (symptoms of a disease may be another similar). Adding information may change the conclusion.

Philosophical induction, in the field of logic, is the process in which one reasons from the particular to general, as opposed to deduction. The base of induction is the assumption that if something is true in some situation, it is also in similar situations but not observed. The probability of success depends on the number of observed phenomena. A simple form of induction are surveys of opinion (from a group = responses of a population)

V: Science and Ethics

Science is the result of a decision of the human will, hence it raises ethical problems.

A commitment to science is the truth. Man can give back to the truth so you can have an impact on science. If done consciously we are facing an almost scientific fraud (deception). It occurs when the scientist puts philosophical beliefs, political, religious, or scientific theories properly contrasted.

On the other hand, we ask: What should be investigated? What is human capital, infrastructure, administrative organization? Scientific assessments appear: the social, political, and economic. Hence the next question is the financing private/public, or economic efficiency/political.

You can take these cases:

-Margin primary research or truly important in itself.

-Investigate the problems of a particular elite funding. It is therefore marginalize certain sectors of the population.

Question: Who should decide the priority lines of research? (Politicians, scientists, entrepreneurs, people / Private sphere, public, state) Whoever controls technology controls power and its risks. It is question: Is it the same scientific and human progress?

I: The Problem of Truth

The content covered so far is considered as true knowledge, so that we could say that our training (education) is based on what the human community/science considers as true, hence it is personally and socially useful.

The training of professionals is primarily based on the current certainty of knowledge of our time. Otherwise, it would only be a false knowledge, which would be useless. So, the truth becomes a necessary element for human development (The truth is forever changing. What is eternal, is the truth or the urge to find it?)

To consider that this is a know we need to know two things:

“What we know is true (By argument or opinion)

“What we know is demonstrably true, we become scientists.

Done this approach in philosophy the question of truth arises:

– What is truth?

– How do I know what I think is true is it? (Certainty)

In modern philosophers and scientists established criteria to determine with certainty the truth than you think. As used in science experiments in the case of the truth, we must manage accuracy and truth as terms beyond the palpable or believed. (I have always believed is objective. Example: In a trial there is no subjective truth).

We define accuracy as a firm conviction that what we think is true really is. The opposite of certainty is doubt: Not being sure that what we think or say is true or not.

We will have the certainty of truth when there is no doubt about it (Descartes said that he was not sure about anything, doubted almost everything, except that pensabaà “Cogito ergo sum” àPienso therefore I am)

II: Truth and Authenticity

Authentic and true not always be connected. The truth is always good and what is not true that: a real criminal is wrong with what can not be true.

What is false or not genuine?

One way to clarify the truth is for authenticity. The different meanings of the word truth can be:

-True-True, understood as a peculiar way of being that distinguishes and elevates on his peers.

“True Essence, all traits that someone or something is what it says.

Speaking the truth means admitting or not universal.

Essences should be universal for the same species (Plato). Meet the essence is to be authentic, since this is in line to be determined ideal. We conclude that something is true when developing its essence in an exemplary way. Wisely, we know that something is true when developing its essence in an exemplary way. Sensibly we know that the essence is something unattainable to 100% because that would not be ideal but that is only in the mind. The essence is ideal because we aspire to it but is unattainable.

To consider something true we need a benchmark with which to compare them. To do otherwise would tend to falsehood.

Plato affirmed the real existence of ideal to which reality must submit and comply. La cotejación something of a model with constant.

William of Occam is a Franciscan who denies the universal and the father of NominalismoàAquella ideology that argues that there are essences shared between individuals of the same species. The essence is not universal. This means that it makes no sense to buy two items look the same species by determining their degree of authenticity. The essence of each one and essence of each one is ideal but not perfect. No one is more authentic than another. Every individual is authentic, it is not comparable to an ideal, and strengthening the dignity of the individual and thus should not be impaired when you buy a canon. This is essential to devise general rules.

The problem of nominalism against Platonism is that an individual’s exaggerated claim entails the loss of all human values acquired through the story.

VII: The Truth and Fulfillment

Jn 14. 6-9A The revolutionary truth:

In true religion is equal to a promise, philosophically we have to ask:

– Does it make sense to speak of truth in the religious sphere? (Religious beliefs are subjective and unprovable, It makes no sense to speak of truth or measured according to religion).

As an abstract concept from religion is more elusive. The revolutionaries of Christian philosophy does not defend the truth as a concept of knowledge. But customize it into a God-man.

For the philosophy of Christianity the concept of truth proposal stems from an ancient oral tradition where one God (Yahweh, Allah, Elohim) makes a deal with a people that is the fulfillment of a promise in exchange for the loyalty of the people.

Christ promises to his people that if you follow him (which is true) and make their way, will be saved. This conception of truth is very new and revolutionary because it not only refers to the future but that highlights past and present, that is, to the Judeo-Christian concept (Emunah) true = save = new this change or do you value your life before you die (metanoia).

It is not the same to another life to think about another life. “

The truth demands of us, as well as an exercise of intellectual, adhesion and a vital commitment covering the whole life (the theory and practice), or is the sum of reason, feeling and will, so the truth is a path result of freely chosen lifestyle.

Knowledge to Know Philosophy’s Myth

Philosophy is a specific knowledge to be concrete in the environment of the Aegean Sea, which decisively influences the climate, agricultural and maritime economy, a hierarchical social structure and a general atmosphere of multiculturalism. This contributed to the collapse of the myth as the only explanation of reality. The myth was a sacred explanation of the chaotic, the unknown and did not depend on the will of man, so were not subject to prediction. Furthermore, the myth was sacred because it lies in the gods, and thus every natural phenomenon was the responsibility of a god, as was produced or destroyed. To interact with them, comes the religious ritual in order to seduce them, but the only possible attitude for man is resignation and sacrifice.

So, the myth is a story that suggests an established interpretation of the cosmos and man’s role in it. That myth is set to a wrong time, ie is anachronistic and serves to teach at any time and also is linked to the heroes of the place, which in many cases will be deified.

Key features of the myth are:

• It is policy: myth serves to cause the rules and values that govern the fate of the group.
• It legitimizes the social order.
• Gives meaning to human existence and purpose of it.
• It is ethnocentric, ie focuses on the culture itself and serves to unite and give identity to the community while the difference from others.
• It requires emotional support and not allowed to be criticized.
• It offers a non-historical knowledge.
• It is a knowledge born of anonymous and collective memory over time.

Chronology

The different stages that characterize Western philosophy, have a common denominator which is precisely the approach of the fundamental questions, namely how in each period, the philosophy has attempted to explain the reality of being human.

Having said this we must add the importance of mood (mood, attitude and vitality), ie, each sees it from his point of view and has its own way.

The period of classical culture implies an admiration for the next thing in nature and the cycling of her, giving comments outside any religious belief.

This period is divided into four stages:

~ Pre-Socratic: Socrates earlier thinkers, from Thales of 624 as Miret, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Parmenides Heríclito or.

~ Clíasica: At this stage they are Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus and Archimedes.

~ Hellenistic: the henelismo expressed an interest, passion and fury to imitate all the dominant theories and characteristics of the classical period in Greece, particularly Athens, IV and V centuries BC. Most striking is the passion that manifests life (carpe diem). In contrast was at one Judeo-Christianity that proposes sacrifice, justice, and moral repression.

Neoplatonic ~: is a stage for mixing diverse philosophical and religious doctrines at the same timepo. The most important is the search by thinkers to make a synthesis of Plato’s metaphysical ideas, especially regarding the theory of forms. But this summary is going to take place in Alexandria where there is a flourishing Hellenistic Judaism. The prototype of these writers is Philo of Alexandria. In essence, it retains the Greek and will be so important that it survives in the Middle Ages in the Modern and the Contemporary.

Scholasticism

Means a very complex movement that is based on the Aristotelian principles to interpret everything that is the revelation of Christianity. It was a very important school in Europe with special focus on universities. Sought to integrate into an ordered system all the knowledge provided by Greece and Rome but from the Christian perspective. However, the term ecolástico was much wider than its previous stage, the patística. As used different research methods and study influenced by other cultures. Originally the term referred only ecolástico the teacher who taught at the monastery where the emergence of different schools and in the cathedrals. This was the true origin of the universities and with the passage of time was also used in any philosopher or theologian who follows the doctrine of Aristotle matter where you teach.

Twentieth Century

~ Neopositivist

Born in the school or the Vienna Circle and its aim is to highlight the importance of linguistic analysis and the method used to study different sciences.

Atlantic Philosophy

Born in England and the U.S. after World War II and is concerned with studying the concepts by which we create global theories that there be no confusion in the international arena. The universities of Cambridge and Oxford are the center that thought. This philosophy is not linked to any previous theory.

Phenomenology

It is also a twentieth-century movement that describes the structure of experience as occurs in consciousness without resorting to theories, inferences or assumptions above.

Philosophy of Existence

Existentialism is a movement all its branches heterogeneous but highlighted the crucial role of life, liberty and individual choice. This thought had and has great influence not only in the philosophical field, but also in literature, in film and theater. Paradoxically coincides with the philosophy of Christianity as long as both are fighting for the same ideal, the happiness of man through the eradication of fear. Existentialism taken to its extreme can result in more radical individualist or subjective gauge that should be resolved against the eternal conflicts caused by