Notes:PHIL367/exam

[edit] Question Information

On three different sections:

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Consider the following three claims:
1. Science is in the business of proposing laws
2. Observation is the only way to decide the acceptability of a law
3. We cannot justifiably accept a law on the basis of observation (Hume’s point).
These three claims have historically been seen to conflict and create a problem for scientific reasoning. Popper argues that 1-3 do not conflict, because theories are produced by conjecture, rather than by induction.
Describe the apparent conflict among 1-3 and describe and evaluate (i.e. analyze) Popper’s response.
According to Cartwright, Hempel’s demand that the laws cited in the explanans must be true is problematic.
What are Cartwright’s reasons for this claim?
van Fraassen argues that given two predictively equivalent and equally simple scientific theories we cannot choose which to accept on the basis of explanatory power.
Describe and evaluate van Fraassen’s case for this claim.
Do electrons exist? Discuss.

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Is discussed explicitly in popper's piece.
Problem of Induction (Popper sais that's not science's aim, science can refute things.)
Avoids It:
- It isn't the business of science to prove that something is true.
- What we're interested in is these conjectures that are whiles, but there's reasons to stick it out with some. "Problem of induction"
- In a sense popper ignores #2.
- We use observation to refute, not accept laws.
Attempted Refutations instead of confirmation.
Popper is talking about falsibility.
Problems:
- It's not obvious when a new theory comes about, it's not obvious about what can disproove it.

Wheather a theory works or not
The more correct model does not neccesarily have more explanitory power.
Depends on the point of view of what's being asked.
- What question are you getting to?
Explanitory power is not a factor in theory choice. You can't choose one on the basis of explanitory power.
Scientific theories don't explain.
To have a decent explanation you need initial conditions and contrast classes to set up the question since the question isn't neccesarily definitive.
Explanation is kind of outsourced...
A good theory of explanations needs to set up the asymmetries.
Expectability is a bad idea (globally agreed).
Problems:
- Asymetry? - Angled shadow, they predict but dont explain.