- "The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultimate purpose of science."
The study of the nature of scientific inquiry and discovery.
Epistemology: The branch of philosophy that deals with the theory of knowledge, particularly with regard to its scope and limitations.
Metaphysics: The branch of philosophy that deals with the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between causality and determinism.
Empiricism: The view that all knowledge is based on experience, particularly through sensory perception and observation.
Rationalism: The view that knowledge can be derived through reason, logic, and intuition, independent of experience.
Scientific Method: The process of inquiry involving systematic observation, experimentation, and hypothesis testing that is used to develop and refine scientific theories.
Observation vs. Theory: The debate over whether scientific knowledge is derived solely from empirical observation, or whether theoretical constructs have a role to play in shaping scientific understanding.
Induction vs. Deduction: The debate over whether scientific knowledge is derived through inductive reasoning (generalizing from specific observations) or deductive reasoning (applying general principles to specific cases).
Reductionism vs. Holism: The debate over whether complex phenomena can be explained in terms of their underlying constituent parts (reductionism), or whether it is necessary to take a holistic approach, considering the interrelationships between the parts (holism).
Realism vs. Antirealism: The debate over whether scientific theories represent objective reality, or whether they are merely convenient fictions that best describe our observations.
Pragmatism: The view that the usefulness of scientific theories, rather than their truth or correspondence to reality, is the primary criterion for their acceptance.
Logical empiricism: This is a philosophy of science that emphasizes logical analysis of scientific theory and empirical evidence.
Positivism: This philosophy of science emphasizes that knowledge only comes from observable phenomena and that theories must be tested by empirical methods.
Scientific realism: This philosophy of science asserts that scientific theories and entities are real and that scientific knowledge is both objective and exists independently of human beliefs.
Instrumentalism: This philosophy of science states that scientific theories are merely instruments to predict and explain phenomena and are not true descriptions of reality.
Constructivism: This philosophy of science emphasizes that scientific knowledge is the result of social construction, and that scientific theories are a product of social agreement.
Critical realism: This philosophy of science asserts that scientific theories are subject to social and historical contexts, but that there are underlying causes and principles that can be discovered through scientific investigation.
Feminist philosophy of science: This is a philosophy of science that emphasizes the need to integrate feminist perspectives into the scientific research process.
Bayesianism: This philosophy of science emphasizes the use of probability theory to evaluate scientific evidence and theories.
Pragmatism: This philosophy of science emphasizes the practical usefulness of scientific knowledge and the importance of scientific inquiry for human progress.
Explanationism: This philosophy of science emphasizes the importance of explaining scientific phenomena and the importance of theoretical integration in scientific inquiry.
- "This discipline overlaps with metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, for example, when it explores the relationship between science and truth."
- "Philosophy of science focuses on metaphysical, epistemic and semantic aspects of science."
- "Ethical issues such as bioethics and scientific misconduct are often considered ethics or science studies rather than the philosophy of science."
- "There is no consensus among philosophers about many of the central problems concerned with the philosophy of science."
- "philosophers of science consider problems that apply to particular sciences (such as biology or physics)."
- "Karl Popper criticized logical positivism and helped establish a modern set of standards for scientific methodology."
- "Thomas Kuhn's 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was also formative, challenging the view of scientific progress as the steady, cumulative acquisition of knowledge based on a fixed method of systematic experimentation."
- "The coherentist approach to science, in which a theory is validated if it makes sense of observations as part of a coherent whole, became prominent due to W. V. Quine and others."
- "A vocal minority of philosophers, and Paul Feyerabend in particular, argue that there is no such thing as the 'scientific method', so all approaches to science should be allowed, including explicitly supernatural ones."
- "Another approach to thinking about science involves studying how knowledge is created from a sociological perspective."
- "Finally, a tradition in continental philosophy approaches science from the perspective of a rigorous analysis of human experience."
- "A central theme is whether the terms of one scientific theory can be intra- or intertheoretically reduced to the terms of another."
- "The question of what counts as science and what should be excluded arises as a life-or-death matter in the philosophy of medicine."
- "The question of the validity of scientific reasoning is seen in a different guise in the foundations of statistics."
- "Additionally, the philosophies of biology, psychology, and the social sciences explore whether the scientific studies of human nature can achieve objectivity."
- "the philosophies of biology, psychology, and the social sciences explore whether the scientific studies of human nature can...inevitably shaped by values and by social relations."
- "the implications of economics for public policy."
- "That is, can chemistry be reduced to physics, or can sociology be reduced to individual psychology?"
- "the ultimate purpose of science."