- "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 fundamental questions that arise from scientific inquiry, such as the nature of knowledge, truth, and reality.
Scientific method: The principles and procedures used by scientists to conduct research, including hypothesis formation, experimentation, data analysis, and conclusion drawing.
Empiricism: The theory that knowledge is primarily acquired through sensory experience.
Rationalism: The theory that knowledge is primarily acquired through reason and logical analysis.
Epistemology: The study of knowledge, including its nature, sources, and limits.
Ontology: The study of being and existence, including the nature of reality and its relationship to human experience.
Reductionism: The theory that complex phenomena can be explained by analyzing their constituent parts.
Holism: The theory that complex phenomena cannot be understood by analyzing their constituent parts in isolation.
Positivism: The theory that scientific knowledge is the only valid form of knowledge, and that other forms of knowledge are either meaningless or false.
Postmodernism: The theory that truth is relative and dependent on social and cultural contexts.
Hermeneutics: The study of interpretation, including the interpretation of texts, symbols, and cultural artifacts.
Ethics: The study of moral values and principles, including their relationship to science and religion.
Evolution: The process by which species arise and change over time, as described by the theory of evolution by natural selection.
Creationism: The religious belief that the universe and all living things were created by a divine being or beings.
Intelligent design: The theory that certain features of the universe and living things are best explained by the action of an intelligent designer.
Theology: The study of God and religious beliefs, including the relationship between science and religious belief.
Cosmology: The study of the origins, evolution, and structure of the universe.
Philosophy of physics: The study of the fundamental concepts and principles used in physics, including space, time, matter, and energy.
Philosophy of biology: The study of the fundamental concepts and principles used in biology, including evolution, genetics, and ecology.
Philosophy of chemistry: The study of the fundamental concepts and principles used in chemistry, including atoms, molecules, and chemical reactions.
Philosophy of mathematics: The study of the fundamental concepts and principles used in mathematics, including numbers, sets, and logic.
Logical positivism: Based on the premise that science should be based strictly on observable and measurable data, logical positivists assert that claims about reality must be tested empirically in order to be considered scientific.
Scientific realism: Scientific realism maintains that scientific theories, at least the ones that are empirically supported, are true descriptions of the world.
Falsificationism: Developed by philosopher Karl Popper, falsificationism asserts that scientific hypotheses must be testable, and that they should be rejected when they are shown to be false.
Instrumentalism: Instrumentalists believe that scientific theories are merely useful tools for prediction and have no bearing on the truth value of the underlying reality.
Constructivism: Constructivists advocate that scientific knowledge is a product of human activity and therefore subjective.
Pragmatism: Pragmatists believe that scientific knowledge should be judged by its practical utility, rather than strict adherence to any theoretical framework.
Phenomenology: Phenomenologists believe that the nature of scientific inquiry should be based on a description and analysis of human experience.
Hermeneutics: Hermeneutics emphasizes the interpretation of scientific texts and the role of subjectivity in scientific inquiry.
Critical theory: This approach to philosophy emphasizes the power dynamics involved in scientific inquiry and aims to expose any biases or injustices present.
Feminist philosophy of science: Feminist philosophy of science seeks to identify and challenge gender biases within science and the scientific community.
Postmodernism: This approach to Philosophy of Science rejects the idea of a single "Truth" and instead stresses the multiple meanings and interpretations that arise from scientific investigation.
Environmental philosophy: This form of Philosophy of Science explores the ethical and political implications of human interaction with the natural world and the scientific study of the environment.
Cognitive Science: A field that combines philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and linguistics to understand how humans acquire knowledge, process information, and reason.
Neurophilosophy: Study of the relationship between the brain and the mind as well as the biological basis of consciousness.
Philosophy of Biology: The study of the fundamental principles of biological science and the relationship between the scientific investigation of life and its broader philosophical implications.
Evolutionary psychology: This field of research utilizes evolutionary theory to explore the origins of human cognition, behavior, and emotion.
Computational philosophy of science: Examines the role of computational methods in scientific discovery and the ways these methods may change the practice of scientific inquiry.
Heidegger's Philosophy of Science: Martin Heidegger's philosophy posits that science is not objective, but a form of human activity rooted in cultural, historical, and linguistic contexts.
Quantum philosophy: This branch of Philosophy of Science is concerned with the philosophical implications of the theories of quantum mechanics, including the nature of reality and the limits of human knowledge.
Ethics of science: Examines the moral implications of scientific research and seeks to set ethical guidelines for scientific investigations.
- "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."