Workshops
How a scientist shall be armed: beyond techniques and mathematics
Gonzalo García-Baquero Moneo
Consortium for Biomedical Research in Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain. Environment Epidemiology and Child Development Area, BIODONOSTIA Health Research Institute, San Sebastian, Spain.
e-mail: [email protected]
Consortium for Biomedical Research in Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain. Environment Epidemiology and Child Development Area, BIODONOSTIA Health Research Institute, San Sebastian, Spain.
e-mail: [email protected]
Science might be briefly described as the attempt to understand, explain and predict the universe via observation, experimentation and construction of theories. The goals of science belong in the sphere of knowledge, which is analysed by the branch of philosophy called epistemology. The methods of scientific inference rely on logic, a discipline halfway between mathematics and philosophy, and are analysed by the philosophy of science. So it appears that our identity as scientists lies, at least to some extent, hidden in philosophical thought, and that knowing about what we scientists do, and about how we do it, is to be unveiled by logic, epistemology and philosophy of science, rather than by discipline-specific techniques and mathematics. Not per chance many a distinguished scientist has had a keen interest on philosophy.
In the first part of this workshop we will use a few Gettier-type stories to explore Gettier’s challenge to the classical analysis of knowledge (knowledge as justified true belief), Goldman’s theories of knowledge, as well as contextualism and invariantism. We will end this very short exploration of recent analysis of knowledge by alluding at the philosophical position of Williamson’s knowledge-first movement: is knowledge more basic than belief? The second part of this workshop will be devoted to briefly explore one of the reasoning processes through which scientists arrive at conclusions (or beliefs, say): induction. Hume claimed that inductive reasoning cannot be justified, and logicians tell us that inductive arguments are not valid or sound. Nonetheless, we scientists trust and use inductive reasoning every day. How can this be possible?
The scientist needs to be armed with discipline-specific techniques and mathematics, but it is philosophy what gives us a deeper insight about science itself and its limits.
In the first part of this workshop we will use a few Gettier-type stories to explore Gettier’s challenge to the classical analysis of knowledge (knowledge as justified true belief), Goldman’s theories of knowledge, as well as contextualism and invariantism. We will end this very short exploration of recent analysis of knowledge by alluding at the philosophical position of Williamson’s knowledge-first movement: is knowledge more basic than belief? The second part of this workshop will be devoted to briefly explore one of the reasoning processes through which scientists arrive at conclusions (or beliefs, say): induction. Hume claimed that inductive reasoning cannot be justified, and logicians tell us that inductive arguments are not valid or sound. Nonetheless, we scientists trust and use inductive reasoning every day. How can this be possible?
The scientist needs to be armed with discipline-specific techniques and mathematics, but it is philosophy what gives us a deeper insight about science itself and its limits.