Lecture 005

epistemology: study about knowledge and justification

• rationalism: knowledge is arrived at primary via reason; rational judgment is the basis of knowledge

• empiricism: knowledge is arrived at via sensory experience / observation

• pragmatism: knowledge is justified via its performance solving problems / navigating the world.

Topic 1: Observation as the basis for our knowledge of the world

worries about epistemology:

• how do people abstract physical imperfect object into mathematical objects

• how do we work with imperfect senses

• how do we know what we think about the world are reality

worries about instruments:

• how do we know the instruments are really measuring what they suppose to measure

• how reliable are the claims based on using devices

problem of under-determination of theory by evidence: for one set of data, we can come up with many theories that give us exactly the same inferences.

• Do our scientific theories "match up" with the realities out there in the world?

• In what why they "match up" and how do we know then they do.

Topic 2: Ontology and Metaphysics

ontology(metaphysical) questions: questions about the ultimate constituents

ontology; set of views about ultimate constituents

• whether human brain consists only matters

• ontological individualism: social science can be reduced to "desires". "beliefs", "actions" of individual.

• holism: not entirely composed of individual actions

ontological stance: view points about ontology

metaphysics: ontology and its justification

• atomists: world made up with indivisible atoms

• energeticists: made up with energy

Topic 3: Reductivism and Anti-Reductivism

Methodological individualism: all social phenomena are explained by "beliefs", "desires", and "actions" of individuals. (reductionism about social phenomena)

Methodological holism: not explainable with only "beliefs", "desires", and "actions".

reductive explanation: explain phenomena at ontological level. reductionism: good explanatory theories should give a causal account on the ontological level. anti-reductionist: social facts is not explainable on ontological level.

Topic 4: Confirmation and dis-confirmation of theories

scientific theory: a collection of related claims that describe and explain a particular phenomenon or class of phenomena. (has implications or entailments)

confirmation and dis-confirmation evidence might be different in social / physical science.

Questions

1. should scientists accept successful explanation or prediction as a mark of a theory’s truth?

Assume that there could only exist one true theory to explain certain phenomena, scientists should accept successful explanation or prediction as a evidence of a theory's truth given that every previous observation (observation before the creation of the theory) is predicted by the theory. Assume every theory are created based on previous observations, then there is no way to evaluate a theory based on previous observations because each theory will automatically receive a full score. If scientists do not accept successful explanation or prediction as a evidence of a theory's truth, then there is no way to evaluate a theory's accuracy after its birth, since neither previous nor future observation (observation after the creation of the theory, but before "now") can be used to evaluate a theory. Since there could exists multiple theories that can successfully predict every previous observation (observation before "now"), it is essential to develop an alternative way to evaluate a theory (based on a theory's complexity, for example). Therefore, scientists should accept successful explanation or prediction as a evidence of a theory's truth, but they should also consider other variables other than "successful prediction" when evaluating a theory.

1. If a set of claims from a theory is used to make the prediction that turns out to be wrong, is it possible to determine which of those claims should be doubted?

2. Well, not that I know. It might be one of the claim or multiple of the claims are wrong, I can't tell.

3. Is it possible that reductionists are right ontologically but wrong epistemically? (it is possible that explanations do not require ontological level detail?)

4. depends on how you define causality relationship

   • if causality requires involvement in ontological level, then it is not possible. else, possible.

5. key similarities and differences by "observe"

scope of study personal/interpretive

• Anthropologists observe native rituals by embedding themselves in those communities

  • small dataset, categorical variables

• Pollsters can observe the political mood of the nation from the questionnaires that respondents return to them

  • big dataset, categorical variables and continuous variable, (might be biased depending on what the research intention is)

• Use of data mining techniques (pattern recognition software) allows marketing executives to observe patterns of consumer behavior

  • big dataset, categorical variables and continuous variable

• Underdetermination of theories by evidence poses

• rationally choose between two theories as scientist: occam's razor by intuition or natural language processing

• rationally choose between two theories as jury: first apply likelihood by big data, then occam's razor as above