Editing Philosophy of science (section)

==Current approaches==
===Naturalism's axiomatic assumptions===
{{transcluded section|source=Naturalism (philosophy)#Providing assumptions required for science}}
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===Coherentism===
{{main|Coherentism}}
[[File:JeremiahHorrocks.jpg|thumb|[[Jeremiah Horrocks]] makes the first observation of the transit of Venus in 1639, as imagined by the artist [[William Richard Lavender|W.&nbsp;R.&nbsp;Lavender]] in 1903.]]

In contrast to the view that science rests on foundational assumptions, coherentism asserts that statements are justified by being a part of a coherent system. Or, rather, individual statements cannot be validated on their own: only coherent systems can be justified.<ref>{{cite journal|url = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/justep-coherence/|title = Coherentist Theories of Epistemic Justification|access-date = 2015-10-26|last = Olsson|first = Erik|year = 2014|website = Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor1-last = Zalta|editor1-first = Edward N.|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180914115858/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/justep-coherence/|archive-date = 2018-09-14|url-status = live}}</ref> A prediction of a [[transit of Venus]] is justified by its being coherent with broader beliefs about celestial mechanics and earlier observations. As explained above, observation is a cognitive act. That is, it relies on a pre-existing understanding, a systematic set of beliefs. An observation of a transit of Venus requires a huge range of auxiliary beliefs, such as those that describe the [[optics]] of telescopes, the [[mechanics]] of the telescope mount, and an understanding of [[celestial mechanics]]. If the prediction fails and a transit is not observed, that is likely to occasion an adjustment in the system, a change in some auxiliary assumption, rather than a rejection of the theoretical system.{{citation needed|date=December 2017}}

According to the [[Duhem–Quine thesis]], after [[Pierre Duhem]] and [[Willard Van Orman Quine|W.V. Quine]], it is impossible to test a theory in isolation.<ref name="Harding1976">{{cite book|author=Sandra Harding|title=Can theories be refuted?: essays on the Dunhem–Quine thesis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Uwit8JTcLfAC&pg=PR9|year=1976|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-90-277-0630-0|pages=9–|access-date=2016-01-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160628144135/https://books.google.com/books?id=Uwit8JTcLfAC&pg=PR9|archive-date=2016-06-28|url-status=live}}</ref> One must always add auxiliary hypotheses in order to make testable predictions. For example, to test [[Newton's law of universal gravitation|Newton's Law of Gravitation]] in the solar system, one needs information about the masses and positions of the Sun and all the planets. Famously, the failure to predict the orbit of [[Uranus]] in the 19th century led not to the rejection of Newton's Law but rather to the rejection of the hypothesis that the [[Solar System]] comprises only seven planets. The investigations that followed led to the discovery of an eighth planet, [[Neptune]]. If a test fails, something is wrong. But there is a problem in figuring out what that something is: a missing planet, badly calibrated test equipment, an unsuspected curvature of space, or something else.{{citation needed|date=January 2018}}

One consequence of the Duhem–Quine thesis is that one can make any theory compatible with any empirical observation by the addition of a sufficient number of suitable ''ad hoc'' hypotheses. [[Karl Popper]] accepted this thesis, leading him to reject [[Falsifiability#Naive falsificationism|naïve falsification]]. Instead, he favored a "survival of the fittest" view in which the most falsifiable scientific theories are to be preferred.<ref name="Popper 2005ch3-4">{{cite book| last1 = Popper| first1 = Karl| title = The Logic of Scientific Discovery| edition = Taylor & Francis e-Library| year = 2005| publisher = Routledge / Taylor & Francis e-Library| location = London and New York| isbn = 978-0-203-99462-7| at = chapters 3–4}}</ref>

===Anything goes methodology===

[[File:Paul Feyerabend Berkeley.jpg|thumb|right|[[Paul Karl Feyerabend]]]]

[[Paul Feyerabend]] (1924–1994) argued that no description of scientific method could possibly be broad enough to include all the approaches and methods used by scientists, and that there are no useful and exception-free [[methodology|methodological rules]] governing the progress of science. He argued that "the only principle that does not inhibit progress is: ''anything goes''".<ref name="contra">{{cite book |last=Feyerabend |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Feyerabend |date=1993 |orig-year=1974 |title=Against Method |edition=3rd |location=London; New York |publisher=[[Verso Books|Verso]] |isbn=086091481X |oclc=29026104 |url=https://archive.org/details/againstmethod0000feye |url-access=registration}}</ref>

Feyerabend said that science started as a liberating movement, but that over time it had become increasingly dogmatic and rigid and had some oppressive features, and thus had become increasingly an [[ideology]]. Because of this, he said it was impossible to come up with an unambiguous way to distinguish science from [[religion]], [[magic (paranormal)|magic]], or [[mythology]]. He saw the exclusive dominance of science as a means of directing society as [[authoritarian]] and ungrounded.<ref name="contra"/> Promulgation of this epistemological anarchism earned Feyerabend the title of "the worst enemy of science" from his detractors.<ref name="sep">
{{cite SEP |url-id=feyerabend  |title=Paul Feyerabend  |last=Preston   |first=John |date=2007-02-15}}
</ref>

===Sociology of scientific knowledge methodology===
{{Main|Sociology of scientific knowledge}}
According to Kuhn, science is an inherently communal activity which can only be done as part of a community.<ref name="KuhnPostParadigm">{{cite book | author = Kuhn, T.S.| chapter = [Postscript] | title = The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd. ed | publisher = [Univ. of Chicago Pr] | year = 1996 | isbn = 978-0-226-45808-3 | author-link = Thomas Samuel Kuhn|page = 176|quote = A paradigm is what the members of a community of scientists share, ''and'', conversely, a scientific community consists of men who share a paradigm.}}</ref> For him, the fundamental difference between science and other disciplines is the way in which the communities function. Others, especially Feyerabend and some post-modernist thinkers, have argued that there is insufficient difference between social practices in science and other disciplines to maintain this distinction. For them, social factors play an important and direct role in scientific method, but they do not serve to differentiate science from other disciplines. On this account, science is socially constructed, though this does not necessarily imply the more radical notion that reality itself is a [[Social constructionism|social construct]].

[[Michel Foucault]] sought to analyze and uncover how disciplines within the social sciences developed and adopted the methodologies used by their practitioners. In works like ''[[The Archaeology of Knowledge]]'', he used the term ''human sciences''. The human sciences do not comprise mainstream academic disciplines; they are rather an interdisciplinary space for the reflection on ''man'' who is the subject of more mainstream scientific knowledge, taken now as an object, sitting between these more conventional areas, and of course associating with disciplines such as [[anthropology]], [[psychology]], [[sociology]], and even [[history]].<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia | url=https://iep.utm.edu/foucault/#H3 | title=Foucault, Michel |encyclopedia=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=29 August 2022}}</ref> Rejecting the [[scientific realism|realist]] view of scientific inquiry, Foucault argued throughout his work that scientific discourse is not simply an objective study of phenomena, as both [[natural science|natural]] and [[social science|social scientist]]s like to believe, but is rather the product of systems of power relations struggling to construct scientific disciplines and knowledge within given societies.<ref>{{Cite magazine | url=https://philosophynow.org/issues/127/Foucaults_Elephant | title=Foucault's Elephant |issue=127 |magazine=Philosophy Now |last=Morrison |first=Thomas |date=2018 |access-date=29 August 2022}}</ref> With the advances of scientific disciplines, such as psychology and anthropology, the need to separate, categorize, normalize and institutionalize populations into constructed social identities became a staple of the sciences. Constructions of what were considered "normal" and "abnormal" stigmatized and ostracized groups of people, like the mentally ill and sexual and gender minorities.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.worldscientificnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/WSN-7-2015-15-29.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.worldscientificnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/WSN-7-2015-15-29.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title='Disciplining' Truth and Science: Michel Foucault and the Power of Social Science |last=Power |first=Jason L. |journal=World Scientific News |date=2015 |volume=7 |pages=15–29 |issn=2392-2192}} </ref>

However, some (such as Quine) do maintain that scientific reality is a social construct:
<blockquote>
Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer&nbsp;... For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing, the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conceptions only as ''cultural posits''.<ref>{{cite book | author = Quine, Willard Van Orman| chapter = Two Dogmas of Empiricism | title = From a Logical Point of View | publisher = [[Harvard University Press]] | year = 1980 | isbn = 978-0-674-32351-3 | chapter-url = http://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html}}</ref></blockquote>
The public backlash of scientists against such views, particularly in the 1990s, became known as the [[science wars]].<ref>{{cite book|editor1-last= Ashman|editor1-first= Keith M.|editor2-last= Barringer|editor2-first= Philip S.|title= After the Science Wars|date= 2001|publisher= Routledge|location= London|isbn= 978-0-415-21209-0|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=XImEAgAAQBAJ&q=After+the+science+wars&pg=PR1|access-date= 29 October 2015|quote= The 'war' is between scientists who believe that science and its methods are objective, and an increasing number of social scientists, historians, philosophers, and others gathered under the umbrella of Science Studies.}}</ref>

A major development in recent decades has been the study of the formation, structure, and evolution of scientific communities by sociologists and anthropologists – including [[David Bloor]], [[Harry Collins]], [[Bruno Latour]], [[Ian Hacking]] and [[Anselm Strauss]]. Concepts and methods (such as rational choice, social choice or game theory) from [[Economics of scientific knowledge|economics have also been applied]]{{by whom|date=October 2017}} for understanding the efficiency of scientific communities in the production of knowledge. This interdisciplinary field has come to be known as [[science and technology studies]].<ref>
Woodhouse, Edward. Science Technology and Society. Spring 2015 ed. n.p.: U Readers, 2014. Print.
</ref>
Here the approach to the philosophy of science is to study how scientific communities actually operate.

===Continental philosophy===
Philosophers in the [[continental philosophy|continental philosophical tradition]] are not traditionally categorized{{by whom|date=March 2019}} as philosophers of science. However, they have much to say about science, some of which has anticipated themes in the analytical tradition. For example, in [[On the Genealogy of Morality|''The Genealogy of Morals'']] (1887) [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] advanced the thesis that the motive for the search for truth in sciences is a kind of ascetic ideal.<ref>{{cite journal|last= Hatab|first= Lawrence J.|title= How Does the Ascetic Ideal Function in Nietzsche's ''Genealogy''?|journal= The Journal of Nietzsche Studies|volume= 35|date= 2008|issue= 35/36|pages= 106–123|doi= 10.2307/jnietstud.35.2008.0106|s2cid= 170630145|url= https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/nietzsche-studies/article-pdf/35-36/1/106/1334121/jnietstud_35_2008_106.pdf|access-date= 2019-10-22|doi-access= free}}</ref>

In general, continental philosophy views science from a [[World history (field)|world-historical]] perspective. Philosophers such as [[Pierre Duhem]] (1861–1916) and [[Gaston Bachelard]] (1884–1962) wrote their works with this world-historical approach to science, predating Kuhn's 1962 work by a generation or more. All of these approaches involve a historical and sociological turn to science, with a priority on lived experience (a kind of Husserlian [[Lifeworld|"life-world"]]), rather than a progress-based or anti-historical approach as emphasised in the analytic tradition. One can trace this continental strand of thought through the [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]] of [[Edmund Husserl]] (1859–1938), the late works of [[Maurice Merleau-Ponty|Merleau-Ponty]] (''Nature: Course Notes from the Collège de France'', 1956–1960), and the [[hermeneutics]] of [[Martin Heidegger]] (1889–1976).<ref name="Gutting">Gutting, Gary (2004), ''Continental Philosophy of Science'', Blackwell Publishers, Cambridge, MA.</ref>

The largest effect on the continental tradition with respect to science came from Martin Heidegger's critique of the [[present-at-hand|theoretical attitude]] in general, which of course includes the scientific attitude.<ref name="Wheeler2015">{{cite web |url = http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/ |title = Martin Heidegger |access-date = 2015-10-29 |last = Wheeler |first = Michael |year = 2015 |website = Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151016055622/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/ |archive-date = 2015-10-16 |url-status = live }}</ref> For this reason, the continental tradition has remained much more skeptical of the importance of science in [[human life (disambiguation)|human life]] and in philosophical inquiry. Nonetheless, there have been a number of important works: especially those of a Kuhnian precursor, [[Alexandre Koyré]] (1892–1964). Another important development was that of [[Michel Foucault]]'s analysis of historical and scientific thought in ''[[The Order of Things]]'' (1966) and his study of power and corruption within the "science" of [[Insanity|madness]].<ref>{{cite book
 | last1 = Foucault
 | first1 = Michel
 | author-link1 = Michel Foucault
 | year = 1961
 | translator1-last = Murphy
 | translator1-first = Jonathan
 | translator2-last = Khalfa
 | translator2-first = Jean
 | editor1-last = Khalfa
 | editor1-first = Jean
 | title = History of Madness
 | trans-title = Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=OT-VBQAAQBAJ
 | location = London
 | publisher = Routledge
 | publication-date = 2013
 | isbn = 9781134473809
 | access-date = 3 Mar 2019
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190715083016/https://books.google.com/books?id=OT-VBQAAQBAJ
 | archive-date = 15 July 2019
 | url-status = live
 }}</ref> Post-Heideggerian authors contributing to continental philosophy of science in the second half of the 20th century include [[Jürgen Habermas]] (e.g., ''Truth and Justification'', 1998), [[Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker]] (''The Unity of Nature'', 1980; {{langx |de| Die Einheit der Natur}} (1971)), and [[Wolfgang Stegmüller]] (''Probleme und Resultate der Wissenschaftstheorie und Analytischen Philosophie'', 1973–1986).
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