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Empirical Observation
Empirical evidence is evidence obtained through sense experience or experimental procedure. It is of central importance to the sciences and plays a role in various other fields, like epistemology and law. There is no general agreement on how the terms ''evidence'' and ''empirical'' are to be defined. Often different fields work with quite different conceptions. In epistemology, evidence is what justifies beliefs or what determines whether holding a certain belief is rational. This is only possible if the evidence is possessed by the person, which has prompted various epistemologists to conceive evidence as private mental states like experiences or other beliefs. In philosophy of science, on the other hand, evidence is understood as that which '' confirms'' or ''disconfirms'' scientific hypotheses and arbitrates between competing theories. For this role, evidence must be public and uncontroversial, like observable physical objects or events and unlike private mental states, so th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evidence
Evidence for a proposition is what supports the proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the proposition is truth, true. The exact definition and role of evidence vary across different fields. In epistemology, evidence is what Justification (epistemology), justifies beliefs or what makes it rational to hold a certain wikt:doxastic, doxastic attitude. For example, a perceptual experience of a tree may serve as evidence to justify the belief that there is a tree. In this role, evidence is usually understood as a private mental state. In Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, evidence is limited to intuitive knowledge, often associated with the controversial assumption that it provides indubitable access to truth. In the science, scientific evidence is information gained through the scientific method that confirms or disconfirms Hypothesis#Scientific hypothesis, scientific hypotheses, acting as a neutral arbiter between competing Scientific theory, theories. Mea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rationalism
In philosophy, rationalism is the Epistemology, epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge", often in contrast to other possible sources of knowledge such as religious faith, faith, tradition, or sensory experience. More formally, rationalism is defined as a methodology or a theory "in which the criterion of truth is not sensory but intellectual and Deductive reasoning, deductive".Bourke, Vernon J., "Rationalism", p. 263 in Runes (1962). In a major philosophical debate during the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment,John Locke (1690), An Essay Concerning Human Understanding rationalism (sometimes here equated with innatism) was opposed to empiricism. On the one hand, rationalists like René Descartes emphasized that knowledge is primarily innate and the intellect, the inner Faculty (other)#Biology, faculty of the human mind, can therefore direc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unobservable
An unobservable (also called impalpable) is an entity whose existence, nature, properties, qualities or relations are not directly observable by humans. In philosophy of science, typical examples of "unobservables" are the force of gravity, causation and beliefs or desires. The distinction between ''observable'' and ''unobservable'' plays a central role in Immanuel Kant's distinction between noumena and phenomena as well as in John Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities. There is considerable disagreement about which objects should be classified as unobservable, for example, whether bacteria studied using microscopes or positrons studied using cloud chambers count as unobservable. Different notions of unobservability have been formulated corresponding to different types of obstacles to their observation. Kant on noumena The distinction between "observable" and "unobservable" is similar to Immanuel Kant's distinction between noumena and phenomena. Noumena ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mental States
A mental state, or a mental property, is a state of mind of a person. Mental states comprise a diverse class, including perception, pain/pleasure experience, belief, desire, intention, emotion, and memory. There is controversy concerning the exact definition of the term. According to '' epistemic approaches'', the essential mark of mental states is that their subject has privileged epistemic access while others can only infer their existence from outward signs. '' Consciousness-based approaches'' hold that all mental states are either conscious themselves or stand in the right relation to conscious states. '' Intentionality-based approaches'', on the other hand, see the power of minds to refer to objects and represent the world as the mark of the mental. According to '' functionalist approaches'', mental states are defined in terms of their role in the causal network independent of their intrinsic properties. Some philosophers deny all the aforementioned approaches by holding that th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proposition
A proposition is a statement that can be either true or false. It is a central concept in the philosophy of language, semantics, logic, and related fields. Propositions are the object s denoted by declarative sentences; for example, "The sky is blue" expresses the proposition that the sky is blue. Unlike sentences, propositions are not linguistic expressions, so the English sentence "Snow is white" and the German "Schnee ist weiß" denote the same proposition. Propositions also serve as the objects of belief and other propositional attitudes, such as when someone believes that the sky is blue. Formally, propositions are often modeled as functions which map a possible world to a truth value. For instance, the proposition that the sky is blue can be modeled as a function which would return the truth value T if given the actual world as input, but would return F if given some alternate world where the sky is green. However, a number of alternative formalizations have be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Samuel Kuhn (; July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American History and philosophy of science, historian and philosopher of science whose 1962 book ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' was influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term ''paradigm shift'', which has since become an English-language idiom. Kuhn made several claims concerning the progress of science, scientific knowledge: that scientific fields undergo periodic "paradigm shifts" rather than solely progressing in a linear and continuous way, and that these paradigm shifts open up new approaches to understanding what scientists would never have considered valid before; and that the notion of scientific truth, at any given moment, cannot be established solely by Objectivity (philosophy), objective criteria but is defined by a consensus of a scientific community. Competing paradigms are frequently Commensurability (philosophy of science), incommensurable; that is, there is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theory-ladenness
In philosophy of science, an observation is said to be "theory-laden" when shaped by the investigator's theoretical presuppositions. The thesis is chiefly associated with the late 1950s–early 1960s work of Norwood Russell Hanson, Thomas Kuhn, and Paul Feyerabend, though it was likely first put forth some 50 years earlier, at least implicitly, by Pierre Duhem.Bogen, Jim (2014)"Theory and Observation in Science" In: Edward N. Zalta (ed.), ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (Summer 2014 Edition). Semantic theory-ladenness refers to the impact of theoretical assumptions on the meaning of observational terms, while perceptual theory-ladenness refers to their impact on the perceptual experience itself. Theory-ladenness is also relevant for measurement outcomes: the data thus acquired may be said to be theory-laden since it is meaningless by itself unless interpreted as the outcome of the measurement processes involved. Theory-ladenness poses a problem for the confirmation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Underdetermination
In the philosophy of science, underdetermination or the underdetermination of theory by data (sometimes abbreviated UTD) is the idea that evidence available to us at a given time may be insufficient to determine what beliefs we should hold in response to it. The underdetermination thesis states that all evidence necessarily underdetermines any scientific theory. Underdetermination exists when available evidence is insufficient to identify which belief one should hold about that evidence. For example, if all that was known was that exactly $10 were spent on apples and oranges, and that apples cost $1 and oranges $2, then one would know enough to eliminate some possibilities (e.g., 6 oranges could not have been purchased), but one would not have enough evidence to know which specific combination of apples and oranges were purchased. In this example, one would say that belief in what combination was purchased is underdetermined by the available evidence. In contrast, ''overdetermin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Propositional Attitude
A propositional attitude is a mental state held by an agent or organism toward a proposition. In philosophy, propositional attitudes can be considered to be neurally realized, causally efficacious, content-bearing internal states (personal principles/values). Linguistically, propositional attitudes are denoted by a verb (e.g. ''believed'') governing an embedded "that" clause, for example, 'Sally believed that she had won'. Propositional attitudes are often assumed to be the fundamental units of thought and their contents, being propositions, are true or false from the perspective of the person. An agent can have different propositional attitudes toward the same proposition (e.g., "''S'' believes that her ice-cream is cold," and "''S'' fears that her ice-cream is cold"). Propositional attitudes have directions of fit: some are meant to reflect the world, others to influence it. One topic of central concern is the relation between the modalities of assertion and belief, as well as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doxastic Attitude
Doxastic attitudes are epistemic attitudes which a person can hold towards a proposition. The most commonly discussed doxastic attitude is belief (holding something to be true). Other doxastic attitudes include disbelief (holding something to be false) and suspension of judgment (withholding assent to a proposition without judging it to be true nor false). The term ''doxastic'' is derived from the ancient Greek word δόξα (or '' doxa''), which means "belief". Thus, doxastic attitudes include beliefs and other psychological attitudes which resemble beliefs. Doxastic attitudes in many ways resemble propositional attitudes, although the two concepts are distinct from one another. Other terms which are commonly used to refers to beliefs, such as " judgment" and "opinion An opinion is a judgement, viewpoint, or statement that is not conclusive, as opposed to facts, which are true statements. Definition A given opinion may deal with subjective matters in which there is n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Experimentation
An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a particular factor is manipulated. Experiments vary greatly in goal and scale but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results. There also exist natural experimental studies. A child may carry out basic experiments to understand how things fall to the ground, while teams of scientists may take years of systematic investigation to advance their understanding of a phenomenon. Experiments and other types of hands-on activities are very important to student learning in the science classroom. Experiments can raise test scores and help a student become more engaged and interested in the material they are learning, especially when used over time. Experiments can vary from personal and informal natural comparisons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Observation
Observation in the natural sciences is an act or instance of noticing or perceiving and the acquisition of information from a primary source. In living beings, observation employs the senses. In science, observation can also involve the perception and recording of data via the use of scientific instruments. The term may also refer to any data collected during the scientific activity. Observations can be qualitative, that is, the absence or presence of a property is noted and the observed phenomenon described, or quantitative if a numerical value is attached to the observed phenomenon by counting or measuring. Science The scientific method requires observations of natural phenomena to formulate and test hypotheses. It consists of the following steps: # Ask a question about a phenomenon # Make observations of the phenomenon # Formulate a hypothesis that tentatively answers the question # Predict logical, observable consequences of the hypothesis that have not yet been inv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
