Science and technology have significant roles in life. Most of the researches and discussions about science education are related to development of sciencecurriculum and science education in school. Science curriculum must be developed based on student and society needs, scientific and technological developments in the field of science and educational science. The aims of science curriculum should reflect these elements given above. The aims of science curriculum also refer to changing (...) philosophy of education. In this study, the results of the two studies, which were conducted with 314 primary school class teachers and science teachers, and literature reviews are discussed under the heading of "Future aims of science curriculum for primary school”. (shrink)

There is increasing attention to the centrality of idealization in science. One common view is that models and other idealized representations are important to science, but that they fall short in one or more ways. On this view, there must be an intermediary step between idealized representation and the traditional aims of science, including truth, explanation, and prediction. Here I develop an alternative interpretation of the relationship between idealized representation and the aims of science. (...) In my view, continuing, widespread idealization calls into question the idea that science aims for truth. I argue that understanding must replace truth as the ultimate epistemic aim of science. Additionally, science has a wide variety aims, epistemic and non-epistemic, and these aims motivate different kinds of scientific products. Finally, I show how these diverse aims---all rather distant from truth---result in the expanded influence of social values on science. (shrink)

If we are to understand the nature of science, we must see it as an activity and achievement of the human mind alongside others, such as the achievements of children in learning to talk and to cope with people and other objects in their environment, and the achievements of non-scientists living in a rich and complex world which constantly poses problems to be solved. Looking at scientific knowledge as one form of human knowledge, scientific understanding as one form of (...) human understanding, scientific investigation as one form of human problem-solving activity, we can begin to see more clearly what science is, and also what kind of mechanism the human mind is. -/- By undermining the slogan that science is the search for laws, and subsidiary slogans such as that quantification is essential, that scientific theories must be empirically refutable, and that the methods of philosophers cannot serve the aims of scientists, I shall try, in what follows, to liberate some scientists from the dogmas indoctrinated in universities and colleges. I shall also try to show philosophers how they can contribute to the scientific study of man, thereby escaping from the barrenness and triviality complained of so often by non-philosophers and philosophy students. -/- A side-effect which will be reported elsewhere, is to undermine some old philosophical distinctions and pour cold water on battles which rage around them -- like the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, and the battles between empiricists and rationalists. -/- Key idea: A major aim of science is not to discover and explain laws, but to discover what is possible, and how it is possible. -/- This view of science developed further in Sloman (1978) helps to explain the contributions of Theoretical Linguistics, Chemistry, Artificial Intelligence, and Computer Science insofar as they all enrich our understanding of what is possible and how it is possible. -/- Download: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/papers.html#1976-01 . (shrink)

Science is the study of our world, as it is in its messy reality. Nonetheless, science requires idealization to function—if we are to attempt to understand the world, we have to find ways to reduce its complexity. Idealization and the Aims of Science shows just how crucial idealization is to science and why it matters. Beginning with the acknowledgment of our status as limited human agents trying to make sense of an exceedingly complex world, Angela (...) Potochnik moves on to explain how science aims to depict and make use of causal patterns—a project that makes essential use of idealization. She offers case studies from a number of branches of science to demonstrate the ubiquity of idealization, shows how causal patterns are used to develop scientific explanations, and describes how the necessarily imperfect connection between science and truth leads to researchers’ values influencing their findings. The resulting book is a tour de force, a synthesis of the study of idealization that also offers countless new insights and avenues for future exploration. (shrink)

Both Popper and van Fraassen have used evolutionary analogies to defend their views on the aim of science, although these are diametrically opposed. By employing Price's equation in an illustrative capacity, this paper considers which view is better supported. It shows that even if our observations and experimental results are reliable, an evolutionary analogy fails to demonstrate why conjecture and refutation should result in: (1) the isolation of true theories; (2) successive generations of theories of increasing truth-likeness; (3) empirically (...) adequate theories; or (4) successive generations of theories of increasing proximity to empirical adequacy. Furthermore, it illustrates that appeals to induction do not appear to help. It concludes that an evolutionary analogy is only sufficient to defend the notion that the aim of science is to isolate a particular class of false theories, namely those that are empirically inadequate. (shrink)

Most scientists and philosophers of science take for granted the standard empiricist view that the basic intellectual aim of science is truth per se. But this seriously misrepresents the aims of scieince. Actually, science seeks explanatory truth and, more generally, important truth. Problematic metaphysical and value assumptions are inherent in the real aims of science. Precisely because these aims are profoundly problematic, they need to be articulated, imaginatively explored and critically assesseed, in order (...) to improve them, as an integral part of science itself. This was how Einstein did science in developing the special and general theories of relativity. Science needs to put a new aim-oriented empiricist methodology into practice. (shrink)

The typical way to express the aim of science is to connect it with knowledge pursuit. This aim has been so strongly felt that sometimes typical scientific research has been called knowledge-inquiry. There is nothing wrong with knowledge as such. Especially when we have the knowledge of the highest quality, the scientific one, in mind. Still, science today should aim higher, surpass knowledge as its final goal and reach for wisdom. This brings about the need to implement wisdom-inquiry (...) instead of knowledge-inquiry as Nicholas Maxwell has suggested. In order to succeed, the problems of living rather than the problems of knowledge have to be brought to the foreground. (shrink)

The understanding that comes with scientific explanation is regarded as one of the central epistemic aims of science. In earlier work I have argued that scientists achieve understanding of phenomen...

Laudan constructs a fresh approach to a longtime problem for the philosopher of science: how to explain the simultaneous and widespread presence of both agreement and disagreement in science. Laudan critiques the logical empiricists and the post-positivists as he stresses the need for centrality and values and the interdependence of values, methods, and facts as prerequisites to solving the problems of consensus and dissent in science.

Realism and the Aim of Science is one of the three volumes of Karl Popper’s Postscript to the Logic of scientific Discovery. The Postscript is the culmination of Popper’s work in the philosophy of physics and a new famous attack on subjectivist approaches to philosophy of science. Realism and the Aim of Science is the first volume of the Postcript . Popper here formulates and explains his non-justificationist theory of knowledge: science aims at true explanatory (...) theories, yet it can never prove, or justify, any theory to be true, not even if is a true theory. Science must continue to question and criticise all its theories, even those that happen to be true. Realism and the Aim of Science presents Popper’s mature statement on scientific knowledge and offers important insights into his thinking on problems of method within science. (shrink)

Popper formulates and explains his non-justificationist theory of knowledge. Science--empirical science--aims at true explanatory theories, yet it can never prove, finally establish, or justify any of its theories as true, not even if it is in fact a true theory. Science must continue to question and criticize all its theories, even those which happen to be true.

_Realism and the Aim of Science_ is one of the three volumes of Karl Popper’s _Postscript_ to the Logic of scientific Discovery. The _Postscript_ is the culmination of Popper’s work in the philosophy of physics and a new famous attack on subjectivist approaches to philosophy of science. _Realism and the Aim of Science_ is the first volume of the _Postcript_. Popper here formulates and explains his non-justificationist theory of knowledge: science aims at true explanatory theories, yet it (...) can never prove, or justify, any theory to be true, not even if is a true theory. Science must continue to question and criticise all its theories, even those that happen to be true. _Realism and the Aim of Science_ presents Popper’s mature statement on scientific knowledge and offers important insights into his thinking on problems of method within science. (shrink)

In this essay, I provide normative guidelines for developing a philosophically interesting and plausible version of social constructivism as a philosophy of science, wherein science aims for social-epistemic values rather than for truth or empirical adequacy. This view is more plausible than the more radical constructivist claim that scientific facts are constructed. It is also more interesting than the modest constructivist claim that representations of such facts emerge in social contexts, as it provides a genuine rival to (...) the scientific axiologies of scientific realists and constructive empiricists. I further contrast my view with positions holding that the aims of science are context dependent, that the unit of normative analysis is the scientific community, and that the aims of science are non-epistemic social values. (shrink)

I argue that the constitutive aim of belief and the constitutive aim of science are both knowledge. The ‘aim of belief’, understood as the correctness conditions of belief, is to be identified with the product of properly functioning cognitive systems. Science is an institution that is the social functional analogue of a cognitive system, and its aim is the same as that of belief. In both cases it is knowledge rather than true belief that is the product of (...) proper functioning. (shrink)

_Realism and the Aim of Science_ is one of the three volumes of Karl Popper’s _Postscript_ to the Logic of scientific Discovery. The _Postscript_ is the culmination of Popper’s work in the philosophy of physics and a new famous attack on subjectivist approaches to philosophy of science. _Realism and the Aim of Science_ is the first volume of the _Postcript_. Popper here formulates and explains his non-justificationist theory of knowledge: science aims at true explanatory theories, yet it (...) can never prove, or justify, any theory to be true, not even if is a true theory. Science must continue to question and criticise all its theories, even those that happen to be true. _Realism and the Aim of Science_ presents Popper’s mature statement on scientific knowledge and offers important insights into his thinking on problems of method within science. (shrink)

_Realism and the Aim of Science_ is one of the three volumes of Karl Popper’s _Postscript_ to the Logic of scientific Discovery. The _Postscript_ is the culmination of Popper’s work in the philosophy of physics and a new famous attack on subjectivist approaches to philosophy of science. _Realism and the Aim of Science_ is the first volume of the _Postcript_. Popper here formulates and explains his non-justificationist theory of knowledge: science aims at true explanatory theories, yet it (...) can never prove, or justify, any theory to be true, not even if is a true theory. Science must continue to question and criticise all its theories, even those that happen to be true. _Realism and the Aim of Science_ presents Popper’s mature statement on scientific knowledge and offers important insights into his thinking on problems of method within science. (shrink)

In this paper, three theories of progress and the aim of science are discussed: the theory of progress as increasing explanatory power, advocated by Popper in The logic of scientific discovery ; the theory of progress as approximation to the truth, introduced by Popper in Conjectures and refutations ; the theory of progress as a steady increase of competing alternatives, which Feyerabend put forward in the essay “Reply to criticism. Comments on Smart, Sellars and Putnam” and defended as late (...) as the last edition of Against method. It is argued that, contrary to what Feyerabend scholars have predominantly assumed, Feyerabend's changing attitude towards falsificationism—which he often advocated at the beginning of his career, and vociferously attacked in the 1970s and 1980s—must be explained by taking into account not only Feyerabend's very peculiar view of the aim of science, but also Popper's changing account of progress. (shrink)

There are two chief tasks which confront the philosophy of scientific method. The first task is to specify the methodology which serves as the objective ground for scientific theory appraisal and acceptance. The second task is to explain how application of this methodology leads to advance toward the aim(s) of science. In other words, the goal of the theory of method is to provide an integrated explanation of both rational scientific theory choice and scientific progress.

This comprehensive discussion of the problem of rational belief develops the subject on the pattern of Bayesian decision theory. The analogy with decision theory introduces philosophical issues not usually encountered in logical studies and suggests some promising new approaches to old problems."We owe Professor Levi a debt of gratitude for producing a book of such excellence. His own approach to inductive inference is not only original and profound, it also clarifies and transforms the work of his predecessors. In short, the (...) book deserves to become a classic....There is a great deal of interest in the book besides these basic matters [forumlating rules of acceptance]. Some of the most interesting chapters are those that examine the implications of such rules. The discussions of probability, generalization, and various forms of inference are brilliant and enlightening. Indeed, the problems and methods elaborated by Professor Levi in his book serve as a new foundation for the study of inductive inference."--Keith Lehrer, Nous"Levi's book is an extremely interesting report on 'tentative and speculative first steps' toward a decision-theoretic approach to inductive inference....Professor Levi is to be congratulated on his ingenious development and application of this approach...."--Richard C. Jeffrey, The Journal of Philosophy. (shrink)

Angela Potochnik’s Idealization and the Aims of Science defends an ambitious and systematic account of scientific knowledge: ultimately science pursues human understanding rather than truth. Potochnik argues that idealization is rampant and unchecked in science. Further, given that idealizations involve departures from truth, this suggests science is not primarily about truth. I explore the relationship between truths about causal patterns and scientific understanding in light of this, and suggest that Potochnik underestimates the importance and power (...) of highly particular narrative explanations. (shrink)

This book gives an account of work that I have done over a period of decades that sets out to solve two fundamental problems of philosophy: the mind-body problem and the problem of induction. Remarkably, these revolutionary contributions to philosophy turn out to have dramatic implications for a wide range of issues outside philosophy itself, most notably for the capacity of humanity to resolve current grave global problems and make progress towards a better, wiser world. A key element of the (...) proposed solution to the first problem is that physics is about only a highly specialized aspect of all that there is – the causally efficacious aspect. Once this is understood, it ceases to be a mystery that natural science says nothing about the experiential aspect of reality, the colours we perceive, the inner experiences we are aware of. That natural science is silent about the experiential aspect of reality is no reason whatsoever to hold that the experiential does not objectively exist. A key element of the proposed solution to the second problem is that physics, in persistently accepting unified theories only, thereby makes a substantial metaphysical assumption about the universe: it is such that a unified pattern of physical law runs through all phenomena. We need a new conception, and kind, of physics that acknowledges, and actively seeks to improve, metaphysical presuppositions inherent in the methods of physics. The problematic aims and methods of physics need to be improved as physics proceeds. These are the ideas that have fruitful implications, I set out to show, for a wide range of issues: for philosophy itself, for physics, for natural science more generally, for the social sciences, for education, for the academic enterprise as a whole and, most important of all, for the capacity of humanity to learn how to solve the grave global problems that menace our future, and thus make progress to a better, wiser world. It is not just science that has problematic aims; in life too our aims, whether personal, social or institutional, are all too often profoundly problematic, and in urgent need of improvement. We need a new kind of academic enterprise which helps humanity put aims-and-methods improving meta-methods into practice in personal and social life, so that we may come to do better at achieving what is of value in life, and make progress towards a saner, wiser world. This body of work of mine has met with critical acclaim. Despite that, astonishingly, it has been ignored by mainstream philosophy. In the book I discuss the recent work of over 100 philosophers on the mind-body problem and the metaphysics of science, and show that my earlier, highly relevant work on these issues is universally ignored, the quality of subsequent work suffering as a result. My hope, in publishing this book, is that my fellow philosophers will come to appreciate the intellectual value of my proposed solutions to the mind-body problem and the problem of induction, and will, as a result, join with me in attempting to convince our fellow academics that we need to bring about an intellectual/institutional revolution in academic inquiry so that it takes up its proper task of helping humanity learn how to solve problems of living, including global problems, and make progress towards as good, as wise and enlightened a world as possible. (shrink)

Along with The Open Universe and Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics, this book forms part of the trilogy Postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery. Although written twenty-five years ago and circulated among Popper's students, we owe it to W. W. Bartley III's editorial assistance that the work now appears in print.

I draw upon speech act theory to understand the speech acts appropriate to the multiple aims of scientific practice and the role of nonepistemic values in evaluating speech acts made relative to those aims. First, I look at work that distinguishes explaining from describing within scientific practices. I then argue speech act theory provides a framework to make sense of how explaining, describing, and other acts have different felicity conditions. Finally, I argue that if explaining aims to (...) convey understanding to particular audiences rather than describe literally across all contexts, then evaluating explanatory acts directed to the public or policymakers involves asking nonepistemic questions. (shrink)

According to the received view on logical empiricism, the logical empiricists were involved in the same project as Popper, Lakatos and Kuhn: a project of describing actual scientific method and (with the exception of Kuhn) prescribing methodological rules for scientists. Even authors who seek to show that the logical empiricists were not as simpleminded as widely believed agree with this assumption. I argue that the received view has it wrong.

The development of science has been a distinctive feature of human history in recent times, especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In light of the problems that define the philosophy of science today, James Fetzer provides a foundation for inquiry into the nature of science, the history of science, and the relationship between the two. In Philosophy of Science, Fetzer investigates the aim and methods of empirical science and examines the importance of methodological (...) commitments to the study of science and the significance of interpretations of probability for understanding laws of nature and scientific explanations. This book offers a welcome framework for investigating the most recent work and the most promising solutions to the central problems that arise within this discipline. The result is a timely introduction to an increasingly important field. -- Publisher description. (shrink)

Angela Potochnik’s Idealization and the Aims of Science (Chicago) defends an ambitious and systematic account of scientific knowledge: ultimately science pursues human understanding rather than truth. Potochnik argues that idealization is rampant and unchecked in science. Further, given that idealizations involve departures from truth, this suggests science is not primarily about truth. I explore the relationship between truths about causal patterns and scientific understanding in light of this, and suggest that Potochnik underestimates the importance and (...) power of highly particular narrative explanations. (shrink)

Rejecting the idea that the principal aim of science is prediction, the author claims that science tries to create an explanatory intelligible system "with some legitimate claim to reality"; he argues that the intellectual framework within which this construction proceeds is revealed more by its presuppositions and its "explanatory paradigms" or "ideals of natural order" than by its detailed results. Comparing the dynamical theories of Aristotle, Galileo, and Newton, he asks which occurrences are "phenomena" for these theories, i.e., (...) deviations from the expected standard manner in which bodies move. He concludes that to explain a phenomenon is to show that it is a special case of, or a complex combination of, paradigms taken as fundamental, and that theories are not to be judged as true or false, but as helpful, fruitful, misleading, and the like. --B. J. H. (shrink)