Chapter 1

The misadventures of scientific knowledge. Klimovsky

Science, knowledge and scientific method

From a narrow point of view, we can say that science is fundamentally a collection of
knowledge, which we use to understand the world and modify it

There are three requirements that must be demanded for one to speak of knowledge: belief,
truth and proof
- Whoever makes the statement must believe in it.
- The expressed knowledge must be true
- There must be evidence of this knowledge

Currently, none of the three requirements is considered appropriate to define knowledge.

scientific. We no longer demand a strict dependence between evidence and truth from knowledge. It must
to miss that a theory accepted at a certain historical moment is discarded later on. In the
In the same sense, we must point out that today the notion of evidence is not inextricably
linked to the type of conviction or adherence called belief.

According to some epistemologists, what is characteristic of the knowledge provided by science

it is the so-called scientific method, a procedure that allows us to obtain it and at the same time,
justify it

Among the various methods used by the scientist, definitional methods can be highlighted, methods
classificatory, statistical methods, hypothetical-deductive methods, measurement procedures and
many others, which is why talking about the scientific method actually refers to a vast set
of tactics used to constitute knowledge

Talking about the scientific method would refer to methods for inferring statistically, building
hypotheses and put them to the test. If so, scientific knowledge could be characterized as that
what is obtained by following the procedures described by these basic strategies

DISCIPLINES AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES

It is worth thinking about science in close relation to the method and the results that are
they are obtained from it. This allows to distinguish science from philosophy, art, and other fields of
human culture, however, there is a more traditional unit of analysis, the scientific discipline,
that emphasizes the objects under study and from which we could talk about sciences
particulares: la física, química, sociología

But the objects of study of a discipline change as scientific theories do.

Therefore, instead of thinking in disciplines, we prefer to think in basic problems that guide.
different lines of research

The scientific theory is a set of conjectures, simple or complex, about the way in which it
it involves some sector of reality. Theory is the fundamental unit of analysis of
contemporary scientific thought.
LANGUAGE AND TRUTH
Knowledge is expressed through statements, via a linguistic approach to
the issue
But thought is exclusive to the one who creates it, and only becomes social property if it is
communicates through language

We refer to the Platonic conception of knowledge when we use the word truth. In science
Truth and falsehood apply to statements or assertions.
Plato requires that for a statement to express knowledge, it must be true.

In ordinary language, the word truth seems to indicate a type of correspondence on one hand.
isomorphism between our beliefs and what happens in reality. To put it more precisely:
between the structure we attribute to reality in our thinking and the one that actually exists in
the universe. This comes from Aristotle, it is based on the connection that exists between our
thought, expressed through language, and what happens outside of language, in reality

On other occasions, truth is used not in relation to truth but to belief. We say 'this is
your truth, but not mine

Not all philosophers agree with the Aristotelian meaning of the word truth.
In the field of formal sciences, such as mathematics, there is a fourth and very important sense.
from the word truth: when a mathematical proposition is true, it means to say that it is
deducible from certain starting statements

The role of science is understood as the knowledge of facts, and in that sense mathematical and
Logic is considered a collateral tool that serves the purposes of the sciences.
factual, whose objective is the knowledge of the facts

We will say that a fact is a way in which things or entities are configured in reality.
in specific moments and places. It will therefore be a fact that an object has a color or
a way given, that two or three objects have a certain link between them or that there exists a
regularity in events of a certain nature. In the first two cases we will talk about
singular facts, but we will consider the third one a general fact

In the realm of factual sciences, the Aristotelian concept of truth seems indispensable.
In a non-rigorous way, we can present it this way: it is assumed that, according to the rules
grammatical, semantic, and logical aspects of language, who performs the pragmatic act of asserting a
the statement aims to describe a possible state of affairs and at the same time persuade us that
This is what happens in reality.
If such a state of affairs really occurs. The description matches what happens in the
reality, we will say that the statement is true, on the contrary, it would be false

Tarski says that truth consists of a positive and intimate relationship between language and reality

A statement can be true without us knowing it, it could also be false, and
we do not know it
Who formulates a hypothesis does not know whether what it describes corresponds to the facts or not. The
Hypothesis is a conjecture, a statement whose hypothetical nature lies in the fact that it is proposed without
prior knowledge of its truth or falsehood

VERIFICATION AND REFUTATION

To avoid the risk of misunderstandings, we will have to resort to more appropriate words for
indicate that the truth or falsity of a statement has been proven. They are verified and refuted. A
A verified statement is one whose truth has been proven. If we want to say that it has been
Having established its falsehood, we will say that the statement is refuted.

If a statement is verified, then it is necessarily true, although another statement

it can be true without being verified. Likewise, a refuted statement is necessarily
a lack, but another may be false without having been refuted

The supporters of inductive logic and the statisticians, whom we will talk about later, usually
use the word confirmation. They talk about affirmations, beliefs, hypotheses, or theories
confirmed
Otherwise, it will be referred to as disconfirmation.

POPPER talks about corroboration to indicate that a belief or theory has successfully withstood
certain attempts to bring them down and consequently have shown their resilience

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, EPISTEMOLOGY, METHODOLOGY

Epistemology is 'theory of knowledge' or 'gnoseology', that is, a branch of philosophy that
examine the problem of knowledge in general
Epistemology would be the study of the conditions of production and validation of knowledge.
scientific

The epistemologist asks the crucial question: why should we believe in that
What scientists assert. It does not accept scientific knowledge uncritically but examines it from
as objectively as possible

Epistemology is therefore a critical activity that addresses the entire field of science.

Closely linked to epistemology is the philosophy of science. A problem

philosophical would be: to try to decide whether objective reality exists or is an illusion of the senses. The
A philosopher of science may be interested in the question of whether physics presupposes a metaphysics.
It is strange to assert the existence of an external reality to the subjective. But this is not a
central problem for epistemology

Thus, the term philosophy of science is broader than the term epistemology, and this
it would perhaps be an independent discipline from that one, although the connections between both and the
Epistemological presuppositions constitute a topic of great philosophical interest.

A third word that often shares the same discourse with the term epistemology is
methodology. The methodologist does not question the knowledge already obtained and accepted by the
scientific community. Their problem was the search for strategies to increase knowledge
The use of the word methodology to refer to the approach to epistemological problems is
frequent.

Epistemology and methodology address different areas of evidence, although it is obvious that a
The methodologist must use epistemological resources, as their interest lies in obtaining
new knowledge, must have criteria to evaluate whether what is obtained is genuine or not, since
that he could not be an adherent to a tactic that would lead him to consider an incorrect knowledge as valid

CONTEXTS.
Reichenbach distinguishes between what is called the context of discovery and the context of justification.

The context of discovery matters in the production of a hypothesis or theory, the finding and
the formulation of an idea, the invention of a concept, all of which are related to circumstances
personal, psychological, sociological, political, and even economic or technological that could
has gravitated in the gestation of the discovery or influenced its emergence

The justification context addresses validation issues: how to know if the discovery
whether it is authentic or not, if the belief is true or false, if a theory is justifiable, if the
evidence supports our claims or has knowledge really increased
available

The context of discovery is related to the field of sociology and sociology.

The justification would be linked to the theory of knowledge and in particular to logic.

A third context is added: the concept of application in which the ...

application of scientific knowledge, its usefulness, its benefit or harm to the community or the
human species
The practical use of a theory, in technology or in other applications, has some connection with the
criteria to decide if she is suitable or not from the perspective of knowledge