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1.
- Popper, LSD, ch. 1 and 2: choose one of the following three statements
and explain why you think it is right (I think all three are defensible,
though maybe not equally so): (a) Popper’s main point is to show that
the “problem of induction” doesn’t have a positive solution, and to explain
how we can nevertheless learn something about universal laws. He discusses
the “demarcation problem” because of that main point. (b) Popper’s main
point is the role of falsifiability in answering the “demarcation problem.” He
discusses other methodological issues and the “problem of induction” because
of that main point. (c) Popper’s main point is the relationship between
science and the methodology of science. He discusses falsifiability and the
“problem of induction” because of that main point.
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2.
- Popper, LSD, ch. 3: Explain why Popper’s conception of a “theoretical
system” (§16) might lead one to regard the axioms as “conventions,” and
why Popper wants to avoid that. Your explanation should involve (at least)
the following: theories (what is a “theory”?); axioms; definitions; “strict”
universals.
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3.
- Popper, LSD, ch. 4: Explain one of the following points about Popper’s
view (all of which are correct): (a) No falsifiable theory forbids only a single
basic statement. (b) Forbidding (any number of) basic statements is not
enough to make a theory falsifiable. (c) A theory cannot, in general, be
falsified by a single accepted basic statement.
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4.
- Popper, LSD, ch. 5: What is “Fries’s Trilemma”? (Do not quote from the
text to answer this; you must explain in your own words.) How is Popper’s
view on “basic statements” supposed to resolve it? How is this connected
with his reason for rejecting all versions of “protocol sentences,” including
even the version Carnap (in “On Protocol Sentences”) claims to have taken
from Popper?
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5.
- Popper, LSD, ch. 10: Explain why Popper’s view (as opposed to the view
he describes as “inductivist”) makes it hard to understand why we rely on
corroborated theories. How would Popper respond to this objection?
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6.
- Neurath, Putnam, Lakatos: Choose one of the following examples and
explain why (according to one or more of the three authors) it causes a
problem for Popper: Newton’s derivation of Kepler’s laws; the discovery of
Neptune; the orbit of Mercury. How might Popper respond? Is the response
satisfactory?
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7.
- Kuhn, SSR, ch. 1–5: On p. 34, Kuhn claims that three activities
(“determination of significant fact, matching of facts with theory, and
articulation of theory”) make up all the experimental and theoretical work of
normal science. Explain what each of these activities is, using examples where
helpful, and explain why, according to Kuhn, they could not be motivated
by a desire to test theories, to uncover unexpected novelties, or to be useful,
but could be motivated by a desire to solve “puzzles.”
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8.
- Kuhn, SSR, ch. 6–8: Discuss either the discovery of oxygen or the
discovery of X-rays, focusing on the role of “anomalies” and the ways in which
the nature and role of such anomalies, according to Kuhn, are both like and
unlike the nature and role of falsifying instances/hypotheses as described by
Popper. Explain further how the process in question is supposed to resemble
the kind of “theoretical” crisis described in ch. 7.
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9.
- Kuhn, SSR, ch. 9–10: How might a “positivist” (as described by Kuhn,
beginning around p. 98) tell the story of Galileo’s discoveries about the
behavior of pendulums? How would such a positivist argue that these
discoveries were not incompatible with older theories? (See especially what
Kuhn finally notes on p. 124: that Aristotelians didn’t discuss swinging
stones at all.) Why is the positivist’s description wrong, according to Kuhn?
Give at least two reasons. (Discuss what goes wrong in this particular case,
but with reference to some of the supposed general facts about the “nature
and necessity” of scientific revolutions — to quote the title of ch. 9 — which
guarantee that all such stories will be wrong.)
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10.
- Kuhn, SSR, ch. 11–13: On p. 149, Kuhn says: “The laymen who scoffed
at Einstein’s general theory of relativity because space could not be ‘curved’
— it was not that sort of thing — were not simply wrong or mistaken.”
This might be taken to mean that laymen are better placed to criticize new
developments in science than we usually tend to think. Is that the moral
Kuhn would want us to draw? Explain why or why not.