Paste your essay in here…Francis Bacon, Karl Popper, and Thomas Kuhn are philosophers whom throughout history each provide an attempt to explain the question “What is the nature of science?” subsequently following critiques of one another’s explanation of the nature of science. In the following paper, I will describe each philosopher’s attempt to explain the nature of science and I will describe how these philosophers respond to one another including the critiques they formed of one another’s explanation attempt. I will achieve this by rehearsing a text detailing their attempts and criticisms, Introduction to the Philosophy of Science by Anthony O’Hear. Further, I will argue that Kuhn most successfully answers the question of “What is the nature of science?”. I will analyze and draw conclusions from academic scientific resources as evidence of my argument.
To start, Francis Bacon’s explanation of science will be addressed. Francis Bacon ushered a modern view of the nature of science. His ideas about the scientific method and his attempt to explain the nature of science exist as what is generally known to be Baconian Induction. Bacon’s attempt to explain the nature of science began as a response to Aristotelian thinking with Bacon’s turning away from the old Aristotelian view of the scientific method. Aristotle suggested that nature has purpose which was problematic for Bacon as his claim, Baconian Induction, stems from his claim that science has standards, distinct answers. The Baconian Induction method took Bacon’s claim further.
The inductive method consists of two doctrines, a Negative Doctrine and a Positive Doctrine. Bacon’s Negative Doctrine challenges scientists to think outside schools of thought in order to obtain and understand truthful data. Bacon gives four “Idols” in which he is concerned scientists should avoid in order to prevent being led astray from the truth in the pursuit of knowledge. Bacon says understanding the scientific method and nature itself involves turning away from religion and how scripture says nature is. Regarding the Idols, these four Idols include: Idols of the Tribe, Idols of the Cave, Idols of the Market, and Idols of the Theatre. Idols of the Tribe involve going along with the majority, and being afraid or reluctant to conduct research outside of societal ideals. Idols of the Cave involve internal pursuits of the individual (scientist) and predispositions the individual has. He claims these should be avoided because they cloud judgement. Idols of the Market involve the language of representing scientific data, for example giving human-like qualities to non-human things. Idols of the Theatre involve one’s inherited belief system. When used as a guide during scientific research, judgements can become clouded, for example, by religion. The philosophy of Bacon’s Positive Doctrine is to “correct the deficiencies of the ancients” (Chambliss 200). Bacon proposes to avoid trying to fit research into research that was conducted prior. According to this, the scientist begins by disregarding any previous theory and lets the facts (nature) speak for themselves. In summary, Bacon argued the nature of science as predispositionless or presuppositionless observation and data accumulation thereby giving the view of a scientist as innocent and uncorrupted.
Given that Bacon’s attempt has been detailed, Karl Popper’s Popperian philosophy of science and his critique of induction can now be analyzed. Popperian philosophy of science is a direct objection of Baconian induction. Popper argues that while Bacon suggests science occurs through nature revealing itself – a scientist simply observes and makes connections and draws conclusions, instead, imaginative, bold theories may better allow for progress than this science based on observation. Popper provides the argument that staying true to the data is a boundary
than should be challenged in science. Even if a scientist proves to be wrong in their claim, making claims beyond what is known is necessary in order to make scientific progress.
Ultimately, Popper claims that science proceeds by falsification and being wrong is purely a virtue of science. For Popper, the attempt to prove is superseded by the attempt to disprove. Popper brings about a new method of considering the nature of science by suggesting that the future maybe does not resemble the past; therefore, abandonment of the inductive hope that presuppositions can be eliminated from scientific research gives way for science to progress through creative intuition. Popper argues that challenging old views and making bold claims is the very nature of how science progresses. Popper provides a demarcation criteria through which science can be distinguished from non-science (Caldwell 2). The criterion of demarcation proposed by Popper is that of a method of falsification. Popper claims that much of the innovative discoveries leading to the most progressiveness of scientific research are made when scientists purposefully go against all available evidence and data Furthermore, Popper also presents testability as a demarcation criterion in which new theories are differentiated from old scientific theories by way of scientists making honest attempts to falsify their own bold hypotheses or making bold claims that could be falsified in the future through experimentation and scientific testing.
Now that the claims of Bacon and Popper have been examined, we can now move on to Thomas Kuhn and his critiques of both previously mentioned philosophers’ attempts. Thomas Kuhn’s philosophy and argument regarding the nature of science has a basis of his interest in scientific progress. Kuhn maintained disposition-laden observation, holds a version of realism, and emphasizes the revolutionary process of science. .He critiques induction by rejecting the empiricist claim of science as cumulative knowledge where the future does resemble the past and agrees with Popper on the opposite – the future does not resemble the past whereas for Kuhn, the history of science has a different role. He first critiques that this accretion view of science as linear progress suggesting that science is essentially not a slow buildup of knowledge over time but instead science progresses based on overcoming biases. Popper has a more individual view of science from the scientist level while Kuhn argues more broadly that the overall conserved structural trends and patterns of science throughout history illuminate the nature of science (Mayo 274). Kuhn claims that discerning what science is cannot occur without discussing the history of science. He argues that the scientific method is not relative to a time period but is conserved. Kuhn not only critiques the Popperian philosophy of science but also provides a positive vision of science as his argument. He claims that the overall structural trend of science exists as succession of paradigms.
According to Kuhn, the order of progression of scientific change is a cycle of: paradigm science, crisis science, and revolutionary science. Paradigm science can be thought of as “normal” science where a common intellectual standard or framework of the scientific method is shared within the community of researchers. In the event where an anomaly arises to challenge the current standard, Kuhn claims science enters a crisis stage. During this time, the anomaly is attempted to be resolved. When it cannot be resolved, science finally enters what Kuhn terms as revolutionary science. A new standard of research emerges that must be tested and learned into practice. Kuhn refers to the period of revolutionary science as “puzzle-solving”. Revolutionary science includes a paradigm shift and the task of applying this new standard or framework into scientific tasks indicated the puzzle-solving. This is ultimately Kuhn’s attempt to explain to how science makes progress onto new theories.
This paper can now be directed towards my argument that Kuhn most successfully answers the question of “What is the nature of science?”. Before Kuhn, the view of the nature of science was dominated by philosophical theories concerning how the scientific method ought to develop. Kuhn brought about a transformative way of thinking about science that can be appreciated by scientists today’s scientific community. Few objections can be made against Kuhn’s rationalization in comparison to those objections of the inductive method and falsification because Kuhn gave an argument for the explanation of science based on historical evidence rather than Popper and Bacon’s propositions of how scientific research should be conducted in the future. Science is an ever changing affair; this is not to be discarded by Kuhn’s view but is rather emphasized in a far more logical approach than the viewpoints of the other philosophers. To illustrate this, within modern research, we can see evidence of paradigms and paradigm shifts every day. New technologies are constantly arising to shift the limits of scientific research. Nonetheless, science has for certain progressed over history and we cannot ignore the role played by the conserved trends, paradigms. The significance of Kuhn’s philosophy over his counterparts is his consensus-based and community approach
Conclusively, explanations of “What is the nature of science” have taken many forms throughout philosophical history by philosophers including Francis Bacon, Karl Popper, and Thomas Kuhn. Each man has differing theories to bring to consideration that were ultimately developed in critique of one another and an “old” manner of thinking about scientific progression and nature. Each philosopher’s attempt and criticisms were detailed throughout this paper with the purpose of arriving at an overall claim that Thomas Kuhn most flourishingly answered the question giving the best explanation of the nature of science as a succession of paradigms with little room for objection of his philosophy in the modern scientific community as it has proved to be the most pure form of progress.