HPS100H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Agnosticism, Pseudoscience, Scientific Method
4 Dec 2015
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Document Summary
A worldview is characterized by its metaphysical components. Hylomorphism, pluralism, teleology, plenism, heterogeneity, finite universe, monotheism. There are is of the metaphysical components implicit in the aristotelian ww. Cartesian by contact: mechanism, dualism, homogeneity, infinite universe monotheism. Metaphysics: a set of views about the world taken as a whole. Does the universe have boundaries in space and/time. In both aristotelian-medieval and cartesian mosaics, most metaphysical components are explicitly stated. In newtonian and contemporary mosaics, most metaphysical assumptions are implicit, not explicit. Action at a distance was not explicitly stated but implicit in many theories. Law of gravity: the moon and the earth attract each other without any mediating agents. Dynamism: matter is an extended substance interacting through forces. Probabilistic determinism: if you accept quantum physics, you know that in certain situations, particles choose from a number of possibilities. Pd: same initial conditions may produce different results.
