HPS100H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Formal Science, Fallibilism, Empirical Evidence
19 Jan 2016
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Intro: the history of science teaches us that theories change over time; what was accepted yesterday may not be accepted today. Geocentric astronomy kepler"s astronomy contemporary astronomy. Is there absolute knowledge: can analytic propositions be absolutely certain, yes these are true be definition, no result can contradict this, can synthetic propositions be absolutely certain *more info on page. 3: no these are not necessarily true by definition, we have to find how the propositions are justified, must be based on experience, no way to know these things by definition. Based on experience, adding number of objects as in, one apple plus another two apples, it can be counted to three. We do this with bananas and cherries as well, and the results stay constant. 1 + 2 does in fact, and seems to, equal three. We generalize the results of our observations and arrive at this conclusion.
