HPS100H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Cultural Anthropology, Methodology

• School: UTSG
• Department: History and Philosophy of Science and Technology
• Course: HPS100H1
• Professor: Hakob Barseghyan

Document Summary

Suppose, einstein was born in 1579 and created general relativity in 1615. Suppose, also that one of the novel predictions of the theory was confirmed by 1620. This (cid:373)ethod e(cid:373)plo(cid:455)ed at the ti(cid:373)e did(cid:374)"t (cid:396)e(cid:395)ui(cid:396)e a(cid:374)(cid:455) (cid:272)o(cid:374)fi(cid:396)(cid:373)ed (cid:374)o(cid:448)el p(cid:396)edi(cid:272)tio(cid:374)s. it (cid:396)e(cid:395)ui(cid:396)ed the theory to be intuitively true, (cid:449)hile ei(cid:374)stei(cid:374)"s theo(cid:396)(cid:455) is all (cid:271)ut i(cid:374)tuiti(cid:448)e. Suppose, the following three theories have been recently proposed (2016). Theory 1: objects fall down because of their internal desire to fall. Theory 2: objects fall down with a variable acceleration. Theory 3: objects have mutual affinity; that"s (cid:449)h(cid:455) o(cid:271)je(cid:272)ts fall do(cid:449)(cid:374) ((cid:373)utual affi(cid:374)it(cid:455): so(cid:373)ething causing it to fall down) Theo(cid:396)(cid:455) 2: does(cid:374)"t (cid:272)ha(cid:374)ge ou(cid:396) o(cid:374)tolog(cid:455), a(cid:374)d (cid:449)e (cid:272)a(cid:396)e fo(cid:396) this (cid:271)e(cid:272)ause does(cid:374)"t ha(cid:448)e (cid:272)o(cid:374)fi(cid:396)(cid:373)ed novel predictions: no challenge to our ontology = no need for novel predictions. Internal desire & affinity: these two theories are trying to modify our ontology. Thus, they are required to provide confirmed novel predictions