HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE GST 118

HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE: SOME CONCEPTUAL EXPLANATIONS

What are Concepts? Concepts are words/language used for the expression of ideas And ideas are the preoccupation of the Historians, philosophers and scientists

Why do Conceptual Clarification? A philosopher who had no mastery of language would be as helpless as mathematician who could not handle numerals. – A. J Ayer

Why do Conceptual Clarification (cont.) Nobody can do history, philosophy or science without the mastery of language, because ideas become meaningful when they are expressed with language The point here is that language is a vehicle for the achievement of the kind of clarity of thought without which the philosophical, historical or scientific enterprise can hardly succeed

Why do Conceptual Clarification (cont.) Language and concepts are the vehicle through which ideas are expressed and manifest

Why do Conceptual Clarification (cont.) Language is central to the discipline of philosophy, not only because it is a means of expression of ideas by, but also because of its usage in the act of logic and argument Conceptual clarification involves, a mastery of the meaning and usage of words, diction, syntax among others so as to enhance clarity of thought and understanding of the concepts we employ in our day to day pursuit of knowledge

Why do Conceptual Clarification (cont.) The need to do a thorough definitional study and analysis of concepts that are employed to explain ideas To show the convergences, divergences, and distinctions in meaning of words/concepts

Why do Conceptual Clarification (cont.) In summary, historians, philosophers and scientists express their ideas via the vehicle of language. There is a need for clarity of thought which is conditioned by a thorough conceptual clarification

Indices of Conceptual Clarification Definitional analysis Theoretical analysis Highlights of the Distinctive Features Comparing and contrasting with synonymous terms Classification in terms of synonym, antonyms- what the term is as against what it is not Theoretical analysis- classification in terms of its contribution to the ideas- knowledge Lexical analysis-

History History has to do with the study of events, past and present. It has as its chief aim the quest to know or to chronicle the past in a systematic order

History History is also an academic discipline that concerns itself with the systematic study of events, with a view that when the past is known, the present and the future can be adequately cared for

History? History is defined alongside concepts like anthropology, classics and sociology. It is often misconceived for either of these other disciplines because of the similarity of their concern. However, a critical conceptual study of these term would reveal their distinctions

Philosophy? Philosophy is the critique of ideas we live by. It involves: Critical evaluation of worldviews A rational enquiry As an academic discipline, its primary branches are Metaphysics, epistemology, logic and ethics.

Features of Philosophy Philosophy is critical- it is an impartial appraisal of ideas Philosophy is explanatory- it finds explanation to events and issues Historical- it uses history in an attempt to understand an idea or concept Knowledge driven Argumentative- we employ argument to drive home points in philosophy

Science Etymological definition: the word science means knowledge. It is derived from the Latin word scientia which is a derivative of the Latin verb scire which means “to know”

Science (cont.) Disciplinary definition: any academic pursuit that involved systematic study of things. It is in this regards that arts and humanities, pure, applied and social sciences- all disciplines- are categorized and qualifies as science

Features of science Specificity- science deals with fact- empirical Objectivity- Explanatory- explains issues Impersonality- non personal Publicity- Knowledge remains in the public domain Criticism- ask probing questions in its quest to know

The Areas of Convergence between history, philosophy and science From the foregoing, it is obvious that fundamentally, history, philosophy and science are three distinct but interrelated human endeavours They are distinct because each of them engage the human world in specific ways

The Areas of Convergence They are related because they all have to do with the pursuit of knowledge in their set agenda. For instance, history encompasses the study of the background to sciences and even to philosophy Thus we have history of science and history of philosophy. It is in this light that history, philosophy and science have the following areas of study

The areas of convergence History of philosophy History of science Philosophy of history Philosophy of science

Assignment Critically explain the relationship between history, philosophy and science