Kitcher Homework Assignment

Homework Assignment

Philip Kitcher, "Believing Where we Cannot Prove"

Reading Questions

Please answer each of the following questions to the best of your ability. Write complete sentences - but be as concise as possible. You may use your text, lecture notes, and any other resources in completing this assignment. However, the answers you submit must be your own.

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1. What is the "popular picture of science" according to Kitcher?

2. What role does the concept of deductive validity play in the "precise" formulation of the "popular view of theory and prediction" according to Kitcher?

3. What is wrong with the "popular picture of science" according to Kitcher?

4. How does Kitcher reach the conclusion that individual scientific laws or small groups of laws do not have observational consequences?

5. On what grounds does Kitcher reject "naive" falsification as a criterion for distinguishing science from non=science?

6. Explain why Adam's and Leverrier's hypothesis that the anomalies of Uranus' orbit could be explained by the orbit of an unobserved planet was not an ad hoc hypothesis.

7. What are the three "marks" of successful science according to Kitcher?

8. What is the difference between "good science", "bad science" and "pseudo science" according to Kitcher?

9. What is the difference between explaining a phenomena and predicting a phenomena? Which is more important in science according to Kitcher?

10. What tests help us decide between good science, bad science, and pseudo-science according to Kitcher?