Music, Mathematics and the Harmony of the Spheres by Hugh Peters
3rd May 2018: The Art of Argumentation: Philosophy, Reason and the Universe Series with Tina Röck; Why do philosophy, if you can do science?
Come along to the Boardroom of St John’s Church Conference Center (Princes St, Edinburgh, EH2 4BJ) at 7pm and take part in discussion about philosophy and science. It is a friendly and informal gathering to discuss topics with nibbles in good company. It is entirely free and open to everyone
Masterclass: Myths of Attraction by Mairi Macleod, PhD
Ever been intrigued about what makes us attractive to others, or why we are drawn towards the people we fancy ? Dr Mairi Macleod has been researching this and casting light on the science of attraction for many years. Now based in Edinburgh, she writes for publications such as New Scientist Magazine and various national newspapers, and gives public lectures at the University of Edinburgh and elsewhere. This article for the Ragged University is a taster of her in-depth work.
24th Aug 2015: To Space; Human costs of Space exploration by Dr Niamh Shaw
Come along to Leith Beer Company, put your feet up and listen to Niahm tell us about her journey into space…
Title of talk:
To Space. Human costs of Space exploration.
Action Science: Epistemology, Knowledge and It's Contested Communities
Action science is an inquiry into how we design and implement action in relation to one another. It is a science of practice, whether the professional practice of administrators, educators, and psychotherapists or the everyday practice of people as member of families and organizations.
Action science calls for basic research and theory building that are intimately related to social intervention. Clients are participants in a process of public reflection that attempts both to comprehend the concrete details of particular cases and to discover and test propositions of a general theory. Read more
Rationality and Science: A Social and Environmental Philosophy by Kenneth Wilson
This chapter concerns itself with rationality in its scientific guise. Typically science is often taken to be the paradigm instance of rationality in the modern period. In addition to science being a key representative of reason, it has also become separated from religion, the historical locus of thought about values and ethics.
My concern in this chapter lies in two areas. The first of these lies in the distinction between fact and value, science and ethics, and the second, with the notion that science is ethically neutral. In the discussion of these issues I aim to show that there are confusions and inconsistencies involved which force one to reconsider the status of science and the sense in which it is rational. Indeed I am at pains to counter a tendency which sees scientific facts as somehow determining what our values ought to be, when in actuality scientific facts provide no such solutions. Read more
Objectivity
The state of being objective is to correctly represent reality. The term “reality” however can lack clarity. Science is a methodological attempt to resolve truths from ambiguity.
Empirical evidence based upon observations and experimentation in the physical world is conducive to the verification of scientific judgments. Adherence to the rules of deduction and the process of inductive reasoning implements the validity and soundness of scientific arguments and conclusions. Read more
Science and Knowledge
There are other methods of discovering and learning knowledge about nature, but science is the only method that results in the acquisition of reliable knowledge.
Reliable knowledge is knowledge that has a high probability of being true because its veracity has been justified by a reliable method. Reliable knowledge is sometimes called justified true belief, to distinguish reliable knowledge from belief that is false and unjustified or even true but unjustified. Read more
Podcast: Noumenal Contouring; The Secret Of Science, The Secret Of Skill by Ciaran Healy
On the 7th of November 2013, Ciaran Healy gave a talk on ‘Noumenal Contouring; The Secret Of Science, The Secret Of Skill’. This is a summary and podcast of the event when Ciaran was kind enough to take the time to share his thinking and inspiration with everyone:
The Philosophy Of Science is best understood as a kind of unsolved crime, but instead of a crime you have the most incredible and unprecedented advanced in understanding. But like an unsolved crime, nobody has yet accounted for why it happened, or how it happened. The philosophy of science means you undertake that investigation. Read more