Theme 1: Theory of Science (Reflection)

It was a pity that both the lecture and the seminar was cancelled this week. I believed it would have been worthwhile to discuss the text of Russell with my classmates, to receive a greater understanding of the content. The broad scope of content, written in a stilted language, gave me a hard time to clearly understand all of the text. Besides, theory of science as a topic is somewhat ambiguous and equivocal. For that reason, it would have been interesting to get insight in other perspectives on the topic, at a seminar.

However, it was educational to read the blog posts written by my classmates. During reading all reflections on the questions, it struck me that our course literature is quite complex, and therefore the content can be interpreted in many different ways. Everyone has highlighted what they believe to be relevant and important central questions, that emanates from the text. I guess that this diversity of approaches can be linked to something Russell is writing about in the book; how to experience something corresponds with the beliefs of what you considered as “true” or not. In other words, everyone perceives things read in the text differently, according to their own point of view. Speaking of this, Russell also explains that there is a difference between "true belief" and “knowledge”. Even though you believe a thing to be true, you cannot take it for granted and designate it as knowledge. Because, even if it usually turns out to be true, it is still just a conjecture and as written by Russell in the text; “a true belief is not knowledge when it is deduced from a false belief.”

I have never studied philosophy in a broader sense, so working with this theme has, in some way, improved my philosophical thinking. So, there is one more thing that I find interesting and will remember from this theme. Namely, that there are a lot of similarities between scientific knowledge and philosophical knowledge. The philosophy actually has an impact on science that I was not aware of before. Maybe because I have never thought about it.