G0 separ Go 44 The deduction is a type Of reasoning through which a statement or general approach is established, to study its parts then and explain how they relate, ‘4 René Descartes Rationalism ; One of the rationalist thinkers, the French RepaReeE ey (1506-1050) said that everything that helps the rationality ofthe subject is the found tion of any knowledge. Among these foundations, is the logical reasoning. elknowledge. for example, imagination and self- é Z Descartes war sure that to obtain real knowledge, it was necessary 1, establish a rational method based on doubt, so that we can only accept real what can be deduced from other evident truths. He enunciated the rules of this method, which must follow this order: y clear and distinct ideas. 1. Rule of evidence. To accept only clear and disti 2. Analysis rule. All problems should be divided into as many parts a, Rule of s he simplest to the 3. Rule of synthesis, Sort the thoughts from the simp! ting complex through deduction, that is, from general thoughts to more specific ones. : ; 4, Rule of enumeration. Review of the three previous rules to make sure nothing has been forgotten Another Frenchman, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), has devoted himself to the study of mathematics, also favored the reason over the experience, butalso gave weight to emotions, which he called “reasons of the heart”, with this he referred to knowledge of intuitions as a type of intellectual reason that comes from within the human being Empiricism The empiricist thinkers gave great importance toe facts and experience as the basis of an idea that we acquire from the sensesFor a long time, empiricist ideas laid the groundwork for experimenial sciences such as biology or physics. The English philosopher John Locke (1632- 1704), also studied medicine and chemistry. He read Descartes and was opposed to his theories be- cause Locke said that reason by itself is empty and any idea must come from experience or must be linked to it to be reliable. He affirmed that every- thing we think and know is the result of our exper ence. According to him, at birth, the human mind is like a blank sheet that while living is printing con- tents that form the experience. ‘The English theologian George Berkeley (1685- 1753), went to the extremes of empiricism and de- nied that anything existed if it is not possible for the individual to have an experience of it. Thatis, if you cannot perceive it with any of your senses, then the thing is not true, or even, it might not exist. These ideas did not have great repercussion, perhaps for denying absolutely the material reali- ty. Nevertheless, their arguments had high logical coherence. ‘John LockeStage 1, Foundations and Development of Human Krowiedge up The Scottish David Hume (1711-1776), is the currentsymbol of empiricism. In his studies, he ied to show that r | id a He proposed a new concept based on experience, which he called skepticism, He stated that, although wwe can only accept ideas that are based on previous experience, this experience is very particular and does not account for all reality, but only for a part of it. For this reason, no knowledge can be entirely 4 David Hume reliable. —_____— sac Newton (1643-1727), based all his research on empirical experimentat ybtain universal laws. With the same for- mula, he explained all the events, from the fall of an apple to the passage ofa comet. By telling the world to these physical laws, he found that reality exists in itself, it does not need us to perceive it. Just as reality exists inde- pendently of us, our reason can seek its understanding even if we do not always have the total experience of it, as Hume argued. 44 Isaac Newton : Learning Activity 1. Choose the thinker with whom you agree with his conception of sapen Ay knowledge. It can be empiricist or rationalist. Explain why you agree apusyou, with him and write an example. doubt whether something is true lagree with or useful, He isa thinker Because: For example:« 12. ThePathsofKnowiedge | ———— Dogma. Proposition held to be true and as an undeniable principle. ions have survived to this day assuming the fo th empiricist foundations) and analytical jr Mi ge lof These concepti cal knowledge (wit rationalist foundations): + Empiical knowledge. This kind of knowledge happens yyy perience and directaction on the object, which is perceveg qe & the senses. This ype of experience can occur spontaneony eryday life or can be purposely provoked by us, to repeat a ence on a particular object or phenomenon and to be able OP Iye it carefully as happens, for example, when we do exper or descriptive research. i « Analytical knowledge. It is the result of the analysis of caus of'a phenomenon, independently of the direct orin perience of it. Indirect experience is obtained through do ry or academic research. This means that we do not use py but the cognitive-rational apparatus and logic for object even if itis not present. direct e, cumeniy Tception, the analysis of After all this, you will ask: who is right? Rationalists or empiricists? Well, all and none. The philosopher Francis Bacon (156) 1561-1626), enup ciated a very selfexplained metaphor that helps us understand this pang do: It is not about spiders or ants, but about bees, =) Ants, spiders, and bees Those who have studied the sciences have been either empirical or dogmatic. Empir- ics, like ants, only pile up and consume. The rationalists, as if they were spiders, make fabrics from themselves. Conversely, there is an intermediate way, the one of the bee: to extract the matter from the flowers of the orchard and fields, but to transform it and distribute it using the own capabilities, Sim- ilarly, the true work of philosophy is not dif ferent, because it does not rely on the forces of the mind alone or above all, nor does it = store in its memory the material that natu- 4 Francis Bacon ral history and mechanical expriments have offered, but the philosopher deposits it in his understanding after trans forming it and elaborating it. Therefore, we can expect much more from a closer and stronger alliance (not yet realized) between these 6° faculties, which are the experimental and rational ones. Bacon, Francis, Novum Organum, Chapter xev,‘Stage 1, Foundations and Development of Human Knowledge Bacon explains that rationalists, like spiders, weave their fabric from the substance they produce: beautifulandstrong, butempty. Meanwhile, theem= Z collect everything they come across without distinction. ‘The work on which knowledge will be reflected is not the spider nor the ant, but the work of the bees, which collects only the nectar from the best flowers that are in the world too, and with their ability, produce rich honey. e Another philosopher named Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) agreed with Bacon, but also added an idea whose value persists nowadays: human 2 on. The experience offers us data, information, and material, while reason orders and structures these data and interprets them. But though all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it all aris- ¢s from experience. For it is quite possible that even our empirical knowledge is a com- pound of that which we perceive through im- |) pressions, and of that which our own faculty of knowledge (incited by sense impressions) supplies from itself, a supplement which we do not distinguish from that raw material w til long practice and rendered us capable of separating one from the other. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason ‘a Emanuel Kant On the other hand, we have the materialism pos- tulated by the German Karl Marx (1818-1883). Materialism tells us that reality is mental and ma- terialand that bededoeigpbpiogs sages son and experience when analyzing the changes that occur in the social and natural world, to dis- cover the laws that govern its origin and change, and this is only possible through reason. There is, no supernatural source of reality. Iti important to emphasize that Marx speaks of the natural reality that the address the experi- mental science, but also the social reality that ad- dresses the humanistic and social science. In his 18th Brumaire by Luis Bona- parte, he tells us that the study of the causes, changes, and consequences of the French social dynamics, would allow us to understand and know “how the class struggle created in France the circumstances and conditions ‘4 Karl Marxi esque character play the role a mediocre and gro! e that onal approach to causes and consequences would begs This Pe ona changes in social relations strictures and social je ustoun work, and even how the values ofa society er based on the forms o! oy archi, ange, 4.1.2 The Bases of Human Reasoning: Between Deductions and Inductions lity cannot be completely known, since knowing mea port aense, to know scientifically. Anything ha cannot be sie eaplained resltsin speculation orin an unreliable, sometimes fang Saori is par excellence, the model to Follow to guaran the reliability of knowledge because it is the rational and objective = of looking for reliable explanations about reality. Its characteristics ay methods help us to have the highest possible certainty When looking for the causes of certain things, we make a logical cop, nection between different ideas or events to get explanations about they To this process of reasoning, where the conclusion we reach derives fro the logical relation between ideas, is called inference, There are several methods by which our thinking makes inference, and that have been used by humanity since immemorial times. Two of them are the deductive and the inductive methods. In the deduetive method, we sek analyze the objet, phenomeney or situation, seeking to understand each of its parts to achieve a complete and detailed explanation. ‘With the deductive method, we can group particular cases under uni versal affirmations or laws. There are some verbs in the initial problem statement that can help us distinguish that research will require a dedut tive method: Distinguish > Analyze > Differentiate > Describe > Calculate > Experiment > Test > Compare > Investigate > Diagnose ‘The inductive reasoning method starts with observations of particular facs that we relate to reaching a general conclusion. ‘This method is widely used in everyday life, based on the repetition of an event. Although, if we reflect a little more, that something is repeated ‘many times in the past does not guarantee that in the future it will contin uue to be always that way, it only makes it probable, Although with the inductive method we only reach highly likely conch sions, the general explanatory statements we reach do extend our know edge, because they help us to generate new universal determinations. For thisreason, its useis characteristicin science to establish probabilities or pre- dictions about reality and postulate hypotheses and general laws that are considered certainties until others arrive that appear more extensive and precise.However, be careful with the daily induction! We cannot abuse in gen- eralizations, because if we get to them from few cases, we could fall into wrong conclusions or even fall into prejudice. For example: a) My exegirlfriend, Tere, cheated on me. b) My ex-girlfriend, Nancy, also cheated on me. ¢) Therefore, all my girlfriends will be unfaithful, In this example, we can see that from only wo experienc draws a general conclusion. If the person speaking continues his life blind- ly believing in such a conclusion, he can never trust his future parmers! That is why the higher accumulation of particular events is essential to draw more accurate general conclusions. Some verbs that can help us dis- tinguish that the research will require an inductive method ar Compose > Plan > Propose > Design > Formulate > Fix > Assemble > Collect > Build > Create > Organize > Predict [ED The Science and its Method in Ancient Times ‘The research was originated by the natural restlessness of human being to know the world around him, People of all times, all over the globe, have sought to understand and know the phenomena of nature, for example, rain, thunder, earthquakes, the growth of plants, among other things. In the same way, they also sought to acquire knowledge about the causes of diseases, corporal and psychic changes, or even death, love, or hate. by the natural restlessness of being human to ‘A The investigation was originated know the world around him. Se cans ey(6 The Pats otirowedge — ‘The Renaissance vwas a cultural humanist movement that started in Europe inthe 15th century Its main characteristic was the appreciation for Greco-Roman culture It took place between the Middle and Modern Ages and notably contributed to development of ‘sdences and arts but had influence in ‘every area of society creating a new conception of the ‘world and the men, Knowing the causes of what interested them helped them even to vive, because they used their knowledge and experience to build tools later facilitated their hunting and farming work, helped them create moe stable shelters, control some diseases or even plan actions when they pre dicted bad weather. ze , Throughout the centuries, humans have been learning by asking que, tions about nature and have inherited their knowledge to their followin, generations, who were enriched with new experiences, which helped they, both to survive and improve their living conditions. We can imagine that the explanations of the first human beings to ty to understand the world had nothing to do with science; in fact, they were full of fantastic elements, because humans had no knowledge or a rationa] experience of the world, and they were just begun to build it. As such, sc. entific research was not consolidated until the Renaissance. In Antiquity, myths arose as a first attempt to explain reality from what vwas closest to people: their body, their mind and the relationships among them, because it is the only thing that had accurate knowledge. That is why, as you will remember, it is common that the myths of any civilization included gods or powerful beings with the human form, immortal, and with superhuman powers to control nature. There existed, for example, gods of the ocean, of thunder, of agriculture, but also fertility, love, and war. They had the same vices and virtues as human beings, although they were supernatural. Cinterdisciplinary Activity Describe two myths of two different ancient civilizations, where it is evi- dent that through it, those civilizations tried to: explain a natural phenom- enon. Describe them briefly in the following table, stating the phenome- non they were trying to explain.Gradually humanity was refining its methods to achieve reliable knowl edge and based on which they could make decisions could and act on the world to transform it in their favor. Greck philosophers who studied nature and its foundations were the first to develop a thought that was logical and rational, moving away from the myths to try to understand the cosmos. They were called Piyssphiloso- phers, which means “philosophers of nature,” that is, scholars who thought about the totality of the cosmos. However, in Antiquity; only in Greece was a rational thought? No. It is well known that Western philosophy was born in Greece, but it was not the only place in the world where this kind of reasoning was possible: many peoples had a reasonably developed culture and research methods. However, itis known that the Greeks were the only ones that applied only ra- tional thought to seek the essence or cause of all things, coming to consoli- date an unprecedented system of knowledge. In this way, physis philosophers began to investigate the world only to obtain a greater understanding. From their observations and logical prem- ises to which they arrived using deductive and inductive methodologies, they concluded the following: 1. Nature, because it represents the totality of the Universe, could not have another order or functioning, because it would end in chaos. The order that it maintains is perfect and harmonious; that is why it is “necessary.” 2. The beings that constitute the nature in its totality occupy a specific place and function, with particular characteristics and behavior that, contribute to the order of the universe. 3, Nature is not inert, and its events occur in an orderly manner af fecting the beings that compose it in a certain way. Therefore, it is dynamic. 4. When all the components of nature work according to the necessary order, the universe behaves like a healthy body or organism, where each part functions as it should. As these are the characteristics of physis, for the first philosophers it was only possible to describe the order already given by nature, in addition to the logical relations that can occur to link certain events with others, lea ing aside the mythical explanations or fantastic beings. Some representatives of the time were: Thales of Miletus (624-546 BC), is considered the first philosopher of the Physis, thatis, the pioneer in searching rational explanations of reality. He thought that there was an arché or principle of all things. By reflecting on how nature changes and transforms, and because of its fullness of life and vital processes, he decided that the archéis water. With a thought process based on rationality, other philosophers also concluded that, if reality is physical, its cause must also be physical, pro- _ posing other material elements such as the archéof all things: Anaximenes, a Thales of Miletus1B ThePaths ofknowledge on another hand, proposed the air, Heraclitus the fire and Xenophag. the earth. Empedoclesof Agrigento (495-444BC) ,theinductiveand deductive though as well as its intuition, convince himself that : a nothingand that what exists ean not disappear. From this point, he deduce, that reality is one and that its changes are transformations of the same sy stance. He returned to the four material principles proposed by his prege_ cessors: water (Thales of Miletus), air (Anaximenes), fire (Heraclitus) ang earth (Xenophanes) to affirm that the four are in constant movement, mixing and repulsing them continually. 5 Democritus (460-370 BC), went much furtheriy his reflections. For him, it was necessary to ¢, plain not only the existence of things but the; ability to change. He was sure that there shoul, be an essential and eternal element for even thing, no matter how different their appearang, ¢s or behaviors may seem. So he proposed the existence of an original component, a materia so indivisible and infinitely small, that it is im. perceptible to us. Democritus called it “atom meaning, indivisible. According to Democritus, the Universeiscom. posed of a void and of moving atoms that com. bine themselves to form different beings. With his proposal, Democritus begins to change the conception of the world as an organism and move his explanation towards an operation similar to that ofa machine. These are just some representatives of rational thought in Antiquir; However, we must not forget that at that time, societies were still immersed in the dynamic of mythical, mystical, and religious believes, for which they were sometimes vigorously attacked. In the case of Democritus, for exam. ple, some judges considered him a danger to society, because his ideas went against the existence of the gods. Despite this, reason wiumphed, and several decades later, Aristotle managed to establish a method for observing the nature and the record of climate changes and modifications performed by living beings to survive | in their environment. ‘4 Democritus Aristotle (884-322 BC), devised and recorded the first classification of lv: ing beings. He was fascinated by his observations of plants and their life processes, but what captivated him the most was the observation of mi rine animals. His ability to observe and compare his records led him to discover that whales and dolphins are mammals, something utterly new in his time. The methods he used for his observations and recordings were per formed under his philosophical perspective. By using logic, he proposeddifferent laws of reasoning that are still valid ‘and useful for any rational investigation, es- pecially in the field of deductive reasoning, something high-priced for the rationalist When Aristotle established, based on his observations, the objective and universal as- pects of phenomena, that s, the descriptions valid not only for him but for every rational being, he discovered that generalization could be invaluable. Thanks to this general ization, you can group situations with similar characteristics t0 conclude that something —— will always happen in the same way. For ex. “ANstoteles ample, in his studies on marine biology, Aris: totle could have reasoning as follows: “Ihave observed, illustrated, and described various types of whales, or- cas, and dolphins, Although they all have fish-like bodies, they do not share with them the qualities of having a thick layer of fat and lung breathing. They also keep their offspring in a placenta until its birth. Therefore, all these animals must be mammals.” In the same way, Aristotle formulated a geocentric theory to explain the place of the Earth in the Universe. In the Aristotelian system, the spher- ical Earth was the center of the Universe, and all the celestial bodies sur- rounded it were ordered in different spheres, The Moon was in the closest sphere to Earth. This system recovered the terrestrial elements of the phi- losophers of physis: earth, water, fire, and air, but added a celestial ether that impelled life and movement. Aristarchus (310 - 230 BC), was the first philosopher to formulate a differ- ent system. However, his ideas did not succeed, and he even was accused of heresy by contravening the geocentrism theory. He proposed that the stars and the in motionless and that the Earth revolves around the Sun following a circumference, in other words, its theory was helio- centric. Claudius Ptolemy (85 - 165 AD, Julian calendar), was an Egyptian who im- proved years later, during the Roman Empire, the Aristotelian system to make observations to better understand the distance between the spheres of the celestial bodies. Ptolemy affirmed that all the celestial bodies de- scribe perfectly circular orbits around the Earth at different distances, of which he offered some measurements. Besides, he calculated the dimen- sions of the Sun and the Moon and estimated that the universe contained 1028 stars. Its geocentric system as the basis of the planetary movement lasted for more than 1400 years. We now know, thanks to the advancement of technology for observa- tion and measurement, that the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic model is unsustain- Hvar)£ The Paths of Knowledge §—§ — 20 able, mainly due to its adoption of false assumptions during the obser, mathematical coherence. wn, However, it has logical andl mat n tio iis eorh ‘emphasizing that, with their works, asic and Proteny reaffirmed the prototype of science in ancient times: an ordered, natura necessary and universal knowledge, that covers all reality, not just som vel le © cases, They souight to discover what the world is and privileged observay y sal laws were rationally established, they could not be challenge. Al these laws would have a hierarchy, from the most gene to simp, Tinking one to another through logical deduction, which means that may ‘ematies was only’a tool for the methods of the scientific knowledge, ‘a Ptolemy's Earth-centered model. E) Science and its Method in the Modern Era. | The Scientific Method For centuries, the scientific paradigm established by Aristotle was enriched and considered as the foundation of the production of rational and objec- tive knowledge, even in the European universities that emerged during the Middle Ages. At that time, the numerous wars, epidemics, and pre- occupations for survival caused a technological stagnation throughout Europe. It was not until the Renaissance, around the sixteenth century, that the Aristotelian conception was abandoned and humanity achieved 3 significant leap.As an answer to the theories that thrived in Antiquity, and advocating for a Farth-centered model of the Universe, Nicolis Copernicus postulat- ed a model where the Earth and the rest of the planets revolve around YQ the Sun. This model allowed to solve many problems that had slowed the advance by centuries, resulting in a scientific revolution of enormous pro- ‘ portions that changed the way of conceiving reality. With this model, science began to use much more empirical exper- mentation. Science gave pre-eminence to the method and mathematics for the production of knowledge. Science was not sought to explain what J the world is, but how it works, and in this way, experimentation increased. On the other hand, observation and mathematical precision were valued as the essential traits of a rational methodology to obtain universal and 4 necessary scientific knowledge. \ Below are some scientists from that era that marked the progress of science and its methods as we know today. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), originally from Poland, is acknowledged in the history of science for retaking the proposal of the heliocentric the- uy lYOrY)? ory that had been described by Aristarchus of Samos, according to which / the the Earth that rotated once ‘day on its each year a circle around it. Itis noteworthy that it took him around twenty-five years to develop his proposed heliocentric model of the universe since he sought to perfect the model of Aristarchus of Samos using new observations, measurements, and calculations. It was difficult for the scientific field to accept his work since it completely contradicted what was known and taught in the univer- | sities for 1400 years! ‘4 Copernican heliocentric model{22 The runsctkoonledoe sf revolution that originated their gy ernican Revolution. It is worth 5." ‘; known as the Copernican Revol a eres at that sme is FN p forced to hide for a while, and the Publica. toning that Copernicus was Ore ne date of his dea of his cor . For that reason, the scien ime mplete work w Galileo Galilei from Italy, PE, Which alloy, him to enhance his observations. av make critical astronomical discover: Following the work of Copernicus, he s gued that Earth revolves around the Sy, showing evidence in this respect. Ther. fore, the Catholic church, through th, Court of the Holy Inquisition, sentence, him to life imprisonment in a tower fo, “serious suspicion of heresy. - Other essential discoveries of Galley Galileo Galilei were the laws of accelerated motion anj the laws of the pendulum, by which he conducted numerous experiments in the Cathedral of Pisa. His studies on the movement of projectiles laid the foundations for Newton to develop his theory of gravi Robert Boyle (1627-1691), an English sc. entistanda pioneer in the area who would later be called “chemistry,” had a labors tory practice that he systematized utter, something that most of the chemists of his time didn'tachieve. The method used by Boyle allowed the reproduction of the techniques in the laboratory under a rig. orous order. This method made it easier for him and others to repeat the exper ment, reducing the variations as much as possible, Boyle made the first experiments on the transformation of matter, refuting the Aristotelian theory of the four elements (earth, water, air, fire). Instead, Boyle pro- Posed the concept of fundamental partces Proportions, generate the different know materials. He also observed, when working with an air pump, that the vol ume of air varies when the pressure of the container containing it is mot ified. In this regard, Boyle thought that Perhaps there is a relationship of Proportionality between the volume occupied by a gas and the pressure to which it is subjected, thus, he conducted controlled experiments to prove Robert Boyle that, when combined in variousit. These experiments resulted in the presentation of the following law: the sure of a gas in a closed container is inversely proportional to the volume of the slainer when the temperature is constant. ‘The importance of the Englishman, ¢ Newton (1643-1727), in the histo- ‘of thought, lies in having found the jeterministic laws of the big mechanics f the Universe. One of the philosophi aspects of his Mathematical Principles ‘Natural Philosophy, a book where he poses the theory of force at a distance 9 universal gravitation, is called mecha ism. In its majestic equation, the entire physical Universe is unified: the attraction tween two bodies, whatever they are, is pro- tional to their masses as well as inversely wtional to the square of their distance. ‘The precision of this formula and its athematical principles reinforced the mnception of the world as a great ma- ine, comparable to a clockwork mechanism; a mechanism that Descartes jad already outlined. A deterministic universe, a large clock with infinite -ars where everything is understandable, in which it implies, every watch quires the existence of a watchmaker. 2: So Newton gave precision to concepts that previously lacked it (space, oral e, mass, movement, force); he established connections between prior lisconnected natural phenomena (celestial and terrestrial, inertia and at- ction) and overcame great mathematical difficulties. He also declarec ‘If | have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” With is phrase he not only honored the great scientific discoveries of thinkers ich as Kepler, Galileo, and Descartes, who notoriously marked the devel- pment of his research, but the entire body of philosophical and scientific owledge behind him that made it possible for him to achieve, through study, work, and creativity, the completion of the revolution started by Co- yernicus. Three key stages schematize the scientific method that was born t the time of Galileo: ‘a s2ac Newton 1. The observation of specific events, to discover the primary laws that govern them. 2. The formulation of hypothesis, being the hypothesis a tentative answer that allows the explanation of the observed phenomena. 3. The verification of the hypothesis, through experimentation and analy- > tthe verification sis. confirms the hypothesis it becomes a “law.” hich is valid until the moment when the discovery of new facts may raise the need to introduce changes in its formulation. In the scientific lan- guage, a law isa constant and invariable relationship of facts whose veracity has been sufficiently proven.