IMPORTANCE OF PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 

 Philosophy of Science   is a branch of philosophy concerned with science's principles, methods, and implications. The studies' fundamental topics include what counts as science, how reliable scientific hypotheses are, and what research's ultimate goal is. Metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology all overlap in this field, When it examines the link between science and truth, for example. The metaphysical, epistemological, and semantic components of science are the subject of scientific philosophy. Bioethics and scientific misconduct are examples of ethical issues that are generally classified as ethics or scientific studies rather than philosophy of science.

  The Branches of philosophy  - Metaphysics, epistemology, politics, ethics, and aesthetics are the five most notable. They're all intrinsically linked. The term philosophy literally means "love of wisdom." It is the study of knowledge, or "thinking about thought," though its various branches encompass a wide range of topics.

Metaphysics  - The study of the fundamental principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causation, necessity, and possibility is known as metaphysics. It addresses issues such as the nature of consciousness and the mind-matter interaction.

Epistemology - The branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge is epistemology. Epistemologists research the nature, origins, and scope of knowledge, as well as epistemic justification, belief rationality, and other related topics. Epistemology, along with other main subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics, is considered a key subfield of philosophy.

Politics - Political philosophy is a discipline of philosophy concerned with the concepts and reasoning that underpin political thought at the most abstract level. One of the major issues in political philosophy is the definition of the term "political." In general, however, any actions and institutions relating to governance can be classified as political.

Ethics - The area of philosophy known as ethics, or moral philosophy, "involves systematizing, defending, and endorsing conceptions of good and bad action." Ethics, like aesthetics, is concerned with considerations of worth; together, these fields make up the area of philosophy known as axiology.Good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime are all terms used in ethics to define ideas such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. Moral philosophy is related to moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory as topics of intellectual investigation.

Aesthetics - Aesthetics is the philosophical study of beauty and taste, often spelled esthetics. It is closely related to art, philosophy, which is concerned with the essence of art and the concepts used to understand and assess individual works of art.

Importance of philosophy

Philosophy is important because everybody has a worldview that they either know explicitly or just use implicitly. To the degree that it’s implicit, the view controls them. Philosophy enables one to look critically at one’s worldview and become aware of others. This is part of being an authentic person.

  Here are ten reasons why philosophy matters: 

1. Philosophy asks the important questions

2. Philosophy helps with critical thinking and reason

3. Philosophy helps guide the research process

4. Philosophy teaches persuasiveness

5. Philosophy teaches problem-solving

6. Philosophy can be applied to every discipline

7. Philosophy forms a good foundation for a variety of careers

8. Philosophy helps you sort through your own beliefs

9. Philosophical  influences the world today

10. Philosophy can fuel change and progress

Why study philosophy?

Philosophy makes a central contribution to the educational enterprise through its demands upon intellectual activity.The study of philosophy helps us to enhance our ability to solve problems, our communication skills, our persuasive powers, and our writing skills. Below is a description of how philosophy helps us develop these various important skills.

• General Problem Solving Skills
• Communication Skills
• Persuasive Powers
• Writing Skills
• Understanding Other Disciplines
• Development of Sound Methods of Research and Analysis

Among the things that people educated in philosophy can do are the following. They can do research on a variety of subjects. They can get information and organize it. They can write clearly and effectively. They can communicate well, usually both orally and in writing. They can generate ideas on many different sorts of problems. They can formulate and solve problems. They can elicit hidden assumptions and articulate overlooked alternatives. They can persuade people to take unfamiliar views or novel options seriously. They can summarize complicated materials without undue simplification. They can integrate diverse data and construct useful analogies. They can distinguish the subtle differences without overlooking similarities. They can also adapt to change, a capacity of growing importance in the light of rapid advances in so many fields. And well educated philosophers can usually teach what they know to others. This ability is especially valuable at a time when training and retraining are so often required by rapid technological changes.

Scientific Inquiry of Carl Hempel

  SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY  

Scientific Inquiry of Carl Hempel. The process of scientific discovery often involves formulating hypotheses, testing predictions, and an interdisciplinary search in the real world. A scientific inquiry carries on several assumptions and testing to get the invention of scientific discovery. Thus, the writer tries to say that one should formulate a good hypothesis, test the possible conditions and reach the conclusion through a rigorous scientific inquiry.

 LITERAL COMPREHENSION

A Hungarian physician and a German writer Carl G. Hempel Semmelweis is the writer of this essay. When his friend had a problem that more women in the First Maternity Division of the Vienna General Hospital, died from childbed fever that in the Second Maternity Division of the hospital. Though he took many new ideas and tested them to solve the problem there was no control in death. First, it was supposed that childbed fever was caused by epidemic influences. When an epidemic, cholera widespread, it was not limited to the First Division without affecting the Second division, the city of Vienna and the mothers who were admitted to the First Division after delivering the babies on the way. The second idea was that overcrowding in the First Division was the cause of a higher death rate.The Patients avoided the First Division and the Second Division was more crowded because of the high death rate in the First Division. As diet and the care of the patients in both divisions were the same, another idea was that in the First Division. It was a rough examination of patients by medical students were injured enough to cause childbed fever. But Semmelweis showed that natural birth process was more injurious, that in the Second Division midwives examined the patients equally roughly, and that after reducing the number of medical students and their examination the death rate was not still reduced. After an accident, Semmelweis concluded that foul material from the dead body was responsible for childbed fever, and after washing hands with the chemicals before examining the patients decreased the death rate. Later Semmelweis also concluded that the dirty matter from the living beings caused childbed fever in the hospital. Therefore, proper hand washing was necessary there in the hospital.

  SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION  

Thousands of years ago, we wouldn't have been able to correctly explain how the earth operated if someone asked us. Things we didn't comprehend were attributed to divine praise or wrath, or the belief that the world was random. We now have a greater understanding of why things are the way they are because of science. Science is the accumulation of knowledge through "observations" and "experiments." Science is concerned with nature.. As a result, we might refer to it as natural philosophy. An observation and measurement are used in a scientific explanation to clarify something we perceive in the natural world. Scientific explanations should be reasonable and match the facts, or at the very least match as much of the evidence as possible.

 SCIENTIFIC EXPLAINATION

To provide scientific explanations, we require scientific information in order to forecast outcomes. We must, however, be able to explain things. The nature of scientific explanations has piqued philosophers' curiosity. Understanding the commonalities between many things was the goal of scientific explanation. Different kinds of items attract the curiosity of scientists.

• How To Investigate Scientific Explanation?

Research into the nature of scientific explanation is referred to as a scientific explanation research. In order to find this nature or essence, we must first examine the concept of scientific explanation. An explanation will follow from such an examination of the concept of scientific explanation. This explanation will produce the required and sufficient circumstances for something to be considered scientific.

• Scientific Questions and Explanation.

The scientific method necessitates the use of questions. However, simply asking any question is insufficient. Science is all about posing good questions that can be answered with direct observation or scientific methods. Questions that investigate the connections between different phenomena. Let us consider the question, "What is the meaning of life?" This is a thought-provoking question, to say the least. Its response would most likely be dependent on your personal ideals or beliefs. As a result, the answer would differ widely depending on who was answering. While this may be an appropriate subject for a philosophy or theology  class, It is not a question that can be answered by science.

• Deduction and Induction

Generally speaking, there are two sorts of reasons: deduction and induction. The deduction is sometimes called the top-down approach. It takes premises and reduces them down to conclusions. For example, of deductive reasoning. 

(P1) All men are mortal

(P2) Earl Gray is a man 

-------------------------------------- 

(C) Therefore, Earl Gray is mortal.

 We can be logically certain of the conclusion. Given the premises, the conclusion must be true. Inductive reasoning is sometimes called the bottom-up approach. It takes premises and draws probable conclusions based on what those premises provide evidence for.

THE DEDUCTIVE–NOMOLOGICAL SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION

Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim present a theory of what makes something a scientific explanation. Simply put a scientific explanation deduces the thing you want to explain from a law of nature, plus some initial conditions.

In a scientific way to explain something, we see in the natural world, scientists employ observations and measurements. We should also work on asking strong scientific questions, developing strategies for appropriately investigating questions, analyzing findings, making conclusions, and being able to describe, explain, and forecast scientific discoveries as part of the objective of writing this article

   GENDER ISSUES & UNDERSTANDING AND REDUCING RACIAL AND ETHNIC PREJUDICE   

Gender issues include all aspects and concerns related to women’s and men’s lives and situation in society, to the way they interrelate, their differences in access to and use of resources, their activities, and how they react to changes, interventions and policies. Gender equality is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing different behaviors, aspirations and needs equally, regardless of gender. Gender equality is the goal, while gender neutrality and gender equity are practices and ways of thinking that help in achieving the goal. Gender parity, which is used to measure gender balance in a given situation, can aid in achieving gender equality, but is not the goal in and of itself. Gender equality is more than equal representation, it is strongly tied to women's rights, and often requires policy changes.

When will society be gender just?

In post-industrial liberal-democratic societies, opinions vary dramatically on whether these societies are gender just. Both scholars and the wider public disagree on this question. Newspaper articles, television programs and other public debates indicate that gender inequality is not only a topical but also a controversial issue, on which many people have strong views. As Deborah Rhode argues, some claim that unjust inequalities between women and men no longer exist, or that women's liberation has achieved more than enough, and these days it is men who are suffering discrimination. Others disagree, and argue that unjust inequalities to the disadvantage of women remain, despite the post-feminist discourse. One might expect that the literature in inequality studies, and related fields in the social sciences and political philosophy, would be able to assess these conflicting claims, and inform us of the nature and extent of unjust gender inequalities. Unfortunately, this is not really the case: there are very few systematic studies that provide a satisfying answer to this question. The reason for this is that an adequate answer to this question requires both normative theorizing and empirical analyses. Normative political philosophers are concerned with the first, while social scientists specialize in empirical research. But most theoretical studies do not engage with empirical analysis, and more empirical studies are not based on a well-elaborated underlying theory of gender justice.

Sexism

Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls. It has been linked to stereotypes and gender roles, and may include the belief that one sex or gender is intrinsically superior to another. Extreme sexism may foster sexual harassment, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. Gender discrimination may encompass sexism, and is discrimination toward people based on their gender identity or their gender or sex differences. Gender discrimination is especially defined in terms of workplace inequality. It may arise from social or cultural customs and norms.

Understanding and reducing racial and ethnic prejudice.

There are a wide variety of explicit and implicit measures of children’s and adolescents’ racial and ethnic attitudes. The developmental appropriateness of various measures of racial attitudes is an important consideration. Young children who need help with reading typically complete measures with the help of an adult such as a research assistant, teacher, or teacher aide whereas older children complete measures or surveys concerning their attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs on their own and thus are given greater privacy. Some measures are developed first with an adult or adolescent samples and then simplified to be used with younger samples. Pictorial versions of response sets might be presented to young children instead of text-only response sets given to older children and adolescents. A standard Likert5-point response scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree might be amended with schematic faces that are smiling or frowning for use with younger children. Future work is needed to affirm the predictive validity of various measures and to affirm the existence of a differentiation between implicit and explicit attitudes in very young children. It is important for researchers to make strides in racial attitude measurement as they make strides in racial attitude.

RACE, ETHNICITY AND PREJUDICE

    Race and Racism  

 This historical concept of race has been subjected to significant scientific and philosophical challenges, with some leading thinkers disputing both the concept's logical coherence and the reality of races. Humans were once divided into only four races, according to certain philosophers. (usually white or Caucasian, black or African, yellow or Asian, and red or Native American), and minimized any biological or morphological differences within racial categories. Other theorists divided people into a plethora of racial groups, claiming, for example, that individuals “indigenous” to Europe might be divided into distinct Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean races. The ambiguities and confusion associated with determining the boundaries of racial categories have provoked a widespread scholarly consensus that discrete or essentialist races are socially constructed, not biologically real. Finally, substantial controversy surrounds the moral status of racial identity and solidarity and the justice and legitimacy of policies or institutions aimed at undermining racial inequality and racism, also called racialism, the belief that humans may be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called “races”; that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural and behavioral features; and that some races are innately superior to others.

  Ethnicity

Ethnicity is a scientific term that refers to the presence of culturally different (ethnic) groups and identities. When it comes to ethnic communities (peoples) from various locations, the term "ethnos" is more commonly employed in social science. Ethnicity refers to a group of people who have similar social, cultural, and historical experiences as a result of their shared national or regional origins, that distinguishes subgroups of a population from one another Similarly, an ethnic group is a subgroup of a population that shares a common set of social, cultural, and historical experiences, as well as relatively unique views, values, and behaviors, and a sense of belonging to the subgroup. The phrases ethnicity and ethnic group, when used in this way, eliminate the biological implications of the terms race and racial group. Many social scientists prefer the word ethnicity when discussing persons of color and those with different cultural heritages due to difficulties with the definition of race.

Culture 

Cultural claims political and legal spheres, there is widespread disagreement about what culture is, and the next section is focused on elaborating these distinct views of culture. There is however considerable agreement that whatever it is, it matters to people and the meaning and value it provides to the lives of individuals are among the most important reasons, if not the most important ones, to defend and protect it in legal and political spaces. Moreover, any one person can be a member of multiple cultures. Someone can be a member of the Canadian culture, Ottawa culture, the Jewish culture, and academic culture at the same time. Contextual considerations will explain why the norms, practices, and values that define each of these cultures become relevant at a particular moment. Finally, only some of these cultures have political and legal relevance; only those that do are the focus of this entry.

Prejudice

 Prejudice is an unjustified or incorrect attitude (usually negative) towards an individual based solely on the individual’s membership of a social group. For example, a person may hold prejudiced views towards a certain race or gender etc. (e.g. sexist).

 

    PRACTICAL ETHICS  & HEDONISM  

What is Practical Ethics?

• Practical ethics are meant to concern substantive moral issues facing many of us each day, such as abortion or climate change. The subject of normative or theoretical ethics is the more abstract principles that might enable us to make decisions about these practical issues.

  What Ethics Is Not ,                                                                                                                                              

Ethics is not based on whether we feel something is right or wrong. Sometimes, our feelings signal to us that we are facing an ethical dilemma, and we want to “do the right thing,” but feelings also may prevent us from behaving ethically, perhaps out of fear or conflicting desires. Ethics is also not solely the purview of a religion or religious beliefs. Although most religions incorporate an ethical code of conduct into their belief system, religious faith is not required to be ethical and ethical principles apply to everyone regardless of religious affiliation. Being ethical does not always entail abiding by the letter of the law, although most laws articulate ethical standards generally accepted by the citizenry.

PHILOSOPHY OF TESTIMONY

  PHILOSOPHY  OF  TESTIMONY