Netherlands VWO 6 (eindexamenjaar) Philosophy
Chapters: 2
1. Philosophy of science
Key concepts and main views on science · Scientific knowledge · Science and society
- Nature of Science: How Scientific Knowledge Is Built and Changed – Science is a way of knowing that rests on evidence anyone can check. Scientists observe, infer, test ideas that could be proved wrong, and let other experts check their work. Laws describe what happens; theories explain why. Scientific knowledge is reliable but always open to change, and sometimes a whole way of seeing (a paradigm) is replaced.
2. Exam topic: the human being, science and technology
Issue 1: what is a human being? · Issue 2: how do science and technology change our self-image? · Issue 3: does technology change what we are? · Issue 4: blurring boundaries
- Philosophical Anthropology: What Is a Human Being? – Philosophical anthropology asks what a human being is. The human is both the one who asks and the one studied (subject and object). Thinkers compare us with animals: some see a deep gap (reason, language, an open world), others only a difference of degree. Classic views call the human a rational animal, a union of body and mind (dualism) or one living being (monism), a social and cultural being, and, for existentialists, a free and unfinished being who makes itself through choices. Science and technology (evolution, brain research, AI) keep reopening the question.
- Philosophy of Mind: How Are Mind and Body Linked? – Philosophy of mind asks what the mind is and how it links to the body. Dualism (Descartes) says mind and body are two different things, which raises the problem of how they interact. Physicalism says the mind is what the brain does. Consciousness is our inner experience, like a torch that lights what we attend to. The unconscious (Freud) holds wishes, memories and habits we are not aware of. Related questions: what makes me the same self over time, how emotions join body and mind, and whether machines could ever think.
- Philosophy of Technology: What Tools Do to Us – Technology is how humans make tools to change the world. Philosophers ask: do tools only extend our power, or do they also change how we see nature and ourselves? Is technical progress always real progress? Do we control our machines, or do they shape us? And where is the line between human and machine?