Scientific Method

Correlation vs Causation: Why Association Is Not Proof

An introduction to the distinction between correlation and causation — why association does not establish cause, the errors that follow from confusing them, and how science tests causal claims.

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What Is a Paradigm Shift? How Scientific Revolutions Change Everything

An introduction to paradigm shifts — Thomas Kuhn's account of scientific revolutions in which a community's shared framework of theories and methods is replaced — from Copernicus to relativity and beyond.

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What Is Falsification? Popper's Criterion of Science

An introduction to falsification — Karl Popper's thesis that a hypothesis is scientific only if it is testable and falsifiable — its logic, its role as a demarcation criterion, and its limits.

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What Is Inductive Reasoning? Probable Conclusions from Evidence

An introduction to inductive reasoning — inference from observed cases to general conclusions — from Aristotle's epagoge through Hume's problem of induction to Bayesian and statistical approaches.

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What Is the Scientific Method? A Systematic Path to Knowledge

An introduction to the scientific method — the disciplined practice of observation, hypothesis, experiment, and revision — from Bacon's experimental philosophy to Popper's falsificationism and Kuhn's account of paradigms.

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Curiosity

Curiosity is the active desire to know what is unknown — the restless intellectual appetite that drives inquiry, exploration, and the pursuit of understanding for its own sake, beyond any immediate practical need.

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Doubt: Meaning, Philosophy & Wisdom

Doubt is the philosophical practice of withholding assent from beliefs that lack sufficient justification, serving as the engine of critical inquiry, the foundation of methodical skepticism, and the guardian of intellectual honesty throughout the history of thought.

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Rationality

A philosophical exploration of rationality as the capacity for reason-based thought and action, from Greek logos through Kantian reason to contemporary debates about bounded rationality.

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Humility

A comparative introduction to humility as a philosophical virtue, examining how Greek, Confucian, and Taoist traditions understand the recognition of human limitation and its role in wisdom.

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Knowledge

A comparative introduction to knowledge as justified understanding, distinguishing it from opinion, information, and wisdom across Greek, Stoic, and existential traditions.

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Truth

A comparative introduction to truth as correspondence, coherence, and practical understanding across Greek, Stoic, and existential philosophy.

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Paul Feyerabend: Philosophy, Quotes & Legacy

Explore Paul Feyerabend's philosophy, from the critique of scientific method in Against Method to methodological anarchism, the pluralism of traditions, and his influence on the philosophy of science.

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Charles Sanders Peirce: Philosophy, Quotes & Legacy

Explore Charles Sanders Peirce's philosophy of pragmatism, semiotics, and the pragmatic maxim. Discover the founder of American pragmatism and his theory of signs.

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Thomas Kuhn: Philosophy, Quotes & Legacy

Explore Thomas Kuhn's philosophy of science including paradigm shifts, normal science, and scientific revolutions that transformed how we understand knowledge.

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Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon was an English philosopher and statesman who pioneered empiricism and the inductive method, arguing that knowledge must be built from systematic observation and experiment.

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Karl Popper

Karl Popper (1902-1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher who transformed the philosophy of science through falsificationism and defended the open society against totalitarianism.

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John Stuart Mill

A comprehensive introduction to John Stuart Mill as the leading British philosopher of the nineteenth century, tracing his refinement of utilitarianism, his defense of liberty and individuality, and his advocacy of women's rights, together with his lasting influence on liberal thought.

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René Descartes

French philosopher and mathematician whose method of systematic doubt established a new foundation for knowledge and inaugurated modern philosophy.

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David Hume

Scottish philosopher whose empiricist investigation of knowledge, causation, and morality reshaped modern philosophy and provoked Kant's critical turn.

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Albert Einstein

Explore Albert Einstein's philosophy of science, his views on imagination, knowledge, and the mysterious, and his enduring legacy beyond physics.

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Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

An introduction to Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, the classic empiricist text examining the origins of ideas, causation, induction, miracles, and the limits of human reason.

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The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

A philosophical guide to Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, examining paradigms, normal science, anomaly, crisis, and revolutionary paradigm shifts that transformed the philosophy of science.

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Discourse on the Method

A philosophical guide to Descartes's Discourse on the Method, examining its four rules of reasoning, methodical doubt, and the foundations of rationalist philosophy.

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Logical Positivism

Logical Positivism is the early twentieth-century movement centered on the Vienna Circle that held that a statement is meaningful only if it is empirically verifiable or logically true, and that traditional metaphysics fails this test.

philosophy

Philosophy of Science

An introduction to the philosophy of science, tracing how thinkers from the logical positivists through Popper, Kuhn, and Lakatos analyzed scientific method, theory change, the demarcation problem, and the nature of scientific knowledge.

philosophy

Epistemology

An introduction to epistemology as the philosophical study of knowledge, examining justification, belief, truth, skepticism, and the limits of human understanding from Descartes through contemporary debates.

philosophy

Skepticism

Skepticism is a philosophical tradition that questions the possibility, scope, and justification of knowledge, challenging dogmatic claims through systematic doubt, suspension of judgment, and rigorous examination of the limits of human understanding.

philosophy

Empiricism

An introduction to empiricism as the philosophical tradition that grounds knowledge in sensory experience, from Locke and Berkeley through Hume to logical positivism.

philosophy

Pragmatism

An introduction to pragmatism as the American philosophical tradition that evaluates ideas by their practical consequences, from Peirce through James and Dewey to Rorty.

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Critical Thinking & Logic: A Learning Path Through Reasoning, Fallacies & Scientific Method

A structured learning path through critical thinking, logic, and scientific reasoning — from the laws of valid inference and common fallacies to the scientific method and the cognitive biases that undermine good judgment.

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Understanding Reality

A learning path through truth, knowledge, reality, and perception — from Plato to existential philosophy.

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