What is science and what distinguishes it from "pseudoscience"? What is the "scientific method", if there is any, and on what basis can it claim to ensure the objectivity of scientific results? How does science explain our observations and experiences? Does scientific knowledge progressively grow in a linear fashion or is its evolution dominated by radical revolutions? Are the scientists' grounds for rejecting an old idea and for replacing it with a novel theory completely rational and logically reconstructible or are they substantially influenced by irrational factors? Do scientific theories give literally true accounts of the world as it is, or should we regard even the most elaborate and well-confirmed theory merely as a useful tool to systematize our experience?

In the course of this class, we shall study these questions by discussing the most influential accounts that have historically been given of the nature of science. Occasionally, we will delve into pertinent episodes in the history of science or into a non-technical discussion of scientific theories, but the clear focus shall be on philosophical debates concerning the nature of science.

Course materials such as lecture notes, handouts, etc will be made available as they will be used in class.

• Syllabus
• Lecture 1 (1 April 2008)
• Lecture 2 (3 April 2008)
• Lecture 3 (8 April 2008)
• Lecture 4 (10 April 2008)
• Lecture 5 (15 April 2008)
• Lecture 6 (17 April 2008)
• Lecture 7 (22 April 2008)
• Lecture 8 (24 April 2008)
• Lecture 9 (29 April 2008)
• Lecture 10 (1 May 2008)
• Lecture 11 (6 May 2008)
• Lecture 12 (8 May 2008)
• Lecture 13 (13 May 2008)
• Lecture 14 (15 May 2008)
• Lecture 15 (20 May 2008)
• Lecture 16 (22 May 2008)
• Lecture 17 (27 May 2008)
• Lecture 18 (29 May 2008)
• Lecture 19 (3 June 2008)

There is no new material for the last lecture on 5 June 2008.

Paper prompts:

• Paper 1 (due 29 April 2008)
• Paper 2 (due 20 May 2008)

A number of readings for this course are available from e-reserves: Link to this course`s e-reserves page

Note: the two articles by Hempel for 24 April are rather long and we will not need all the material. You will only be asked to read pp. 1-15 (§§1-4 and the beginning of §5) in the first article and pp. 102-107 (§8) in the second. The rest will not be tested in quizzes or the final exam.

Note: only sections 1-4 and 8-10 of the Duhem reading are mandatory.

The following articles are mandatory reading from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), edited by Ed Zalta:

• James Woodward: Scientific explanation (only Section 2 for 15 April and Section 5 for 17 April)
• John W Carroll: Laws of nature
• William Talbott: Bayesian epistemology

You may also wish to consult the following SEP article as background reading. They will not be tested in quizzes or the final exam.

• Thomas Uebel: Vienna Circle
• John Vikers: The problem of induction
• Stephen Thornton: Karl Popper
• Alexander Bird: Thomas Kuhn
• John Preston: Paul Feyerabend
• Helen Longino: The social dimensions of scientific knowledge
• Elizabeth Anderson: Feminist epistemology and philosophy of science
• David Papineau: Naturalism
• James Joyce: Bayes`s theorem
• Richard Boyd: Scientific realism

Quiz 1

Question 1

As with most questions on quizzes, you can look up the answer on the lecture files above. One important distinction: statements, propositions, sentences and the like are true or false but never valid or invalid, but arguments are valid or invalid and never true or false.

Question 2

Many just stated what holism is, but notice that this is not the full answer. I expect here a statement of what the verifiability theory of meaning is, as well as an explication of the critique offered by holism.

Question 3

Your answer should include a brief explication of the "deductive" as well as the "nomological" aspect of the model. Most typically, your answer would include the terms "explanans" and "explanandum". You should say that the main idea is subsumption under covering laws, and that explanation is not unlike prediction on this model. You must at least say that an explanation has the form of a deductively valid argument, that at least one of the premises is a law of nature such that it (together with particular facts) entails the explanandum. All premises must be true, and the law must be ineliminable.

Question 4

Note that I only asked about testability. Read the question carefully.

Quiz 2

Question 1

Note that you have not been asked what the D-N model is. Telling me what it is scores zero points. Almost nobody told me what "insufficient" means. I did not make any deductions if you did not tell me, but I really would have expected that. Important: not all deductively valid arguments can be reversed (think about it).

Question 2

The answer here could have been very short. Often, the answers got it just the wrong way around. Look it up!

Question 3

Several answers were too vague in their characterization of the position.

Question 4

"All swans are white" is not an accidental generalization. Ask yourself whether the statement at stake would be a law, were it true. If so, then it`s really lawlike, rather than accidental. Note that the lawlike/accidental distinction has nothing to do with whether a statement is true or not (which of course "All swans are white" is not).

Paper 1

Topic 1

Most students wrote about this topic. I would have expected that you pick an example different from the one discussed in class, but since I did not specify this on the prompt, I accepted it. To score high on this topic, it was important to tell em specifically what the field of study was that you are scrutinizing. In particular, it was insufficient to just say that you look at "psychotherapy." Furthermore, it was important to give me a detailed description of how you understand the criteria exactly and why it was important. Then, the application of the criteria to the case at hand ought to also have been at some detail.

Topic 2

Few people chose this topic, but some of those who did, did an excellent job. Remember that in a case like this, you first need to explain at some length what the objection is that you are analyzing. And this explanation ought to be charitable: Try to make the objection as strong as you can, and then tear it down. This is how good philosophizing works. If you make your opponents weak, your victory will be much less valuable.

Topic 3

Among those who chose this topic, you were pretty evenly split among the instrumentalist, the regularity, and the necessitarian accounts. For this topic, although I did not specify this, it worked much better if you looked a fewer objections to your favourite account, but made sure that you discussed the objection and your reply to it in some detail. As in topic 2, make sure you represent the objections fairly and try to make them as appealing as you can. And then argue them away as mercilessly as you can.

Quiz 3

Question 1

You need to be precise in the words you use: "implying", "confirming", and "proving" are not synonyms; and neither are "testing", "falsifying", and "verifying". Also, "equivalent" is not synonymous with "identical", "=", "equal", or "the same". Please be careful in making exact distinctions here. Show how the two conditions lead to a counterintuitive result--do not just state it.

Question 2

Few got this one right. What happens if one considers "whack" and "blite" as basic?

Question 3

The answer can be found in Section 10 of the chapter from Duhem you were assigned to read. It was a difficult question because the answer was really only in the reading.

Question 4

You should all be able to precisely state what the position of "holism" claims. Many forgot to say what Popper`s proposed resolution of the difficulty was supposed to be.

Quiz 4

Question 1

Generally well solved.

Question 2

We talked about this in the same class we held the quiz...

Question 3

What is the role of observation? What is the conclusion about the role of reason in scientific enquiry? You must say something about Feyerabend`s general conclusion to the effect that reason should be challenged at any time, and not only state how and why Galileo had to challenge observation.

Question 4

You must give a specific example from the history of science. We went over this just before we started the quiz!

Question 5

Well solved.

Paper 2

• common mistake: try to make case in favour or against falsificationism quite generally
• but: you were only supposed to answer whether or not argument brought forth as story supports any of the six claims and how or why not!!
• don't spend time and space talking about Popper or Lakatos in general etc
• don't need to respond to all claims, but particularly to ambiguity of falsification

Quiz 5

Question 1

Feminist postmodernists would probably agree that females in science are oppressed, but that is NOT the central claim that characterizes it! Look it up.

Question 2

Look it up!

Question 3

Note that the rewards only go to scientists in the successful research program. And it is their contribution that is rewarded, not their time with the program or their effort.

Question 4

Only two students got this one right. We will go over it today.

Question 5

We will go over this today too.

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