Philosophy of Science
Instructor: Jonathan Cohen (joncohen@aardvark.ucsd.edu)
office: (732) 445 6163
home: (718) 499 1213
Office hours: Tuesday, 12:30 to 2:00, in
Psychology A132, on Busch Campus.
Overview
Science is often described as one of our best means of learning
truths about the world.
Indeed, one sometimes sees non-scientific areas of intellectual work
compared disfavorably against science on the grounds that they, unlike
science, fail to yield a coherent and accumulative body of truths
about anything.
While these sorts of accusations are certainly too strong, there does
seem to be some reason for thinking that the methods of science are
(at least in many cases) suitable for the production of knowledge
about the world, and that they are at least occasionally successful in
producing this knowledge.
Such considerations invite all sorts of questions about the
methodology and epistemology science employs to reach its conclusions,
what sort of language is appropriate for the posing of scientific
hypotheses, the ontological commitments made by scientists, and the
status of the conclusions science allows us to reach.
This course will attempt to broach some of these questions by
considering some of the most important developments in twentieth
century philosophy of science.
The class will not presuppose any familiarity with the material under
study, and therefore will be appropriate as an introduction to the
subject.
Course Requirements and Grading
You are responsible for handing in weekly assignments on the reading
and also two short papers:
- Weekly Assignments:
Since there is so much to cover, I've assigned quite a lot of
reading.
To get the most out of the course, it is absolutely essential
that everyone comes to class prepared to discuss the readings.
To ensure that this happens, you will be required to turn in a short
(no more than one page) comment or question drawn from the reading at
the end of each week.
You can write about anything you found interesting, puzzling, strange,
clearly wrong, clearly right, etc.
Just make sure that your question demonstrates that you have done the
reading in question, and that it contains fewer than four
spelling/grammar errors.
- Short Papers:
In addition to the short weekly assignments, you will be required to
write two short papers (7-10 pages each).
I shall hand out a list of suggested topics for the papers before each
is due.
There will be no final exam or midterm for the course.
I shall assign grades based on the following breakdown:
20% short weekly assignments
40% short paper #1
40% short paper #2
Reading List
- Logical Empiricism
- Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic, ch1-4
- Carnap, "Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology"
- Hempel, "Empiricist Criteria of Cognitive Significance:
Problems and Changes"
- Quine, "Two Dogmas of Empiricism"
- Carnap, "Quine on Analyticity"
- Falsification, Falsificationism
- Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (selections)
- Putnam, "The 'Corroboration' of Theories"
- Lakatos, "Falsification and the Methodology of Research
Programmes"
- Hacking, "Lakatos's Philosophy of Science"
- Scientific Revolutions
- Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
- Popper, "The Rationality of Scientific Revolutions"
- Causation and Scientific Explanation
- Hempel and Oppenheim, "Studies in the Logic of
Explanation" (excerpt)
- Hempel, "Laws and Their Role in Scientific Explanation"
- van Fraassen, "The Pragmatics of Explanation"
- Kitcher, "Explanatory Unification"
- Salmon, "Why ask 'why?'? An Inquiry Concerning Scientific
Explanation"
- Boyd, "Observations, Explanatory Power, and Simplicity:
Toward a Non-Humean Account"
- Cartwright, "The Reality of Causes in a World of
Instrumental Laws"
- Fodor, "Special Sciences"
- Realism and Anti-Realism
- Boyd, "On the Current Status of Scientific Realism"
- Laudan, "A Confutation of Convergent Realism"
- Hacking, "Experimentation and Scientific Realism"
- van Fraassen, "Arguments Concerning Scientific Realism"
- Fine, "And Not Anti-Realism Either"