Part IB timetable

Part IB students' guide

Course manager: Stephen John

Lectures in Easter Term are in the Cockcroft Lecture Theatre, apart from the Philosophy of Biology lecture on Monday 22 May which will be in Arts School Lecture Theatre A.

The Natural Sciences Tripos Part IB course in History and Philosophy of Science offers a wide-ranging overview of the nature of science and its place in society. The course explores the historical, philosophical and social dimensions of the sciences, the ways in which the sciences are shaped by other aspects of social and economic life, and the roles of scientists in public debate. Examples are drawn from many different disciplines, over a period extending from the Renaissance to the present day: from early astronomy, alchemy and natural philosophy, to the atomic bomb, the discovery of DNA and climate change. We examine questions about how theories are tested and change, and about the nature of causation, laws and scientific explanation. The course also considers whether or not science provides an increasingly accurate account of a largely unobservable world.

Other Triposes: HPS Part IB is also available as an option for students taking Part IIA of the Human, Social and Political Sciences Tripos (HSPS) or Part IB of the Psychological and Behavioural Sciences Tripos (PBS). These students choose only one paper: History of Science (HPS1) or Philosophy of Science (HPS2). Natural Sciences Tripos students take both papers.

For help with writing supervision essays, the writing support seminars are recommended.

History of Science

Resources for Part IB History of Science on Moodle

Natural Philosophy

Dániel Margócsy, Philippa Carter (12 lectures, Michaelmas Term)

The history of the sciences asks about the ways in which different groups of people have found out about their world and how they organise this kind of exploration. The power and importance of science, technology and medicine in our own culture helps make this history significant. To understand what this importance means we need to know how it was achieved and how it changes. The way to understand how other people investigate nature is to try to look at their world from their point of view, a view often very different from our own. Until the end of the 18th century, Europeans organised their enquiry as natural philosophy, a means of understanding how God's creation worked and what it meant for humans' purposes and their fate.

The lectures start by treating the moment at the start of the 16th century when the religious unity of Christendom was broken and when new technologies in chemistry and navigation, printing and war, all began to change the world. The course traces the development of natural philosophy and its different forms of organisation as new models of the heavens and the Earth were developed, and as new maps of nature and of the body were drawn. The lectures extend their scope to the end of the 18th century, marked by dramatic industrial, political and disciplinary changes that helped transform the sciences. Much emphasis is placed on the way in which practices, maps, diagrams and instruments represented and helped to change natural knowledge, so the lectures are plentifully illustrated with original pictures and charts.

Introductory reading:

• Dear, Peter, Revolutionizing the Sciences (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001)
• Shapin, Steven, The Scientific Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996)
• Park, Katherine, and Lorraine Daston (eds), The Cambridge History of Science Volume 3: Early Modern Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), introduction
• The Recipes Project

History of Science and Medicine

The lectures that cover the histories of science, technology and medicine from the 18th century to present are organised into three courses in Lent and Easter Terms: Empires of Knowledge, 1789–1914; Science in Power, 1914–1989; Science and Crisis, 1989–present.

Introductory reading:

• Agar, Jon, Science in the Twentieth Century and Beyond (Cambridge: Polity, 2012)
• Chakrabarti, Pratik, Medicine and Empire, 1600–1960 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)
• Coen, Deborah, Climate in Motion: Science, Empire, and the Problem of Scale (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018)
• Edgerton, David, The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900 (London: Profile, 2008)
• Murphy, Michelle, The Economization of Life (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017)

Empires of Knowledge, 1789–1914

Mary Brazelton (6 lectures, Lent Term)

These lectures consider how European colonialism in the late 18th and 19th centuries fundamentally mediated historical developments in what came to be known as the sciences. Themes running throughout the lectures include the ways in which imperial, industrial, and economic power have shaped not only the history of science, but also the ways in which scholars have written that history in the Western world.

Science in Power, 1914–1989

Dmitriy Myelnikov (6 lectures, Lent Term)

These lectures explore the development of the sciences, medicine and technology from World War I to the end of the Cold War, a period characterised by global conflict, industrial transformation and decolonisation. Themes running throughout the lectures include the escalating association of science with the pursuit of power and profit by states and corporations as well as the continuity of violence – and frequent complicity of scientists, medics and other experts in that violence – from colonial to postcolonial contexts. They also consider critiques of science, paying particular attention to how the inclusion of diverse perspectives on the history of the sciences challenges the narratives of progress and modernity that have often been championed by those in power.

Science and Crisis, 1989–present

Dmitriy Myelnikov (3 lectures, Easter Term)

These lectures consider the histories of science, technology and medicine in a period characterised by an apparent triumph of capitalist democracies over state communism and authoritarianism that has proven increasingly illusory. Recurring themes include the alliance of science and efficiency in the neoliberal era, the continued role of science and technology in the exercise of state power, and challenges to the authority of scientists and engineers arising from both ends of the political spectrum. 

Philosophy of Science

Resources for Part IB Philosophy of Science on Moodle

What Is Science?

Tim Lewens, Hasok Chang (8 lectures, Michaelmas Term)

What makes science better than, or at least different from, other systems of human thought? Is there such a thing as the scientific method? Is the development of science a linear, orderly and cumulative process, or an unpredictable sequence of changes? Karl Popper rejected empirical proof as the ideal of scientific knowledge, arguing that a genuine attempt to falsify one's own theories was the hallmark of the critical attitude essential to science. Imre Lakatos agreed but tempered Popper's falsificationism. In contrast, Thomas Kuhn regarded a dogmatic adherence to a paradigm as the hallmark of 'normal' science. Paul Feyerabend saw any attempts at specifying precise rules as futile, arguing that science progressed best when it was not constrained by any rigid notions about method. But perhaps science can be characterized not by a method but by a set of norms a community follows. We conclude by discussing feminist ideas about what these norms might be.

Introductory reading:

• Chalmers, Alan, What Is This Thing Called Science?, 4th edition (Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2013) or 2nd or 3rd edition

Philosophy of Medicine

Jacob Stegenga (4 lectures, Michaelmas Term)

Medicine is among our most important institutions. Though its aim is practical, medicine is shot through with conceptual commitments and theoretical assumptions, its basic tools rely on causal hypotheses supported to varying degrees by inductive inferences, and medical research is developed in a complex political and economic nexus. Thus medicine is a prime subject for philosophical analysis. This short course will examine three core topics in philosophy of medicine: the nature of disease, the evidential basis for assessing the effectiveness of treatments, and the political context of medical research.

Introductory reading:

• Stegenga, Jacob, Care and Cure: An Introduction to Philosophy of Medicine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018)

Philosophy of Science in Practice

Stephen John (4 lectures, Lent Term)

In this lecture course we look at the complex inter-relationships between scientific research and social values. We start by considering different accounts of the proper aims of science, asking how these accounts relate to practical problems around science funding. We then go on to consider the process of research, focusing in particular on two topics: ethical restrictions on permissible research, and whether non-epistemic values are required to close the gap between data and theory. In the third part of the course, we consider the use of science in practical domains such as medicine and policy-making, asking which kinds of evidence count as good bases for decision-making. Finally, we consider the broader question of why and when the public should trust scientists, and whether and how scientific institutions can facilitate such trust.

Introductory reading:

• Kitcher, Philip, Science in a Democratic Society (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2011)

Space, Time and Reality: The Philosophy of Physics

Matt Farr (4 lectures, Lent Term)

Modern physics paints a picture of the world that differs radically from our everyday conceptions. This course introduces you to the philosophical foundations of physics and the two-way relationship between physics and philosophy. What does physics really imply about the nature of the world we live in? What kinds of things are space and time? Could we travel into the past? How can we have knowledge of unobservable entities ranging from superstrings to the structure of the universe itself? And should we really trust the ever-changing theories that science gives us? We will examine these questions and more through a series of case studies from the history of physics.

Introductory reading:

• Sklar, Lawrence, Philosophy of Physics (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992)
• Maudlin, Tim, Philosophy of Physics: Space and Time (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012)
• Dainton, Barry, Time and Space (Chesham: Acumen, 2001)

Is Social Science an Oxymoron?

Anna Alexandrova (4 lectures, Lent Term)

Social sciences are both powerful and insecure: powerful because of their often close relation to policy, insecure because the expertise of social scientists is frequently questioned. In these lectures we examine the long standing view that social sciences cannot be truly scientific because their objects are people and because their methods must be distinct from natural sciences. Can there be a science of human beings? Do social sciences have laws? If not, can they still offer respectable explanations? Or perhaps we can only hope for post-hoc narratives that provide insight without being able to predict or to give causal explanations. Finally we ask whether social sciences are inherently political and what this might mean for their validity.

Introductory reading:

• Cartwright, Nancy, and Eleonora Montuschi (eds), Philosophy of Social Science: A New Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)

Can Machines Think?

Marta Halina (4 lectures, Easter Term)

What is the mind? What is consciousness? Can machines think? Questions such as these have puzzled philosophers for centuries and represent active areas of contemporary research in cognitive science. These four lectures explore what we have learned about the mind from philosophical and scientific perspectives, focusing on the problem of other minds: how can we gain knowledge of other minds, whether human, animal, alien or artificial? We will explore proposed solutions to this problem and apply them to practical questions such as, 'is machine consciousness possible?' and 'do fish feel pain?'.

Introductory reading:

• Blackmore, Susan, Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)
• Churchland, Paul M., Matter and Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013)

Philosophy of Biology

Tim Lewens (3 lectures, Easter Term)

This short course gives a taster of the philosophy of biology via exploration of two contrasting topics. First, we examine the notion of natural selection, asking whether the modern conception of selection is close to Darwin's own, and focusing especially on the role of Malthusian struggle in evolutionary explanation. Second, we examine the concept of human nature, addressing claims both that modern evolutionary theory shows that concept to be a 'superstition', and claims that modern evolutionary theory shows how to define that concept in a rigorous way.

Introductory reading:

• Godfrey-Smith, Peter, Philosophy of Biology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014)