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Department of History and Philosophy of Science

 

Paper manager: Matt Farr

Also offered as an optional paper in Part IIB of the Human, Social and Political Sciences Tripos (HSPS) and Part IB of the Philosophy Tripos.

Lectures are held in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science.

Michaelmas Term
Realism
Matt Farr (4), Hasok Chang (4)
Fri 11am (weeks 1–8)
Laws of Nature
Anna Alexandrova (4)
Wed 12noon (weeks 1–4)
Probability
Matt Farr (4)
Wed 12noon (weeks 5–8)
Lent Term
Reductionism
Hasok Chang (4)
Thu 12noon (weeks 1–4)
Scientific Explanation
Marta Halina (4)
Wed 12noon (weeks 1–4)
Pragmatism
Hasok Chang (4)
Thu 12noon (weeks 5–8)

This paper considers a series of central questions in the philosophy of science. Topics covered include whether we should believe that our best scientific theories are true, whether there are fundamental laws in science and what kind of things they are, how probabilistic reasoning is used in science and philosophy, what it means to explain something in science, whether and how science progresses through the reduction of various theories to more fundamental ones, and how knowledge relates to actions and practices.

 

Aims and learning outcomes

  • to enable students to acquire a broad understanding of central issues in the philosophy of science and to develop their own views on current problems and debates;
  • to develop in students the ability to engage with scientific knowledge from multiple critical perspectives, and to address philosophical issues concerning particular sciences;
  • to strengthen students' skills in philosophical analysis, argumentation and communication.

 

Lectures

Realism

Matt Farr, Hasok Chang (8 lectures, Michaelmas Term)

Those who admire the achievements of modern science tend to express their admiration along the lines of scientific realism: scientific theories could only be so successful if they give us a really true account of nature. Scientific realists also commonly take a reductionist view: everything is ultimately made up of elementary particles, so all of our successful scientific theories must ultimately boil down to fundamental physics. In this course we will subject these popular views to close philosophical scrutiny, with reference to various specific cases in the physical and the biological sciences.

Laws of Nature

Anna Alexandrova (4 lectures, Michaelmas Term)

The discovery and confirmation of laws have long been considered the crowning glory of modern science, but specifying exactly what these laws are has proved a thorny task. In this course, we consider three sides of the contemporary debate. The first side claims that laws are few and not nearly as important as first thought and instead science is after more modest and less universal truths such as mechanisms. The second side disagrees and defines laws as stemming from fundamental causal powers inherent in objects. The third side also believes in laws, but defines them as mere summaries of events that do not govern the world. We will evaluate these options by considering both their metaphysical presuppositions and their ability to make sense of methodology of science.

Probability

Matt Farr (4 lectures, Michaelmas Term)

Probability is fundamental to many aspects of sciences, including statistics, explanation, causation and hypothesis confirmation. This short series of lectures will begin by examining the nature of probability. We then turn to a basic formalisation of probability. Finally, we study the role of probability in fundamental scientific notions such as explanation and causation.

Reductionism

Hasok Chang (4 lectures, Lent Term)

Reductionism is the idea that some sets of claims or parts of reality are more basic or fundamental than others. First, we disentangle different senses of 'reduction'. Then, we consider classic models of intertheoretic reduction – attempts to show how one theory can be reduced to another.

Scientific Explanation

Marta Halina (4 lectures, Lent Term)

Science is often said to be in the business of explaining the natural world. But what is explanation; is it a goal of science; and how can scientific theories and models explain? In this course, we look at different accounts of scientific explanation, including 'covering law' models of Hempel, and causal theories of explanation. We consider the role of explanation in science, how it relates to the notion of understanding, and query in what sense scientific theories aim to provide explanations. Moreover, we consider how false theories in the past were explanatory, how intentionally simplified and distorting models can explain real-world phenomena, and in what sense we can have 'non-causal' explanations, such as mathematical explanations, in science. In so doing, this series of lectures will provide an introduction to a range of key issues in the philosophy of science.

Pragmatism

Hasok Chang (4 lectures, Lent Term)

The pragmatist tradition offers a valuable alternative perspective to the epistemology and metaphysics of science. While analytic epistemology focuses on an analysis of propositions and their truth-conditions, pragmatism takes a broader view of knowledge as a feature of the practices of life and inquiry. There are also metaphysical consequences of a pragmatist stance, which moves away from essentialism and understands reality as embedded in the activities of the knower. In this course we will explore the implications of pragmatism for the philosophy of science, focusing on the works of the classical pragmatist including Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey and Clarence Irving Lewis.

 

Preliminary reading

 

Resources for Paper 5 on Moodle