Philosophy of Science (SOCM945)
This module description relates to the academic year 2012/3.
| Lecturer(s) | Professor Lenny Moss |
|---|---|
| Module level | M |
| Credit Value | 30.00 |
| ECTS Value | 15 |
| Pre-requisites | None |
| Co-requisites | None |
| Duration of Module | One term (11 weeks) Term 2 |
| Total Student Study Time | 300 hours (including 2 hour seminar x 11 weeks). |
Aims
To provide a thorough and rigorous discussion of the main issues in contemporary philosophy of science.
To foster techniques of analytical and critical inquiry.
Intended Learning Outcomes
On completion of the module, students should be able to:
Module-specific skills:
Demonstrate a thorough understanding of the main realist and anti-realist arguments on the epistemological status of scientific theories; alternative accounts of the nature of scientific theories; the problem of continuity vs. revolutionary change in the history of science, and its philosophical consequences; the main philosophical theories of confirmation and induction; the role of laboratory experimentation in the production of scientific knowledge.
Locate all these issues in the wider debate on philosophical theories of knowledge.
Discipline-specific skills:
Demonstrate detailed awareness of the methods used by natural and social scientists, and their philosophical 'explication'/justification by philosophers of science.
Criticise and evaluate philosophical theories of knowledge-production from a purely logical viewpoint.
Use empirical and historical case-studies to enrich and criticise philosophical theories.
Personal and key skills:
Construct and evaluate ideas.
Formulate and express ideas at different levels of abstraction.
Assess and criticise the views of others.
Learning/Teaching Methods
2 hour seminar per week, introduced by short presentation by students or lecturer.
Assignments
Seminar presentations; compulsory readings; two essays of 4000-5000 words each.
Assessment
Two essays of 4000-5000 words each (each worth 50% of total).
Syllabus Plan
Anti-realism: old and new; theories, models, and the problem of idealisation; realism and inference to the best explanation; the no-miracle argument; the pessimistic meta-induction; underdetermination and the Duhem-Quine problem; arguments from experiment; causation and representation; problems of meta-methodology: how do we test philosophical theories of knowledge?
Indicative Basic Reading List
P. Duhem, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, Princeton University Press 1954 (1906).
I. Hacking, Representing and Intervening, Cambridge University Press 1983.
S. Psillos, Scientific Realism, Routledge 1999.
B. Van Fraassen, The Scientific Image, Oxford University Press 1980.
N. Cartwright, How the Laws of Physics Lie, Clarendon 1983.
J. Dupre, The Disorder of Things, Harvard University Press 1993.
Boyd, Gasper and Trout (eds.) The Philosophy of Science, MIT Press 1991.
Y. Balashov and A. Rosenberg (eds.), Philosophy of Science: Contemporary Readings, Routledge 2002.
M. Curd and J.A. Cover (eds.) Philosophy of Science: The Central Issues, Norton 1998.
