Undergraduate Module Descriptor

PHL3026: Philosophy of Science

This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.

Module Aims

The course seeks to open up and address key questions concerning scientific knowledge, practice and the world. You will engage with a range of canonical texts in the philosophy of science and become familiar with central debates in the field. You will also think critically about the nature of science and its place in the modern world.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills	1. acquire a variety of conceptual tools for analysing the nature of science as a body of knowledge and a field of practice 2. adopt a stance of critical distance from one of the most powerful and authoritative cultural formations in the contemporary world, and to achieve a sophisticated appreciation of current issues and problems surrounding science in our society;
Discipline-Specific Skills	3. engage with key philosophical debates on topics including the nature of knowledge, representation, classification, epistemology, practice and ontology; 4. acquire interdisciplinary experience in integrating such thinking with sociological perspectives concerning the social nature of scientific practice and the institutional position of science in its broader social context
Personal and Key Skills	5. learn to think, write and argue logically through class discussions and written assignments 6. challenge and think in new ways about science as an authoritative body of knowledge and a key social institution 7. reconsider your personal understanding of science and its place in their own culture;

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

Induction—Justification
Induction—Description
Popper and falsificationism
Kuhn—Paradigms and progress
Kuhn—Incommensurability
Realism and anti-realism
The no-miracles argument
The Pessimistic meta-induction
Theories, models and experiments
The Sociology of Scientific Knowledge

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
22	128	0

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled Learning and Teaching activity	22	The module will be taught as a series of two-hour seminars, organised around open-ended discussion of pre-assigned readings. Students will be required to read and think widely beyond the assigned readings.
Guided Independent study	55	11 x 5 hours for course
Guided Independent study	36.5	Reading for and writing of essay 1
Guided Independent study	36.5	Reading for and writing of essay 2

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).