Department of

Graduate Courses (Click on a title for course materials)

2501 Philosophy of Science Core
Gordon Belot
Cross-listed with HPS 2501
1. This course will focus on central topics in general philosophy of science, from the era of logical positivism onwards: explanation, confirmation, theory change, the meaning of theoretical terms, scientific realism.
2. Prerequisites: Graduate standing.
3. Recitations: None.
4. Estimated Class Size: 15 students.
5. This course is offered annually, but with different instructors from year to year.
6. Special permission is required for this course and it is limited to HPS and Philosophy students only.

2502 History of Science 1
Paolo Palmieri
1. This course is designed as a survey of specific movements in the history of science from antiquity to the early 17th century. Highlighted during this course will be topics in the history of mathematics, physics, optics, astronomy, biology, and medicine. Most readings will be drawn from primary source materials. This course is the first part of a two-part series. The second course, History of Science II, will deal with specific issues from the 17th century up to the present. The courses are designed so that they can be taken independently. The specific topics treated in these survey courses vary from year-to-year and from professor-to-professor.
2. Prerequisites: None.
3. Recitations: None.
4. Expected class size: 15 students.
5. This course is offered each Fall Term.
6. Special permission is required for this course and is designed for HPS majors only.

2511 Genesis and Geology -- Moved to Spring 2005 (05-2).
Paolo Palmieri
1. This seminar explores the development of changing views on the nature of fossils and their contribution to the understanding of the history of the earth from the Renaissance to the early nineteenth century. Religious controversies on the age of the earth and natural-philosophical inquiry into the meaning of fossils contributed to the emergence of fundamental scientific notions, such as evolution, catastrophism, uniformitarianism, and geological time, to mention but a few. Drawing on primary and secondary sources concerning fossils this seminar will shed light on the early history of geological and pateontological knowledge.
2. Prerequisites: Graduate standing only or permission of the instructor.
3. Recitations: None.
4. Expected class size: 15 students.
5. This course is not offered on a regular basis.

2533 Descartes
Peter Machamer and J. E. McGuire
Cross-listed with PHIL 2533
1. The seminar will examine (in chronological order) Descartes' major works, along with much of his correspondence. The main idea is to examine the major changes he makes in his metaphysics, epistemology, ideas about method and the causal structure of the world in relation to God. The major thesis is that Descartes radically changes his mind on most major issues during his life time. We shall try to assay what causes or occasions these changes. At the end of his life, so it will be argued, Descartes is not even much of a dualist. If there is time, we may look at how Descartes' reputation and views were constructed by those who came after him. The seminar will start by reading several recent biographies of Descartes, and then will move into the primary Cartesian texts. A manuscript by Machamer and McGuire will be available and students will be expected to critique it as a result of their reading.
2. Prerequisites: Graduate standing or permission of the instructor.
3. Recitation: None.
4. Expected Class Size: 15 students.
5. This course is not offered on a regular basis.

2626 Topics in Recent Philosophy of Physics
John Norton
Cross-listed with PHIL 2626
1. This seminar will discuss recent topics in philosophy of physics, drawing on suitable issues in quantum, relativistic and statistical physics, according to the interests of the participants.
2. Prerequisites: Graduate standing or permission of the instructor.
3. Recitations: None.
4. Expected size class: 15 students.
5. This course is not offered on a regular basis.

2676 Carnap and Riechenbach
Clark Glymour
Cross-listed with PHIL 2646
1. This seminar is about the Logical Positivists, philosophers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who in various ways combined neo-Kantianism with radical empiricism, developing philosophical theories worked out within the paradigm of Frege's contributions to logic. While almost all of the specific doctrines of the Positivists are dismissed today, their neo-Kantian perspective is alive and well. Michael Friedman, the most distinguished American historian of the Positivist movement was motivated by a fundamentally correct neo-Kantianism, whatever the limitations of the specific philosophical theories it generated. My view is almost the opposite: the neo-Kantian motivation of the Positivists was fundamentally wrong, which doomed the movement and eventually led philosophy into an intellectual backwater. There will be a lot reading each week, and each participant, enrolled or not, will be asked to submit a weekly brief statement of issues or thoughts prompted by the reading. No term paper is required.
2. Prerequisites: Graduate standing or permission of the instructor.
3. Recitation: None.
4. Expected class size: 15 students.
5. This course is not offered on a regular basis.

Undergraduate Courses (Click on a title for course materials)

0427 Myth and Science
Cross-listed with CLASS 0330
1. How can we understand our world? In western culture, science dominates all our answers to this question. But there are other ways. They can be found in the mythologies of ancient and modern peoples. This course will compare the scientific and mythological ways of seeing the world and their more subtle connections. In particular, we will turn to the remarkable events in Ancient Greece of 800-400 B.C. and discover how the scientific approach actually grew slowly out of mythological thought itself.
2. Prerequisites: None.
3. Recitations: None.
4. Expected class size: 35 students in section 07205 and 30 students in section 10049.
5. This course is offered on a regular basis.

0430 Galileo & the Creation of Modern Science
Paolo Palmieri
1. The Italian physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was the decisive figure in the rise of modern science. First, he ushered in a new era in astronomy when he aimed a 30-powered telescope at the sky in 1610. Second, he revolutionized the concept of science when he argued that the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. Finally, he astounded the theologians, who eventually condemned him to life imprisonment, when he claimed that the scientist's search for the truth cannot be constrained by religious authority. This course will study Galileo in the broader intellectual, social, and religious context of early modern Europe .
2. Prerequisites: None.
3. Recitations: None.
4. Expected class size: 30 students.
5. This course is not offered on a regular basis.

0515 Magic, Medicine and Science
J. E. McGuire
Cross-listed with HIST 0089
1. This course is a partial survey of some important strands in the Western intellectual history. We will start with ancient Greek speculations in cosmology, philosophy, and medicine. Then we will look at some important subsequent developments in these areas and how they were influenced by the Greek tradition. These include, among other topics, the magical tradition that flourished during the Renaissance period. The latter half of the course will focus on the profound intellectual transformations in the 17th century which constitute what we often call The Scientific Revolution. The great scientific
achievements of figures such as Descartes, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton will be discussed in detail. Overall, this course is meant to provide a broad picture of some of the most important elements in the Western intellectual tradition and their interactions in history.
2. Prerequisites: None.
3. Recitations: One hour per week for section 39710 only.
4. Expected class size: 120 for section 39710 other sections 40.
5. This class is offered on a regular basis.

517 Thinking about the Environment
John Earman
1. The goal of this course is to promote clear and rigorous thinking about environmental issues such as nuclear power, global warming, ozone depletion, and the use of chemical pesticides. The course will therefore focus on developing the skills needed to find the best available information on an environmental issue, and to make informed judgments about what conclusions and what actions are warranted on the basis of that information.
2. Prerequisites: None
3. Recitations: One hour per week
4. Estimated class size: 60 students.
5. This course is offered on a regular basis

0605 Nature of Emotions
Peter Machamer
1. This course will examine selected historically important theories and portrayals of the human emotions or passions. The course will examine different accounts of love, hate, desire, anger, jealousy, pride, grief, etc., ie. the affective dimension of human existence. It will look at how these dimensions of experience relate to ideas of reason, control, the will, decorum, and morality, and our knowledge of the "sciences" of human beings. A number of questions will guide the readings and discussions. Which emotions or passions are primitive? In what are the emotions grounded: the body, the mind, the spirit? Can these even be usefully distinguished? What is the structure of human emotions and how do they function? What are the relations among emotions, personality types and behavior? Can one learn to recognize emotions, control emotions, change the way emotions affect behavior? How can one test or validate theories about emotions? And finally, it is clear that theories and beliefs about human emotions change over time; does this mean that the nature of, say, anger, has changed over time? The course will rely mostly on primary source material, written by persons who have had a recognized intellectual and social impact.
2. Prerequisites: None.
3. Recitations: None.
4. Estimated Class Size: 30 students.
5. This class is not offered on a regular basis.

0610 Statistics and Causal Reasoning
1. Do school vouchers really help inner city students become better educated? Do gun control laws really make society safer? This course examines how scientists reason about causal claims like these. It considers use of scientific statistical data that informs our public policy debates. The course uses an interactive, web-based text and exams. In addition, there is an on-line virtual "Causality Lab" in which students will set up, run, and then analyze simulated experiments. They will construct causal theories, use the lab to derive predictions from these theories, and then test the predictions against the simulated data. While course materials are delivered on-line, students will still attend two sessions per week; one for addressing questions about the material and the second for case study analysis.
2. Prerequisite: None.
3. Recitations: One hour a week.
4. Estimated Class Size: 30 students.
5. This course is offered on a regular basis.

0611 Principles of Scientific Reasoning
1. The course will provide students with elementary logic skills and an understanding of scientific arguments. Ours is an increasingly scientific and technical society. In both our personal life decisions and in our work we are daily confronted by scientific results which influence what we do and how we do it. Basic skills in analyzing the structure of arguments in terms of truth and evidence are required to make this type of information accessible and useful. We hear, for example, that drinking alcoholic beverages reduces the chances of heart disease. We might well ask what sorts of tests were done to reach this conclusion and do the tests really justify the claim? We read that certain geographical configurations in South America "prove" that this planet was visited by aliens from outer space. Does this argument differ from other, accepted scientific arguments? This course is designed to aid the student in making sense of a variety of elementary logic skills in conjunction with the application of those skills to actual cases.
2. Prerequisites: None.
3. Recitations: None.
4. Expected class size: 30 students.
5. This course is offered on a regular basis.

0612 Mind and Medicine
James Lennox
1. This course is designed to introduce the student to important issues, both philosophical and historical, that arise from reflecting on the historical development of our understanding of the mind and body in their scientific and clinical contexts. Topics covered include the search, from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, for a satisfactory scientific account of fundamental biological processes such as growth and reproduction and the continuing search for a scientific understanding of human consciousness.
2. Prerequisite: There are no formal prerequisites for this course. This course is part of a core sequence leading to certification in the Conceptual Foundations of Medicine Program, and is a companion course to HPS 0613 (Morality and Medicine) but may be taken independently. This course is of particular interest to pre-medical and pre-health care students.
3. Recitations: One hour a week.
4. Estimated Class Size: 120 students.
5. This course is offered on a regular basis.

0613 Morality and Medicine
1. Ethical dilemmas in the practice of health care continue to proliferate and receive increasing attention from members of the health care profession, ethicists, policy makers, and the general public as health care consumers. In this course we will examine a number of ethical issues that arise in the context of contemporary medical practice and research by analyzing articles and decision scenarios. Topics to be covered typically include the physician-patient relationship; informed consent; medical experimentation; termination of treatment; genetics; reproductive technologies; euthanasia; resource allocation; and health care reform. Students who successfully complete this course will be able to identify and analyze different philosophical approaches to selected issues in medical ethics; have gained insight into how to read and critically interpret philosophical arguments; and have developed skills that will enable them to think clearly about ethical questions as future or current health care providers, policy makers, and consumers.
2. Prerequisites: None. However, this course is part of a core sequence leading to certification in the Conceptual Foundations of Medicine Certificate Program, and is a companion course to HPS 0612 (Mind and Medicine) but may be taken independently. The course is of particular interest to pre-medical and pre-health care students.
3. Recitations: None.
4. Estimated Class Size: 30 students.
5. This course is offered every term.

0621 Problem Solving: How Science Works
1. A scientist announces that the sun contains a new, so-far unknown chemical element, even though there is no hope of getting a sample. Another is sure that a famous predecessor has faked his data, even though he has seen nothing but the perfect, published results. Astonishingly, both claims prove to be sober and sound. We will explore the approaches and methods that make such miracles part of the routine of everyday science. This course is intended for students with little or no background in science.
2. Prerequisites: None.
3. Recitations: None.
4. Expected class size: 30 students.
5. This course is offered every term.

1502 Astrology and Witchcraft in 17th Century England
Cross-listed with RELGST 1366 & HIST 1184
1. The 17th Century in England is known as the period of the Scientific Revolution. Yet, at the same time, the belief in witches and in the efficacy of astrological prediction was widespread. Witchcraft was associated with magic and most people in the 16th and 17th centuries, both learned and unlettered, believed in these occult powers. The links between religion, magic, astrology and witchcraft operated both at the theoretical and practical levels. The assumption of correspondences between the celestial and terrestrial realms led astrologers to claim that they could determine what people would do under various circumstances. We will explore these connections and review some recent analyses of the simultaneous decline in both systems of belief among the educated, while recognizing their continued acceptance at lower social levels well beyond this period. To understand these phenomena, we will begin by discussing the intellectual tendencies during the Renaissance that led to the prestige of astrology among the learned class, and the factors (both religious and secular) that led to witch-hunting. The bulk of the course will be devoted to tracing the social forces that surrounded astrology and witchcraft in the 17 th century England , followed by a discussion of the period of decline in the context of the beginnings of modernity. Throughout the course will focus on the ways we interpret the past, and how our view of the past affects our perception of the present. It may well be that familiarity with subjects that are no longer “respectable” will help us to recognize what precisely is meant by intellectual “respectability.” We will also seek to reach some understanding of the social needs that both astrology and witchcraft fulfilled at that time.
2. Prerequisites: None.
3. Recitation: None.
4. Expected Class Size: 30 students
5. This course is not offered on a regular basis.

1600 Philosophy & the Rise of Modern Science
Cross-listed with HPS 1600
1. In this course we shall study several key episodes in which new discoveries in science and philosophy have historically influenced one another. The rejection and later acceptance of atomism; worries about absolute space; does physics need to tell a realistic story of what occurs in the world or simply make correct predications? Etc.

2. Prerequisite: None.
3. Recitations: None.
4. Expected class size: 30 students.
5. This course is not offered regularly.
6. For permission to enter this class when it is closed, you must see the instructor.

1620 Philosophy of Biology
Cross-listed with PHIL 1650
1. Philosophy of Biology will consider foundational conceptual issues in biology like the nature and structure of biological explanation, the possibility of laws in evolutionary theory, the relationship between different causal components of biological processes (genetics and development), the problem of species reality and classification, the explanatory character of ascription of biological function, and the extension of biological explanations to human psychology and culture. It is designed for both the philosopher who can explore central epistemological and metaphysical issues in the context of biological science and for the biologist who wants to explore the conceptual foundations and presuppositions of her science. The students will read primary historical and philosophical texts, engage in discussion and write essays. The format of the course will be a combination of lecture and discussion.
2. Prerequisite: None.
3. Recitations: None.
4. Expected class size: 30 students.
5. This class is not offered on a regular basis.

1653 Introduction to Philosophy of Science
Laura Ruetsche
Cross-listed with PHIL 1610
1. This course explores the principal ways in which scientific knowledge is attained in the natural sciences and in the behavioral/social sciences, and it examines fundamental philosophical questions concerning the reliability and limits of scientific understanding. The major topics of discussion include: Explanation, confirmation, realism and the nature of theories, the growth of scientific knowledge, space and time, and causality and determinism.
2. Prerequisites: No specific prerequisites, but at least one prior course in some area of science is desirable.
3. Recitations: YOU HAVE TO SIGN UP FOR A RECITATION SECTION! Recitation sections are one session a week, 0 credits each.
4. Expected class size: 60 students per lecture, 20 recitation.
5. This course is offered each year.
6. For permission to enter class when it is closed, you must see the instructor.

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