Back to course documents.
(a) You are required to submit the FIRST (1. The Demarcation Problem) and
then THREE MORE only of the short papers described below.
(b) They are intended to be short--500 to1000 words--but rich in content.
(c) The papers are due one week after the last paper of the relevant section
has been read in class. The deadlines indicated below are only estimates,
computed accordingly. They are provisional will probably change in response
to changes in our schedule of readings.
(d) Remember also my policies on
papers
In his December 20, 2005 verdict in the Dover
Intelligent Design trial, Judge John E. Jones III offered the "the
inescapable conclusion that ID is an interesting theological argument, but
that it is not science." What is your view of the issues in philosophy of
science raised by this trial?
Background: For a statement of the ID view, see
Michael J. Behe, "Molecular
Machines: Experimental Support for the Design Inference," Cosmic
Pursuit, March 1, 1998.
CHOOSE THREE OF:
The new literatures in models, analogies, simulations, mechanisms, and
experiment sometimes suggests that it offers a radically new way of thinking
about science in comparison to the traditional approach developed under the
heading of "the structure of theories" and that focusses on theory.
What is your view of this claim?
Inductive inference in science attracts optimists and pessimists. The
pessimists are skeptical that evidence can have anything like the inductive
reach that science attributes to it; but then they must explain the success
of science. The optimists gaze in wonder at the power of evidence in science;
yet now they must come up with an account of how that success comes about.
What is your view of this matter?
It is generally accepted that a successful science must explain the
relevant phenomena. Conforming to them and even predicting them in minute
detail, is not enough.
Why is it not enough?
We are often reminded that that science is the best antidote to the
metaphysical flights of fancy to which we humans are prone. Antirealists
merely wish to resist the creation of new metaphysical flights within science
itself, whereas scientific realists regard this caution as unnecessary and
excessive in a domain already narrowly constrained by evidence. Both
motivations seem sound, yet the debate persists.
What is your view of this matter?
While causation seems to figure centrally in every science, we seem unable
to generate a universally admissible account of its nature.
What is your view of this matter?
In comparing reductionist and antireductionist theses, the reductionist
theses tend to be the most precisely articulated and they also draw the most
criticism. The antireductionist theses tend to be stated more vaguely,
typically as the negation of a reductionist theses.
Are we to conclude the reductionism is precisely hopeless and
antireductionism vaguely promising?
Proponents of disunity point to the patchwork character in the actual
practice of sciencists. Yet a commonly received lore of those practising
scientists is that their practice is unified by an overarching theory.
How can they be so wrong about their own practices?
The era of writing the grand account of scientific change--paradigms and
revolution, research programmes, progress and problems--has passed. There is
now a growing sentiment that it was far too ambitious in seeking sweeping
statements about the essential nature of all science.
Was it too ambitious? What in your view have we learned from these
projects?
A paper in philosophy of physics or philosophy of biology, in which a non-trivial thesis is clearly stated and argued for cogently.
October 26, 2006