HPS 2501/Phil 2600      Philosophy of Science      Fall 2009
Tentative Schedule of Readings

Back to course documents.

Please note that this schedule may be updated weekly, changing according to the pace at which we actually read.


Week Date Topic/Reading Event Presented by
1 Sept. 2 Introduction to the seminar Norton
1 Sept. 2 Is it science? "Decision regarding complaints against Bjorn Lomborg" See also: Decision overturned. Norton
handout
The structure of theories and the demarcation problem.
2 Sept. 9 Discussion: "Is it science?" all
2 Sept. 9 Carl G. Hempel, "Empirical Criteria of Cognitive Significance: Problems and Changes,"
Ch. 4 in Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. New York: Macmillan, 1965		 Greg Gandenberger
2 Sept. 9 Carl F. Craver, "Structure of Scientific Theories,"
Ch. 4 in Peter Machamer and Michael Silberstein, eds., The Blackwell Guide of the Philosophy of Science. Blackwell, 2003.		 Raja Rosenhagen
2 Sept. 9 Karl Popper, "Science: Conjectures and Refutations"
Sections I-III only, pp. 33-41 in Conjectures and Refutations. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963.		 Bihui Li
3 Sept. 16 Wesley Salmon, "Rational Prediction," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 32 (1981), pp. 115-25. Taku Iwatsuki
3 Sept. 16 Thomas S. Kuhn, "Logic of Discovery of Psychology of Research,"
pp. 1-23 in Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, eds., Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1970.		 Lisa Lederer
3 Sept. 16 Bas C. Van Fraasen, "To Save the Phenomena,"
Ch. 3 in The Scientific Image. Oxford: Clarendon, 1980.		 Michael Sands
Sept. 23 First Paper Due. "Is it science"
Surprise Guest Professor This week.
Induction and confirmation
Surprise Guest Professor This week. Who? Hint.
4 Sept. 23 John Earman and Wesley C. Salmon, "Part I: Qualitative Confirmation"
pp. 43-55 in John Earman and Wesley C. Salmon, "The Confirmation of Scientific Hypotheses", ch. 2 in M. H. Salmon et al. Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Indianapolis: Hacket, 1999.		 Brandon Hogan
4 Sept. 23 John Earman and Wesley C. Salmon, "Part III: Probability"
ibid., pp. 66-89. 		Greg Gandenberger
4 Sept. 23 John Earman and Wesley C. Salmon, "Part IV: Confirmation and Probability"
ibid., pp. 89-100.		 Joe McCaffrey
5 Sept. 30 Thomas S. Kuhn "Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice,"
Ch. 13, pp. 320-339 in The Essential Tension. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977.		 Joe Goode
5 Sept. 30 John D. Norton, "A Little Survey of Induction,"
in P. Achinstein, ed., Scientific Evidence: Philosophical Theories and Applications. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. pp. 9-34.
John D. Norton, "A Material Theory of Induction"
Philosophy of Science, 70(October 2003), pp. 647-70.		 Norton
Problems of Induction
5 Sept. 30 John Earman and Wesley C. Salmon, "Part II: Hume's Problem of Induction"
ibid., pp. 55-66.		 Jonathan Buttaci
6 Oct. 7 N. Goodman, "The New Riddle of Induction,"
Ch. III in Fact, Fiction and Forecast. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983.
John D. Norton, "The Formal Equivalence of Grue and Green and How It Undoes the New Riddle of Induction." Synthese, (2006) 150: 185-207.		 Sicun Gao
6 Oct. 7 John D. Norton, "Must Evidence Underdetermine Theories?"
in The Challenge of the Social and the Pressure of Practice: Science and Values Revisited, M. Carrier, D. Howard and J. Kourany, eds., Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008, pp. 17-44.Preprint.		 Norton
Experiment and simulations
6 Oct. 7 Collins, H. "Detecting Gravitational Radiation: The Experimenters' Regress,"
Ch. 4, pp. 79-111 in Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice. London: Sage Publications.1985.		 Brandon Hogan
7 Oct. 14 Allan Franklin, "Experiment in Physics",
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy		 Greg Gandenberger
7 Oct. 14 Wendy Parker, "Does Matter Really Matter? Computer Simulations, Experiments, and Materiality"
Synthese, 169 (2009) pp. 483-496.		 Taku Iwatsuki
Explanation
7 Oct. 14 Wesley C. Salmon, "Scientific Explanation,"
Ch. 1, pp. 7-41 in M. H. Salmon et al., Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999.
 Jonathan Buttaci
8 Oct. 21 James Woodward, "4. The Causal Mechanical Model" and "5. A Unificationist Account of Explanation"
in "Scientific Explanation", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.		 Joe McCaffrey
Realism
8 Oct. 21 Carl G. Hempel. "The Theoretician's Dilemma: A Study in the Logic of Theory Construction,"
Ch. 8 in Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. New York: Macmillan, 1965		 Joe Goode
8 Oct. 21 Bas C. Van Frassen, "Arguments Concerning Scientific Realism,"
Ch. 2, pp. 7-40 in The Scientific Image. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.		 Brandon Hogan
9 Oct. 28 James Ladyman, "What is Structual Realism?"
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 29a(1998), pp. 409-24.		 Raja Rosenhagen
Causation
9 Oct. 28 Wesley C. Salmon, "Causality: Production and Propagation,"
Ch. 18 in Causality and Explanation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.		 Joe Goode
9 Oct. 28 Phil Dowe , "Causal Processes,"
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy		 Michael Sands
10 Nov. 4 James Woodward, "Causation and Manipulability,"
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy		 Jonathan Buttaci
10 Nov. 4 Richard Scheines, "An Introduction to Causal Inference," pp. 185-199 in V. R. McKim and S. P. Turner, eds., Causation in Crisis? Statistical Methods and thte Search for Causal Knowledge in the Social Sciences. University of Notre Dame Press, 1997. Taku Iwatsuki
10 Nov. 4 John D. Norton, "Causation as Folk Science,"
Philosophers' Imprint Vol. 3, No. 4 http://www.philosophersimprint.org/003004/		 Norton
Reduction, Supervenience and Emergence
11 Nov. 11 Ernest Nagel, "Reduction of Theories, "
Ch. 11 in The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation. New York: Harcour, Brace and World, 1962.		 Sicun Gao
11 Nov. 11 J. A. Fodor, "Special Sciences (Or: The Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis),"
Synthese, 28 (1974), pp. 97-115.		 Bihui Li
11 Nov. 11 Paul Humphreys, "Computational and Conceptual Emergence,"
Philosophy of Science, 75 (2008), pp. 584-594.		 Lisa Lederer
Scientific Change
12 Nov. 18 Thomas S. Kuhn, "Revolutions as Changes of World View"
Ch. X in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.		 Michael Sands
12 Nov. 18 Imre Lakatos, "History of Science and it's Rational Reconstruction,"
Ch. V in I. Hacking, ed., Scientific Revolutions. Oxford University Press, 1981.		 Joe McCaffrey
12 Nov. 18 Larry Laudan, "A Problem Solving Approach to Scientific Progress,"
Ch. VII in I. Hacking, ed., Scientific Revolutions. Oxford University Press, 1981.		 Lisa Lederer
Nov. 26 Thanksgiving
Philosophy of Physics
13 Dec. 2 John D. Norton, The Three Principal Problems of Philosophy of Modern Physics Norton
Dec. 2 John, D. Norton, "The Hole Argument" Norton
Dec. 2 Paul Horwich, "Entropy,"
Ch. 4 in Asymmetries in Time: Problems in the Philosophy of Science. Cambridge MA: Bradford-MIT, 1987.		 Bihui Li
Dec. 2 John D. Norton, "Problems of Quantum Theory" in Einstein for Everyone. A web*bookTM Lisa Damm
Philosophy of Biology
14 Dec. 9 P. Kitcher, "1953 and All That: A Tale of Two Sciences."
Philosophical Review, 93 (1984), 335-373.		 Raja Rosenhagen
Dec. 9 A. Rosenberg, "Reductionism in a Historical Science." Philosophy of Science 68 (2001), 135-163. Sicun Gao
Dec. 9 E. Sober, "Two Outbreaks of Lawlessness in Recent Philosophy of Biology."
Philosophy of Science, 64 (Suppl.) (1997), 458-467.		 Joe McCaffrey
Dec. 16 Comprehensive Exam (HPS PhD Program only)


Sources
M. H. Salmon et al., Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999.
Peter Machamer and Michael Silberstein, eds., The Blackwell Guide of the Philosophy of Science. Blackwell, 2003.

If you need a handy reference for paragraph sized explanations of things that everyone else but you seems already to know all about, look in
Stathis Psillos, Philosophy of Science A-Z. Edinburgh: Edunbugh University Press, 2007.

Last revised, August, 2009