Back to course documents.
| Week | Date | Topic/Reading Event | Presented by |
| 1 | Aug. 29 | Introduction to the seminar | Norton |
| 1 | Aug. 29 | "Effects of remote, retroactive, intercessionary prayer..." | Norton |
| Sep. 5 | Labor Day. No classes | ||
| The Structure of Theories | |||
| 2 | Sep. 12 | Warm up exercise due before class. | |
| 2 | Sep. 12 | Short Discussion: "Effects of remote, retroactive, intercessionary prayer..." | All |
| 2 | Sep. 12 | Alfred J. Ayer, "The Elimination of Metaphysics" Ch. 1 in Language, Truth and Logic. 1936. |
Josh Eisenthal |
| 2 | Sep. 12 | 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 |
Marina Baldissera Pacchetti |
| 2 | Sep. 12 | Bas C. Van Fraasen, "To Save the Phenomena," Ch. 3 in The Scientific Image. Oxford: Clarendon, 1980. |
Brian Ballard |
| Analogical Models and Idealizations | |||
| 3 | Sep. 19 | Ludwig Boltzman, "Model," Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911. Transcribed version. | Laurence Holland |
| 3 | Sep. 19 | Ron Giere, "How Models are used to Represent Reality," Philosophy of Science, 71 (2004) pp. 742–752. | Raja Rosenhagen |
| 3 | Sep. 19 | Ernan McMullin, "Galilean Idealization," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science,16 (1985),pp. 247-273. | Lauren Ross |
| Inductive Inference | |||
| 4 | Sep. 26 | 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. |
Annalisa Paese |
| 4 | Sep. 26 | John D. Norton, "Hempel's Satisfaction Criterion of Confirmation" pp.66-82 in A Survey of Inductive Generalization Manuscript. | Marina Baldissera Pacchetti |
| 4 | Sep. 26 | Peter Lipton, "Inference to the Best Explanation," in W.H. Newton-Smith (ed) A Companion to the Philosophy of Science, Blackwell, 2000, pp. 184-193. | Michael McDonough |
| Bayesian Confirmation Theory | |||
| 5 | Oct. 3 | Stephan Hartmann & Jan Sprenger,. "Bayesian Epistemology," in Duncan Pritchard & Sven Bernecker (eds.), Routledge Companion to Epistemology. Routledge. | Laurence Holland |
| 5 | Oct. 3 | John Earman and Wesley C. Salmon, "The Meaning of Probability" pp. 74-89 in "The confirmation of scientific hypotheses." pp.42-103 in Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. M. Salmon (Ed.), Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. | Julian Arni |
| 5 | Oct. 3 | Patrick Maher, "Probability Captures the Logic of Scientific Confirmation," Ch. 3 in Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Science, ed. Christopher Hitchcock, Blackwell 2004. | Michael Miller |
| Falsificationism and the Demarcation of Science. | |||
| Oct. 10. | No Classes. Monday classes moved to Tuesday. | ||
| 6 | Tues. Oct. 11 |
Karl Popper, "Science: Conjectures and Refutations" Sections I-III only, pp. 33-41 in Conjectures and Refutations. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963. |
Lauren Ross |
| 6 | Tues. Oct. 11 | Wesley Salmon, "Rational Prediction," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 32 (1981), pp. 115-25. | Norton |
| 6 | Tues. Oct. 11 | Larry Laudan, "The Demise of the Demarcation Problem," in Physics, philosophy, and psychoanalysis: essays in honor of Adolf Grünbaum. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. 76, Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1983, pp. 111–127. | Haixin Dang |
| Problems of Induction | |||
| 7 | Oct. 17 | John Earman and Wesley C. Salmon, "Part II: Hume's Problem of
Induction," pp. 55-66 in "The confirmation of scientific hypotheses." pp.42-103 in Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. M. Salmon (Ed.), Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. |
Brian Ballard |
| 7 | Oct. 17 | N. Goodman, "The New Riddle of Induction," Ch. III in Fact, Fiction and Forecast. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983. (Background: John D. Norton, "The Formal Equivalence of Grue and Green and How It Undoes the New Riddle of Induction." Synthese, (2006) 150: 185-207.) |
Raja Rosenhagen |
| 7 | Oct. 17 | 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.Read. |
Norton |
| Explanation | |||
| 8 | Oct. 24 | Wesley C. Salmon,"Scientific Explanation," (DN model of explanation) pp. 7-23 of Ch. 1 in in Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. M. Salmon (Ed.), Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. |
Michael McDonough |
| 8 | Oct. 24 | Wesley C. Salmon,"Scientific Explanation," (DS, IS and SR models of explanation) pp.23-41 of Ch. 1 in Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. M. Salmon (Ed.), Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. |
Julian Arni |
| 8 | Oct. 24 | Paul W. Humphreys, "Scientific Explanation: The Causes, Some of the Causes, and Nothing But the Causes" in P. Kitcher and W. C. Salmlon, eds., Scientific Explanation: Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XIII. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989., | Annalisa Paese |
| 9 | Oct. 31 | Philip Kitcher, "Explanation as Unificiation," Section 4 (pp. 430-48) of "Explanatory Unification and the Causal Structure of the World," in P. Kitcher and W. C. Salmlon, eds., Scientific Explanation: Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XIII. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. | Marina Baldissera Pacchetti |
| Realism and AntiRealism | |||
| 9 | Oct. 31 | 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 This is a long paper and it is impractical in the time allocated to treat everything. Focus on the statement of the dilemma in Section 5 and draw as much out of the remainder of the paper as is needed to give an overview of Hempel's analysis and resolution. |
William Eck |
| 9 | Oct. 31 | Bas C. Van Frassen, "Arguments Concerning Scientific Realism," Ch. 2, pp. 7-40 in The Scientific Image. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. |
Michael Miller |
| 10 | Nov. 7 | Larry Laudan, "A Confutation of Convergent Realism," Philosophy of Science, 48, (1981), pp. 19-49. |
Michael McDonough |
| 10 | Nov. 7 | Steven French, “Structure as a Weapon of the Realist.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 106 (2006), pp.1–19. | Raja Rosenhagen |
| Causation | |||
| 10 | Nov. 7 | 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 the Search for Causal Knowledge in the Social Sciences. University of Notre Dame Press, 1997. | Josh Eisenthal |
| 11 | Nov. 14 | James Woodward, “Causation with a Human Face” in Price, H. and Corry, R. (eds.) Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality: Russell's Republic Revisited. Oxford: Oxford University Press,2007, pp. 66–105. |
Norton |
| 11 | Nov. 14 | John D. Norton, "Causation as Folk
Science," Philosophers' Imprint Vol. 3, No. 4 http://www.philosophersimprint.org/003004/ |
Norton |
| Reduction and Emergence | |||
| 11 | Nov. 14 | Ernest Nagel, "Reduction of Theories," (Reduction: pp.336-366 only) Ch. 11 in The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation. New York: Harcour, Brace and World, 1962. |
Laurence Holland |
| 12 | Nov. 21 | J. A. Fodor, "Special Sciences (Or: The Disunity of Science as a
Working Hypothesis)," Synthese, 28 (1974), pp. 97-115. |
Lauren Ross |
| 12 | Nov. 21 | Elliott Sober, "The Multiple Realizability Argument Against Reductionism," Philosophy of Science 66(1999), pp. 542-564. | Julian Arni |
| 12 | Nov. 21 | Paul Humphreys, "Computational and Conceptual Emergence," Philosophy of Science, 75 (2008), pp. 584-594. |
Brian Ballard |
| Thanksgiving Break. | |||
| Experiment | |||
| 13 | Nov. 28 | 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. |
Haixin Dang |
| 13 | Nov. 28 | Ian Hacking, "Experiment," Ch. 9 in Representing and Intervening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. | Juanjuan Wu |
| 13 | Nov. 28 | Allan Franklin, "Experiment
in Physics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy This is a long article. Concentrate on Section 1. Experimental Results, which includes a positive epistemology of experiment. |
Michael Miller |
| Theory Change | |||
| 14 | Dec. 5 | Thomas S. Kuhn, "Revolutions as Changes of World View" Ch. X in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. |
Annalisa Paese |
| 14 | Dec. 5 | Imre Lakatos, "History of Science and it's Rational
Reconstruction," Ch. V in I. Hacking, ed., Scientific Revolutions. Oxford University Press, 1981. |
Josh Eisenthal |
| 14 | Dec. 5 | Thomas S. Kuhn "Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice," Ch. 13, pp. 320-339 in The Essential Tension. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977. |
Haixin Dang |
| Dec. 12 | Comprehensive Exam (HPS PhD Program only) |