Philosophy of Science, Teaching
Sebastian Sequoiah-Grayson's Hompage
Essay Questions
- Can there be satisfactory scientific explanations that do not involve citing laws of nature?
- What is the best account of scientific progress?
- Why have philosopher's of science wanted a theory of verisimilitude? Do _we_ want one? Why? Expound several attempts to develop such a theory and any criticisms of said attempts.
- Expound the debate between realists and intrumentalists (anti-realists) concerning abduction (Inference to the Best Explanation). In light of your exposition, do you think we _should_ be realists of some sort? Why?
Can there be satisfactory scientific explanations that do not involve citing laws of nature?
In particular, you might want to think about some (or all if you have the time) of the following models of explanation:
- The deductive-nomological (or covering law) model of explanation (Hempel)
- The causal relevance model of explanation (Glymour, C. 1982, Causal Inference and Causal Explanation, in What? Where? When? Why? ed. R. McLaughlin, Dordrecht: Reidel, 179-91)
- Explanation by identification (Ruben, D. -H, 1990, Explaining Explanation, London: Routledge)
- Explanation by analogies (Hesse, M. B. 1988, Theories, Family Resemblances and Analogy, in Analogical Reasoning, ed, D. H. Helman, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 317-40)
- Explanation by unification (Salmon)
- Pragmatic accounts of explanation (Van Frasen)
For a critique of Van Frasen's (1980) you might want to look at Kitcher, P. and Salmon, W. C. 1987, Van Frasen on Explanation, 'Journal of Philosophy, 84, 315-30.
Van Frasen's 1989, Laws and Symmetry, Oxford: Clarendon Press is also especially relevant.
What is the best account of scientific progress?
You might like to think about whether or not the best account should centre on truth, simplicity, coherence, or explanatory power (where these last three don't _necessarily_ imply truth).
You might also want to think about whether your answer is intended to be normative or descriptive.
Readings:
- Popper, K. R. (1963): Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
- Popper, K. R. (1972/9): Objective Knowledge, 1st or 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Laudan, L. (1977): Progress and its Problems: Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth, Berkley: University of California Press.
- Kuhn, T. S. (1970): The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, _2nd_edition_ Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Nickles, T. (1980): Scientific Discovery, Logic, and Rationality, Dordrecht: Reidel.
- Gutting, G. (1973): Conceptual Structures and Scientific Change, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. 4/3, 209-30.
- Newton-Smith, W. H. (1981): The Rationality of Science, Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
For a critique of Van Frasen's (1980) you might want to look at Kitcher, P. and Salmon, W. C. 1987, Van Frasen on Explanation, 'Journal of Philosophy, 84, 315-30.
Van Frasen's 1989, Laws and Symmetry, Oxford: Clarendon Press is also especially relevant.
Why have philosopher's of science wanted a theory of verisimilitude? Do _we_ want one? Why? Expound several attempts to develop such a theory and any criticisms of said attempts.
Readings
A good overview of the issues can be found in:
- Psillos, S. 'Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth', ch. 11: 'Truth-Likeness'.
- It's also very argumentative and fun. Actually this book is a _very_ good overview of phil of science as a whole, plus an argument for the realist position.
For the rest:
- Popper, K. (1963): Conjectures and Refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge.
- Popper, K. (1972): Objective Knowledge.
- Kuipers, T. A. F. (ed) (1987): What is Closer-to-the-truth. (<---- THIS IS A HANDY ONE with LOADS OF PAPERS) See especially the Van Bentham paper (103-28) and Schurtz, G., & Weingartner, P (47-77).
- Niiniluoto, I. (1987): Truthlikeness.
- Oddie, G. (1986): Likeness to Truth.
- Brink, C. & Heidema (1987): 'A verisimilar ordering of theories phrased in a propositional language'. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 38, 533-49.
- Orlowska, E. (1990): Verisimilitude Based on Concept Analysis.
- Brink, C., Vermeulen J. C., and Pretorius, J. P. G. (1992): Verisimilitude via Vietoris, Journal for Logic and Computation, 2, 709-18.
Expound the debate between realists and intrumentalists (anti-realists) concerning abduction (Inference to the Best Explanation). In light of your exposition, do you think we _should_ be realists of some sort? Why?
Readings
- Boyd, R (1984): the current status of scientific realism. In 'scientific realism', J. Leplin (ed.) (1984), pp. 41-83.
- Fine, A (1986): the shakey game, einstein, realism, and quantum theory.
- Fine, A (1986): unnatural attitudes: realist and instrumentalist attachments to science, 'Mind', 95, pp. 149-79.
- Laudan, L (1981): a confutation of convergent realism.
- Laudan, L and Leplin, J. (1991): empirical equivalence and underdetermination, 'journal of philosophy, 88, 449-73'.
- Leplin, j. (1988): is essentialism unscientific, 'philosophy of science', 55, 493-510.
- Leplin, J. (1997): a novel defense of scientific realism.
- Newton-Smith, W (1981): The rationality of science.
- Putnam, H. (1978): Meaning and the moral sciences.
- van-Frassen, B. (1980): the scientific image.
- Worral, J. (1984): an unreal image, 'british journal for the philosophy of science.
- Quine, W. V. O: the first two papers in From a Logical Point of View (i.e. on what there is, &, two dogmas of empiricism).
Contact details
Formal Epistemology Project
Centre for Logic and Analytical Philosophy
Institute of Philosopy
Kardinaal Mercierplein 2
K.U. Leuven
B 3000 Leuven
Belgium
