• (Updated Dec. 3, 2007) Course Syllabus
  
• Weekly materials (handouts, etc): click here

Term paper I reqs + cover sheet (to be read and signed)

Term paper II reqs + cover sheet (to be read and signed)

A compendium of typical argument fallacies

Notes on James Hawthorne's "Inductive Logic"

Notes on Elizabeth Anderson's "Femininst Epistemology and Philosophy of Science"

Midterm Exam Key

Midterm Grade Statistics

Midterm Exam version 1

Midterm Exam version 2

Midterm Exam version 3

            

Fragment- Sir Isaac Newton's Manuscripts                                                         "Dr. Faustus" -Rembrandt
"The Philosopher's Stone"

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I.) Introductory  Issues

• Lecture 1: Course Introduction  (Aug 30)
• Lecture 2: Arguments and Logic Relevant to Philosophy of Science (Sept. 4)

II.) External Analyses of Science: Demarcation Criteria: What distinguishes science from pseudoscience?

• Lecture 3: Notes on Popper's Falsificationism (Sept. 6)
• Lecture 4: Notes on Kuhn's, Lakatos'es & Thagard's Responses to Popper (Sept. 11)
• Lecture 5: Notes on Ruse & Laudan (creation science) (Sept. 13)

III.a) External Analysis of Science: Science and Values pt. 1: How Value-Laden are Scientific Theories and Facts?

• Lecture 6: Notes on Kuhn "Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions" (Sept. 18)
• Lecture 7: Notes on Kuhn & McMullan (responses to SSR 'fallout') (Sept. 20)
• Lecture 8: Notes on Longino and Kitcher (Sept. 25)

III.b) External Analysis of Science: Science and Values pt. 2: The nature of scientific truth

• Lecture 9: Notes on Boyd and Maxwell (Sept. 27)
• Lecture 10: Notes on Bas Van Fraassen (Oct 2)
• Lecture 11: Notes on Responses fo vF (Boyd, Musgrove) & Hacking & A. Fine (Oct 4)

IV.) Growth and Evolution of Scientific Knowledge

• Lecture 12: Notes on Musgrove & Burian (Oct. 9)
• Oct 11th readings: Lightman & Gingrich, “When Do Anomalies Begin?” (pdf)
• Oct 11th readings (optional): Kevin Elliot, “A Novel Account of Scientific Novelty: Help for the Dispute over Low-Dose Biochemical effects”
  
• Lecture 13: Notes on Kuhn & Laudan (pt 1) (Oct. 11)
• Oct 16th readings: Nancy Nersessian, "Model-Based Reasoning in Conceptual Change"
• Lecture 14: Notes on Midterm,  Laudan (pt 2) Giere & Nersessian(Oct. 16)

V.) Confirmation Theory

• Lecture 15: Notes on Bayes' Thm  (Oct. 23)
• Lecture 16: Notes on W. Salmon ('Tom Bayes and Tom Kuhn')(Oct. 25)
• Lecture 17: Notes on Salmon's concluding claims & Clark Glymour ("Why I am not a Bayesian") (Oct. 30)

VI.) Scientific Explanation

• Lecture 18: Notes on Carnap and Hempel  (Nov. 1)
• Lecture 18 Supplement: Hempel's problem of epistemic ambiguity as discussed in his "Inductive-Stat." article  (Nov. 1)
• Lecture 19: Notes on Hempel and Kitcher (Nov. 6)
• Lecture 20: Notes on  Kitcher and Morrison (Nov. 8)
• Lecture 20 Supplement: Achinstein meets Kitcher & Morrison: Is Achinstein just advocating theory underdetermination?

VII.) Theoretical Underdetermination

• Lecture 21: Notes on the Quine-Duhem Thesis  (Nov. 13)
• Lecture 22: Deflating Underdetermination: Notes on Laudan  (Nov. 15)

VIII.) Laws of Nature

• Lecture 23: Notes on the Problem of specification of laws and Ayer's and others' responses  (Nov. 20)
• (Nov 27) Guest Lecture: Luke Conlin, Physics Education Group, UMCP  Recommended article : "Teaching for Conceptual Change"
• (Nov 27) Guest Lecture:  Recommended article 2: "On the Substance of a Sophisticated Epistemology"
  
• (Nov 27) Guest Lecture: Presentation Slides
• Lecture 24 (Nov 27 reading): Notes on Nancy Cartwright's "Do the Laws...State the Facts?"

IX.) InterTheoretic Reduction

• Lecture 25  Notes on Ernest Nagel "Issues in the Logic of Reductive Explanations" (Nov. 29)
• Lecture 26  Notes on Nagel & Thomas Nickles' "Two Concepts of Intertheoretic Reduction" (Dec. 3)
• Dec. 6 reading:  Robert Batterman: "Intertheory Relations in Physics" 
  
• Lecture 27  Remarks on Reduction's failures, Notes on Batterman & Kitcher (Dec. 6)

X.)  Course Summary

• Lecture 28  Final Exam Review  (Dec. 11)

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