Philosophy of Science
Course Code: PHI 2206
Course Unit: 3
Course Description:
The course investigates into the nature of scientific knowledge, scientific explanation, scientific
truth and scientific method. It considers ideas related to observation, experimentation and
hypothesis; verification and falsification; law and theory in scientific inquiry, scientific theories
and laws; paradigms; scientific discoveries; the experimental procedure; induction and
probability, determinism, casual and statistical explanations, probability confirmation, the
demarcation between science and pseudo-science. The course further assesses the relationship
between science and common sense, methodological differences between the natural sciences
and the humanities, the relation of socio-cultural to logical elements in the development of
science; science and progress, the social responsibility of the scientific worker and the role of
science in society, science and human values, science and repression; science and liberation;
science and technology in developing countries. The course considers the major achievements in
scientific history and above all the latest scientific theories like the theory of falsification
(K.Popper), the normal and revolutionary science (T. Kuhn), the theory of research programmes
(I. Lakatos), the anti-method theory (P. Feyerabend), the theory of natural classification (P.
Duhem), the Duhem-Quine thesis and the theory of scientific progress (L.Laudan).
Course Objective :
The purpose of this course is to enable students study and understand the nature of scientific
knowledge and how it emerged from certain philosophical paradigms. To enable students
investigate the fundamentals of scientific reasoning, discovery and justification.
Learning Objectives
1. To enable students appreciate the deep philosophical questions that underlie science
2. To enable students to articulate the method of science
3. Enable students use philosophical approach to distinguish between genuine and pseudo- or
“junk” science
Course Outline
1. General Introduction
2. What is science?
3. Is science a science?
4. The Nature of science data
5. Scientific justification
6. Scientific facts
7. Science and the laws of nature
8. Objectivity in science
9. Paradigmatic shifts in scientific reasoning
10. What role do social values play in scientific conclusions?
11. The challenge of “junk science”
12. Contemporary controversies in science
(a) The crisis or non-crisis of evolution
(b) Neuroscience’s pretensions
(c) Science and Climate change politics
Methodology
Lectures, tutorials, guest lecturers, group work, individual presentations
Assessment Mode
Course work exercises 30%
End of semester examination 70%
Reading List
1. A.J Ayer, “The Elimination of Metaphysics”
2. Karl Popper, “Science: Conjectures and Refutations,”
3. Karl Popper , “Darwinism as a Metaphysical Research Program”
4. Don Gillies, Philosophy of Science in the Twentieth Century (Blackwells)
5. Theodore Schick, Readings in the Philosophy of Science: From Positivism to Postmodernism
(McGraw-Hill, 1999)
6. Thomas Kuhn, “Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research”
7. Thomas Kuhn, from The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
8. Larry Laudan, “Science at the Bar—Causes for Concern”
9. Michael Huemer, Skepticism and the Veil of Perception
10. Rom Harre, Principles of Scientific Thinking
11. George Reisch, “Pluralism, Logical Empiricism, and the Problem of Pseudoscience”
12. Stephen Cole, “Voodoo Sociology: Recent Developments in the Sociology of Science”
13. John Searle, from The Construction of Social Reality
14. Tara Smith, “Social Objectivity and the Objectivity of Value”