Program: Philosophy, year III
Course title: Theory of Scientific knowledge
6 credits – mandatory course
Semester I, weekly: 2 hours course + 2 hours seminar
Lecturer Dr. Gabriel Vacariu
Faculty of Philosophy, Bucharest University
Syllabus
“Theory of Scientific knowledge”
This course is about the “conditions of possibility” for creating the “pure philosophy”,
that is the philosophy that offers the “Weltanschauung”. In the first part of this course, I
start with Kant’s philosophy, logical positivism (Reichenbach, Schlick and Carnap), and
very recent Michael Friedman’s approach. Then I explain some essential notions from
physics: Einstein’s theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, multiverse or hyperverse,
black holes, etc. In the second part, I analyze the relationship between science and
philosophy and how it can be create a philosophical system. Obviously, for fabricating
such philosophy, the philosopher has to start from science (scientific theories) that
explains (parts of) the world (reality). The philosopher “incorporates” the essential
scientific notions in the pure philosophy, nonetheless, such philosophy has to go far
beyond science. Therefore I explain a philosophical notion, the ontology, that has an
essential role in physics. The final goal for pure philosophy is to represent a new “metaparadigm” for science. In this way, as philosophers, we have to return to the “long
forgotten image of philosophy that once guided science” (Michael Friedman). Otherwise,
the philosophy will be at most “philosophy of science” on which no scientist is interested
in.
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Evaluation: There will be a continuous evaluation of the students through their activities
in the seminar (presentations, contributions, comments). The final examination will
consist of a discussion on their final paper on one of the main topics of the course. The
students will describe and explain the plan and the structure of their work and the
research methods used during the elaboration of the dissertation. In each week, there will
be an hour consultation for students in their preparing the final paper.
Course objectives: The objective of the course is to familiarize the students with the
main theories, problems and concepts of physics (Einstein’s theory of relativity, quantum
mechanics, etc.) in a critical and dynamic way and how to construct a “Weltanschaung”
on this knowledge.
Abilities and competences developed by the course: the course will try to help the
students in developing their analytical and critical abilities concerning the topics of
physics and the construction of a philosophical system.
Topics and bibliography for each course/seminar
1. Michael Heller (2011), “Philosophy in Science”, Chapter 8, “Immanuel Kant: The A
Priori Conditions of the Sciences”
2. Michael Friedman (1999) – “Reconsidering Logical Positivism”, Chapter 3
“Geometry, convention, and the relativized apriori: Reichenbach, Schlick and Carnap”
3. M. Friedman (2001) – “The Dynamic of Reasoning”, Chapter 4 “The relativized a
priori”
4. Brian Greene - “The Elegant Universe”, Chapter 2 (clip: Brian Greene, 1)
5. Brian Greene - “The Elegant Universe”, Chapter 3 (clip: Brian Greene, 2)
6. B. Greene - “The Elegant Universe”, Chapter 4 (clip: Brian Greene, 3)
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7. H. Putnam (2005) “A Philosopher Looks at Quantum Mechanics (Again)” Brit. J. Phil.
Sci. 56 (2005), pp. 615–634
8. Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow (2010) “The Grand Design” (short version)
9. (2000) “Round Table Debate: Science versus Philosophy?” (The panel consisted of
David Papineau, Professor of Philosophy at King’s College London, Mary Midgley,
author and ethicist, Lewis Wolpert, Professor of Biology at University College London
and Raymond Tallis, Professor of Geriatric Medicine at Manchester University. The
Chair was Anja Steinbauer, President of Philosophy for all) + Video clips: Brooks (edge)
+ Biocomputation
10. Dark matter and energy, clips
[Powell and Dupre (2009) “From molecules to systems: the importance of looking both
ways”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 40, 54–
64]
11. Barry Smith – “Ontology”, Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and
Information, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003, pp. 155–166
12. Margaret Morrison (2006) “Emergence, Reduction, and Theoretical Principles:
Rethinking Fundamentalism”, Philosophy of Science, 73 pp. 876–887
13. Paul Teller (2004), “How We Dapple the World”, Philosophy of Science 71, pp. 425–
447
14. Matthew H. Slater (2005), “Monism on the One Hand, Pluralism on the Other”,
Philosophy of Science 72, pp. 22–42.
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