| Course: | LPS/Phil 140 |
| Name: | Scientific Inquiry |
| Description: | Summary:
Contemporary scientific inquiry is widely regarded as the most
successful knowledge-gathering enterprise ever developed in the course
of human history. This course will explore the nature and
character of that enterprise in an effort to uncover the features that
make a given investigation a distinctively scientific one, and ask
whether and how those features transform scientific inquiry into a
uniquely powerful tool for gaining knowledge about the world. We
will then turn our attention to the theories about various domains of
nature that are the most striking products of this enterprise. We
will explore both historical and philosophical challenges to the
widespread view that we should simply accept such theories as
straightforward descriptions of how things stand in otherwise
inaccessible domains of nature, as well as the most important responses
that have been offered to such challenges by contemporary philosophers
of science. Texts: Hempel, C.G. (1966) Philosophy of Natural Science. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall); Klee, Robert (ed.) (1999) Scientific Inquiry: Readings in the Philosophy of Science. (New York: Oxford University Press); Stanford, P. Kyle (2006) Exceeding Our Grasp: Science, History, and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives (New York: Oxford University Press), and selected items on Reserve at the Main Library Reserves (R). Requirements: One Midterm and one Final exam (both in-class, closed-book and closed-note) plus a term paper of approximately 2,000 words. Each will count for a little less than 1/3 of your final grade, with participation in class and section deciding the remainder and improving final grades beyond this in exceptional cases. |