Admission requirements
Admission to this course is restricted to:
- Students enrolled in the BA Philosophy: Global and Comparative Perspectives;
- Pre-master’s students in Philosophy who are in possession of an admission statement, and for whom this course is part of their programme.
Description
The modern sciences and scholarly disciplines provide some of the most systematic, precise, and reliable forms of knowledge available to humanity. Yet they rest on both explicit and implicit assumptions that demand critical philosophical scrutiny. The philosophy of science explores the conceptual foundations, methods, and limits of scientific inquiry, and seeks to clarify what distinguishes science from other forms of understanding. In this course, students are introduced to central debates and key questions in the field: What is a scientific explanation? How are scientific theories confirmed or falsified? What is the role of observation, experimentation, and modelling in the scientific process? Can science ever achieve objective knowledge, while being shaped by social, historical, and cultural factors? Each week, we examine a central problem in contemporary philosophy of science, drawing on examples from various scientific disciplines. We also explore the significance of these debates for broader philosophical issues, such as realism, objectivity, and rationality.
Course objectives
The student who has successfully completed the course demonstrates knowledge of:
The place of philosophy of science in relation to other branches of philosophy and the empirical sciences;
Core concepts in philosophy of science, including “observation”, “theory-ladenness”, “underdetermination”, “falsification”, “paradigm”, “revolution”, “law of nature” and “empirical adequacy”;
Some modern debates in philosophy of science concerning these core concepts;
Some key positions and schools of thought in the context of these debates, including empiricism, positivism, inductivism, falsificationism, realism, and instrumentalism;
The contributions to these debates of some of the leading modern philosophers of science, including Thomas S. Kuhn and Karl R. Popper;
Some (unsolved) problems in contemporary philosophy of science, including the problem of underdetermination of theory choice by observation and problems concerning realism and instrumentalism.
The student who has successfully completed the course is able to:
Describe and discuss philosophy of science as philosophical and academic discipline;
Explain and discuss the above-mentioned core concepts in philosophy of science;
Describe the above-mentioned debates in philosophy of science;
Describe and assess the above positions and currents in the context of these debates;
Choose and motivate a personal point of view with regard to these debates;
Describe the above-mentioned problems in contemporary philosophy of science and outline and assess proposals for solving them.
Timetable
The timetables are available through MyTimetable.
Mode of instruction
- Lectures
Assessment method
Assessment
Written midterm exam (2-hours)
Written final exam (3-hours)
Weighing
Written midterm exam: 20% of the final grade
Written final exam: 80% of the final grade
The final mark for the course is established by determining the weighted average. To pass the course, the weighted average of the partial grades must be 5.5 or higher.
Resit
The resit is a written exam. The grade for this resit replaces all previously obtained partial grades and counts for 100% of the final grade.
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
Literature will be made available via Brightspace.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Huizinga
Remarks
Not applicable.