27984 - Philosophy of Science (LM)

Learning outcomes

Philosophy of science analyzes scientific knowledge, its aims and conceptual foundations. Main topics of concern for philosophers of science are: the nature, use and role of scientific laws and theories, the structure of explanation, prediction and various forms of scientific inference in the costruction of scientific knowledge. The course gets the student familiar with the most vividly debated issues in contemporary philosophy of science, on the basis of the msot recent literature.

Course contents

The course will deal with contemporary conceptions of scientific explanation and forms of pluralism (theoretical, explanatory, causal). The course will present and discuss the conceptions of scientific explanation put forward in philosophy of science (1948-nowadays) - nomological explanation, functional explanation, unificatory explanation, the pragmatics of explanation, mechanistic causal explanation, interventionist explanation, computational explanation. The analysis of these positions - which will largely refer to the empirical sciences - will lead the students to address also: the relations between description, explanation and prediction; the notions of empirical generalization, scientific law, invariance; different approaches to causation. The last part of the course will tackle a variety of pluralist views (e.g. integrative, interactive, isolationist, ...), their assumptions and implications.

The course will start on September 23rd and will take place on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, 11-13, Aula E, via Zamboni 34

Readings/Bibliography

R. Campaner and M.C. Galavotti, La spiegazione scientifica: modelli e problemi, Archetipolibri-CLUEB, 2012

R. Campaner, ed., La causalità tra filosofia e scienza, Archetipolibri, second edition 2012 (without chs. 15 - 16).

Some materials on computational explanation and forms of pluralism will be provided (uploaded) at the beginning of the course.

Suggested readings:

S. Psillos, Causation and Explanation, Acumen, 2002.

W.C. Salmon, Four Decades of Scientific Explanation, 1989.

As an introduction to philosophy of science:

J. Ladyman, Understanding Philosophy of Science, Routledge, 2002

Further suggested readings on pluralism:

Kellert, S.H., Longino, H. and Waters, K., (eds) Scientific Pluralism, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, XIX, University of Minnesota Press, 2006

Teaching methods

The course will consist in a series of lectures, plus large discussions of the contents presented in the course. The active partecipation to the discussion will be strongly encouraged. Students will be encouraged also to deliver short presentations and research works on the issues addressed in the course.

Assessment methods

The examination is an oral test on the topics addressed in the course. The test aims to assess the attainment of the expected learning outcomes, evaluating whether the student has a deep knowledge of the contemporary debate on scientific explanation and related topics, and whether s/he masters the core notions that are required for discussing the main issues.

The student’s capacity of dealing with the vocabulary, the basic notions and the technical terms introduced in the course will be evaluated.

The attainment of a comprehensive and detailed perspective, the acquisition of in-depth knowledge of the relevant texts, an ability to make critical use of the arguments that have been introduced in the course, clear presentation and an appropriate use of technical language will result in excellent grades. The attainment of adequate knowledge of the contents without an autonomous capacity of critical elaboration and a generally correct but not totally flawless use of technical language will result in good grades. The attainment of limited knowledge and/or rote learning of the contents, absence of synthetic and/or analytic capacities and correct use of non-technical language only will result in lower grades. The attainment of very limited and superficial knowledge of the contents and/or inaccurate use of language will allow only the minimum pass grade. Poor knowledge of the contents, seriously inaccurate use of language and a lack of familiarity with the literature discussed in the course will lead to the failure of the examination.

Teaching tools

Power point slides will be used during lectures.

Further materials (papers, slides) will be uploaded in the course website.

Office hours

See the website of Raffaella Campaner