Philosophy
of Science
lecture course
Fri 14:00-15:30,
Room 224
Language: English
Codes:
BMI-FILD-391
BBN-FIL-315.01
BBN-FIL-401.09
BMA-FILD-401.14
BMVD-020.04
BBV-020.24
BMI-LOTD17-205E
BMA-LOTD17-205.1
Those who take this as a joint
lecture+seminar course please take it
with code BBN-FIL-315.
You also need to take the corresponding
seminar course of code BBN-FIL-316
(not necessarily in the same semester).
The course provides an introduction to modern
analytic philosophy of science. I shall focus on
the central epistemological problems concerning
empirical sciences like physics; and I shall
discuss these issues on a formal/logical basis.
Finally I sketch a naturalized philosophy of
science based on what I call physico-formalist
philosophy of mathematics -- an account for
scientific knowledge, both a priori and
empirical, within a purely physicalist
ontology.
Main topics:
- characterization of scientific knowledge
- science in social context
- traditional methodology of empirical
science
- skepticism concerning empirical knowledge
- truth of fact vs. truth of reasoning
dichotomy
- the Kantian tradition
- philosophy of logic and mathematics
- scientific theory as partially
interpreted formal system
- semantics of scientific theory
- the physicalist approach
- meaning and truth
- holistic conclusions
- operationalism and the constitutive a
priori
- fundationalism
- empirical underdetermination
- theory-ladenness of empiria
- empirical—theoretical dichotomy
- the problem of realism--antirelalism
- scientific knowledge in the context of
the natural world
Grading criteria, specific requirements:
Oral exam from the material
of the lectures. Video records and the slides of the
lectures will be available. PhD
students, in addition, have to write a 5-10 page
critical essay (in English) in connection with
the main theses I am proposing in the lecture
course.
Required reading:
- Alexander
Bird: Philosophy
Of Science
(Fundamentals of Philosophy), Routledge,
1998.
- L.
E. Szabó: Meaning, Truth, and Physics,
In G. Hofer-Szabó, L. Wroński
(eds.), Making
it Formally Explicit,
European Studies in Philosophy of
Science 6. (Springer International
Publishing, 2017) DOI
10.1007/978-3-319-55486-0_9. (Preprint:
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/14769/)
Suggested further reading:
- David A. Truncellito: Epistemology,
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://www.iep.utm.edu/epistemo/
- Thomas Uebel: Vienna Circle, The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Spring 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/vienna-circle/)
- John Vickers: The Problem of Induction, The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Spring 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/)
- Robert Sinclair: Quine’s Philosophy of
Science, Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (http://www.iep.utm.edu/quine-sc)
- L. E. Szabó: Mathematical facts in a
physicalist ontology, Parallel
Processing Letters, 22 (2012)
1240009 (12 pages), DOI:
10.1142/S0129626412400099 [preprint]
- L. E. Szabó: Formal Systems as Physical
Objects: A Physicalist Account of
Mathematical Truth, International
Studies in the Philosophy of Science,
17 (2003) pp. 117 – 125 (preprint: PDF)
- L. E. Szabó: Intrinsic, extrinsic, and the
constitutive a priori, Foundations of
Physics 50, 555–567
(2020). DOI:
10.1007/s10701-019-00281-z (Open
Access: https://rdcu.be/bKxdO)
- T. Kuhn: Scientific Revolutions, in The
Philosophy of Science, R. Boyd et al.
(eds.), MIT Press 1991, pp. 139-157.
- L. E. Szabó: Physicalism without the idols
of mathematics, Foundations of Science
(2023),
DOI: 10.1007/s10699-023-09920-1
[View and download PDF
]
2024-09-14 |
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Records and slides
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Hempel
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Schlick
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Hilbert
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Fine
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Ayer
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Grünbaum
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Gödel
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Russell
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Bell
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Salmon
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Carnap
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Kant
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Kuhn
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Lakatos
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Cartwright
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Lewis
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Hume
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Reichenbach
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Einstein
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Friedman
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Poincaré
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Van Fraassen
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Hahn
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Mach
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Putnam
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Quine
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Popper
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Earman
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