Philosophy of Science (PHIL 750)

In this seminar we will examine literature from the past decade or so on scientific realism and its competitors, especially constructive empiricism. We will start off with a fast review of the history of the topic in the preceding century, using Stathis Psillos’s book Scientific Realism as our main text. We will then turn to the literature of the preceding decade, including Bas van Fraassen’s recent book Scientific Representation and articles by John Worrall, Kyle Stanford, James Ladyman, Marc Alspector-Kelly and others.

John Roberts’s webpage