PHIL 450.001 – Philosophy of Natural Sciences

Instructor: John T. Roberts. This course meets M 3:00 – 5:30 p.m. in CW 213.

This course will be a graduate-level survey of central topics in contemporary philosophy of natural science.  I will not presuppose any particular scientific background on the part of the students, but I will assume that the students have a strong general background in analytic philosophy.

We will cover roughly one journal article per week.  Roughly half of the readings will be on the topic of how evidence is related to scientific theories, and roughly half will be on the topic of scientific explanation (broadly construed).

Students enrolled for credit will be expected to write three short papers and give one class presentation.

PHIL graduate students: Please refer to our Handbook (page 6, #9) for information regarding distribution requirements.

Permission of the instructor is required to enroll in this course. PHIL grad students are exempt from this enrollment requirement.