PHIL 417 – Syllabus Draft – Fall 2023

Schedule | Grades and Assignments

Course Description

An exploration of historical and philosophical perspectives on the theories, methods, practices, and institutions of the sciences, including the natural and social sciences, mathematics, medicine, and engineering. Topics may include the nature of the scientific process and scientific method, the origins and historical development of the sciences, theory change, experiments, models, objectivity, scientific realism, and the role of values in science.

This course has no Pre-/Co-requisites.

Required Student Resources

• Nancy Cartwright, A Philosopher Looks at Science

Recommended Resources

We will read several excerpts from

• Paul Feyerabend, Against Method

You may wish to purchase a print copy.

You may also want to consult one or more major textbooks on the history and philosophy of science:

• Godfrey-Smith, Theory and Reality – preferably the 2nd edition
• Barker & Kitcher, Philosophy of Science: A New Introduction
• Bortolotti, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science
• Staley, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science
• Okasha, Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction
• DeWitt, Worldviews: An Introduction to the History and Philosophy of Science

All of these are pretty good and have different virtues and vices.

Course Learning Objectives

1. Students will demonstrate knowledge of the key works, historical methods, and the philosophical frameworks and debates that constitute integrated history and philosophy of science (HPS).
2. Students will demonstrate critical thinking about the nature and social role of the sciences.
3. Students will demonstrate close reading skills through engaging key texts in HPS.
4. Students will demonstrate effective written and oral communication skills in articulating philosophical arguments and historical interpretations.
5. Students will develop skills of collaboration and communication with peers in pursuit of research and analysis.
6. Students will apply their knowledge of HPS to relevant contemporary issues.

Course Schedule by Week

1. Introduction; What is HPS? (8/22)
2. Myths about Science (8/29)
   • Medawar, “Is the scientific paper a fraud?”;
     Cartwright, A Philosopher Looks at Science Introduction;
     Latour, Science in Action, Part 1.
3. Theory and Evidence (9/5)
   • Cartwright, APLaS Ch 1
4. Kuhn on Scientific Paradigms and Revolutions (9/12)
   • Kuhn, “The Function of Dogma in Scientific Research”;
     Kuhn, “The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions”;
     Godfrey-Smith, “Kuhn’s Revolution”
5. TBD (9/19)
6. Feyerabend, Galileo, and the Scientific Method (9/26)
   • Feyerabend, Against Method Introduction, Ch 1-4; Ch 5-7
7. Feyerabend, Galileo, the Case Against Method, and Incommensurability (10/3)
   • Feyerabend, Against Method Ch 8-11; Ch 13-15, Appendix 1
8. Lakatos on Mathematical Knowledge (10/10)
   • Lakatos, “Proofs and Refutations part I” (recommended: Part II, Part III, Part IV)
9. Physicalism, Reductionism, Determinism and Laws (10/17)
   • Cartwright, APLaS Ch 2-3
10. Scientific Realism and Anti-Realism (10/24)
    • Godfrey-Smith, “Scientific Realism”; Laudan, “A Confutation of Convergent Realism”; Hacking, “Experiments and Scientific Realism”
11. Values in Science I: Inference & Risk (10/31)
    • Cartwright, APLaS Parting Thoughts;
      Okruhlik, “Gender and the Biological Sciences”;
      Douglas, “Inductive Risk and Values in Science”;
      Gould, “Morton’s Ranking of Races by Cranial Capacity”
12. Values and Disease Screening (11/7)
    • Kourany & Fernández-Pinto, “A Role for Science in Public Policy? The Obstacles, Illustrated by the Case of Breast Cancer Screening Policy”; Plutynski, “Safe or Sorry? Cancer Screening and Inductive Risk”
13. Evidence in Medicine (11/14)
    • Solomon, “Evidence-Based Medicine in Epistemological Context”; Stegenga, “Drug Regulation and the Inductive Risk Calculus”; Bluhm, “Inductive Risk and the Role of Values in Clinical Trials”
14. Thanksgiving Break (11/21)
15. Values in Science II: Concepts & Claims (11/28)
    • Dupre, “Fact and Value”; Alexandrova, “Can the Science of Well-Being Be Objective”; Andreasen, “The Concept of Race in Medicine”
16. Public Trust in Science (12/5)
    • Goldenberg, “Public Misunderstanding of Science?”; Contessa, “It Takes a Village to Trust Science”
17. Final Papers Due (12/14 on D2L)

Requirements and Grades

Graded Assignments

1. In-class Participation
2. Book or Journal Review
3. Term Paper

Assignment Descriptions

Participation

Participating will consist of regular, high-quality contributions to class discussion, respectful responses to other students’ contributions, and collaboration in other in-class activities.

Your most important type of in-class participation will be based your reading of the assigned texts for the day. To prepare to participate in our in-class discussions, you should make sure not only to read the texts, but to read actively, including doing the following: (1) marking passages that you find valuable, and making notes to yourself about why you find it valuable; (2) marking passages that you find confusing or questionable, doing some further work to try to resolve the confusion or questions, and making notes about where you end up; (3) looking back through the text after first read, assessing the ideas, arguments, and evidence presented in the text for strengths and weaknesses; (4) writing down some questions about general or specific points in the text that might lead to deeper understanding; (5) noting connections with other texts, ideas, and examples known from class or elsewhere.

Book / Journal Reviews

A 2-3 page review of a work of scholarship in HPS, either an important book or a recent journal article, and a 10-15 minute class presentation on the same. You must pick either a book from a provided list or a paper from the most recent issue (or the issue just before that) of one of the journals on a list of major science studies journals. You should (1) summarize the argument of the work; (2) describe the type of research done to produce the work, its methodology or approach; (3) engage with it by presenting a supporting argument, raising an objection, or posing a serious and specific interpretive difficulty with it.

You must have your book or article approved by the instructor ahead of time, and you must make an appointment to discuss your presentation outline the week before your presentation.

Term Paper

This is a work of original research in the history or philosophy of science. Examples of paper topics might include a philosophical argument concerning scientific realism, a case study of values influencing science relying on published sources, or an archival study of some episode in the history of science.

Paper specifications

Your paper should do all of the following:

• Must contain a clear, easily identifiable, declarative thesis.
  • Not “In this paper I will explore…”
  • Rather: “In this paper I will argue that…”
• The points discussed should be specific and textually supported, engaged with both the primary texts and the secondary literature on the topic.
• Deeper discussions are generally preferable to broad overviews.
• You should consider and respond to alternative interpretations and objections to your argument.
• Must consistently follow a major manual of style (MLA, Chicago, APA, etc.) for grammar, citations, and bibliography.
• Paper must have a descriptive title.
• 3000-5000 words, all inclusive.

Course and Instructor Policies

Class Meeting expectations

You are expected to have read the assignments before class, and it would be to your benefit to also read them again after class. You are expected to have the readings for each day’s class open to refer to during discussion. You are expected to listen respectfully to the professor and your fellow students, and participate in class discussions and activities.

Late Work, Make-Up, and Completion

It is important to stay on track with the class schedule, or else you will fall behind and not be able to complete the work to a satisfactory standard. However, life happens, and I am a reasonable person. Reasonable extensions will be given upon request, for any reason, as long as you ask before the deadline.

Cheating and Plagiarism

Don’t do it! If you incorporate any work that is not your own into any project that you do, and you do not cite the source properly, this counts as plagiarism. This includes someone doing the work for you, taking work done by another student, verbatim copying of published sources, paraphrasing published work without citation, paraphrasing in an inappropriate way even with citation, and text produced by a GPT-style/LLM algorithm. Re-using work that you created for another course or for prior publication also counts as plagiarism in most contexts. Unless group work is explicitly permitted or required, it is expected that all of the work that you turn in is original and your own, and that any sources that you make use of are correctly cited.

GPT, LLMs, “AI”

Large Language Model algorithms (primarily GPT and its derivatives), though referred to as “artificial intelligence,” are far from intelligent; they are powerful bullshit engines designed to produce generally inoffensive mediocrity. Not only does using such text in place of your own work a form of plagiarism, the output is more or less guaranteed to get you a bad grade even if I believe it to be your own work.

In any case, writing and thinking for yourself is the way to get the most out of this class; the person hurt most by relying on LLMs or engaging in plagiarism is you.

Syllabus Attachment