PHIL 265 (online)

PHIL 265: Philosophy of Science
Instructor: Luke McNulty

Course Description

COVID-19 has been a stark reminder of our profound reliance upon the experts, practices, and institutions of natural science. We look to science for our beliefs about the world around us, for guidance in matters of life and death, and for the technologies we depend upon in our everyday practical affairs. But what is this enterprise in which we so deeply trust? And to what extent is that trust philosophically defensible?

This course will survey some of the main questions that have occupied philosophers of science in the 20th century. What distinguishes science from pseudo-sciences like astrology? When is a scientific hypothesis confirmed or falsified? What is a distinctly scientific explanation? Are our best theories true, or might they be ‘useful fictions’? To what extent can general laws and predictions be justified on the basis of past observations? Is scientific progress rational, or even possible? Can science be impartial and neutral about values (political, moral, and religious, for example)? How might politics corrupt the healthy functioning of science, and how might politics itself correct for that corruption? Despite our deference to natural science, few of us have answers to these fundamental questions. Even more strikingly, the answers are more elusive than we might expect.

Course Format