Fall 2008
Philosophy of Mind
An overview of the recent history of philosophy of mind, focusing on the relationship between the mind and the physical world. The course structure and syllabus will be similar, though not identical, to the last time around.
Inference to the Best Explanation and Scientific Realism (Graduate Seminar)
In recent years the dispute between scientific realists and antirealists has reached something of an impasse. On one hand there have been a number of attempts to dissolve the dispute, while on the other hand there have been an increasing number of attempts to provoke a shift from global disputes concerning science as a whole to local disputes concerning particular scientific theories. This seminar will trace one important strand through these trends—the dispute over the rôle of inference to the best explanation. The first part of the course will be an examination of explanatory considerations in theory assessment, and the second part of the course will be an application of these considerations to the dispute between scientific realism and antirealism. The main textbook will be Peter Lipton, Inference to the Best Explanation, 2nd Edition, Routledge, London, 2004.
Philosophy of Biology (Reading Course)
An introductory reading course on philosophy of biology, run in collaboration with Richard E. Glor from the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology division of the Department of Biology. The main textbook will be:
Sterelny, Kim, and Paul E. Griffiths. 1999. Sex and Death: An Introduction to Philosophy of Biology, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
We will also be reading journal papers on issues that take our collective fancy. Graduate and undergraduate students are both welcome—email me for more information and permission to participate.
Spring 2008
Philosophy of Science »
A survey course in general philosophy of science.
Reason and Science »
Issues at the intersection of science and religion, and science and public policy. Including a special guest lecture from H. Allen Orr.
Conditionals and Counterfactuals (Graduate Reading Course)
A reading course on conditionals and counterfactuals, focussing on counterfactuals and the temporal asymmetry of counterfactual dependence.
Fall 2007
Philosophy of Mind »
An overview of the recent history of philosophy of mind, focusing on the relationship between the mind and the physical world. Including a special guest lecture from Jaegwon Kim.
Scientific Explanation (Graduate Seminar) »
A survey of accounts of scientific explanation from the logical positivists to the present, focussing on three interrelated themes:
- The role of laws in explanation;
- Explanation in the special sciences;
- Explanatory asymmetries.
