Course for international guest/part time students
- Faculty
- Faculty of Humanities
- Organization
- BTK Institute of Philosophy
- Code
- BMI-LOTD17-207E.01
- Title
- Basic problems of metaphysics: Philosophy of science seminar
- Usual semester
- Autumn
- Published semester
- 2026/27/1
- ECTS
- 3
- Language
- en
- Learning outcomes
- The aim of the course is to review and discuss some of the central issues in the philosophy of science through a selection of classic and contemporary texts.
- Course content
- M. Schlick: Positivism and Realism, in The Philosophy of Science, R. Boyd et al. (eds.) The MIT Press, Boston 1992. Hilary Putnam, Brains in a vat, http://ieas.unideb.hu/admin/file_2908.pdf W. V. O. Quine: Two Dogmas of Empiricism, Philosophical Review 60 (1951) 20–43. L. E. Szabó: Meaning, Truth, and Physics, In G. Hofer-Szabó, L. Wroński (eds.), Making it Formally Explicit, European Studies in Philosophy of Science 6. (Springer International Publishing, 2017) DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-55486-0_9. (Preprint: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/12891/) L. Carroll: "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles", http://www.ditext.com/carroll/tortoise.html Selection from Plato's Meno. "The Dialogues of Plato, Volume 1: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Gorgias, Menexenus", section "A Proof of Recollection" (pp. 164-171) M. Colyvan: Indispensability Arguments in the Philosophy of Mathematics, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2004 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Arthur Fine: The Natural Ontological Attitude, in The Philosophy of Science, R. Boyd et al. (eds.) The MIT Press, Boston 1992. W. V. O. Quine: Epistemology Naturalized, in: Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, Columbia University Press, New York. Bruce MacLennan, "Synthetic Ethology - An Approach to the Study of Communication". In Artificial Life II: The Second Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, proceedings Vol. X, edited by Christopher G. Langton, Charles Taylor, J. Doyne Farmer, and Steen Rasmussen. Redwood City, CA: Addison-Wesley, 1992, pp. 631-658. T. Kuhn: Scientific Revolutions, in The Philosophy of Science, R. Boyd et al. (eds.) The MIT Press, Boston 1992. Barnes, B. and Bloor, D., (1982) "Relativism, Rationalism, and the Sociology of Knowledge" from Hollis, M. and Lukes, S., Rationality and relativism pp.21-47, Oxford: Basil Blackwell Adolf Grunbaum: The Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique. 1984, Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Assessment method
- Preparing from readings + a 45-minute seminar talk + active participation in discussions
- Bibliography
- M. Schlick: Positivism and Realism, in The Philosophy of Science, R. Boyd et al. (eds.) The MIT Press, Boston 1992. Hilary Putnam, Brains in a vat, http://ieas.unideb.hu/admin/file_2908.pdf W. V. O. Quine: Two Dogmas of Empiricism, Philosophical Review 60 (1951) 20–43. L. E. Szabó: Meaning, Truth, and Physics, In G. Hofer-Szabó, L. Wroński (eds.), Making it Formally Explicit, European Studies in Philosophy of Science 6. (Springer International Publishing, 2017) DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-55486-0_9. (Preprint: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/12891/) L. Carroll: "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles", http://www.ditext.com/carroll/tortoise.html Selection from Plato's Meno. "The Dialogues of Plato, Volume 1: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Gorgias, Menexenus", section "A Proof of Recollection" (pp. 164-171) M. Colyvan: Indispensability Arguments in the Philosophy of Mathematics, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2004 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Arthur Fine: The Natural Ontological Attitude, in The Philosophy of Science, R. Boyd et al. (eds.) The MIT Press, Boston 1992. W. V. O. Quine: Epistemology Naturalized, in: Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, Columbia University Press, New York. Bruce MacLennan, "Synthetic Ethology - An Approach to the Study of Communication". In Artificial Life II: The Second Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, proceedings Vol. X, edited by Christopher G. Langton, Charles Taylor, J. Doyne Farmer, and Steen Rasmussen. Redwood City, CA: Addison-Wesley, 1992, pp. 631-658. T. Kuhn: Scientific Revolutions, in The Philosophy of Science, R. Boyd et al. (eds.) The MIT Press, Boston 1992. Barnes, B. and Bloor, D., (1982) "Relativism, Rationalism, and the Sociology of Knowledge" from Hollis, M. and Lukes, S., Rationality and relativism pp.21-47, Oxford: Basil Blackwell Adolf Grunbaum: The Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique. 1984, Berkeley: University of California Press.