Reading List for Area Competency Exam:
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
(Readings marked with an asterisk are recommendations only and may be replaced by other papers after consultation with the examiners.)
General Philosophy of Science and Historical Background – 440 pp.
Michael Friedman, ―Kant, Kuhn, and the Rationality of Science‖, Philosophy of Science, 69 (2002) pp. 171–190
Ian Hacking, Representing and Intervening, Cambridge University Press 1983, 302pp.
John Losee, A Historical Introduction to Philosophy of Science, Oxford University Press 2001, Chapters 6-7 & 9-12, pp. 39-71 & 86-176.
Induction and Confirmation – 190 pp.
Carl Hempel, ―Studies in the Logic of Confirmation‖ in Carl G. Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation and other Essays in the Philosophy of Science, New York: The Free Press 1965, pp. 3-51
Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast, 4th ed., Harvard University Press 1983, Chapters 2-3, pp. 31-83.
Karl Popper, ―Conjectural Knowledge: My Solution of the Problem of Induction‖ in Karl Popper, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, Oxford University Press 1972, Chapter 1, pp. 1-31.
Colin Howson and Peter Urbach, Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach, 1st ed., Open Court 1993, Chapters 1-2 & 7; pp. 1-35, 115-165.
*John D. Norton, ―A little survey of induction‖, in Peter Achinstein (ed.), Scientific Evidence: Philosophical Theories and Applications, Johns Hopkins University Press 2007, pp. 9-34
Explanation, Causation, and Law – ca. 270 pp.
Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, ―Studies in the Logic of Explanation‖ Philosophy of Science 15 (1948) pp. 135-175.
Carl Hempel, ―Aspects of Scientific Explanation‖ in Carl Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation and other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. New York: Free Press 1965, pp. 376-386.
Wesley Salmon, Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World, Princeton University Press 1984, Chapters 2 & 5-6. Nancy Cartwright, ―The Truth Doesn’t Explain Much‖, American Philosophical Quarterly 17 (1980), pp. 159-163.
Philip Kitcher, ―Explanatory Unification‖, Philosophy of Science 48 (1981) pp. 507- 531.
Bas van Fraassen, ―The Pragmatics of Explanation‖ from Bas van Fraassen, The Scientific Image, Oxford University Press 1980, Chapter 5, pp. 97-157.
Peter Lipton, ―Contrastive Explanation‖, in Dudley Knowles (ed.), Explanation and Its Limits, Cambridge University Press 1991, pp. 247-265.
*Barry Loewer, ―Why is There Anything Except Physics‖, Synthese.
Theories, Models, and Data – 190 pp.
Rudolf Carnap, ―The Nature of Theories‖ (1966) in D. Kiemke, Robert Hollinger, and A. David Kline (eds.), Introductory Readings in the Philosophy of Science, Revised Edition, Prometheus Books 1998, pp. 162-177.
*Richard Levins, ―The Strategy of Model Building in Population Biology‖, American Scientist 54 (1966) pp. 421—431.
Frederick Suppe, ―What’s Wrong with the Received View of the Structure of Scientific Theories‖, Philosophy of Science 39 (1972), pp. 1-19.
Bas van Fraassen, ―To Save the Phenomena‖ from Bas van Frasssen, The Scientific Image, Oxford University Press 1980, Chapter 3, pp. 41-69.
James Bogen and James Woodward, ―Saving the Phenomena‖, The Philosophical Review 97 (1988), pp. 303-352.
Margaret Morrison and Mary S. Morgan, ―Models as Mediating Instruments‖, in Morrison/Morgan (eds.), Models as Mediators, Cambridge University Press 1999, pp. 10-37.
*Robin F. Hendry and Stathis Psillos, ―How To Do Things With Theories: An Interactive View of Language and Models in Science‖, in J. Brzeziñski, A. Klawiter, T.A.F. Kuipers, K. Lastowski, K. Paprzycka, P. Przybysz (eds.), The Courage of Doing Philosophy: Essays Dedicated to Leszek Nowak. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi, 2007, pp. 59-115.
Scientific Realism – 220 pp.
Bas van Fraassen, The Scientific Image, Oxford University Press 1980, Chapters 1, 2 & 3, pp. 1-69.
Ian Hacking, ―Experimentation and Scientific Realism‖, Chapter 16 of Representing and Intervening, Cambridge University Press 1983, pp. 262-275.
Ernan McMullin, ―A Case for Scientific Realism‖, in J. Leplin (ed.), Scientific Realism, University of California Press 1984, pp. 8-40.
Larry Laudan, ―A Confutation of Convergent Realism‖, Philosophy of Science 48 (1981) pp. 19-48.
Alan Musgrave, ―Realism Versus Constructive Empiricism‖, in Paul M. Churchland & Clifford A. Hooker (eds.), Images of Science: Essays on Realism and Empiricism, Chicago University Press 1985, pp. 197-221
Alison Wylie, ―Arguments for Scientific Realism: The Ascending Spiral,‖ American Philosophical Quarterly 23 (1986): 287-297
*James Ladyman, ―What is Structural Realism?‖, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 29 (1998) pp. 409-424
*Anjan Chakravartty, ―Semirealism‖, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 29 (1998) pp. 391-408.
*P. Kyle Stanford, ―An Anti-Realist Explanation of the Success of Science‖, Philosophy of Science 67 (2000) pp. 266-284.
Theory Change and Scientific Rationality – 320 pp.
Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chapters 9 & 10, pp. 92- 135.
Imre Lakatos, ―Falsification and The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes‖, in Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, Cambridge University Press 1970, pp. 91-196.
Dudley Shapere, ―Meaning and Scientific Change‖, in Ian Hacking (ed.), Scientific Revolutions, Oxford University Press 1981, pp. 28-59
*Howard Sankey, ―Kuhn’s Changing Concept of Incommensurability‖, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (1993), pp. 759-774.
Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions: Thomas S. Kuhn’s Philosophy of Science, University of Chicago Press 1993, Chapters 4-6, pp. 131-222.
Paul Feyerabend, ―How to Be a Good Empiricist: A Plea for Tolerance in Matters Epistemological‖, in Paul K. Feyerabend, Knowledge, Science, and Relativism (Philosophical Papers Vol. 3), Cambridge University Press 1999, pp. 78-103.
*Benoît Godin and Yves Gingras, ―The Experimenters’ Regress: From Skepticism to Argumentation‖, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 33 (2002), pp. 133- 148.