PH 213 - Philosophy of Science

4.00 credits.

Fundamental issues in the philosophy of science, such as the nature of scientific laws and explanation, the problem of induction, realism and anti-realism, and scientific progress will be treated. We will concern ourselves with questions such as: What claims are we justified in making within science? Do our best scientific theories give us a literally true account of the whole universe or an approximately true account? Are the entities studied by science really “out there in the world,” or are they merely convenient fictions?