Download Alan Richardson Buchanan E278 Philosophy

Alan Richardson
Buchanan E278
[email protected]
Philosophy 360/History 393: Introduction to History and Philosophy of Science
MWF 1-2 pm
IBLC 155
Many things, according to the course catalog at UBC, have philosophies—mind,
language, religion, art, and so on. But only science and particular sciences
(economics, biology) have histories-and-philosophies. This is surely not because,
for example, religion or art (and so on) have no history. Rather, it is suggestive of
the idea that what is philosophically important about science is revealed in or
through its history and that this is not true (or is less true) regarding art , religion,
language, mind, and the other fields. It is in the history of science where we see the
march of rational progress—the elimination of error, bias, superstition and the rise
of evidence and factuality—and this is the philosophical significance of science.
An intellectual field of endeavor called “history and philosophy of science”
became one of the central fields of study in the academy of the 1960s and 1970s.
This course looks that the development of the field and takes Thomas S. Kuhn’s The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions as its focus. We will look at traditions of
philosophy, history, and sociology of science before Kuhn, Kuhn’s own work and the
way it was taken to have reconfigured the important questions to ask in history and
philosophy (and sociology and rhetoric and cultural studies etc.) of science. We will
end with a study of a particularly important concept for understanding science—the
concept of objectivity—and look at how accounts of objectivity developed by
philosophers, historians, sociologists, etc. of science illuminate current issues in the
trust in or distrust of science in our society (such as public debates about climate
change or public concerns regarding privatized medical research).
Course Texts
The following books are required and should be available at the UBC Bookstore:
Max Weber, The Vocation Lectures (Hackett, 2004)
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (University of Chicago, 2012)
Other course readings will be available on UBC Connect.
Assessments
Attendance and Participation (10%): Regular attendance is expected; all attending are
expected to have read the material for that day and prepared to discuss it.
Short Writing Assignments (3 @ 20% each = 60%): Two are take-home essays of no
more than 1000 words on topics distributed in class; they are due on 5 October and 2
November. One will be an in-class essay on 20 November.
Final Examination: (30%): Date and time to be announced.
Course Calendar
Week One: Science, Progress, Modernity
John Dewey, “Unity of Science as a Social Problem” (1938)
Steven Shapin, “Science and the Modern World” (2003)
André Picard, “The Science is Clear: Anti-Vaxxers are Immune to the Truth” (2015)
Week Two: Weber and the Value of the Value-Freedom of Science
Max Weber, “Science as Vocation,” selections from “Politics as Vocation” (1919)
Week Three: History and Sociology of Science: The Great Traditions
George Sarton, “A New Humanism” (1924)
Robert Merton, “ Science and the Social Order” (1938)
Week Four: Sociology of Knowledge, For and Against
Karl Mannheim, “The Sociology of Knowledge” from Ideology and Utopia (1936)
Karl Popper, “The Sociology of Knowledge” from The Open Society and Its Enemies
(1945)
Week Five: Philosophy and Science: Modernity in Question
Martin Heidegger, “What is Metaphysics?” (1927)
Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap, and Hans Hahn, “Scientific World Conception: The Vienna
Circle” (1929)
Week Six: Limits to Articulation: Conservative Theories of Science and Knowledge
James B, Conant, “Science and the American Citizen” from Science and Common Sense
(1951)
Michael Polanyi, “The Logic of Affirmation,” from Personal Knowledge (1958)
David Bloor, “”Wittgenstein as a Conservative Thinker” (2000)
Weeks Seven and Eight: World Changes, Kuhn’s Structure
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Week Nine: Rationality, Dogmatism, Anarchy: Philosophers Respond to Kuhn
Karl Popper, “The Rationality of Scientific Revolutions” (1975)
Imre Lakatos, “History of Science and Its Rational Reconstructions” (1970)
Paul Feyerabend, “Consolations for the Specialist” (1970)
Week Ten: Sociology of Scientific Knowledge after Kuhn
Barry Barnes and R.G.A. Dolby, “Scientific Ethos: A Deviant Point of View” (1970)
Steven Shapin, “History of Science and Its Sociological Reconstructions” (1982)
Week: Eleven: Critical and Post-Structural Theory: Criticism of Science
Max Horkheimer, “The Social Function of Philosophy” (1939)
Herbert Marcuse, “From Negative to Positive Thinking: Technological Rationality and
the Logic of Domination” from One-Dimensional Man (1964)
Michel Foucault, “The Human Sciences” from The Order of Things (1970)
Week Twelve: Rejecting/Rethinking Objectivity
Lorraine Daston, “Objectivity and the Escape from Perspective” (1992)
Richard Rorty, “Objectivity or Solidarity?” and “Science as Solidarity” from Objectivity,
Relativism, and Truth (1991)
Sandra Harding, “Objectivity for Sciences from Below” (2015)
Week Thirteen: Objectivity, Value, Virtue, Hope
Ian Hacking, “Michal Foucault’s Immature Science” (1979)
Sheila Jasanoff, “Technologies of Humility” (2003)
Heather Douglas, “Rejecting the Ideal of Value-Free Science” (2007)