Logic and philosophy of science i

Notes from Logic and philosophy of science i classes.

Course introduction #

Introduction to Logic and Philosophy of Science I

The Scientific method #

1. Aristotelian logic
2. Francis Bacon
3. Hume in Logic and Philosophy of Science I
4. Bertrand Russel
5. Pragmatic Justification (Hans Reichenbach)
6. Logical Positivism
   • Alfred Jules Ayer
7. Peter Frederick Strawson
8. Karl Popper
9. Post-Popperian interpretations
   1. Logical objections to Popper
   2. Historical objections to Popper
      1. Imre Lakatos
      2. Thomas Kuhn
   3. Methodological objections to Popper
      1. Paul Feyerabend

The scientific explanation #

1. Introduction to Scientific explanation +++
2. Carl Hempel (The Deductive-nomological model)
3. Nancy Cartwright
4. Truth of scientific laws
5. Testing the hypotheses

Natural kinds #

• A premise on Modal Logic
• Natural kinds

Social kinds #

Exam #

• 3 questions in 2h
• average answer is between 500-800 words

Answering the questions #

• questions will be actual questions, not descriptive, specific
• planning the answers
• decide whether what’s valuable to include or not, add enough content and background knowledge to make the argument valuable
• the answer has to be structured and it must follow a path, consequential steps of reasoning
• personal opinions are welcome if argumented

Evaluation criteria #

• understanding
• argument
• organization
• clarity

Examples #

Does inventing hypotheses rely on logic in science?

Is Popper’s logical criterion of falsification a convincing response to Hume’s problem of induction?