Fall 2003 Graduate Courses

HPS 500
HPS Colloquium 4:15-5:30 T (Howard)
1 Cr. Hr.
Graduate Students Only

Group Discussion by the HPS faculty and students of a prominent recent work in the field of HPS and research presentations by visiting scholars. Required course for HPS students in first and second years of the HPS Program.

This course is intended as a required supplement for HPS graduate students taking either History 503 (Proseminar) or Philosophy 501 (Proseminar). It serves as a prerequisite for further graduate course work in history and philosophy of science. Concentration will be on the special methodological and historiographic issues in the history and philosophy of science, including examination of the post-Kuhnian traditions in the history and philosophy of science, introduction to research techniques, and guest appearances by HPS faculty. Readings will be drawn from current periodical literature in the history and philosophy of science.

This course will treat a number of topics in the history of astronomy in the period from 1700 to the present. About half the course will be devoted to the development of galactic and extra-galactic astronomy from the creation of the "island universe" theory in the eighteenth century to the expanding universe theory of the present century. Another topic that will definitely be treated, although on a more limited scale, is the history of ideas of extraterrestrial intelligent life. Other areas that may be included are: the rise of astrophysics, planetary discoveries from Uranus to Pluto, astronomical instruments and observatories, radio astronomy, and American astronomy. Special attention will be given to  philosophically and religiously significant aspects of the history of astronomy. Persons interested in philosophy of science, history of science, astronomy, physics, or the relations of astronomy to religion and literature may find this course of value. No specific background in astronomy is assumed.

Requirements:  A research paper, mid-term, and the final exam.

This course will survey environmental impact assessment (EIA), ecological risk assessment (ERA), and human-health risk assessment (HHRA); ethical and methodological issues related to these techniques; then apply these techniques to contemporary assessments for which state and federal governments are seeking comments by scientists and citizens.

The course is hands-on, will have no tests, but will be project-based, with students working on actual assessments which they choose (about 2500 are done in US each year). The goal will be to teach students EIA, ERA, and HHRA and how to evaluate draft analyses, particularly those used to site facilities or make environment-related decisions in which poor people, minorities, and other stakeholders are themselves unable to provide comments. Course will cover flaws in  scientific method and flaws in ethics that typically appear in these assessments.

Prerequisites:  Students should have a moderately good science background.  Probability and statistics course recommended but not required.

A wide-ranging but intensive introduction to the various ways in which philosophy of science has been conceived and practiced in the 20th century. Readings and course lecture/discussions will be organized around the following four topics: (1) Logical Empiricism and its "received account of science" (nature of explanation, confirmation, theory, and the "old" realism/instrumentalism debate). (2) Scientific change as the "Achilles Heel" of the received view: the challenge of historicist perspectives. (3) The "new" debates about scientific realism and rationality. (4) Recent challenges to the philosophy of science from social constructivist and feminist perspectives.

Requirements: Regular participation in class discussion including at least one presentation of an assigned reading; three short (6-7 pp) papers; a final examination.

Readings: Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions  (3rd edition); Cover and Curd, Philosophy of Science: The Central Issues, and a course packet of readings.

Thesis direction for terminating Master's students.

Thesis direction for terminating Master's students.

This course is an historically organized survey of major issues in the philosophical foundations of quantum mechanics. Working with a mix of primary and secondary texts, we will first survey the development of the quantum theory through the emergence of wave and matrix mechanics in the 1920s, the aim being to understand the context in which Bohr's complementarity interpretation and debates about it first arose. A careful study of the Bohr-Einstein debate over the completeness of quantum mechanics will be followed by a review of the major controversies over interpretation in the second half of the twentieth century, including the measurement problem, hidden variables theories, and Bell's theorem. The course will conclude with a look at new questions of interpretation unique to the context of quantum field theory. The course will not assume advanced training in physics.

Directed Readings carried out under individual HPS faculty supervision.

Dissertation research for Ph.D. students.

Dissertation research for Ph.D. students.