Spring 2007 Graduate Courses
  (Previous Semesters)

HPS 83100
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.

HPS 83602
History of Science, Techology & Medicine Since 1750 R 3:30-6:30 (Stapleford)
3 Cr. Hr. Crosslist HIST 83975
Graduate Students Only

The course will begin by reviewing the several distinct social contexts of late-eighteenth century science, including its relations to technology and medicine. It will then trace the emergence of academic (or more properly, university-based) science, sanctioned by the state and characterized by the emergence of distinct professions, disciplines, and/or ways of knowing in the nineteenth century. The second half of the course will be devoted to tracing these themes in the twentieth century, giving particular attention to both theoretical transformations and to the relationships between scientific disciplines, between science and the state, and between science and technology.

Assignments include review essays and a final exam. Graduate standing or permission of instructor required.

HPS 93211
Topics in Ecology (GLOBES): History & Philosophy of Health and Environment M 6:00-9:00 (Hamlin )
3 Cr. Hr. Crosslist BIOS 60573
Graduate Students Only

This course will provide historical and philosophical background essential for consideration of general issues relating to research and intervention in global environmental/public health issues. The first part of the course will explore the history of concepts of homeostatic biospheric processes (e.g., forerunners of environment), and expectations about human health and flourishing within those contexts. It will then examine their transformation in the nineteenth century, following the insights of Malthus and Darwin. We will also consider the foundations of scientific study of the environment, addressing such questions as the origins of key disciplines of environmental science, important methodological innovations in ecology, chemistry, and epidemiology, and the tension between ostensibly value-free basic science and the civic engagement of applied science, in which values are central. The second half of the course will examine case studies, presented at least in part by other faculty, of recent environmental sciences/scenarios in which these issues, and issues of the social responsibility of the scientist, arise. At the end of the semester we will assess contemporary and future problems of the applied environmental and health sciences and the adequacy of current institutions and cultures of science to respond to them.

HPS 93638
British & American Intellectural HIST 1675-1800 T 2:00-4:30 (Turner)
3 Cr. Hr. Crosslist HIST 93656
Graduate Students Only

Readings in selected topics in Anglo-American intellectual history from the later seventeenth century through the end of the eighteenth."'Anglo-American intellectual history," as used here, comprises those discourses common to Britain and anglophone North America. This does not preclude occasional French or German voices. Examples might include sensationalist psychology, evangelical Calvinism, Newtonian physics, republicanism, and Scottish common-sense philosophy. I have aspired to a focus on problems that were nodes of change rather than an even-handed survey. Inevitably, in this period the primary reading tilts toward British authors.

Requirements: Besides discussion of common assigned readings, the work of the course will include papers, the character of which can vary with student needs, including the possibility of writing a seminar paper in either British or American intellectual history or both -- and not necessarily falling within the chronological limits of the course.

HPS 93743
Economics of Science MW 1:30-2:45 (Mirowski)
3 Cr. Hr. Crosslist ECON 33270
Graduate Students Only

Economists often fret over whether theirs is a hard science, but of late, they have begun to turn the tables and apply their theories to the operation of the sciences. This phenomenon is related to the increasing commercialization of science since the 1980s. In this class we describe the changing history of the organization and subsidy of scientific research, especially in America; and then we survey the different classes of economic theories applied to the scientific process. The second half of the course is then concerned with issues in the modern globalization and privatization of science, focusing on various case studies.

Requirements : Readings: Philip Mirowski & Esther-Mirjam Sent, eds., Science Bought and Sold National Science Board, Science and Engineering Indicators 2004 .

HPS 93831
Philosophy of the Human Sciences TR 12:30-1:45 (McKim)
3 Cr. Hr. Crosslist PHIL 93831
Graduate Students Only

This course will explore issues about the nature of persons, groups, institutions, rules and norms, in short, about the ontological status of the 'entities' that constitute social reality. We shall also examine the epistemological credentials of various methodologies advanced by one or another socially oriented discipline as providing its practitioners with privileged expertise in the explanation, understanding, and prediction of social phenomena.

A third dimension of the course will focus on the historical 'birth' and subsequent development of major disciplines within the social 'sciences.' Here we will attempt to get a sense of how changing historical circumstances have contributed to the continual reshaping of views about the what the proper study of mankind should aspire to be.

Readings will be drawn from a broad range of works by philosophers, historians and social theorists. There will be a course packet plus a number of paperback texts.

Requirements include a final examination along with a research paper due at the end of the semester. Two or three short (2-3 pp.) writing assignments will also be made during the course of the semester. Classes will consist both of informal lectures and seminar discussion.

HPS 93871
Philosophy of Space & Time TR 2:00-3:15 (Brading)
3 Cr. Hr. Crosslist PHIL 93871
Graduate Students Only

This seminar is an historically organized examination of major issues in the philosophical foundations of space-time theory. The roots of many contemporary debates are found in the spatial and temporal framework introduced by Newton to solve problems in the Cartesian theory of motion and the newly emerging theory of dynamics. We begin with a brief review of this historical background, before turning our attention to the main topics of this course: Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity. We consider the advent of these in their historical context, the contemporary reaction to both theories, and the present day situation. Key conceptual issues, such as conventionality of simultaneity, the "hole argument," and the significance of general covariance, will be considered from both a historical and a modern-day perspective. Reading will include both primary and secondary sources. The course will not assume advanced training in physics. Each member of the seminar will be expected to present material to the seminar and to write a term paper on some topic arising from the readings or seminar discussions.

HPS 78599
Thesis Direction (Howard)

Thesis direction for terminating Master's students.

Thesis direction for terminating Master's students.

Directed Readings carried out under individual HPS faculty supervision.

Dissertation research for Ph.D. students.

Dissertation research for Ph.D. students.