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.

Molecular Revolution 9:30-10:45 TH (Sloan)

3 Cr. Hrs. Crosslist: HIST 590, STV 496

Graduate Students Only

This course offers a historical and philosophical analysis of the origins and development of the molecular revolution in biology that broke into full public view in the early 1950s with dramatic discoveries of the molecular structure of DNA and the biophysical mechanism of the action potential in the nervous system.  The course will approach this with an analysis of the development of the chemistry and physics of living materials from the time of Lavoisier and the German biophysical school (Helmholtz), through the remarkable advances in physiology of the French school (Bernard) and the development of genetics.  The course will terminate in the examination of molecular approaches in contemporary work in human genetics (the Human Genome Project). The course will be open to graduate students from the Colleges of Science and Arts and Letters and senior STV students, as well as to other senior undergraduates with appropriate background and instructor's permission.

Readings will be drawn from: Lenoir, The Strategy of Life; Bernard, Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine; Kohler, Lords of the Fly;  Morange, A History of Molecular Biology, Hacking, Representing and Intervening,and a reader of primary and secondary sources.  Requirements will be two take-home mid-term examinations and a final.  Advanced students may substitute a paper for the second mid-term and final.

History of Economic Thought 12:30-1:45 TH (Mirowski)

3 Cr. Hrs. Crosslist: ECON 506

Permission Required

This course intends to ask how it is that we have arrived at this curious configuration of doctrines called "economics," and, importantly, how differing modes of historical discourse tend to ratify us in our prejudices about our own involvement in this curious project.  A basic knowledge of economics (including introductory economics and preferably intermediate economics) will be presumed.

History of the Philosophy of Science, 1750-1900 1:30-2:45 MW (Howard)

3 Cr. Hrs. Crosslist: PHIL 588

Permission Required

Much of the history of philosophy from the early modern period through the nineteenth century can be written as the history of philosophical reactions to the development of modern science, especially the physics of Newton and Maxwell, but to some degree also the chemistry, biology, physiological psychology, and sociology that came into their own in the nineteenth century. What was the epistemic basis of this new scientific knowledge? What was the proper method of science? What were the scope and limits of this new science?

This course will trace the main themes in the development of the philosophy of science during this period. We will start with early reactions to Newton on the part of Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and Reid. In the nineteenth century, we will chart the rise of distinctive schools of thought as the philosophy of science becomes conscious of itself as a distinct area within philosophy, including the positivism of Comte, the inductivism of Mill, the hypothetico-deductivism of Whewell and Bernard, the Scot's school's emphasis on the fundamental role of models in science, and the neo-Kantianism of Helmholtz. As we reach the threshold of the twentieth century we will pay special attention to such precursors of logical empiricism as Mach, Poincaré, and Duhem.

The readings will be a mix of primary and secondary sources.

Students will be required to write a term paper and a take-home final examination.

Thesis Direction (Howard)

Thesis direction for terminating Master’s students.

Non-resident Thesis Direction (Howard)

Thesis direction for terminating Master’s students.

Research Seminar inAnglo-American Intellectual History 2:00-4:30 H (Turner)

3 Cr. Hrs. Crosslist: HIST 672

The seminar provides opportunity for graduate students to write publishable monographic articles based on individual research in primary sources.  Members of the seminar may write on any plausible topic after 1700 with which the professor in charge can assist.  (This precludes, for instance, a paper that makes heavy use of sources in Latin.)  If a student does not arrive at the first meeting with a well defined topic in hand, one will be assigned.

Early meetings of the seminar will focus on general problems of historical research and writing, later ones on discussion of the individual projects.

Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics 2:00-4:30 H (Cushing)

3 Cr. Hrs. Crosslist: PHIL 687

Intended for graduate students in the history and/or philosophy of science - and open-minded graduate students in physics as well - who wish to examine in some reasonable detail the roots, both historical and philosophical, of quantum mechanics and the profound conceptual problems to which that theory has given rise.  The main vehicle for this will be a study of original seminal papers in the field (e.g., those by Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Born, Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen, von Neumann, Bell, Bohm) and of related papers in the foundations of physics literature.  Some background in physics, especially in the formalism of quantum mechanics, is desirable.  However, the relevant physics and philosophy will be presented in the course itself. This course will be run largely as a graduate seminar, with the students themselves being responsible for leading most of the discussion of the papers read.

Theology and the Natural Sciences 11:00-12:15 TH (McMullin)

3 Cr. Hrs. Crosslist: PHIL 688

The rapid progress of the natural sciences over the last few centuries has raised numerous issues for Christian theology, just as Aristotelian natural philosophy did in the thirteenth century. Dealing with those issues had a transformative effect on theology at that earlier moment. Is something similar happening today?  Ought it? To enter into issues of this sort involving two very different ways of knowing inevitably involves two other ways: philosophy and history.  The contribution of these latter to the four-way dialectic will be emphasised. Such a dialectic makes heavy epistemic demands, as case-histories will demonstrate.

Readings will be drawn from a variety of sources, mainly book chapters and journal articles. There will be one substantial term paper and a take-home essay examination .

Directed Readings

Directed Readings carried out under individual HPS faculty supervision.

Research and Dissertation (Howard)

Dissertation research for Ph.D. students.

Nonresident Dissertation Research (Howard)

Dissertation research for Ph.D. students.