Spring 2008 Graduate Courses
  (Previous Semesters)

HPS 83100  Colloquium

McKim  
Graduate Students Only

Group Discussion by the HPS faculty and students of a prominent recent work in the history and philosophy of science and research presentation by visiting scholars. 

Required course for HPS students in first and second years of Program.

HPS 93791
History & Philosophy of Statistics MW 3:00-4:15 (Stapleford)
3 Cr. Hr.
Crosslist: HIST 93983
Graduate Students Only

Since the Enlightenment, statistical calculation has played an increasingly important role in the natural sciences, in the social sciences, and in state policies. In this course, we will examine three major aspects of this history: statistical theory (e.g., ideas about probability, sampling, correlation, etc.), practical aspects of data collection, and the application of numerical knowledge in politics and the sciences. Our focus will be primarily historical, but we will pay close attention to the philosophical puzzles that have been raised through reflections on statistical analysis. Major topics will include early debates about probability, chance, and games; the rise of state statistics and social surveys; biometrics; probability and physics; statistics and psychology; and the transformations in surveys during the early twentieth century. Readings will be a mix of primary and secondary sources addressing theoretical issues, institutional factors, and social history. No prior knowledge of mathematical statistics is necessary.

Requirements: will include class discussion, several short presentations / essays, and a research paper.

HPS 93772 
The Politics of Science TR 6:30-8:30 (Mirowski)
3 Cr. Hr.
Cross-lis: ECON 43290
Grad Students Note: This course will start 3/11/08

The purpose of this half-term course is to explore a topic that is often dealt with only obliquely in the history and philosophy of science: the dual ideas that in some eras, politics has a direct impact on the process and outputs of science, and that science may perform a role in certain political movements and structures. We begin in the early 20th century with the two phenomena of the Soviet Revolution and the collapse of Weimar, and explore how these both were justified/blamed on the progress of science. Next, we survey the contrasting positions of J.D.Bernal and Michael Polanyi, as representations of the ‘left’ planning orientation and the birth of ‘neoliberalism’. This leads into a section on treatments of the different meanings of ‘liberty’ in the postwar era. We will also briefly survey the effect of science studies on this discussion, from Ezrahi to Latour to modern controversies over whether 4S should remain ‘neutral’ in its stance. We wind up with modern arguments over whether science has been ‘perverted’ in recent political developments, from the Sound Science movement to the attempt to turn stem cells into a partisan issue.

Texts: George Reisch, How the Cold War Shaped Philosophy of Science
Wendy Wagner & Rena Stenzor, Rescuing Science from Politics
Sheila Jasanoff, Designs on Nature
Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science

This course is open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates.

HPS 93805
Philosophy of Biology M 6:00-8:30 (Ramsey)
3 Cr. Hr.
Crosslist: HIST 30626
Graduate Students Only

In this seminar, we will survey some of the central issues in the philosophy of biology. We will study the theory of natural selection and consider whether it occurs only at the level of genes or if it can occur at higher levels, such as the organism or group. We will examine the nature of function or purpose in biological systems and ask if all or most features of biological organisms can be understood as adaptations or if there are alternative explanations, such as constraints, spandrels, or self-organization. We will also turn to the difficult concept of fitness, specifically how fitness is understood as both a central theoretical concept in the theory of natural selection, as well as being explanatory and predictive of evolutionary phenomena. Lastly, we will explore the scope of Darwinian explanations. In particular, we will consider the extent to which human behavior can be understood through Darwinian adaptationist explanations.

HPS 93814
Kant and the Exact Sciences 3:30-6:00 R (Jauernig)
3 Cr. Hr.
Crosslist: PHIL 83279
Graduate Students Only

This course examines Kant’s philosophy in relation to the exact sciences, i.e., mathematics and physics. The exact sciences play an important role in Kant’s critical philosophy: they function as inspiration and model in that they already are on the high road on which Kant wants to bring metaphysics, and they are among the intended beneficiaries of the critical enterprise in that Kant’s theoretical philosophy is meant to provide metaphysical foundations for them. In the first part of the course, we will look at Kant’s engagement with the exact sciences in the pre-critical period. The second part of the course deals with Kant’s (critical) philosophy of mathematics; the third part with his (critical) philosophy of physics. In the final part of the course, we will look at selected neo-Kantian attempts to ‘rescue’ at least part of Kant’s philosophy in response to the development of non-Euclidean geometry, and Einstein’s theories of relativity.

Readings: Immanuel Kant, ‘Inquiry on the distinctness…; ‘On the first ground of the difference of regions in space’; Inaugural Dissertation; Critique of Pure Reason, Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science; Hans Reichenbach, The Theory of Relativity and A priori Knowledge; Ernst Cassirer, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Considered from the Epistemological Standpoint; Michal Friedman, Dynamics of Reason

HPS 78599
Thesis Direction (McKim)

Thesis direction for terminating Master's students.

Thesis direction for terminating Master's students.

HPS 96697
Directed Readings

Dissertation research for Ph.D. students.

Dissertation research for Ph.D. students.