Formation/Cours

The objective of the course is to familiarize students with current discussions and debates in the philosophy of science. The course will provide them with a broad methodological view of science as well as a critical perspective on it. We will focus the discussion on the topic of induction and scientific confirmation, situating the discussion within the broader field of contemporary philosophy of science. By the end of the course, students will have acquired a set of conceptual and theoretical tools that will offer them a sophisticated perspective on science.

The Vienna Circle and logical empiricism. Inductivism. The role of induction and the common-sense conception of science. Problems for classical inductivism. Falsificationism. Conjectures and refutations in the thought of Karl Popper. Explanation and prediction. Scientific laws. Crucial experiments. Post-Popperian philosophers: Kuhn, Feyerabend. The Bayesian philosophy of science. Bayes’ theorem. Conditionalization. Implications of Bayesianism. Various philosophical conceptions of probability. Frequentism.