16025
Seminar
WiSe 12/13: The Nature of Science
Greg Sax
Information for students
gmsax@umich.edu
Comments
In humankind’s long and continuing endeavor to make sense of the course of events,
natural science (arguably) constitutes our most extensive and sophisticated success. For one
reason, the methods of natural science (unlike those of pure mathematics, philosophy, religion,
law, and literary criticism) are empirical, that is, experimental. Consequently, scientific
conclusions about nature are (or strive to be) objective and, so, especially secure or trustworthy.
Secondly, scientific research (unlike the centuries of every-day experience collected into
common sense and almanacs) reveals especially subtle and fundamental truths about reality that
are unobservable.
The first of these beliefs about science concerns justification; the second involves truth or reality.
Both beliefs are central subjects in the philosophical investigation of science, and they will
constitute our primary questions:
What is it about the nature of science that (i) confers epistemic authority on scientific opinion and
(ii) empowers scientific investigation to uncover the real nature of the universe?
At the same time, though, our investigation will show that there is a serious conceptual tension or
instability between (i) and (ii), for, as we’ll see, taking (i) seriously seems to limit science
(contra (ii)) to relatively shallow conclusions about what can be observed (or indirectly justified
by observations) while taking (ii) seriously seems to imply (contra (i)) that scientific results lack
the security provided by empirical evidence.
Understanding these issues with philosophical clarity and precision will require us to
investigate some abstract concepts—causation, law of nature, explanation, prediction, and
empirical confirmation—common to the natural sciences. close
16 Class schedule
Regular appointments
Thu, 2012-10-18 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2012-10-25 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2012-11-01 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2012-11-08 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2012-11-15 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2012-11-22 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2012-11-29 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2012-12-06 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2012-12-13 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2012-12-20 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2013-01-10 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2013-01-17 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2013-01-24 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2013-01-31 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2013-02-07 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2013-02-14 12:00 - 14:00