HPSC0004: Philosophy of Science I
(2023/2024)
Assessment 1: Essay Questions
Essay Due by 17:00 Tuesday 25 March 2024
2000 words (50% of module credit)
Ensure that you JUSTIFY the position you take in the question that you choose to answer.
Choose ONE of 1-15 below to answer in your essay:
1. Outline the principle of verification for Ayer? Do you agree with its implications for science?
2. What is the problem of induction? What does this mean for scientific reasoning?
3. Is Falsificationism the best account of the scientific method?
4. Set out the problem of underdetermination. Can Popper give an adequate response?
5. What is the relation between paradigms and normal science for Kuhn? Do you agree with this picture of the sciences?
6. Incommensurability between scientific paradigms leads to a ‘dangerous’ form of relativism. Do you agree?
7. Given the no-miracles argument we should be scientific realists. Do you agree?
8. We should be anti-realists about scientific theories. The past falsity of theories in the history of science means that current and future theories will also be false. Do you agree?
9. Is van Fraassen right to say that scientific theories that deal with unobservables can only be empirically adequate?
10. Can Hacking’s entity realism offer a better account than theory focused versions of realism?
11. Do scientific models have a relation to a mind-independent reality?
12. Elgin thinks that scientific theories are ‘true enough’. Do you agree?
13. Does a focus on actual scientific practice through cases offer a better methodological approach in the philosophy of science?
14. Should scientific reasoning and inference be free of non-epistemic values?
15. What are the implications for the philosophy of science from a feminist approach to epistemology?