PHIL 280 - Philosophy and the Fundamentals of Scientific Reasoning [GEKH]
This course will focus on philosophical issues relevant to one or more of the following topic areas; science as falsification, scientific knowledge, the contract between traditional (or everyday) knowledge and scientific knowledge, skepticism with respect to science, statistical inference, Occam’s Razor, probabilistic inference, causation, values in science, and nature of evidence. Students will learn an employ deductive logic, inductive logic, and basic probability logic, in order to address these topics in a robust way.
Credit 3 hrs May not be repeated for additional credit
Grade Mode Normal (A-F) Course Rotation Fall (odd yrs.)
Class-Level Restriction Undergraduate standing
This course addresses issues regarding the nature of science and scientific reasoning, as well as the basic methods of good reasoning, by way of the philosophic tradition. Students will analyze and write about science and the history of philosophy of science, addressing the philosophic and philosophy of science canon, including work by Kuhn, Popper, Quine, Descartes, Hume, as well as contemporary philosophers, including Longino, Sober, Parker, and van Fraassen, Emphasis will be placed on discipline-specific analysis and writing, including the discovery of value presuppositions, the use standard and probability logics, as well as the use of writing as a method of discovery and the exercise of the creative mind. The course, as a whole, focuses on the value of, and role of values in, the core methods of thinking in science, Proper reasoning as an idea is addressed and evaluated, using contemporary and traditional tools of philosophy. As such, PHIL 280 meets the outcomes for a course in the Knowledge of the Disciplines: Humanities category of the General Education program.
Notes -
Updates Approved for GEKH 11/2015, effective Fall 2016; Course Rotation added 1/2015; New Course 11/2013, effective Summer 2014
Winter 2025 Course Sections
Fall 2024 Course Sections
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