PH29A Epistemology and Methodology

Assignment

The coursework component of this course consists of an essay worth 40% of your total mark.  It is due at the session on November 4th.  It should be c. 2500 words long.

Choose a topic from this list:

    1.    Is it possible to distinguish science from other cognitive endeavours?

There is some discussion of this question, in the context of Popper's attempt to "demarcate" science, in O'Hear chapter 3, and in Okasha, Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction, ch. 1.  See also Duncan Pritchard's lecture.

An interesting discussion, focussed on astrology, is in a paper by Thagard.

Another related discussion concerns the contrasts and comparisons between science and the world-views of pre-industrial people.  Horton has a famous paper looking at some African material here (it is discussed in the tutorial reading by Feyerabend); there is relevant discussion in Gellner's Legitimation of Belief.

Another extensive discussion by David Austin can be found here in the first section, mainly.

    2.    Does knowing that p entail being able to give a correct answer to the question whether p?  How does this issue bear on the relation between 'knowing that' and 'knowing how to'?

Some articles that may help, especially with the basic contrast that is due to Ryle, include:

• Knowing That and Knowing How, M. D. Robertson
• Swimming and Speaking Spanish, P. Hanna (?) (this one has lots of short pages)
• Gilbert Ryle and The Chinese Sceptic: Do Epistemologists Need to Know How To?, Istvan Berkeley
• MATHEMATICAL KNOWLEDGE: KNOWING THAT AND KNOWING HOW, Thomas Norton-Smith

I shall make a couple of photocopies available to the group soon as well.

    3.    Take a well-known but not obviously true scientific claim and analyse how standard textbooks (at high school and university level) explain and support it.

I once wrote a paper doing something like this with respect to the shape of the earth and atomism. It may give you some guidance, but please choose some other scientific claim.

Exam

The examination is worth 60% of your total mark.  It is presently scheduled for December 19 at 4 p.m.  You will be asked to write two reasoned essays out of a set of eight.