Subsections
[Cr:2, Lc:2, Tt:0, Lb:0]
- Introduction to philosophy. The questions that philosophers ask: what
is the true nature of reality? what is the foundation of knowledge?
what is the nature of the self? can morality and ethics be objectively
defined? Brief overview of different philosophical schools of thought.
Indian philosophical schools of thought. The tools of rational
enquiry.
- Rationality, realism and the philosophy of nature. An examination of
scientific knowledge: how is it reached, what it reveals about the
world we live in and what implications it has for human life and
culture.
- Introduction to classic issues in the philosophy of science. The
nature of scientific explanation. Popper's critique of narrow
inductivism and positivism. Hume's problem of induction. Confirmation
of scientific theories. Empiricism and realism.
- Brief introduction to epistemology. The nature of scientific
truth:realism, skepticism, idealism and holism. Observation and
cognition.Distinction between science and metaphysics. The “unity of
science” thesis. The falsifiability of a scientific hypothesis.
- Is science a search for truth or for consensus? Is science a search
for causes or for satisfying explanations? Scientific
revolutions:relativity, space/time and evolution. The received view
and the sociology of knowledge - Kuhn's legacy.
- Topics in the philosophy of biology. Evolutionary vs teleological
explanations, natural selection,random mutation. The philosophy of
psychology. Bioethics.
- M. H. Salmon et. al., Introduction to the philosophy of
science, Prentice Hall (1992).
- M. Curd and J .A. Cover, Philosophy of science:the central
issues, W. W. Norton and Company (1998).
- D. Gilles, Philosophy of science in the twentieth century:four
central themes, Blackwell Publishers Oxford (1993).
- J. Kourany, Scientific knowledge: basic issues in the philosophy
of science, 02nd edition, Wadsworth Publishing (1997).
- B.C.van Fraassen, Introduction to the philosophy of time and
space, Columbia university press (1992).
