Course Exam
180667 VO Theory of Science (2010S)
eine Einführung
Labels
WHEN?
Wednesday
22.12.2010
Examiners
Information
Examination topics
Verständnis der erkenntnistheoretischen Annahmen von Wissenschaft, Fähigkeit der Unterscheidung zwischen deskriptiven und wertenden Aussagen, Fähigkeit, die logische und epistemische Natur von Sätzen zu erkennen (z.B. singulärer Satz vs. genereller Satz, Beobachtungssatz vs. Hypothese) zu erkennen, Kenntnis der Überprüfungsmethoden für strikte und für statistische Gesetzeshypothesen, Ver-ständnis der Struktur wissenschaftlicher Theorien und des Holismus ihrer (empirischen) Erfolgsbewertung.Course-description: Is science free from values? Does theory-independent experience exist? Is the testing of scientific hypotheses by scientists guided by unified methodical rules? Is scientific knowledge objective? These and similar question are in the centre of the philosophy of science.
The course offers an introduction into the basic problems of contemporary philosophy of science. It is divided in to four sections:
1) Questions of philosophical foundations: minimal epistemological assumptions of all sciences (including social sciences and humanities), the debate on value judgements in science, deductive versus inductive reasoning.
2) Logical foundations: kinds of scientific concepts and statements, observation statements versus law hypotheses, verification, falsification, confirmation, und weakening.
3) Law hypotheses and their empirical testing: the methods of agreement and of difference, the logico-philosophical foundations of methods of statistical tests, correlation and causality.
4) Scientific theories: observational, dispositional and theoretical concepts, holism of theory testing, instrumentalism versus realism, criteria of theory progress.
The course offers an introduction into the basic problems of contemporary philosophy of science. It is divided in to four sections:
1) Questions of philosophical foundations: minimal epistemological assumptions of all sciences (including social sciences and humanities), the debate on value judgements in science, deductive versus inductive reasoning.
2) Logical foundations: kinds of scientific concepts and statements, observation statements versus law hypotheses, verification, falsification, confirmation, und weakening.
3) Law hypotheses and their empirical testing: the methods of agreement and of difference, the logico-philosophical foundations of methods of statistical tests, correlation and causality.
4) Scientific theories: observational, dispositional and theoretical concepts, holism of theory testing, instrumentalism versus realism, criteria of theory progress.
Assessment and permitted materials
Comprehension of the epistemological assumptions of science, competence to discriminate between descriptive and evaluative statements, skill of recognizing the logical and epistemic nature of a statement (e.g., singular vs. general, observa-tion statement vs. hypothesis), knowledge of the methods of testing strict and statistical law hypotheses and skill to apply them, comprehension of the structure of scientific theories and the holism of the evaluation of their (empirical) success.
Last modified: Sa 08.07.2023 00:17