1 - 7 of 7 results for: HPS

20th-century views on the nature of scientific knowledge. Logical positivism and Popper; the problem of induction; Kuhn, Feyerbend, and radical philosophies of science; subsequent attempts to rebuild moderate empiricist and realist positions.

Galileo's defense of the Copernican world-system that initiated the scientific revolution of the 17th century, led to conflict between science and religion, and influenced the development of modern philosophy. Readings focus on Galileo and Descartes.

History of scientific methods and associated science from ancient Greece to the 20th century. Case studies include Pythagoras, Plato, and Euclid; Aristotle; medieval science; scientific Renaissance of the 1540s; methodological clashes involving the Church, Galileo, Bacon, and Descartes; Newton; Faraday; Darwin; rise of statistical methods; beginnings of modern physics; Popper. The mutual influences of method and practice. What does and does not qualify as science. Recommended: background in history, philosophy, or a technical field such as mathematics, science, or engineering.

An Exploration of the variety of meanings of mental illness in the past, and the diagnostic, therapeutic, cultural and policy challenges historically posed by mental illness. The course focuses on the U.S. but is not limited to it. How has mental illness been defined in history? How has the mind been medicalized and managed? Topics include the rise of institutions for the mentally ill, the growth of the psychiatric profession and the relationship between psychiatry, deviance and anti-psychiatry, and gender and psychiatric norms.

(Staff)

The transition in philosophy of science between the determinism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the more statistically oriented science of the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth. A concentrated examination of the reconceptualization in England of induction and inductive science. The Baconian and Newtonian heritage, Scottish science, Whately's revival of logic, the Mill-Whewell debate, Charles Darwin, introduction of statistical science, Adolphe Quetelet, James Clerk Maxwell, late-century logicians and mathematicians, prelude to quantum mechanics.