PHIL 858Z ,Graduate Seminar: Explanation and Theory Change

Lindley Darden

Tuesdays 5-7:30

The topic of the seminar is relations between explanation and theory change. The first part of the seminar will focus on explanation, beginning with an on-going debate in philosophy of science about how to analyze explanation: explanation via unification (Hempel, Kitcher) versus causal, mechanical explanation (Salmon). Another topic is competing interpretations of functional explanation (Wright vs. Cummins). The second part of the seminar will examine Kitcher's view of theory change as explanatory extension (extending his view of explanation via unification to theory change). There is no analysis of theory change from the perspective of developing and extending causal mechanisms and mechanism sketches. A task of the seminar will be to discuss the requirements for such an account. Work-in-progress by the instructor on the reasoning strategies in the discovery, evaluation, and revision of causal mechanisms in molecular biology will be discussed. Students will be encouraged either (a) to analyze a historical scientific case of the development of a causal mechanism in a field of their choice, from the seventeenth century "mechanistic world view" to the present or (b) to analyze what would be required for mechanistic theory construction in the future by showing what would be required, e.g., of an adequate neural mechanism to produce a specific cognitive function. It will be useful if students, before the first class, have read T. Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions but haven't believed a word of it.

Books

Required: