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'''Philosophy of Science '''   
'''Philosophy of Science '''   


(PHI 5XX)
Fall Semester 2022, Monday 1-3:40pm. Special weekend session on November 12-13.


Fall Semester 2022, Monday 1-3:40pm
(PHI 420/520) Registration
:Undergraduate [https://www.buffalo.edu/class-schedule?switch=showclass&semester=fall&division=UGRD&dept=PHI&regnum=23577 23577]
:Graduate [http://www.buffalo.edu/class-schedule?switch=showclass&semester=spring&division=UGRD&dept=PHI&regnum=23578 23578]


'''Venue:''' TBD
'''Venue:''' Park 141


'''Registration''': Class#: [http://www.buffalo.edu/class-schedule?switch=showclass&semester=fall&division=GRAD&dept=PHI&regnum=]
'''Instructors''':  
:[http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/shortcv.htm Barry Smith]
:[https://wikitia.com/wiki/Jobst_Landgrebe Jobst Landgrebe]


'''Course Description''': This course will be based on a series of discussions in the philosophy of science
'''Instructor''': [http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/shortcv.htm Barry Smith]
'''Prerequisites''': Open to all persons with an undergraduate degree and some knowledge of philosophy.
'''Prerequisites''': Open to all persons with an undergraduate degree and some knowledge of philosophy.


Line 17: Line 18:


== '''The Course''' ==
== '''The Course''' ==
''Course Description'':  
''Course Description'': What are the essential features of a scientific discipline, and how are the different scientific disciplines related to each other and to the world which they seek to represent? This course will provide an introduction to questions such as this, beginning with a treatment of the role of ''models'' in different types of science, and of the truthmakers for different kinds of scientific proposition. We then attempt to create a synoptic and non-reductionist view of science in its entirety, aiming to do justice to each of the sciences from a realist point of view, and at the same time throw light on the interplay between the natural sciences and mathematics, and between the sciences in general and the world of common-sense experience.


''Course Structure'': This is a three credit hour graduate seminar.
''Course Structure'': This is a three credit hour graduate seminar.
Line 28: Line 29:


:What is a scientific model?
:What is a scientific model?
:Descriptions, Explanations, Predictions
:Descriptions, Explanations, Interpretations, Predictions
:Classifying sciences
:Classifying sciences
:Science as a habit
:Science as a habit
:Simple and complex systems  
:Simple and complex systems
:The reproducibility crisis
:The applicability of mathematics
:The applicability of mathematics
:Philosophy of explicit and implicit mathematics  
:Philosophy of explicit and implicit mathematics  
;[https://www.academia.edu/22935344/A_Philosopher_in_the_Lab_Carl_Stumpf_on_Philosophy_and_Experimental_Sciences Carl Stumpf: Philosopher in the Lab]
:[https://www.academia.edu/22935344/A_Philosopher_in_the_Lab_Carl_Stumpf_on_Philosophy_and_Experimental_Sciences Carl Stumpf: Philosopher in the Lab]
:Do the mathematical entities mathematicians use exist independently of the mathematicians who use them?
:Do the mathematical entities mathematicians use exist independently of the mathematicians who use them?
:[http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/stove.html Popper and after: Four modern irrationalists]
:[http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/stove.html Popper and after: Four modern irrationalists]
Line 41: Line 43:
:Nancy Cartwright
:Nancy Cartwright
:[https://mally.stanford.edu/ The Metaphysics Research Lab]
:[https://mally.stanford.edu/ The Metaphysics Research Lab]
:Powers and dispositions
:Singular dispositions (chemistry and interpersonal attraction, charisma, intersubjectivity ...)
:Philosophy of mathematics
::Explicit vs. implicit mathematics
::Structural, patterns, ''Wesenszusammenhänge''
::Units of measure, measurement results, equations


----
----


==August 30: Pragmatism: An Overview ==
==August 29: Introduction to the Philosophy of Science ==


'''Introduction to this Course'''
'''Historical Background'''
:Methodology for the history of philosophy
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Philosophy-of-Science-1 Slides]
:The four phases of philosophy
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Philosophy-of-Science-1-Video Video]
:Peirce and ''The Monist''
:Aristotle
:Scotus (and Peirce)
:Realism about Universals (Universals are What Science is About)
:Kant (and Newton and the a priori)
:Wittgenstein
:Husserl's ''Crisis of European Sciences''
:The Vienna Circle
:Fantology


'''Introduction to American Philosophy'''
==September 5: Labor Day Observed==
:Charles Sanders Peirce
:William James
:John Dewey
:George Herbert Mead
:Richard Rorty
:Susan Haack


[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Pragmatism-Introduction Slides]
==September 12: Darwin, Genes, and Units of Measure==


[https://https://buffalo.box.com/v/Lecture-1-Introduction Video (with apologies for poor quality)]
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Philosophy-of-Science-1-Video Video]
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Philosophy-of-Science-2022-2 Slides]


Reading:
'''Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (Continued)'''
:Cornelis de Waal, ''[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Introducing-Pragmatism Introducing Pragmatism]'', Taylor & Francis, 2021
:The Austrian Background of Philosophy of Science
:Susan Haack, "[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321397567_Pragmatism_Old_and_New_2006 Pragmatism Old and New]" (2006).
:Popper
:C. Legg, "[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatism/ Pragmatism]", ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''
:Lakatos
:Kuhn
:Feyerabend
:Ontology and Science


==September 6: Labor Day Observed==
'''Readings'''
:D. C. Stove, ''[http://ontology.buffalo.edu/stove/500-600.htm Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists]''
:J. Franklin, [http://www.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/worst.pdf Stove's Discovery of the World's Worst Philosophical Argument]
:J. C. Nyiri, [https://philpapers.org/rec/NYITAE The Austrian Element in the Philosophy of Science]


==September 13: No class==
'''From Aristotle to Darwin'''


==September 20: The Metaphysics of C. S. Peirce ==
'''From the Vienna Circle to the Gene Ontology'''
:An introduction to truthmaking
:The metaphysical realism of Duns Scotus
:Peirce's metaphysical realism
::Peirce and chemical diagrams
::Peirce on modality
::Peirce on the continuum
::Peirce and mereology
:Peirce and Brentano on the medievals


[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Peirce-and-Scotus Slides]
'''Ontology of units of measure'''


[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Pragmatism-Lecture-2 Video]
Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVVUH00cMNY Quantities (units of measure) as fiat universals]


::Boler, [https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1019.6057&rep=rep1&type=pdf Peirce and the Medievals]
Reading: Alan Code, [https://buffalo.app.box.com/s/kam229g9v2ba86tw45wr3zl8vk7ut5lj Searle, Aristotle, and the mind-body problem (1994)]
::Campbell, ''[https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10039485/1/Chris%20Campbell%20Final%20Thesis%20Submitted.pdf The Chemistry of Relations]''
::Pihlström, "[http://www.minerva.mic.ul.ie//vol9/Truthmaking.html Truthmaking And Pragmatist Conceptions Of Truth And Reality]".
::Rorty, [https://buffalo.box.com/s/s92c23ptgq4353eorwy7zk7yw3a194hq Review of Boler]
::Smith, "[http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/articles/charuniv.pdf Characteristica Universalis]"
::Stjernfelt, ''[https://buffalo.box.com/s/ybkrfsmmc7h95piypzq8fhl58urjulb5 Diagrammatology]''
::Stjernelt, "[https://philpapers.org/archive/STJMAS.pdf Mereology and Semiotics]"


'''Peirce on the Classification of the Sciences'''
==September 19: Types of Reasoning and Types of Evidence (with Amelia Kahn)==
:What is science?
:What is logic?
:What is mathematics?
:The taxonomy of scientific models


Readings: 
[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Philosophy-of-Science-3 Video]
:Torjus Midtgarden, [https://www.isko.org/cyclo/peirce Peirce’s classification of the sciences]
:Denis Fisette, [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stumpf/#ClaSci Stumpf and the classification of the sciences]


==September 25-26 Weekend Course: Pragmatism and German Philosophy==
[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Harman-Evidence-Reasoning Slides]


'''Venue: 280 Park Hall'''
:1. Types of reasoning (induction, abduction, and deduction) and their role in science
 
The epistemically important features of scientific investigation processes


'''Saturday Morning'''
:2. What is evidence?


9am ''Pragmatism and Positivism''
What type of thing can be evidence: physical objects (the killer's fingerprint!), sense data or perceptual experience, or a mental state like knowledge? Or some other thing? 
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Landgrebe-Positivism Slides]
:[https://buffalo.box.com/s/cvw9cah6s8k45femw172w5u4mq8jnl5q Video]


:Reading: Mulligan "[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Pragmatism-and-phenomenology How to Marry Phenomenology and Pragmatism]"
'''Reading''': Gilbert Harman, "[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Harman-Inference Inference to the Best Explanation]


10:30am ''Peirce, Truthmaking, and Kantianism''
==October 3: Biomedical Sciences==
:Presentation by Frederik Stjernfelt, Copenhagen
 
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Stjernfelt-Lecture-1 Slides]
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Biomedical-Sciences-2022 Slides]
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Stjernfelt-Truthmaking Video]
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Biological-Sciences Audio]
 
'''The ontology of disease'''
 
Reading: "[https://philpapers.org/rec/SCHTAO-29 Toward an Ontological Treatment of Disease and Diagnosis]"
 
==October 10: Psychological Sciences==
 
'''Origins of psychology as a science'''
:Brentano and his legacy
:Husserl, Meinong and the arrow of intentionality
'''The Mental Functioning Ontology'''
 
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Psychological-Sciences-2022 Slides]
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Psychological-Science-2022 Video]
 
Readings:
:Werner Ceusters & Barry Smith, "[https://jbiomedsem.biomedcentral.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/2041-1480-1-10.pdf Foundations for a realist ontology of mental disease]", ''Journal of Biomedical Semantics''mm volume 1 (2010)
 
Background materials on ecological psychology:
 
'''Ontology of niches, affordances, settings, places, habitats: From Aristotle to Gibson and Barker and the Hutchinsonian niche'''
 
:[https://buffalo.box.com/s/6wmxnd9vvuhd9ubrldeptaerydqzkbct Slides]
:[https://buffalo.box.com/s/u0yz6ddfaa6k34gwfw48su4q19y78z0o Video]
 
'''Behavior settings as emergent relational structures in everyday life'''
 
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Heft-On-Affordances Slides]
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Heft-Affordances Video]


Readings:  
Readings:
:F. Stjernfelt, "[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Peirce-as-Truthmaker-Realist Peirce as Truthmaker Realist]"
:Heft, "[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316116847_Perceptual_Information_of_An_Entirely_Different_Order_The_Cultural_Environment_in_The_Senses_Considered_as_Perceptual_Systems Perceptual Information of 'An Entirely Different Order']"
:F. Stjernfelt, "[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Shared-dependences The Riddle of Dependences: How to connect entities, across pragmatism, phenomenology, and structuralism]"
:Heft, "[https://buffalo.box.com/v/heft-perception Places: Widening the Scope of an Ecological Approach to Perception]"
:Heft, ''[https://buffalo.box.com/s/39nnbjmw3jadkwbvetjiz5c5pjrnyocy Ecological Psychology in Context]''


'''Saturday Afternoon'''
:Smith, "[http://ontology.buffalo.edu/eco/Ecological_Psychology.pdf Toward a Realistic Science of Environments]"
:Smith, "[https://philpapers.org/archive/SMIOAT.pdf Objects and Their Environments: From Aristotle to Ecological Psychology]"


1pm ''Pragmatism and Neopositivism''
==October 17: The Replication Problem: Science as a Social Phenomenon==


2:45pm ''The History of Psychology in Germany and America''
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Replication-problem Video]
:[https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_may_shape_who_you_are?language=en Cuddy Video]
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Replication-crisis Slides]


[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Pragmatism-Lecture-3 Slides]
==October 24: Practical Applications of Ontology ==


[[File:Gestalt-graph.png|400px]]
This session will involve a series of talks and discussions given by UB faculty (including BS) and visitors from the University of Toronto. One central focus will be the ontology of social services. Another will be urban planning. More details will follow.


From Barry Smith (ed.), ''[https://philpapers.org/archive/SMIFOG.pdf Foundations of Gestalt Theory]''
==October 31: Consistent Histories: A Realist view of Quantum Physics==


:Leipzig School, Wilhelm Wundt
[https://buffalo.box.com/v/QM-not-Kantian Video]
::Hugo Münsterberg
::Oswald Külpe
:::Karl Bühler
::'''E. B. Titchener'''
:::'''E. G. Boring'''
::'''George Herbert Mead'''


:'''C. S. Peirce'''
[http://buffalo.box.com/v/Quantum-Mereotopology Slides]


:'''Harvard School, William James'''
Readings:  
::'''Edwin B. Holt'''
:[https://buffalo.box.com/s/ceupgj3v3dpmp397bc0afvofd78iohwl Nancy Cartwright, "Models: The Blueprint for Laws"]
:::'''J. J. Gibson'''
:[https://philpapers.org/archive/SMIQM.pdf Barry Smith, "Quantum Mereotopology"]
:[https://philpapers.org/rec/SMITG Barry Smith “True Grid” (2001)]


:'''Behaviorism
==November 12-13: Philosophy of Quantum Physics (with Jobst Landgrebe) (weekend session)==
::'''E. Thorndike
::'''J. B. Watson
::'''Edwin Bissell Holt
::'''B. F. Skinner'''


:Ernst Mach
:[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyngZgIl3WTj5zD061cYUCO0GwRO6yfvX Video]
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Landgrebe-QM-slides Slides]


:Vienna School, Franz Brentano
'''Outline'''
::Edmund Husserl
:::Maurice Merleau-Ponty
::::'''J. J. Gibson'''
::Carl Stumpf
:::Wolfgang Köhler
:::Max Wertheimer
:::Kurt Koffka
:::Kurt Lewin
::::'''Roger Barker'''
:::::'''Fritz Heider'''
::Prague School, Christian von Ehrenfels


'''Sunday Morning'''
The goal of the lectures is to bring students to the level where they can understand the Schrödinger equation.


9am ''Peirce's Semiotics''
The lectures will defend a view of physics resting on a radical division between classical physics on the one hand and quantum mechanics (QM) on the other. General relativity theory (GTR), from this perspective, is still a part of classical physics.  
:Presentation by Frederik Stjernfelt, Copenhagen
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Stjernfelt-Lecture-2 Slides]
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Peirce-Semiotics-Stjernfelt Video]


Reading: F. Stjernfelt: "[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Stjernfelt-Co-localization Co-localization as the Syntax of Multimodal Propositions: An Amazing Peircean Idea and Some Implications for the Semiotics of Truth]"
Essentially, with the rise of QM the mathematical modelling of nature has deviated more and more from what we observe in nature. For while GTR is mathematically demanding, it is much closer than QM to what we observe directly in nature. Indeed, the realization of QM effects depends heavily on the use of completely artificial settings. These effects can, it is true, be realized using engineering, both in experimental settings and in machines which address practical purpose, for example in quantum cryptography. But leaving aside what goes on in these unnatural settings, QM has nothing to contribute to our understanding of ordinary reality. (For expanded version of goal see [[Expanded version of goal | here]])


11:00am ''Pragmatist Theories of Truth''
'''Readings'''
:Truth as Successful Action (Mead: When somebody has a problem and the solution of the problem is the truth)
:[https://buffalo.box.com/s/0tqdcxl0pwl89xbfsjqx2f7vgd7ihmvm Extract from: Tim Maudlin, ''Distilling Metaphysics from Physics'']
:Truth as Successful Group Action and the Developing of the Self through Communication (Royce, Mead and Habermas)
:Christian Wüthrich, [https://www.wuthrich.net/teaching/_USI_PhilPhys_2022.html Introduction to Philosophy of Physics]
:Habermas: Truth Emerges When People Speak Long Enough to Achieve a Consensus
:Nancy Cartwright: [https://buffalo.box.com/s/y3el03ybqwgeingf8y8y4j229j0qmp4t How the laws of physics lie]
:Feynman: [https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/III_toc.html Lectures on physics, vol III, chs. 1-3] [https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/III_01.html#Ch1-audio Audio Version] (recommended)
:Griffith: [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-consistent-histories/ Consistent Histories]
:Carsten Held: [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10701-008-9230-4 Axiomatic Quantum Mechanics and Completeness]
:Steven French: [https://www-sciencedirect-com.gate.lib.buffalo.edu/science/article/pii/S1355219809000033?via%3Dihub Review of Falkenburg: ''Particle Metaphysics'']
:Kuhlmann: [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/quantum-field-theory/ Quantum Field Theory]


'''Sunday Afternoon'''  
'''Saturday'''


1:00pm ''American Philosophy in Germany''
:09:00 '''Philosophy for physics or physics for philosophy?'''
:Pragmatism from Scheler to Habermas. Part 1
:[https://buffalo.box.com/shared/static/g6qee6c61oexnfccjyjloveg1xgl8is2.pdf Slides]


2:00pm ''Ontology of Niches, Affordances, Settings, Places, Habitats: From Aristotle to Gibson and Barker and the Hutchinsonian Niche''
:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ43lFN_8eY&list=PLyngZgIl3WTj5zD061cYUCO0GwRO6yfvX&index=1 Video 1]


:[https://buffalo.box.com/s/6wmxnd9vvuhd9ubrldeptaerydqzkbct Slides
:10:15 Break
:[\https://buffalo.box.com/s/u0yz6ddfaa6k34gwfw48su4q19y78z0o Video]


3:00pm Codas on Dewey, Mead and Leibniz
:10:30 '''The dualism of waves and particles'''


==September 27: Pragmatism and German philosophy (continued)==
:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuDgB7lhiyc&list=PLyngZgIl3WTj5zD061cYUCO0GwRO6yfvX&index=2 Video 2]
:Pragmatism from Scheler to Habermas. Part 2
:[https://buffalo.box.com/shared/static/g6qee6c61oexnfccjyjloveg1xgl8is2.pdf Slides]
:[https://buffalo.box.com/s/p3mzcr3ninsh0ibhqpg327bo4kx3hv6i Video]


==October 4: No class==
:12:00 Lunch


==October 11: No class==
:12:30 '''Basic Laws of Quantum Mechanics''' and '''Introductory Remarks on the Ontology of Physics and Mathematics'''


==October 18: No class==
:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGjGgHziywk&list=PLyngZgIl3WTj5zD061cYUCO0GwRO6yfvX&index=3 Video 3]


==October 25: Ecological Psychology in Context==
:13:45 Break
Harry Heft, author of ''Ecological Psychology in Context: James Gibson, Roger Barker, and the Legacy of William James's Radical Empiricism'':


'''1: Radical empiricism and the ontology of affordances'''
:14:00 '''The Ammonia Molecule and the MASER'''


'''2. Behavior settings as emergent relational structures in everyday life'''
:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfA-vbWzVi4&list=PLyngZgIl3WTj5zD061cYUCO0GwRO6yfvX&index=4 Video 4]


:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Heft-On-Affordances Slides]
:15:15 Break
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Heft-Affordances Video]


Readings:
:15:30 '''Interpretations of Quantum physics'''
:Heft, "[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316116847_Perceptual_Information_of_An_Entirely_Different_Order_The_Cultural_Environment_in_The_Senses_Considered_as_Perceptual_Systems Perceptual Information of 'An Entirely Different Order']"
:Heft, "[https://buffalo.box.com/v/heft-perception Places: Widening the Scope of an Ecological Approach to Perception]"
:Heft, ''[https://buffalo.box.com/s/39nnbjmw3jadkwbvetjiz5c5pjrnyocy Ecological Psychology in Context]''


:Smith, "[http://ontology.buffalo.edu/eco/Ecological_Psychology.pdf Toward a Realistic Science of Environments]"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_x9-DYuLQ0&list=PLyngZgIl3WTj5zD061cYUCO0GwRO6yfvX&index=5 Video 5]
:Smith, "[https://philpapers.org/archive/SMIOAT.pdf Objects and Their Environments: From Aristotle to Ecological Psychology]"


==November 1: From Pragmatism to Radical Embodiment ==
:17:00 Close


Anthony Chemero (University of Cincinatti)
'''Sunday'''
'''Enactivism, Embodiment, Ecological Psychology'''
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Chemero-Lecture Slides]


Readings:  
:09:00 ''Interpretations of Quantum physics (continued)'''
:A. Chemero, ''[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Chemero-ROCS Radical Embodied Cognitive Science]'', MIT Press, 2009
:Reading:
:A. Chemero, "[https://www.academia.edu/attachments/66619419/download_file?st=MTYyODc4NjIwMCw2OC4xMzMuMTQuNjgsOTAzMTE%3D&s=profile&ct=MTYyODc4NjIwNSwxNjI4Nzg2NTk0LDkwMzEx An Outline of a Theory of Affordances]", ''Ecological Psychology'', 15(2), 181–195
:Rob Withagen and Anthony Chemero, "[https://buffalo.box.com/s/u5pdxvmxoafl0heomoh84xgl7h1psnzm Affordances and classification: On the significance of a sidebar in James Gibson’s last book]", ''Philosophical Psychology'', Vol. 25, No. 4, August 2012, 521–537


==November 8: Peirce on Habits==
:Video 5 continued


[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Peirce-on-Habit Slides]
:10:15 Break


Reading
:10:30 '''Laws, Causality and Particles'''


:Fausto Caruana and Italo Testa (eds.) [https://www.google.com/books/edition/Habits/VPwAEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Habits+Caruana Habits: Pragmatist Approaches from Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Social Theory]
:Video 5 continued


==November 15: Peirce on Diagrams / Rorty on Pragmatism==
:12:00 Lunch


'''John Sowa: Natural logic is diagrammatic reasoning about mental models'''
:12:30 '''Introduction to the Ontology of Physics and Mathematics'''  


:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Sowa-Peirce-Diagrams Slides]
:Video 5 continued


Reading:
:13:45 Break
:John Sowa, "[http://jfsowa.com/talks/ppe.pdf Peirce, Polya, and Euclid: Integrating logic, heuristics, and geometry]"
:John Sowa,"[http://www.collegepublications.co.uk/downloads/ifcolog00025.pdf Reasoning with diagrams and images]", 2018
:John Sowa, "[http://jfsowa.com/pubs/natlog.pdf Natural logic is diagrammatic reasoning about mental models]", 2020


'''Peirce on Logic and the Theory of Signs'''
==November 13: Philosophy of Mathematics (BS)==
:Peirce on logic
:Peirce and the theory of signs
:Peirce and mereology
:Peirce and chemical diagrams


Reading:
:14:00 '''Philosophy of mathematics''' (BS)
:Campbell, ''[https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10039485/1/Chris%20Campbell%20Final%20Thesis%20Submitted.pdf The Chemistry of Relations]''
:Smith, "[http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/articles/charuniv.pdf Characteristica Universalis]"
:Stjernfelt, ''[https://buffalo.box.com/s/ybkrfsmmc7h95piypzq8fhl58urjulb5 Diagrammatology]''
:Stjernfelt, "[https://philpapers.org/archive/STJMAS.pdf Mereology and Semiotics]"
:Sowa [http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/csp21st.pdf Peirce's Contributions to the 21st Century]


'''Richard Rorty: The Last Pragmatist'''
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Philosophy-of-mathematics Slides]
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Rorty-Scepticism Slides]
:[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Landgrebe-on-Rorty Video]


Reading: Munz, [https://buffalo.box.com/s/p5eqe7orynzykw55cweyjqvxr2y3tm4p Philosophy and the Mirror of Rorty]
:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgJrFzXwwCY Video]


==November 22: Student Projects ==
==November 14: Philosophy of Physics and Mathematics (with Jobst Landgrebe)==


:1:00pm Noah Kim: [https://buffalo.box.com/s/ffr657w12tbkpanm1tmrzpo585e7e4r5 Pragmatism and Metaethics: A Peircean Approach to Moral Cognitivism]
:1:00pm: '''Laws, causality and particles; general wrap-up on ontology of physics and mathematics'''
:1:15pm Alec Sculley: [https://buffalo.box.com/s/65lnmfpy10llojptt4jvxjbk5zn2k3k9 Philosophy Actually]
:1:30pm Ali Hasanzadeh: [https://buffalo.box.com/s/gpw1m9v9rcxppvnq3y5y2u4cks7nu7a3 The Role of Peirce’s Pragmatism in Modern Physics]
:1:45pm Famous Clark: [https://buffalo.box.com/s/dp23y3uhshrzxy3ftzl4la8tzsky84v0 Feminist Reparative Readings of Pragmatism]
:2:00pm Peihong (Karl) Xie: [https://buffalo.box.com/s/523juo8mt9mmpq7037xnjn8i9e7tmrcw Does A Pragmatist Demystification of Truthmaking Succeed?]
:2:15pm Tiankui Zeng: [https://buffalo.box.com/s/r9s04uduurtde0n8ftmng4djh541ckg1 Rorty escaping the game]
:2:30pm Robert Krieter: [https://buffalo.box.com/s/9jinwsn1yc98rtgz66p3rw9u5bp4r1tb Counterfactual Intuitions and Actuality]
:2:45pm Hyemi Jun: [https://buffalo.box.com/s/l84qreo2gfum2izmfh9dr4o19knbf08m Comparing Peirce and Descartes on Approaches to Justify Knowledge]
:3:00pm Finn Wilson: [https://buffalo.box.com/s/9amefom1rpsfs0g8w9ejiviu7zgjep87 Peirce, Belief and Reference]


==November 29: No class ==
:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOWqcbIkxP4&list=PLyngZgIl3WTj5zD061cYUCO0GwRO6yfvX&index=6 Video]


==December 6: No class ==
Topics dealt with include:
:The nature of particles
:Classical physics and quantum mechanics
:Quantum electrodynamics
:Quantum field theory
:The operational view and the dynamic view
:Ontology of physics
:Ontology of mathematics


== '''Background Reading: Primary Literature''' ==
==November 21 Student Projects ==


:Barker, Roger "[https://www.spssi.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=document.viewdocument&ID=3F28EB86AE4CA3BB2EE025BE0093BF040DF534F490344D630568A7B6A4F9D6BE8A419D9A5BFC2C3737450814D3839CB6 On the Nature of the Environment]", ''Journal of Social Issues'', October 1963.
:1:00 Giacomo De Colle, '''The Ontology of Energy Management in Data Centers'''
:Brock, Jarrett, "[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Brock-on-Peirce-on-speech-acts An Introduction to Peirce's Theory of Speech Acts]", ''Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society'', 17 (4), 1981, 319-326.
:1:15 Josh Vonderhaar, '''Epistemic Models and Social Science'''
:Dewey, John. (1884). "[https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Dewey/newpsych.htm The new psychology]". ''Andover Review'', 2, 278-289. [Possibly the first use of the phrase "new psychology."]
:1:30 Delaney McNulty, '''Issues with fMRI Scans'''
:Dewey, John. (1894). "[https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Dewey/ego.htm The ego as cause]". ''Philosophical Review'', 3, 337-341.
:1:45 Tiankui Zeng, '''An alternative interpretation of the replication crisis'''
:Dewey, John. (1896) "[https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Dewey/reflex.htm The reflex arc concept in psychology]". ''Psychological Review'', 3, 357-370. [The article that defined the modern concept of the reflex.]
:2:00 Lance Hill, '''Sophistry in the Social Sciences'''
:Dewey, John. (1938) ''[https://academiaanalitica.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/john-dewey-logic-the-theory-of-inquiry.pdf Logic. The Theory of Inquiry]''
:2:15 Hyemi Jun, '''Visualizing Cultural Difference: Analyzing the Dynamic Between Visual Perception and Emotion through Aesthetic Expression'''
:Gibson, James J. (1966) [https://buffalo.box.com/s/v3u96qrw6i2vd2uwn3e6x0i7i0i9v0xe ''The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems'']
:2:30 Noah Kim, '''International relations as a science and the role of ontology'''
:Gibson, James J.  (1979) [https://buffalo.box.com/s/8ouroqc5475w09rtuowozqy5xdr0dxp0 ''The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception'']
:2:45 Cameron More, '''Economics is Not a Science: The Metaphysical Assumptions of Neoclassical and Marginalist Theory'''
:Holt, Edwin Bissell (1931) [https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_2347251/component/file_2359054/content ''Animal Drive and the Leaning Process. An Essay Toward Radical Empiricism'']
:3:00 Jieming Yu, '''Conceptual Revision and the Change in the Concept of Gene'''
:Holt, E. B. et al. (1912) [https://buffalo.box.com/s/f24brpm4zbmxsmk1004sa2z1h5q0471j ''The New Realism'']
:James, William (1890). [https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/Principles/index.htm ''The Principles of Psychology''].
:James, William, "[https://oconnell.fas.harvard.edu/files/jameskloppenberg/files/pragmatism_old_name_for_new_wayas_of_thinking.pdf Pragmatism, a New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking]", in: ''Popular Lectures on Philosophy'', Longmans, Green, and Co (1907)
:Langfeld, Herbert (1931) [https://buffalo.box.com/s/nzbag11jh11ru9a5hdg282xp3cdb79z4 "A Response Interpretation of Consciousness"], ''The Psychological Review'', 38(2), 1931, 87-107.
:Mead, George H. (1913). "[https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Mead/socialself.htm The social self]". ''Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods'', 10, 374-380. [Major article by the "social behaviorist"]
:Mead, George H. (1934) [https://buffalo.box.com/s/g1wuu7573k97vnm2l6r1y31wab239357 Mind, Self and Society]
:Parsons, Talcott (1951) [https://buffalo.box.com/s/ngcv5zzaaoa1gvemc7pysbvbtnkf4d8y ''The Social System'']
:Peirce, C. S. "[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_12/January_1878/Illustrations_of_the_Logic_of_Science_II How to Make our Ideas Clear]"
:Schiller, F. C. S. ''[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015011412510&view=1up&seq=35 Humanism: Philosophical Essays]''
:Schiller, F. C. S. ''[https://www.bookyards.com/en/book/details/14254/Studies-In-Humanism# Studies in Humanism]'',
:Skinner, B. F. (1935). "[https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Twotypes/twotypes.htm Two types of conditioned reflex and a pseudo type]". ''Journal of General Psychology'', 12, 66-77. [Major statement of operant behaviorism.]
:Skinner, B. F. (1937). "[https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/ReplytoK/reply.htm Two types of conditioned reflex: A reply to Konorski and Miller]". ''Journal of General Psychology'', 16, 272-279. [Reply to major critique of Skinner (1935).]
:Skinner, B. F. (1950). "[https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Theories/ Are theories of learning necessary?]", ''Psychological Review'', 57, 193-216.
:Thorndike, Edward ''[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015010306069&view=1up&seq=10 Human Learning]'', 1931
:Watson, John B. (1913). "[https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/views.htm Psychology as the behaviorist views it]". ''Psychological Review'', 20, 158-177. [The classic manifesto of behaviorism.]


=='''Background Reading: Secondary Literature'''==
== '''Background Reading''' ==
:Michael K. Bergman, [https://www.isko.org/cyclo/hierarchy Hierarchy from the perspective of Peirce], ''Encyclopedia of Knowledge Organization''
:M. E. Bitterman [https://buffalo.box.com/s/nzpd5xrpq6dks4yyxk5k3j8xw4gxm5c4 Classical Conditioning Since Pavlov], ''Review of General Psychology'', 2006, 10 (4), 365–376
:J. F. Boler, ''[https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28John%20Boler%29 Charles Peirce and Scholastic Realism: A Study of Peirce's Relation to John Duns Scotus]'',  University of Washington Press, I963
:J. F. Boler, [https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1019.6057&rep=rep1&type=pdf Peirce on the Medievals: Realism, Power and Form]
:Maria Brinker, "[https://philpapers.org/rec/BRITBO-16 The Backside of Habit: Notes on Embodied Agency and the Functional Opacity of the Medium]", in: Fausto Caruana & Italo Testa (eds.), ''Habits'', 2020
:Chris Campbell, [https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10039485/1/Chris%20Campbell%20Final%20Thesis%20Submitted.pdf The Chemistry of Relations. The periodic table examined through the lens of C.S. Peirce’s philosophy], University College London, 2017
:Fausto Caruana and Italo Testa (eds.) [https://www.google.com/books/edition/Habits/VPwAEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Habits+Caruana Habits: Pragmatist Approaches from Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Social Theory], Cambridge University Press, 2020.
:Jorge Castro and Enrique Lafuente, [https://buffalo.box.com/s/ur6unuxwa3al6ek017qg76a83rc6iz3j “All You Need is Holt”—Is the Socio-cultural Phenomenon a Problem for a Neorealist Ecological Psychology?]
:E. P. Charles, [http://researchgate.net/publication/232520180_Seeing_Minds_in_Behavior_Descriptive_Mentalism Seeing Minds in Behavior: Descriptive Mentalism], August 2011, ''Review of General Psychology'' 15(3):267-276.
:A. Chemero, ''[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Chemero-ROCS Radical Embodied Cognitive Science]'', MIT Press, 2009
:A. Chemero, "[https://www.academia.edu/attachments/66619419/download_file?st=MTYyODc4NjIwMCw2OC4xMzMuMTQuNjgsOTAzMTE%3D&s=profile&ct=MTYyODc4NjIwNSwxNjI4Nzg2NTk0LDkwMzEx] An Outline of a Theory of Affordances]", ''Ecological Psychology'', 15(2), 181–195
:Willard F. Day, [https://buffalo.box.com/s/37psbprxsucac1xp86nrzq83894rpsxj On certain similarities between the Philosophical investigations of Ludwig Wittgenstein and the operationism of B. F. Skinner], ''Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior'', 1969 May; 12(3): 489–506.
:Christopher D. Green, "[https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/intro.htm Introduction to Watson (1913)]"
:Bernard Guerin, [https://buffalo.box.com/s/n997m4rdoscc8h47s6v0akkn5g62pqbf Gibson, Skinner and Perceptual Responses], ''Behavior and Philosophy'', Spring/Summer 1990, Vol. 18, Number 1
:Susan Haack, "[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321397567_Pragmatism_Old_and_New_2006 Pragmatism Old and New]" (2006).
:Henry Jackman, "James' Pragmatic Account of Intentionality and Truth", ''Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society'', Vol. 34, No. 1, 1998, 155-181
:Peter Hare, [https://buffalo.box.com/v/Hare-Dissertation-on-Mead G. H. Mead's Metaphysics of Sociality], Dissertation, Columbia University, 1965
:Peter Hare, [https://buffalo.box.com/s/0pld22poie0tlxhzk76mbbl9euyudykb Neglected American Philosophers in the History of Symbolic Interactionism] [on Mead's precursors Chauncey Wright and Josiah Royce]
:Harry Heft, [https://buffalo.box.com/s/39nnbjmw3jadkwbvetjiz5c5pjrnyocy ''Ecological Psychology in Context : James Gibson, Roger Barker, and the Legacy of William James's Radical Empiricism'']
:Harry Heft, "[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Harry-Heft/publication/316116847_Perceptual_Information_of_An_Entirely_Different_Order_The_Cultural_Environment_in_The_Senses_Considered_as_Perceptual_Systems Perceptual Information of 'An Entirely Different Order': The 'Cultural Environment' in The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems]", ''Ecological Psychology'', 29 (2), 2017, 122-145
:Heft, Harry, "[https://buffalo.box.com/v/heft-perception Places: Widening the Scope of an Ecological Approach to Perception–Action With an Emphasis on Child Development]", ''Ecological Psychology'', 30, 2018, 99-123
:Hongwei Jia [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331469588_Foundations_of_the_Theory_of_Signs_1938 Foundations of the Theory of Signs (1938)], ''Chinese Semiotic Studies'' 15(1): 1–14.
:Catherine Legg and Joshua Black “[https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10670-020-00301-9.pdf What is Intelligence For? A Peircean Pragmatist Response to the Knowing‑How, Knowing‑That Debate]”, ''Erkenntnis'', 2020.
:Willem J. M. Levelt, [https://buffalo.box.com/s/eq216axomi49jigmtuil9n1odkjd9axr Speech Acts and Functions], ch. 9 of Levelt, ''A History of Psycholinguistics: The Pre-Chomskyan Era'', Oxford University Press, 2013 [on Bühler and speech act theory]
:Peter T. Manicas, "John Dewey and American Psychology", ''Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 32:30021–8308
:Edward C. Moore, "The Scholastic Realism of C. S. Peirce", ''Philosophy and Phenomenological Research'', March 1952, 12 (3), 406-417
:Kevin Mulligan, "[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Pragmatism-and-phenomenology How to Marry Phenomenology and Pragmatism - Scheler's Proposal]", ''Pragmatism and the European Traditions: Encounters with Analytic Philosophy and Phenomenology Before the Great Divide'', Edited by Maria Baghramian and Sarin Marchetti, Routledge, 2018, 37-64
:Peter Munz, [https://buffalo.box.com/s/p5eqe7orynzykw55cweyjqvxr2y3tm4p Philosophy and the Mirror of Rorty], ''Philosophy of the Social Sciences'' 14 (2):195-238 (1984)
:Thomas Natsoulas [https://buffalo.box.com/s/y7txgbmk9va735ltaz44z11ozif0jeg9 Gibson's Environment, Husserl's "''Lebenswelt''," the World of Physics, and the Rejection of Phenomenal Objects], ''The American Journal of Psychology'', Autumn, 1994, Vol. 107, No. 3 (Autumn, 1994), pp. 327-358
:Sami Pihlström, "[http://www.minerva.mic.ul.ie//vol9/Truthmaking.html Truthmaking And Pragmatist Conceptions Of Truth And Reality]". ''Minerva'' (2005) 9:105-133.
:Matthieu Queloz, [https://fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/academic/pdf/openaccess/9780198868705.pdf ''The Practical Origins of Ideas: Genealogy as Conceptual Reverse-Engineering''] (open access) [On Peirce]
:Richard Rorty, [https://buffalo.box.com/v/Rorty-review-of-Boler Review of Boler on Scholastic Realism]
:John Sowa, "[http://jfsowa.com/talks/ppe.pdf Peirce, Polya, and Euclid: Integrating logic, heuristics, and geometry]"
:John Sowa,"[http://www.collegepublications.co.uk/downloads/ifcolog00025.pdf Reasoning with diagrams and images]", 2018
:John Sowa, "[http://jfsowa.com/pubs/natlog.pdf Natural logic is diagrammatic reasoning about mental models]", 2020
:John Sowa "[http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/csp21st.pdf Peirce's Contributions to the 21st Century]".
:Barry Smith (ed.), ''[https://philpapers.org/archive/SMIFOG.pdf Foundations of Gestalt Theory], Munich, 1988.
:Barry Smith, "[http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/articles/charuniv.pdf Characteristica Universalis]", in K. Mulligan (ed.), ''Language, Truth and Ontology'', Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer, 1992, 48–77.
:Barry Smith, "[http://ontology.buffalo.edu/eco/Ecological_Psychology.pdf Toward a Realistic Science of Environments]", ''Ecological Pschology'' 21 (2), April-June 2009, 121-130
:Barry Smith [https://philpapers.org/archive/SMIOAT.pdf “Objects and Their Environments: From Aristotle to Ecological Psychology”], in Andrew Frank, Jonathan Raper and Jean-Paul Cheylan (eds.), ''The Life and Motion of Socio-Economic Units'' (GISDATA 8), London: Taylor and Francis, 2001, 79–97. [On Roger Barker on behavior settings]
:Frederik Stjernfelt, "[https://philpapers.org/archive/STJMAS.pdf Mereology and Semiotics]", ''Sign Systems Studies'' 28:73-97 (2000)
:Frederik Stjernfelt, ''[https://buffalo.box.com/s/ybkrfsmmc7h95piypzq8fhl58urjulb5 Diagrammatology]'', Springer, 2007
:Frederik Stjernfelt, "[https://buffalo.app.box.com/v/Peirce-as-Truthmaker-Realist Peirce as Truthmaker Realist]"[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324954426_Signs_Conveying_Information_On_the_Range_of_Peirce's_Notion_of_Propositions_-_Dicisigns Signs Conveying Information: On the Range of Peirce's Notion of Propositions – Dicisigns]", in: ''Empirical Research on Semiotics and Visual Rhetoric'', 2018 (pp.177-192)
:Frederik Stjernfelt,"[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Shared-dependencesThe Riddle of Dependences. How to connect entities, across pragmatism, phenomenology, and structuralism]"
:Frederik Stjernfelt: "[https://buffalo.box.com/v/Stjernfelt-Co-localization Co-localization as the Syntax of Multimodal Propositions: An Amazing Peircean Idea and Some Implications for the Semiotics of Truth]"
:Fumiaki Toyoshima and Adrien Barton "[http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2347/paper9.pdf A Formal Representation of Affordances as Reciprocal Dispositions]", ''TriCoLore'' (C3GI/ISD/SCORE), 2018
:Rob Withagen and Anthony Chemero [https://buffalo.box.com/s/u5pdxvmxoafl0heomoh84xgl7h1psnzm Affordances and classification: On the significance of a sidebar in James Gibson’s last book], ''Philosophical Psychology'', Vol. 25, No. 4, August 2012, 521–537
:Robert H. Wozniak, [https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/commentary.htm "Commentary on Watson (1913)"]


=='''Background Reading: Repositories'''==
[[Readings on Gibson, Affordances, Dispositions]]
:[https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/ Mead Project Inventory]: see especially items by Dewey, E. B. Holt, and G. H. Mead
:[https://arisbe.sitehost.iu.edu/ Peirce resources]
:[https://denison.edu/people/harry-heft Harry Heft: Works]
:[http://strangebeautiful.com/lmu/lectures-lmu-peirce.pdf Munich Schedule of Lectures on Peirce]
:[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22frederik+stjernfelt%22+Peirce&hl=en Frederik Stjernfelt on Peirce]
:[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Eric+charles+e+b+holt&hl=en E. P. Charles' papers on Holt]
:[https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/author.htm Classics in the History of Psychology]


== '''Student Learning Outcomes''' ==
== '''Student Learning Outcomes''' ==
Line 387: Line 299:
! Assessment Method(s)
! Assessment Method(s)
|-
|-
| The student will acquire a knowledge of the history of American philosophy, of its influence on the development of psychology and the social sciences, and of its contemporary relevance.  
| The student will acquire a knowledge of the philosophy of both the natural and social sciences.
| Lectures and class discussions
| Lectures and class discussions
| Review of reading matter and associated online content and participation in class discussions
| Review of reading matter and associated online content and participation in class discussions
|-
|-
| The student will acquire experience in using the methods employed in intellectual history, especially as applied to philosophical theories and systems
| The student will acquire experience in using the methods of philosophical argument, in formulating complex propositions on the interrelations between philosophy, science, and mathematics.


| Participation in practical experiments
| Participation in practical experiments
| Review of results  
| Review of results  
|-
|-
| The student will acquire experience in communicating the results of work in the history of philosophy in such a way as to demonstrate their contemporary relevance.  
| The student will acquire experience in formulating ideas using powerful persuasive prose.  
| Creation of youtube presentation and of associated documentation
| Creation of documentation and youtube presentations
| Review of results
| Review of results
|}
|}
Line 420: Line 332:
|  Nov 15 || - submit second draft of essay (~2000 words) and associated powerpoint (~10 slides)
|  Nov 15 || - submit second draft of essay (~2000 words) and associated powerpoint (~10 slides)
|-
|-
|  Nov 22 || - class presentation
|  Nov 21 || - class presentation
|-
|-
|  Dec 11 || - submit final version of essay and powerpoint and upload final version of video to youtube
|  Dec 11 || - submit final version of essay and powerpoint and upload final version of video to youtube

Latest revision as of 15:33, 24 December 2022

Philosophy of Science

Fall Semester 2022, Monday 1-3:40pm. Special weekend session on November 12-13.

(PHI 420/520) Registration

Undergraduate 23577
Graduate 23578

Venue: Park 141

Instructors:

Barry Smith
Jobst Landgrebe

Prerequisites: Open to all persons with an undergraduate degree and some knowledge of philosophy.

Office hours: By appointment via email at phismith@buffalo.edu

The Course

Course Description: What are the essential features of a scientific discipline, and how are the different scientific disciplines related to each other and to the world which they seek to represent? This course will provide an introduction to questions such as this, beginning with a treatment of the role of models in different types of science, and of the truthmakers for different kinds of scientific proposition. We then attempt to create a synoptic and non-reductionist view of science in its entirety, aiming to do justice to each of the sciences from a realist point of view, and at the same time throw light on the interplay between the natural sciences and mathematics, and between the sciences in general and the world of common-sense experience.

Course Structure: This is a three credit hour graduate seminar.

The final session will be structured around powerpoint presentations by the students in the class. These presentations will be recorded.

Target Audience: The course is open to all interested students with an undergraduate degree and some knowledge of philosophy.

Sample Topics

What is a scientific model?
Descriptions, Explanations, Interpretations, Predictions
Classifying sciences
Science as a habit
Simple and complex systems
The reproducibility crisis
The applicability of mathematics
Philosophy of explicit and implicit mathematics
Carl Stumpf: Philosopher in the Lab
Do the mathematical entities mathematicians use exist independently of the mathematicians who use them?
Popper and after: Four modern irrationalists
Can we discover new scientific theories using AI?
The role of ontology in information-driven science
Nancy Cartwright
The Metaphysics Research Lab
Powers and dispositions
Singular dispositions (chemistry and interpersonal attraction, charisma, intersubjectivity ...)
Philosophy of mathematics
Explicit vs. implicit mathematics
Structural, patterns, Wesenszusammenhänge
Units of measure, measurement results, equations

August 29: Introduction to the Philosophy of Science

Historical Background

Slides
Video
Aristotle
Scotus (and Peirce)
Realism about Universals (Universals are What Science is About)
Kant (and Newton and the a priori)
Wittgenstein
Husserl's Crisis of European Sciences
The Vienna Circle
Fantology

September 5: Labor Day Observed

September 12: Darwin, Genes, and Units of Measure

Video
Slides

Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (Continued)

The Austrian Background of Philosophy of Science
Popper
Lakatos
Kuhn
Feyerabend
Ontology and Science

Readings

D. C. Stove, Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists
J. Franklin, Stove's Discovery of the World's Worst Philosophical Argument
J. C. Nyiri, The Austrian Element in the Philosophy of Science

From Aristotle to Darwin

From the Vienna Circle to the Gene Ontology

Ontology of units of measure

Video: Quantities (units of measure) as fiat universals

Reading: Alan Code, Searle, Aristotle, and the mind-body problem (1994)

September 19: Types of Reasoning and Types of Evidence (with Amelia Kahn)

Video

Slides

1. Types of reasoning (induction, abduction, and deduction) and their role in science

  The epistemically important features of scientific investigation processes

2. What is evidence?

What type of thing can be evidence: physical objects (the killer's fingerprint!), sense data or perceptual experience, or a mental state like knowledge? Or some other thing?

Reading: Gilbert Harman, "Inference to the Best Explanation

October 3: Biomedical Sciences

Slides
Audio

The ontology of disease

Reading: "Toward an Ontological Treatment of Disease and Diagnosis"

October 10: Psychological Sciences

Origins of psychology as a science

Brentano and his legacy
Husserl, Meinong and the arrow of intentionality

The Mental Functioning Ontology

Slides
Video

Readings:

Werner Ceusters & Barry Smith, "Foundations for a realist ontology of mental disease", Journal of Biomedical Semanticsmm volume 1 (2010)

Background materials on ecological psychology:

Ontology of niches, affordances, settings, places, habitats: From Aristotle to Gibson and Barker and the Hutchinsonian niche

Slides
Video

Behavior settings as emergent relational structures in everyday life

Slides
Video

Readings:

Heft, "Perceptual Information of 'An Entirely Different Order'"
Heft, "Places: Widening the Scope of an Ecological Approach to Perception"
Heft, Ecological Psychology in Context
Smith, "Toward a Realistic Science of Environments"
Smith, "Objects and Their Environments: From Aristotle to Ecological Psychology"

October 17: The Replication Problem: Science as a Social Phenomenon

Video
Cuddy Video
Slides

October 24: Practical Applications of Ontology

This session will involve a series of talks and discussions given by UB faculty (including BS) and visitors from the University of Toronto. One central focus will be the ontology of social services. Another will be urban planning. More details will follow.

October 31: Consistent Histories: A Realist view of Quantum Physics

Video

Slides

Readings:

Nancy Cartwright, "Models: The Blueprint for Laws"
Barry Smith, "Quantum Mereotopology"
Barry Smith “True Grid” (2001)

November 12-13: Philosophy of Quantum Physics (with Jobst Landgrebe) (weekend session)

Video
Slides

Outline

The goal of the lectures is to bring students to the level where they can understand the Schrödinger equation.

The lectures will defend a view of physics resting on a radical division between classical physics on the one hand and quantum mechanics (QM) on the other. General relativity theory (GTR), from this perspective, is still a part of classical physics.

Essentially, with the rise of QM the mathematical modelling of nature has deviated more and more from what we observe in nature. For while GTR is mathematically demanding, it is much closer than QM to what we observe directly in nature. Indeed, the realization of QM effects depends heavily on the use of completely artificial settings. These effects can, it is true, be realized using engineering, both in experimental settings and in machines which address practical purpose, for example in quantum cryptography. But leaving aside what goes on in these unnatural settings, QM has nothing to contribute to our understanding of ordinary reality. (For expanded version of goal see here)

Readings

Extract from: Tim Maudlin, Distilling Metaphysics from Physics
Christian Wüthrich, Introduction to Philosophy of Physics
Nancy Cartwright: How the laws of physics lie
Feynman: Lectures on physics, vol III, chs. 1-3 Audio Version (recommended)
Griffith: Consistent Histories
Carsten Held: Axiomatic Quantum Mechanics and Completeness
Steven French: Review of Falkenburg: Particle Metaphysics
Kuhlmann: Quantum Field Theory

Saturday

09:00 Philosophy for physics or physics for philosophy?
Video 1
10:15 Break
10:30 The dualism of waves and particles
Video 2
12:00 Lunch
12:30 Basic Laws of Quantum Mechanics and Introductory Remarks on the Ontology of Physics and Mathematics
Video 3
13:45 Break
14:00 The Ammonia Molecule and the MASER
Video 4
15:15 Break
15:30 Interpretations of Quantum physics

Video 5

17:00 Close

Sunday

09:00 Interpretations of Quantum physics (continued)'
Reading:
Video 5 continued
10:15 Break
10:30 Laws, Causality and Particles
Video 5 continued
12:00 Lunch
12:30 Introduction to the Ontology of Physics and Mathematics
Video 5 continued
13:45 Break

November 13: Philosophy of Mathematics (BS)

14:00 Philosophy of mathematics (BS)
Slides
Video

November 14: Philosophy of Physics and Mathematics (with Jobst Landgrebe)

1:00pm: Laws, causality and particles; general wrap-up on ontology of physics and mathematics
Video

Topics dealt with include:

The nature of particles
Classical physics and quantum mechanics
Quantum electrodynamics
Quantum field theory
The operational view and the dynamic view
Ontology of physics
Ontology of mathematics

November 21 Student Projects

1:00 Giacomo De Colle, The Ontology of Energy Management in Data Centers
1:15 Josh Vonderhaar, Epistemic Models and Social Science
1:30 Delaney McNulty, Issues with fMRI Scans
1:45 Tiankui Zeng, An alternative interpretation of the replication crisis
2:00 Lance Hill, Sophistry in the Social Sciences
2:15 Hyemi Jun, Visualizing Cultural Difference: Analyzing the Dynamic Between Visual Perception and Emotion through Aesthetic Expression
2:30 Noah Kim, International relations as a science and the role of ontology
2:45 Cameron More, Economics is Not a Science: The Metaphysical Assumptions of Neoclassical and Marginalist Theory
3:00 Jieming Yu, Conceptual Revision and the Change in the Concept of Gene

Background Reading

Readings on Gibson, Affordances, Dispositions

Student Learning Outcomes

Program Outcomes/Competencies Instructional Method(s) Assessment Method(s)
The student will acquire a knowledge of the philosophy of both the natural and social sciences. Lectures and class discussions Review of reading matter and associated online content and participation in class discussions
The student will acquire experience in using the methods of philosophical argument, in formulating complex propositions on the interrelations between philosophy, science, and mathematics. Participation in practical experiments Review of results
The student will acquire experience in formulating ideas using powerful persuasive prose. Creation of documentation and youtube presentations Review of results

How to Write an Essay

Jordan Peterson's Essay Writing Guide
Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style, Penguin Books, 2014
Strunk and White, The Elements of Style
Harvard's guide to writing philosophy
Jim Pryor's guide to writing philosophy

Important Dates

Sep 7 - about now start to discuss by email the content of your essay or essays with Dr Smith
Sep 25 - submit proposed title and abstract
Oct 10 - submit a table of contents and 300 word summary plus draft of associated ppt slides
Oct 20 - submit first draft of essay (~1000 words) and associated powerpoint (~10 slides)
Nov 15 - submit second draft of essay (~2000 words) and associated powerpoint (~10 slides)
Nov 21 - class presentation
Dec 11 - submit final version of essay and powerpoint and upload final version of video to youtube

Grading

Grading will be based on two factors:

I: understanding and criticism of the material presented in classes 1-13

All students are required to take an active part in class (and where relevant on-line) discussions throughout the semester.

II: preparation of an essay, and associated powerpoint slides and recorded presentation.

Content and structure of the essay should be discussed with Dr Smith.

Grading Policy: Grading follows standard Graduate School policies. Grades will be weighted according to the following breakdown:

Weighting Assignment

20% - class discussions
15% - youtube video presentation
15% - powerpoint slides
50% - essay

Final Grades

Percentages refer to sum of assignment grades as listed above

Grade Quality Percentage

A 4.0 90.0% -100.00%
A- 3.67 87.0% - 89.9%
B+ 3.33 84.0% - 86.9%
B 3.00 80.0% - 83.9%
B- 2.67 77.0% - 79.9%
C+ 2.33 74.0% - 76.9%
C 2.00 71.0% - 73.9%
C- 1.67 68.0% - 70.9%
D+ 1.33 65.0% - 67.9%
D 1.00 62.0% - 64.9%
F 0 61.9% or below

An interim grade of Incomplete (I) may be assigned if the student has not completed all requirements for the course. An interim grade of 'I' shall not be assigned to a student who did not attend the course. The default grade accompanying an interim grade of 'I' shall be 'U' and will be displayed on the UB record as 'IU.' The default Unsatisfactory (U) grade shall become the permanent course grade of record if the 'IU' is not changed through formal notice by the instructor upon the student's completion of the course.

Assignment of an interim 'IU' is at the discretion of the instructor. A grade of 'IU' can be assigned only if successful completion of unfulfilled course requirements can result in a final grade better than the default 'U' grade. The student should have a passing average in the requirements already completed. The instructor shall provide the student specification, in writing, of the requirements to be fulfilled.

The university’s Graduate Incomplete Policy can be found here.

Related Policies and Services

Academic integrity is a fundamental university value. Through the honest completion of academic work, students sustain the integrity of the university while facilitating the university's imperative for the transmission of knowledge and culture based upon the generation of new and innovative ideas. See http://grad.buffalo.edu/Academics/Policies-Procedures/Academic-Integrity.html.

Accessibility resources: If you have any disability which requires reasonable accommodations to enable you to participate in this course, please contact the Office of Accessibility Resources in 60 Capen Hall, 645-2608 and also the instructor of this course during the first week of class. The office will provide you with information and review appropriate arrangements for reasonable accommodations, which can be found on the web here.

University suppert services: Students are often unaware of university support services. For example, the Center for Excellence in Writing provides support for written work, and several tutoring centers on campus provide academic success support and resources.

Available resources on sexual assault: UB is committed to providing an environment free of all forms of discrimination and sexual harassment, including sexual assault, domestic and dating violence and stalking. If you have experienced gender-based violence (intimate partner violence, attempted or completed sexual assault, harassment, coercion, stalking, etc.), UB has resources to help. This includes academic accommodations, health and counseling services, housing accommodations, helping with legal protective orders, and assistance with reporting the incident to police or other UB officials if you so choose. Please contact UB’s Title IX Coordinator at 716-645-2266 for more information. For confidential assistance, you may also contact a Crisis Services Campus Advocate at 716-796-4399.

Counseiling services: As a student you may experience a range of issues that can cause barriers to learning or reduce your ability to participate in daily activities. These might include strained relationships, anxiety, high levels of stress, alcohol/drug problems, feeling down, health concerns, or unwanted sexual experiences. Counseling, Health Services, and Health Promotion are here to help with these or other concerns. You learn can more about these programs and services by contacting:

Counseling Services: 120 Richmond Quad (North Campus), phone 716-645-2720
Health Services: Michael Hall (South Campus), phone: 716-829-3316
Health Promotion: 114 Student Union (North Campus), phone: 716- 645-2837
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