Courses / Module

• Distinguish “philosophy of science” from “science” in maters of methods and practices, while dealing with the questions: what is the role of the philosopher of science? what should be the relations between philosophy of science and hard-core science?
• Elaborate on the issue of rationality in ancient, medieval, and early modern scientific contexts. The question here is: can we use one notion of rationality in different historical contexts?
• 3. Appreciate the Aristotelian science in terms of causes and causality, elements, movements, and teleological explanations, while answering the questions: in what sense Aristotelian science can be regarded as “modern”? in what sense it is not “modern”?
• Discuss the significance of medieval science, its achievements and limitations, while dealing with the questions: what is new in medieval science? what is the standard way for introducing new scientific theories in medieval scientific discourse?
• Analyse the scientific revolution of the 17th century by using Popper’s theory of conjectures and refutations. The questions here are: what is a scientific progress? what is the connection between scientific activity and education? what is the role of history in science? what is the connection between history of science and philosophy of science? how Popper criticized the analytic philosophy of science?

• 12 lecture hours

• Module Graded (numeric value) or Ungraded (Pass/Not Passed): Graded

• Pass standard: 40%
• Could the result of this module be capped? No
• 40%
• Penalties: As set out in the Department Student Handbook.

• One-hour written examination.
• University scheduled written examination (Autumn): 60 minutes

For a full timetable search, go to NUIM Timetable. Venue locations can be found here.