History and Philosophy of Science

Rather than teaching you science, this course asks what science actually *is* — how it produces knowledge, why it works (or doesn't), and how that picture has shifted from Aristotle through Kuhn to current debates over realism and the social shaping of knowledge. You'll work through Godfrey-Smith and primary readings from figures like Popper, Kuhn, and Latour, defending positions on induction, falsification, and incommensurability in a short essay, a midterm, and a written final. As a senior philosophy requirement, it consolidates earlier epistemology and logic into a framework for thinking critically about any empirical claim — useful well beyond philosophy.