- Students are able to place science and scientific practices in a broader intellectual context
- Students are able to reflect critically about the foundations of science
- Students are able to reflect about their own actions as scientists
- Students are able to formulate and justify a standpoint about questions pertaining the philosophy and ethics of science formuleren
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In this course we shall discuss some fundamental questions about the philosophy and the ethics of the (natural) sciences. The course will be given twice, with a slightly different content (zie further in the description)
Topics:
- What is science? Wat is scientific knowledge? What are the epistemologic properties that make scientific knowledge 'special' (if any)?
- Models and theories: what does it mean to make a model of reality? What is the relationship between the model and the material entities?
- Is mathematics a science?
- Popper/Kuhn/Lakatos
- Ethics and morality: which models van we use to analyse / justify moral decisions and actions?
- Scientific integrity: who is the 'good' scientist? Examples of research misconduct
Instructional Modes
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The students will be asked to write a final paper and 2 short commands. There is no exam. The short assignments count for 50% of the final grade, the final assignment for the remaining 50%. |
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The course is given twice. The content of the course varies slightly between the two 'variants'. Version 1: the accent is more on foundational aspects and the relationship between mathematics and its formalism and the natural sciences. Version 2: the accent is more on epistemological aspects of scientific experiments and the theory-experiment relationship. Fundamental concepts in the philosophy and ethics of science are provided in both versions.
Version 1 will be taught in Dutch, version 2 will be taught in English |
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