History and Philosophy of Science

Hum/H/HPS 10. Introduction to the History of Science. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. For course description, see Humanities.

HPS 98. Reading in History and Philosophy of Science. 9 units (1-0-8). Prerequisite: instructor’s permission. An individual program of directed reading in history and philosophy of science, in areas not covered by regular courses. Instructor: Staff.

HPS 102 ab. Senior Research Seminar. 12 units (2-0-10). Offered in any two consecutive terms, by arrangement with HPS faculty. Under the guidance of an HPS faculty member, students will research and write a focused research paper of 15,000 words (approximately 50 pages). Work in the first term will comprise intensive reading in the relevant literature and/or archival or other primary source research. In the second term, students will draft and revise their paper. Open to seniors in the HPS option and to others by special permission of an HPS faculty member. Instructor: Staff.

HPS 103. Public Lecture Series. 1 unit; first, second, third terms. Student attend four lectures, featuring speakers from outside Caltech, on topics in the history and philosophy of science. Students may choose from a variety of regularly scheduled HPS lectures, including HPS seminars, Harris lectures, and Munroe seminars (history or philosophy of science only). Graded on attendance. Not available for credit toward the humanities–social science requirement. Graded pass/fail. Instructors: Guest lecturers.

HPS 104. Forbidden Knowledge. 9 units (3-0-6). When and how has the notion of freedom of knowledge and teaching in science emerged? What kinds of restrictions have been placed on scientists, their publications and institutions? Who restrained scientific knowledge of what sorts; for what reasons; and how successfully? These questions will be addressed by looking at some canonical cases in the history of science, such as Copernicus and Galileo. But we will also move into more recent history, discussing work on the atomic bomb, genetic engineering, and global warming. Instructors: Kormos-Buchwald, Goodstein.

HPS 105. Science and Literature. 9 units (3-0-6). This course explores the relationships between the sciences and the humanities, from the point of view of literary-scientific interactions. Issues to be addressed include the “Two Cultures” debate over the years: Huxley vs. Arnold in the late 19th century; Snow vs. Leavis in the mid 20th century; the Science Wars of the late 20th century. Problems of representing scientific content in literary works and the consequences of examining scientific writing from a literary perspective will also be addressed. Readings will be drawn from a variety of genres, including novels, short stories, poetry, essays, and scientific texts. Instructors: Kormos-Buchwald, Labinger.

HPS/Pl 120. Introduction to Philosophy of Science. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. An introduction to fundamental philosophical problems concerning the nature of science. Topics may include the character of scientific explanation, criteria for the conformation and falsification of scientific theories, the relationship between theory and observation, philosophical accounts of the concept of “law of nature,” causation, chance, realism about unobservable entities, the objectivity of science, and issues having to do with the ways in which scientific knowledge changes over time. Instructor: Hitchcock. Given in alternate years; offered 2007–08.

HPS/Pl 121. Causation and Explanation. 9 units (3-0-6); first term. An examination of theories of causation and explanation in philosophy and neighboring disciplines. Topics discussed may include probabilistic and counterfactual treatments of causation, the role of statistical evidence and experimentation in causal inference, and the deductive-nomological model of explanation. The treatment of these topics by important figures from the history of philosophy such as Aristotle, Descartes, and Hume may also be considered. Instructors: Woodward, Hitchcock, Zhang.

HPS/Pl 122. Confirmation and Induction. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. Philosophical and conceptual issues arising from theories of confirmation and induction. Topics include Hume’s “old” problem of induction; Goodman’s “new” riddle of induction and various notions of “projectability”; inductive logic; Bayesian confirmation theory; and other theories of confirmation. Instructors: Hitchcock, Zhang.

HPS/Pl 124. Philosophy of Space and Time. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. This course will focus on questions about the nature of space and time, particularly as they arise in connection with physical theory. Topics may include the nature and existence of space, time, and motion; the relationship between geometry and physical space (or space-time); entropy and the direction of time; the nature of simultaneity; and the possibility of time travel. Instructor: Hitchcock.

HPS/Pl 125. Philosophical Issues in Quantum Physics. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. This course will focus on conceptual issues that arise within quantum physics. Topics may include determinism and indeterminism; Einstein’s critiques of quantum theory; the interpretation of quantum measurement; and quantum logic. Instructor: Hitchcock.

HPS/Pl 128. Philosophy of Mathematics. 9 units (3-0-6). An examination of conceptual issues that arise in mathematics. The sorts of issues addressed may include the following: Are mathematical objects such as numbers in some sense real? How do we obtain knowledge of the mathematical world? Are proofs the only legitimate source of mathematical knowledge? What is the relationship between mathematics and the world? How is it possible to apply abstract theory to the world? Views of major historical figures such as Plato, Hume, Kant, and Mill, as well as of contemporary writers are examined. The course will also examine philosophical issues that arise in particular areas of mathematics such as probability theory and geometry. Instructor: Hitchcock.

HPS/Pl 129. Introduction to Philosophy of Biology. 9 units (3-0-6). Philosophical and conceptual issues relating to the biological sciences. Topics covered may include the logical structure of evolutionary theory, units of selection, optimization theory, the nature of species, reductionism, teleological and functional reasoning, and ethical issues arising from contemporary biological research. Not offered 2007–08.

HPS/Pl 130. Philosophy and Biology. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. This course will examine the impact of recent advances in biological sciences for studies of the mind, behavior, and society. Topics may include evolutionary psychology, the relation between evolution and development, the impact of molecular genetics on the theory of evolution, mathematical modeling of evolution and artificial evolution, philosophical and social issues raised by modern molecular biology. Instructor: Cowie. Not offered 2007–08.

HPS/Pl 132. Introduction to Philosophy of Mind and Psychology. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. An introduction to the mind-body problem. The course attempts, from the time of Descartes to the present, to understand the nature of the mind and its relation to the body and brain. Topics to be addressed may include dualism, behaviorism, functionalism, computationalism, neurophilosophy, consciousness and qualia, scientific psychology vs. “folk” psychology, the nature of emotion, knowledge of other minds. Not offered 2007–08.

HPS/Pl 133. Philosophy and Neuroscience. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. This course will examine the impact of recent advances in neuroscience on traditional philosophical problems. Topics may include the nature of free will in light of work on the neural basis of decision making; the nature of consciousness, knowledge, or learning; the mind/brain from the perspective of neural computation; and the neural foundations of cognitive science. Instructor: Quartz.

HPS/Pl 134. Current Issues in Philosophical Psychology. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. An in-depth examination of one or more issues at the intersection of contemporary philosophy and the brain and behavioral sciences. Topics may include the development of a theory of mind and self-representation, theories of representation and neural coding, the nature of rationality, the nature and causes of psychopathology, learning and innateness, the modularity of mind. Instructor: Murphy.

HPS/Pl 136. Ethics in Research. 4 units (2-0-2) or 9 units (2-0-7); third term. Course will address a number of ethical and philosophical issues arising in scientific research. Among the topics discussed will be the following: fraud and misconduct in science; various theories of the scientific method; the realities of science as practiced in laboratories and the pressures facing scientists in the real world; ethical issues raised by collaborative research; reward and credit in science; responsibilities of mentors, referees, and editors in the conduct of research; the role of government regulation and supervision in dealing with scientific misconduct; the role of the university; and changes in ethical standards due to advancing technology. Undergraduates wishing to take the course for advanced humanities credit should register for 9 units (a term paper will be required). Students who register for 4 units may do so on a pass/fail basis only. Instructors: Woodward, D. Goodstein. Not offered 2007–08.

HPS/H 156. The History of Modern Science. 9 units (3-0-6); third term. Selected topics in the development of the physical and biological sciences since the 17th century. Instructor: Kormos-Buchwald.

HPS/H 158. The Scientific Revolution. 9 units (3-0-6); second term. The birth of modern Western science from 1400 to 1700. The course examines the intellectual revolution brought about by the contributions of Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Kepler, Newton, and Harvey, and their relation to major political, social, and economic developments. Not offered 2007–08.

HPS/H 160 ab. Einstein and His Generation: The History of Modern Physical Sciences. 9 units (3-0-6); first, third terms. An exploration of the most significant scientific developments in the physical sciences, structured around the life and work of Albert Einstein (1879–1955), with particular emphasis on the new theories of radiation, the structure of matter, relativity, and quantum mechanics. While using original Einstein manuscripts, notebooks, scientific papers, and personal correspondence, we shall also study how experimental and theoretical work in the sciences was carried out; scientific education and career patterns; personal, political, cultural, and sociological dimensions of science. Not offered 2007–08.

HPS/H 162. Social Studies of Science. 9 units (3-0-6). A comparative, multidisciplinary course that examines the practice of science in a variety of locales, using methods from the history, sociology, and anthropology of scientific knowledge. Topics covered include the high-energy particle laboratory as compared with a biological one; Western as compared to non-Western scientific reasoning; the use of visualization techniques in science from their inception to virtual reality; gender in science; and other topics. Instructor: Feingold.

HPS/H 166. Historical Perspectives on the Relations between Science and Religion. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. The course develops a framework for understanding the changing relations between science and religion in Western culture since antiquity. Focus will be on the ways in which the conceptual, personal, and social boundaries between the two domains have been reshaped over the centuries. Questions to be addressed include the extent to which a particular religious doctrine was more or less amenable to scientific work in a given period, how scientific activity carved an autonomous domain, and the roles played by scientific activity in the overall process of secularization. Instructor: Feingold.

HPS/H 167. Experimenting with History/Historic Experiment. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. This course uses a combination of lectures with hands-on laboratory work to bring out the methods, techniques, and knowledge that were involved in building and conducting historical experiments. We will connect our laboratory work with the debates and claims made by the original discoverers, asking such questions as how experimental facts have been connected to theories, how anomalies arise and are handled, and what sorts of conditions make historically for good data. Typical experiments might include investigations of refraction, laws of electric force, interference of polarized light, electromagnetic induction, or resonating circuits and electric waves. We will reconstruct instrumentation and experimental apparatus based on a close reading of original sources. Instructor: Buchwald. Not offered 2007–08.

HPS/H 168. History of Electromagnetism and Heat Science. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. This course covers the development of electromagnetism and thermal science from its beginnings in the early 18th century through the early 20th century. Topics covered include electrostatics, magnetostatics, electrodynamics, Maxwell’s field theory, the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and statistical mechanics as well as related experimental discoveries. Instructor: Buchwald.

HPS/H 169. Selected Topics in the History of Science and Technology. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. Instructors: Staff, visiting lecturers.

HPS/Pl 169. Selected Topics in Philosophy of Science. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. Instructors: Staff, visiting lecturers.

HPS/H 170. History of Light from Antiquity to the 20th Century. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. A study of the experimental, mathematical, and theoretical developments concerning light, from the time of Ptolemy in the 2nd century A.D. to the production of electromagnetic optics in the 20th century. Instructor: Buchwald.

HPS/H 171. History of Mechanics from Galileo through Euler. 9 units (3-0-6); second term. Prerequisite: basic Caltech physics course. This course covers developments in mechanics, as well as related aspects of mathematics and models of nature, from just before the time of Galileo through the middle of the 18th century, which saw the creation of fluid and rotational dynamics in the hands of Euler and others. Instructor: Buchwald.

HPS/H 172. History of Mathematics: A Global View with Close-ups. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. The course will provide students with a brief yet adequate survey of the history of mathematics, characterizing the main developments and placing these in their chronological, cultural, and scientific contexts. A more detailed study of a few themes, such as Archimedes’ approach to infinite processes, the changing meanings of “analysis” in mathematics, Descartes’ analytic geometry, and the axiomatization of geometry c. 1900; students’ input in the choice of these themes will be welcomed. Instructor: Staff.

HPS/H/Pl 173. History of Chemistry. 9 units (3-0-6); first term. This course examines developments in chemistry from medieval alchemy to the time of Lavoisier. It will examine the real content of alchemy and its contributions to modern science, as well as how to decode its bizarre language; chemistry’s long quest for respect and academic status; the relations of chemistry with metallurgy, medicine, and other fields; and the content and development of the chemical theories and the chemical laboratory and its methods. Not offered 2007–08.

HPS/H/Pl 174. Celestial and Terrestrial Mechanisms: Landmarks in the Development of Greek Astronomy. 9 units (3-0-6); first term. The course will highlight the background and some of the landmarks in the evolution of Greek astronomy from its tentative beginnings in the 5th century B.C., to its culmination in the work of Ptolemy in the 2nd century A.D. Not offered 2007–08.

HPS/H 175. Matter, Motion, and Force: Physical Astronomy from Ptolemy to Newton. 9 units (3-0-6); second term. The course will examine how elements of knowledge that evolved against significantly different cultural and religious backgrounds motivated the great scientific revolution of the 17th century. Not offered 2007–08.

Pl/HPS 184. Science, Ethics, and Public Policy. 9 units (3-0-6). For course description, see Philosophy.