Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Psychology and Neuroscience –

Comprehensive Reading List

Robert L. Frazier
24/10/2009

General Philosophy of Science

Scientific Explanation
Reading
[Hempel, 1966], chapters 5 & 6. [Woodward, 2002]
[Achinstein, 1983], chapters 1-5. [van Fraassen, 1980], chapter 5.
[Cartwright, 1983], essay 8. [Lewis, 1986].
[Lipton, 1991], chs 2 & 3. [Ruben, 1993], Introduction.

Essay
Is there more than one kind of explanation? If so, which kinds are relevant to scientific explanations?
What are the aims of scientific explanations? What is the proper notion of evaluation for scientific
explanations (e.g., truth or usefulness)?

Laws of Nature
Reading
[Nagel, 1961], chapter 4. [Dretske, 1977].
[Lewis, 1983]. [van Fraassen, 1989], chapters 2–5.
[Armstrong, 1989], various. [Schiffer, 1991].
[Cartwright, 1994].

Essay
What are laws of nature? Are there different kinds of laws of nature? What purpose(s) do laws of nature
have in theorising?

Theory and Observation

Reading
[Achinstein, 1968], chapters 5 and 6. [van Fraassen, 1980], chapter 2.
[Shapere, 1982]. [Hacking, 1983], chapter 10.

Essay
Discuss the claim that all claims of fact are theory-laden.

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Scientific Revolutions
Reading
[Hacking, 1983], Introduction: Rationality. [Popper, 1981].
[Kuhn, 1970]. [Lakatos, 1981].
[Hacking, 1981a]. [Feyerabend, 1981]

Essay
Does the history of scientific revolution undermine the claim that science is a rational activity?

Realism, Anti-Realism and Internal Realism

Reading
[van Fraassen, 1980], chapter 2. [Cartwright, 1983], chapter 5.
[Hacking, 1983], Chapters 5–7. [Putnam, 1982]

Essay
What is scientific realism? What are the alternatives to realism? How is the inference to the best
explanation supposed to establish scientific realism? Does it?

Models
Reading
[Duhem, 1954], chapter 4. [Achinstein, 1968], chapters 7 & 8.
[van Fraassen, 1980], chapter 3. [Harré and Achinstein, 1976], if possible.

0.1 Essay
What are models? What role do they play in scientific theorizing? How do we evaluative models? Do
different views about their role in scientific theorizing require different views about their evaluation?

Causation
Reading
[Sosa and Tooley, 1993], Introduction.
[Hume, 1966], sec. VII. [Lewis, 1975].
[Kim, 1975]. [Skyrms, 1975], pp. 85–89, 121-129.
[Mackie, 1974], ch. 2. [Cartwright, 1983], Essay 1.
[Davidson, 1967]. [Blackburn, 1984], ch. 5, § 1,6; ch. 6, § 5,6.
[Horwich, 1987], pp. 167–76.

Essay
What is the counterfactual conditional analysis of causal statements? Is such an analysis necessary for
science or is a regularity or constant conjunction view adequate?
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Probability
Reading
[Skyrms, 1975], chapters 1-3 and 7. [Mackie, 1973], chapter 5.
[van Fraassen, 1980], chapter 6. [Swinburne, 1971].

Essay
What is the correct interpretation of probabilistic statements in the natural sciences?

Induction
Reading
[Hume, 1966], IV part (ii), V part (i).. [Goodman, 1955], ch. III.
[Skyrms, 1975], chs 2 & 3. [Harman, 1992].
[Chalmers, 1982], chs 1 & 2 [Russell, 1959], ch. 6.
[Stawson, 1952], pp. 248–263. [Stroud, 1977], pp. 50-67.
[Mackie, 1979].

Essay
What is the problem of induction? What is the most promising strategy for solving it?

Topics Specific to Psychology

NOT COMPLETED YET
References
[Achinstein, 1968] Achinstein, P. (1968). Concepts of Science: A Philosophical Analysis. The Johns
Hopkins Press, Baltimore.
[Achinstein, 1983] Achinstein, P. (1983). The Nature of Explanation. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
[Armstrong, 1989] Armstrong, D. (1989). What is a Law of Nature. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.

[Blackburn, 1984] Blackburn, S. (1984). Spreading the Word. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
[Cartwright, 1983] Cartwright, N. (1983). How the Laws of Physics Lie. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
[Cartwright, 1994] Cartwright, N. (1994). Fundamentalism vs the patchwork of laws. Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, 93:279–292. (Also in [Papineau, 1996].).

[Chalmers, 1982] Chalmers, A. F. (1982). What Is This Thing Called Science? Open Univeristy Press,
Milton Keynes, second edition.
[Davidson, 1967] Davidson, D. (1967). Causal relations. The Journal of Philosophy, 64:691–703. Also in
[Sosa, 1975, Davidson, 1980].

[Davidson, 1980] Davidson, D. (1980). Essays on Actions and Events. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
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[Dretske, 1977] Dretske, F. I. (1977). Laws of nature. Philosophy of Science, 44:248–68.

[Duhem, 1954] Duhem, P. (1954). The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory. Princeton University
Press, Princeton.
[Feyerabend, 1981] Feyerabend, P. (1981). How to defend society against science. In [Hacking, 1981b],
chapter VIII.
[Goodman, 1955] Goodman, N. (1955). Fact, Fiction and Forecast. Harvard University Press, Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
[Hacking, 1981a] Hacking, I. (1981a). Lakatos’s philosophy of science. In [Hacking, 1981b], pages 128–143.
[Hacking, 1981b] Hacking, I., editor (1981b). Scientific Revolutions. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
[Hacking, 1983] Hacking, I. (1983). Representing and Intervening. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.
[Harman, 1992] Harman, G. (1992). Induction. In Dancy, J. and Sosa, E., editors, A Companion to
Epistemology, pages 200–206. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
[Harré and Achinstein, 1976] Harré, R. and Achinstein, P. (1976). The constructive role of models.

[Hempel, 1966] Hempel, C. (1966). Philosophy of Natural Science. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs.
[Horwich, 1987] Horwich, P. (1987). Asymmetries in Time: Problems in the Philosophy of Science. MIT
Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Also in [Sosa and Tooley, 1993].).
[Hume, 1966] Hume, D. (1748/1966). Enquires Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning
the Principles of Morals. Clarendon Press, Oxford, second edition. L. A. Selby–Bigge (ed.).
[Kim, 1975] Kim, J. (1975). Causes and counterfactuals. In [Sosa, 1975], pages 192–194.
[Kim and Sosa, 1999] Kim, J. and Sosa, E. (1999). Metaphysics: An Anthology. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
[Kuhn, 1970] Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago University Press,
Chicago, second edition.
[Lakatos, 1981] Lakatos, I. (1981). History of science and its rational reconstructions. In [Hacking, 1981b],
chapter V.
[Laurence and Macdonald, 1998] Laurence, S. and Macdonald, C., editors (1998). Contemporary
Readings in the Foundations of Metaphysics. Blackwell, Oxford.

[Lewis, 1983] Lewis, D. (1983). New work for a theory of universals. Australasian Journal of
Philosophy, 61(4):343–377. (Also in [Mellor and Oliver, 1997], [Laurence and Macdonald, 1998], and
[Kim and Sosa, 1999].).
[Lewis, 1986] Lewis, D. (1986). Causal explanation. In Philosophical Papers, volume ii, pages 214–240.
Oxford University Press, Oxford. (Also in [Ruben, 1993].).
[Lewis, 1975] Lewis, D. K. (1975). Causation. In [Sosa, 1975], pages 180–191.
[Lipton, 1991] Lipton, P. (1991). Inference to the Best Explanation. Routledge, London.
[Mackie, 1973] Mackie, J. L. (1973). Truth, Probability and Paradox. Clarendon, Oxford.

[Mackie, 1974] Mackie, J. L. (1974). The Cement of the Universe. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
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[Mackie, 1979] Mackie, J. L. (1979). A defence of induction. In MacDonald, G. F., editor, Perception
and identity, page ?? Macmillian, London. Also in [Mackie, 1985].

[Mackie, 1985] Mackie, J. L. (1985). Logic and Knowledge. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Mackie, Joan and
Mackie, Penelope (eds).
[Mellor and Oliver, 1997] Mellor, D. H. and Oliver, A., editors (1997). Properties. Oxford Readings in
Philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

[Nagel, 1961] Nagel, E. (1961). The Structure of Science. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.
[Papineau, 1996] Papineau (1996). The Philosophy of Science. Oxford Readings in Philosophy. Oxford
University Press, Oxford.
[Popper, 1981] Popper, K. (1981). The rationality of scientific revolutions. In [Hacking, 1981b],
chapter IV.
[Putnam, 1982] Putnam, H. (1982). Reason Truth and History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
[Ruben, 1993] Ruben, D.-H., editor (1993). Explanation. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
[Russell, 1959] Russell, B. (1959). The Problems of Philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

[Schiffer, 1991] Schiffer, S. (1991). Ceteris paribus laws. Mind, 100:1–17.

[Shapere, 1982] Shapere, D. (1982). The concept of observation in science and philosophy. Philosophy of
Science, 49:485–525.
[Skyrms, 1975] Skyrms, B. (1975). Choice and Chance: An Introduction to Inductive Logic. Wadsworth
Publishing Company, Belmont, second edition.
[Sosa, 1975] Sosa, E., editor (1975). Causation and Conditionals. Oxford Readings in Philosophy. Oxford
University Press, Oxford.
[Sosa and Tooley, 1993] Sosa, E. and Tooley, M., editors (1993). Causation. Oxford Readings in
Philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

[Stawson, 1952] Stawson, P. F. (1952). Introduction to Logical Theory. Methuen, London.

[Stroud, 1977] Stroud, B. (1977). Hume. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.
[Swinburne, 1971] Swinburne, R. G. (1971). The probability of particular events. Philosophy of Science,
38:327–343.

[van Fraassen, 1980] van Fraassen, B. C. (1980). The Scientific Image. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
[van Fraassen, 1989] van Fraassen, B. C. (1989). Laws and Symmetry. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
[Woodward, 2002] Woodward, J. (2002). Explanation. In Machamer, P. and Silberstein, M., editors, The
Blackwall Guide to the Philosophy of Science, pages 37–54. Blackwell, Oxford.