This course introduces the core problems in the philosophy of science, in particular the debates about the nature of the scientific method, theories of confirmation, and the demarcation of science from non-science, the rationality of theory change, and scientific realism. Participants will be introduced to the key thinkers in philosophy of science, and metaphysical bases of science and scientific theories.

This course provides an introduction to problems of philosophy of science beginning with the origins of modern science in the Scientific Revolution in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and provides main thoughts in contemporary controversies among 20.th century philosophers of science including the debate about the various forms of scientific thought.