
In The Philosophy of Science, an eight-hour course, Dr. James Orr traces the development of science from ancient Greece through the Scientific Revolution to today. He examines how theological, institutional, and philosophical forces shaped science, while tackling key issues like the demarcation problem of science versus pseudoscience, Hume’s problem of induction, Kuhn’s theory of paradigm shifts, and the realism debate. The course also engages fascinating unresolved questions raised by cosmology, neuroscience, and quantum mechanics, ultimately arguing that scientific progress does not eliminate philosophical inquiry but rather deepens it, revealing new mysteries that demand philosophical analysis.
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Air Date: 2026-04-30
In our introductory lecture, we explore the philosophy of science by examining the extraordinary dominance that scien...
Air Date: 2026-04-30
In lecture two, Dr. Orr considers the Needham question, which asks why the scientific revolution emerged in medieval ...
Air Date: 2026-04-30
In lecture three, we study the scientific revolution through six figures: Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Bac...
Air Date: 2026-04-30
In lecture four, we explore the historical transition from natural philosophy to modern science during the 19th and 2...
Air Date: 2026-04-30
In lecture five, we analyze two key challenges in philosophy of science. First, the demarcation problem: distinguishi...
Air Date: 2026-04-30
In lecture six, we discuss how science changes and whether it makes progress. We examine Thomas Kuhn's paradigm shift...
Air Date: 2026-04-30
In lecture seven, we examine three fundamental concepts in philosophy of science: laws of nature, causation, and scie...
Air Date: 2026-04-30
In our eighth and final lecture, we investigate four key areas where scientific advances have generated profound phil...