Teaching

This course provides an introduction to topics in the philosophy of physics. Our focus will be on the arrow of time. Time is among the most familiar, and most mysterious, topics. In this class, we'll focus on one aspect of time: its direction. What distinguishes the past from the future? Our approach will be to draw on physics and philosophy. As we will see, the question is harder to answer than it may seem at first.

What's special about science? Science is often thought to provide us with uniquely reliable, objective, proven knowledge of the world around us. This leads the philosopher to question how science is able to arrive at such surefire truths. The philosophy of science is the name for this enterprise of thinking carefully about science--what it is, how it works, and how much of it we should believe. The course will be structured around four main questions: (1) is there a genuine scientific method? (2) what is the significance of scientific revolutions? (3) should we believe in everything science talks about? (4) what are laws of nature and scientific explanations? Our goal will be to arrive at a more nuanced view of science, and with it, a better understanding of the world and our place in it.