PHI 539 Seminar Spring 2002
Bas C. van Fraassen
SYLLABUS

The general topic of this seminar is representation, with the main focus on representation in and by the sciences. Nothing in the seminar will have to do with mental representation. In our context, a representation is something that is made, used, or taken to represent something. Such a thing will typically itself be an observable thing, event, or process, though it can also be an abstract [mathematical] entity, provided of course it is one that we can make, use or take to play such a role. (Scientific representations include pictures, films, diagrams, charts, numbers, spaces, algebras, functions ....) Both the relation of representing and the modes of representation are central to certain controversies in philosophy of science, which in turn appear to be connected with various more general epistemological controversies.

I will invite a number of presentations and commentaries, but there will be lecture material on all of the following topics.

Part One. Representation

1. Representation, general and pictorial

A puzzle concerning perspectives and frames of reference; philosophical views on representation and picturing (e.g. Nelson Goodman)

2. Development of linear one-point perspective

Feyerabend on Brunelleschi; what is the 'content' of a perspective?
Projective geometry

3. Frames of reference

Galileo's and Descartes' foundations for modern physics. Galilean relativity

4. A look at 'perspectives' in 20th century physics (Einstein, Quantum theory)

Part Two. Scientific realism

5. The Visible and Invisible World

Criteria of empirical adequacy; "observation by instruments"; how can (abstract) models can relate to the (concrete) phenomena?

6. Structural Realism and the Phenomena

The new structural realism (recent version of scientific realism); scientific revolution and theory change as touchstone for philosophical views of science

7. Weyl's Paradox and Carnap's Lost World

Russell's and Carnap's attempts at structuralist accounts of science

Part Three. Metaphysical realism

8. Metaphysical Oblivion: Realism's Return

Putnam's 'model-theoretic argument', renamed by David Lewis as 'Putnam's paradox'. Lewis' philosophy of science

9. Metaphysics Abandoned: Realism Evaded

A non-realist response to Putnam's Paradox

10. Structure and Perspective

Thesis: Both individual and scientific opinion about what the world is like is fully and adequately expressed only in indexical language that embodies a specific perspective.