I am an undergrad studying both economics and philosophy.
Would taking a PoS course be useful for me as an economics student? The course syllabus for the current year isn't available but I went back in the archives and found the course syllabus for the same course when it was taking place in 2014. The Course description describes 4 questions that the course will go over, but I notice that the examples for each question it gives are very much examples within the physical sciences. Bolded are the questions and italicized are the examples.
This course will explore four central questions in the philosophy of science. First: what distinguishes scientific theories from non-scientific ones? For example, why is it scientifically respectable to explain someone’s behaviour based on her genetics and upbringing, but not based on her astrological chart? Second: what makes a scientific (or any other) explanation explanatory? Why, for example, does a description of a Tyrannosaurus’s appearance, however accurate, fail to explain the fact that the species no longer exists? Third: how rational are the criteria by which scientists choose theories? Is science free of racism or sexism, for example, and if not, does this compromise its objectivity? Fourth and finally, should we regard our best scientific theories as literally true? Should we accept, for example, that things like electrons and radio waves really exist (even though no one’s ever seen one), or are such entities just convenient fictions?
Do you think and economic point of view could take anything useful (however unintentional) from this course/these questions?
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