Introduction to Philosophy of Science (Spring 2024)
Course description: We believe science is a very special discipline, capable of answering intriguing questions about the universe, and also capable of creating technologies that profoundly affect our lives. But, what exactly is science and how is it different from things such as astrology or numerology? How do scientists actually confirm or reject their theories? How can social and political issues affect science? In this introductory course to the philosophy of science, we will study these and other questions about the scope and methods of science and the theories of its historical development.
Philosophy of Space from Aquinas to Einstein* (Spring 2024)
Course description: A systematic introduction to theories of space developed before and after the appearance of Isaac Newton’s famous Principia (1673). The first half of the course will examine in some detail the broadly Aristotelian theory of space developed by Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), which attempts to explain bodily motion in the absence of any absolute space. The second half of the course will explore Newton’s theories of absolute space and motion, and will conclude with an examination of Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity.
*: Co-taught with Jeffrey Brower
Philosophy of Science (Spring 2023)
Course description: In this course, we will explore debates in contemporary philosophy of science. Specifically, we will consider the following questions: What is a law of nature? What, if anything, makes a scientific explanation different from other types of explanations? What are scientific models and what do they tell us about the world? What, if anything, do theories tell us about the fundamental structure of the world? And what is the influence of socio-political values in the production of scientific knowledge? In considering these topics, students will come to a clearer
understanding of the scope and methods of science.
The Ethics of Emergent Weapons and technologies* (Spring 2018)
Course description: Although technological advances have always affected how wars are fought, current technologies have modified wars to the point that contemporary warfare does not involve a confrontation between armies in an opened battle field. Instead, wars are now fought, so to speak, at a distance, with unmanned vehicles controlled by operators living thousands of miles away. Drones and terrestrial robots are quickly replacing pilots and soldiers, and cyberattacks are rapidly taking over the role played by missiles and bombs. Not much time is expected before we find completely autonomous killer robots and robotically enhanced soldiers (i.e., ironman) in the battlefield. The development of these new war technologies has raised ethical concerns, ranging from worries about whether we should give a machine the autonomy to determine when to kill a human, to whether is it right to biologically modify a soldier, to questions about who to blame when a robot fires by mistake. In this course, students will learn about the emerging war technologies and some of the ethical and legal concerns that come with these. The course is discussion-based, and at the end of every class where we introduce a new weapon we will discuss some of the ethical concerns that the technologies in question produce. Three main topics will be covered: 1) types of emerging weapon technologies, 2) just war theory, and 3) normative ethics.
*: Co-taught with Maj. Gen Robert Latiff (I taught 21 of the 29 classes).