Instructor: James Woodbridge
email address: jw79@nyu.edu
Office Hours: M 5pm-6pm, Th 10am-11am
Office: Main Building 503-O
Office Phone: 998-8330
Dept. Phone: 998-8320

Pick one of the following topics, and write a 4-6 page paper completing the tasks assigned.

Your paper is due in my office or mailbox no later than 3pm on Friday, June 1st.

Topics:

1. In your own words, explain the basic ideas behind and general structure of Hempel’s Deductive-Nomological model of scientific explanation (see pp. 50-54). Next, consider the following set of circumstances. Imagine you have the following information: when the sun is a certain distance D above the horizon as measured from the base of a particular flagpole that is X meters tall, the shadow cast by the flagpole is Y meters long. You also know that as a matter of law, light propagates in straight lines. Curiously, this set of information allows for two symmetric “explanations” according to the D-N model: one of the length of the shadow in terms of the height of the flagpole, but also one of the height of the flagpole in terms of the length of the shadow. Give the full forms of both “explanations” according to the D-N model, and explain why they both satisfy the model. Intuitively, this example illustrates a worry for Hempel’s view. What is the intuitive problem? Do you think it is a problem for the view? If so, what sort of additional consideration might be added to the D-N model to get an account of explanation that avoids this kind of problem? If you think the symmetry exhibited by the D-N model is not problematic, explain why it is not.


2. Hempel characterizes scientific theories as functioning to explain various empirical uniformities as manifestations of entities and processes that lie “behind or beneath” them. Explain how this creates a worry about the reality of “theoretical entities”. One could take a realist attitude towards theoretical entities only if one could accept theoretical claims as offering genuine hypotheses. How would this be possible from within Hempel’s framework? Take into account his basic ideas about what formulating a theory involves (pp. 72-75) and his claims about the difference between genuine hypotheses and pseudo-hypotheses (pp. 30-31). Does Hempel’s framework provide grounds for a response to the argument against the reality of theoretical entities based on the “underdetermination problem” (pp. 80-81)? In your own words, explain the response he offers and assess its adequacy in light of his earlier discussion of the role of auxiliary hypotheses (pp. 22-28). Is his response adequate (i.e., does it makes a realist attitude toward theoretical entities possible within his framework), or inadequate? Why? Do you think we should we should adopt a realist or an instrumentalist view of theoretical entities? Why?