PHL 220 Principles of Scientific Reasoning

Fall

This course studies the nature, methods, and principles of scientific inquiry with an emphasis on patterns of reasoning that are employed in the sciences. Such patterns include inferring claims about populations based on samples, inferring to the cause of a particular event or pattern of events, and inferring that a particular explanation of some phenomena is true. In addition, the course will investigate what makes ‘scientific reasoning’ scientific rather than non-scientific, along with foundational questions concerning the nature of scientific evidence, the legitimacy of deductive reasoning, and the limitations of science for increasing knowledge.

3 credit hours