CSE/PHI 4/584, Spring 2007

What Is Science?

(and What Is a Scientific Theory?)

(and Readings on Philosophy of Science)

Last Update: 10 April 2007

Note: NEW or UPDATED material is highlighted

Philosophically significant items are boldface; items are listed in chronological order.


  1. Quine, Willard van Orman (1951), "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" Philosophical Review 60: 20-43.

  2. Kemeny, John G. (1959), A Philosopher Looks at Science [ Intro & Chs.5,10 in PDF] (Princeton: D. van Nostrand).

  3. Popper, Karl R. (1953), "Science: Conjectures and Refutations", from his Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (New York: Harper & Row, 1962).

  4. Popper, Karl R. (1959), The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Harper & Row).

  5. Wigner, Eugene (1960), "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences", Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics 13(1) (February).

  6. Kuhn, Thomas S. (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

  7. Hempel, Carl G. (1966), Philosophy of Natural Science (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall).

  8. Kyburg, Henry E., Jr. (1968), Philosophy of Science: A Formal Approach (New York: Macmillan).

  9. Ziman, John M. (1968), "What Is Science?", from John M. Ziman, Science Is Public Knowledge (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press).

  10. Arden, Bruce W. (1980), "COSERS Overview" [PDF], in Bruce W. Arden (ed.), What Can Be Automated? The Computer Science and Engineering Research Study (COSERS) (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), Ch. 1, pp. 1-31.

  11. Salmon, Wesley C. (1984), Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

  12. Denning, Peter J.; Comer, Douglas E.; Gries, David; Mulder, Michael C.; Tucker, Allen; Turner, A. Joe; & Young, Paul R. (1989), "Computing as a Discipline", Communications of the ACM 32(1) (January): 9-23.

  13. Hartmanis, Juris, & Lin, Herbert (eds.?) (1992), "What Is Computer Science and Engineering?" [PDF], in Juris Hartmanis & Herbert Lin (eds.), Computing the Future: A Broader Agenda for Computer Science and Engineering (Washington, DC: National Academy Press), Ch. 6, pp. 163-216.

  14. Abelson, Harold, & Sussman, Gerald Jay, with Sussman, Julie (1996), Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, "Preface to the First Edition":

  15. Papineau, David (1996), "Philosophy of Science" [PDF], in Nicholas Bunnin & E.P. Tsui-James (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell): 290-324.

  16. Simon, Herbert A. (1996), The Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd edition (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).

    • SCI/ENGR Book Collection Q175 .S564 1996
    • "Natural science is knowledge about natural objects and phenomena. We ask whether there cannot also be "artificial" science—knowledge about artificial objects and phenomena." (p. 3.)
    • Ch. 1 ("The Natural and Artificial Worlds") has sections on the nature of understanding by simulating and on computers as artifacts, as abstract objects, and as empirical objects.

  17. Rosenberg, Alex (2000), Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction (London: Routledge).

  18. Kolak, Daniel; Hirstein, William; Mandik, Peter; & Waskan, Jonathan (2006), Cognitive Science: An Introduction to Mind and Brain (New York: Routledge).

  19. Cham, Jorge (2006), Piled Higher and Deeper, "The Scientific Method vs. The Actual Method"

  20. "recommendations on texts...whose subject is the philosophy of science." (From Ask Philosophers.)

  21. Hitchcock, Christopher (2007), "Conceptual Analysis Naturalized: A Metaphilosophical Case Study", Journal of Philosophy 103(9) (September): 427-451.

  22. Tedre, Matti (2007), "The Philosophy of Computer Science (Winter-Spring 2007)"




Copyright © 2004-2007 by William J. Rapaport ( rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu)
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/584/S07/whatissci.html-20070410