Paper 5: Epistemology and Metaphysics of Science
Also Paper HPS5 in HPT3 Human, Social and Political Sciences Tripos Part IIB and
Paper 6 in PHT1 Philosophy Tripos Part IB
You should answer four questions in total. Answer one question from Section A and
three questions from Section B. All questions carry equal weighting.
You should spend no more than three hours on answering all the questions, and a
word limit is set of no more than 1,500 words per answer.
All your answers for this paper should be submitted in one DOC, DOCX or PDF
document. Each answer should be clearly headed with the question number and the
question.
Put your Blind Grade Number (BGN) at the start of the document. Do not put your
name anywhere in the document.
SECTION A
1. Has science been successful in obtaining objective truth?
2. Is there any sense in which good scientific knowledge may not be built on
experience?
3. What are the most important aims of science?
SECTION B
4. What role, if any, does understanding play in scientific practice?
5. What is the best way for realists to respond to the pessimistic induction?
6. Can human knowledge ever be free from perspectival limitations?
7. Are laws of nature mind-independent facts of regular association between
properties?
8. What is the so-called “problem of old evidence”? Discuss one possible
resolution of the problem.
9. What is the most successful case of inter-field reduction (biology to chemistry,
chemistry to physics, etc.) that you are aware of? How successful is that case?
10. Can science be genuinely explanatory without invoking causes?
11. Should scientific models accurately represent their intended targets?
12. Did the pragmatists have anything new and productive to say about the concept
of truth?