Course Unit – Advanced Topics of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science

12 ECTS – 3rd level (PhD Degree)

2022- 2023, 1^st Semester

Instructors: Adriana Silva Graça (coord.), Davide Romano

Language of Instruction: English

 

 

1^st Module – Analysis of Knowledge (Adriana Silva Graça)

This model will deal with issues around the analysis of knowledge such as the traditional analysis and the main objections to it. The standard responses --known as internalist and externalist ones-- will be discussed. Finally, philosophical approaches as the virtue epistemology and “knowledge first” will be addressed.

 

Reading Materials:

 

Plato, Theaetetus.

A.J. Ayer (1956), The Problem of Knowledge (v) Knowing as Having the Right to be Sure.

E. Gettier (1963), “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?”

R. Audi (2011), Epistemology. A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge. Routledge.

D. Pritchard (2018), What Is This Thing Called Knowledge?. Routledge.

 

 

 

2^nd Module - Philosophy of quantum mechanics (Davide Romano)

 

The course will investigate the novel features of the physical world as they emerge from quantum mechanics. It will be divided into three parts. In the first part, the course will provide an introduction to the formalism of quantum mechanics. This will include the collapse of the wave function and the measurement problem, which is at the heart of many quantum paradoxes such as the two-slit experiment and the Schrödinger’s cat. In the second part, the course will focus on the principal interpretations of quantum mechanics that have been advanced and proposed in the last decades: the de Broglie--Bohm theory or pilot-wave theory, the GRW--spontaneous collapse theory and the Everett--Many Worlds Interpretation. In the third part, the course will focus on the quantum-to-classical transition, that is, the problem of how classical objects emerge from quantum mechanics at the macroscopic scale. Previous knowledge in physics is not required: the needed formalism will be introduced during the lessons.   

 

1^st  lesson: The formalism of quantum mechanics

2^nd lesson: The measurement problem

3^rd lesson: Interpretations of quantum mechanics I: the de Broglie--Bohm theory

4^th lesson: Interpretations of quantum mechanics II: GRW and Everett theories

5^th lesson: Decoherence and the quantum-to-classical transition

6^th lesson: In-class written test 

 

Reading Materials

Quantum mechanics

·    G. E. Bowman (2008), Essential Quantum Mechanics, Oxford University Press, Oxford. 

The measurement problem

·     J. S. Bell (1987), Speakable and unspeakable in quantum mechanics, in the volume: Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics: collected papers in quantum philosophy, Cambridge University Press. 

·        T. Maudlin (1995), Three measurement problems, Topoi 14: 7-15

Interpretations of quantum mechanics

·       E. K. Chen (2019), Realism about the wave function, Philosophy Compass.

·       D. Romano, Lecture notes for the course

      Decoherence and the quantum-to-classical transition

·    D. Romano (2021), The unreasonable effectiveness of decoherence, in the volume: Quantum Mechanics and Fundamentality (editor: V. Allori), Synthese Library, Springer. 

Further readings

·  T. Maudlin (2019), Philosophy of Physics: Quantum Theory, Princeton University Press.

·       T. Norsen (2017), Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Springer, Berlin.

·       C. Rovelli, Space is blue and birds flight through it, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society, 2018. Preprint available on-line at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.02894.pdf

 

 

 

Grading and Assessment:

Students are expected to write a final essay (around 6000 words) in one of the modules (40% of the final grade) and to make one written test for each module (60% of the final grade). Depending on the instructors’ choice and on the number of students in class, oral presentations may be included.