Institute of Philosophy

Team

About Philosophy of Science

Science shapes the modern world. Applications of scientific knowledge permeate our everyday lives, and the results of science strongly influence our view of the world.

But what is a science?
Why are scientific results considered particularly credible?
Is there a uniform scientific method, and if so, what distinguishes it?
What are scientific theories and how are they related?
Are there systematic limits to scientific knowledge?
What constitutes a scientific explanation?

These are issues that concern the philosophy of science. It often addresses common ideas about a science and critically examines them, even with recourse to the history of science. Within the philosophy of science, we distinguish between the epistemology of the science, which examines processes, conditions and limits of the acquisition of knowledge, and the metaphysics of the science, which enables individual scientific results to be fruitful for metaphysical questions.

Research projects

Research interests

General Philosophy of Science

Probabilities and their interpretation	Prof. Dr. Dr. Claus Beisbart
The epistemology of modelling and experiment	Prof. Dr. Dr. Claus Beisbart
Limits of knowledge	Prof. Dr. Dr. Claus Beisbart
Ceteris Paribus laws	Dr. Matthias Unterhuber
Couterfactual Conditionals	Dr. Matthias Unterhuber
Generica	Dr. Matthias Unterhuber
Scientific Realism	Dr. Matthias Egg
Explanation theory	Dr. Matthias Egg
Philosophy of climate science	Prof. Dr. Vincent Lam

Philosophy of Biology

Concept of life and exobiology	Prof. Dr. Dr. Claus Beisbart
	Dr. Andrea Loettgers

Philosophy of Physics

Philosophy of cosmology	Prof. Dr. Dr. Claus Beisbart
Philosophy of statistical physics	Prof. Dr. Dr. Claus Beisbart
Philosophy of quantum physics	Dr. Matthias Egg	Prof. Dr. Vincen Lam
Philosophy of particle physics	Dr. Matthias Egg
Philosophy of spacetime physics	Prof. Dr. Vincent Lam

Fundamentals of Ethics

Collective decisions	Prof. Dr. Dr. Claus Beisbart
Ethical theories	Marius Baumann
Reflective Equilibrium (more, German )	Prof. Dr. Dr. Claus Beisbart
	PD Dr. Georg Brun
	Tanja Rechnitzer