Refer to the personas attached at the end of each question.

1. Assume we made contact with extra-terrestrials and their physics turned out to be like ours. Would this vindicate scientific realism?

2. "Philosophy of science is important because it makes explicit what in the thought of practicing scientists is merely implicit (or unconscious)." Discuss.

3. "The metaphysics and epistemology of the sciences are inseparable." Discuss.

4. How can natural selection favour traits that reduce fitness?

5. "Truth is the outcome of inquiry." Discuss.

6. How would you distinguish between the factual and the conventional parts of a physical theory?

7. "The intentions of speakers to use a name to refer to something must be allowed to count in determining what it denotes" (GARETH EVANS). Discuss.

8. Does rigid designation work across paradigms?

9. Can epistemic externalism help to solve the problem of induction?

10. Can the probability calculus solve the problem of induction?

11. "Why not say that methodological knowledge resides in knowing what to do with the cases, the examples, the problems that actually arise, rather than in a system of rules or general theory of rationality? For at this level, too, we can speak with Kuhn of 'the priority of paradigms' (exemplars): we agree more readily about cases than about candidate rules" (THOMAS NICKLES). Discuss.

12. Cause and effect are "conjoined but never connected" (DAVID HUME). Discuss.