The purpose of the course is to survey central philosophical approaches to science during and after the scientific revolution of the 17th century. The course will include the early attempts of Francis Bacon and Renee Descartes to describe the role of experience and reason in constructing scientific knowledge, Isaac Newton’s philosophical principles for studying nature, David Hume’s skepticism and his critique of inferences from phenomena, the philosophical crisis that followed the collapse of classical physics during the early 20th century, and some of the main philosophical approaches that were developed in response to this crisis, including that of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn.