John D. Norton
Teaching
HPS 0410 Einstein for Everyone
Somehow what Einstein did seems to have changed everything. Or at
least that is the impression you get in almost every field of
thought that looks at things at a really fundamental level. But how
is someone who doesn't know much physics to figure out if this or
that moral really is vindicated by Einstein's work? This course
covers just enough of Einstein's work at an elementary level to help
answer.
Taught frequently; most recently, Spring Term
2021-2022.
infinity
HPS 0628 Paradox
Infinity and chance are dangerous notions that can lead us to deep
puzzlement and baffling paradoxes. Careful examination of them
allows us to see past the paradoxes to a clear and controlled
understanding of what was once perplexing and unapproachable.
Taught Spring Term 2022-2023
Taught Fall Term 2021-2022
Einstein
HPS 1632
Einstein for Almost Everyone
This is a companion to HPS 0410. It surveys Einstein's work at a
more advanced level, including technical details according to the
capacities of the students in the class.
Taught Fall Term 2019-2020 in the Honors College.
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HPS
1702/1703 Junior Senior Seminar for HPS Majors and Writing
Workshop
This upper level undergraduate seminar is a "capstone" seminar for
HPS undergraduate majors intended to give them experience at
synthesizing history of science with philosophy of science. It
combines a survey of the philosophy of science literature on
induction and confirmation with case studies in history of science
Taught Spring Term 2017-2018
Taught Spring Term 2013-2014
Taught Spring Term 2004-2005.
PSP logo
Pittsburgh Summer Program
The Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh offers an intensive week of seminars each summer in philosophy of science for aspiring philosophers of science. The seminars are taught by faculty drawn from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.
My contribution has been to run a lecture-seminar on thought experiments in science.
The summer program has been run each summer since 2017.
HPS 2422 Probability
This seminars covers selected topics in the history and philosophical foundations of probabilty from the seventeenth century to the present.
Taught Spring Term 2024-2025
HPS 2156 Empiricism in Science
In the early twentieth century, empiricist philosophies of science
became influential. This seminar will survey the earlier history of
these philosophies, their early twentieth century expressions, their
later developments and consequences.
Taught Spring Term 2023-2024
HPS 2103 History and Philosophy
of Science Core Seminar
Co-taught with Michael Dietrich
This core seminar in integrated history and philosophy of science,
is a graduate introduction to important topics, methods, and skills
in for scholarship that successfully integrates history of science
and philosophy of science.
Taught Spring Term 2021-2022
Hideke Yukawa 1949
HPS 2000
Teaching Practicum
This is a survey course designed specifically for teaching
assistants and fellows in the Department of History and Philosophy
of Science. The focus will be on practical teaching methods and
techniques used in classroom recitations and lectures.
Organized Fall Term 2022-Spring Term 2023
Organized Fall Term 2020-Spring Term 2021 as HPS 2497
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HPS
2101/Philosophy 2600 Philosophy of Science
This seminar is our graduate program's "core" introductory, seminar
in philosophy of science for graduate students entering the
department's graduate program and for graduate students in the
Department of Philosophy.
Taught Fall Term 2022-2023
Taught Fall Term 2020-2021
Taught Fall Term 2017-2018
Taught Fall Term 2014-2015
Taught Fall Term 2011-2012
Taught Fall Term 2009-2010
Taught Fall Term 2006-2007.
HPS 2844 Modern Cosmology
This seminar reviews the historical origins of modern relativistic cosmology, some recent developments and some
foundational issues of philosophical interest.
Taught Fall term 2025.
Taught Spring Term 2017-2018 as
HPS 2580 Cosmology
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HPS
2814 Einstein
This seminar covers Einstein's work in physics and his philosophical
entanglements, with topics selected according to the interests of
the seminar participants.
Taught Spring Term 2023
Taught earlier as HPS 2509
Fall Term 2015-2016
Spring 2004
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HPS 2675
Philosophy of Space
and Time
Phil 2660
Co-taught with John Earman
This seminar is concentrated on problems of time. Topics are
drawn from the philosophy literature: tensed vs. tenseless
theories of time, presentism vs. eternalism, McTaggart’s argument
for the unreality of time; and from the philosophy of science
literature:. the problem of the direction of time, the relations
amongst the so-called ‘arrows of time’). We try to bring the two
literatures into fruitful interaction.
Taught Spring term 2008-2009
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GSSPP08 - Geneva Summer School
in the Philosophy of Physics 2008
This summer school is offered to doctoral students and
postdoctoral scholars in philosophy of physics and is based
loosely on the topic "What is the Nature of Space and Time?" My
lectures cover causation in physics, determinism in classical
physics and Einstein's method in his discovery of general
relativity.
Summer 2008
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HPS 2534 General Relativity
and Gravitation Fall 2007
Co-taught with John Earman
This seminar will survey historical and foundational issues in
classical general relativity theory. Depending on seminar
interest, we will look at Einstein's discovery of genreal
relativity; the causal structure of spacetime; the initial value
problem; the "hole argument", and the status of general
covariance; and spacetime singularities.In general relativistic
cosmology, we may look at the discovery of modern, relativistic
cosmology; the "horizon problem" and the genesis of inflationary
cosmology; accelerating expansion and "dark energy"; and the
multiverse and anthropic selection.
Taught Fall Term 2007-2008
HPS 2509 Einstein 1905
This graduate seminar is devoted to studying the work of Einstein's
annus mirabilis, 1905. It was the year in which he published
his investigations on the reality of atoms (Doctoral dissertation,
Brownian motion); his papers on special relativity and E=mc
2;
and his light quantum paper.
Taught Spring term 2003-2004.
