Philosophy Classes That Should Be Added to the Curriculum for History Majors at Ohio State

There are three classes in the Philosophy department at Ohio State that I think would be good to add to the curriculum of the History degree. They are as follows:

1) Philosophy 250

This is a class on deductive logic, which teaches students to understand valid forms of argumentation in the form of sentential and predicate logic. While historical inquiry consists more in inductive and, a fortiori, abductive reasoning, it is still very important that students learn the principles of clear thinking in order to help them develop coherent arguments and avoid poor forms of reasoning.

2) Philosophy 660

This course is an advance study in epistemology, viz. the theory of knowledge. It is extremely important for historians to understand the epistemological foundations for why they can make claims to know and understand the past. Perhaps more importantly, they ought to be able to recognize their own epistemic limits. This course is more focused on epistemology in the abstract, but it provide students with an understanding of the issues involved that they can then apply to historical investigation.

3) Philosophy 455

The focus of this course is on the Philosophy of Science. While History is properly included in the Humanities department, there is a strong similarity to the types of reasoning done in History and in the sciences. Both analyze data and test hypotheses against the data, allowing for the formation of theories based on this analysis. At the risk of oversimplification, the real difference lies in the types of data that historians and scientists analyze. What will be gained in this class is an understanding of the issues involved in properly confirming an hypothesis, the limits of inductive reasoning, and the explanatory virtues used to evaluate competing theories.