Philosophy of science constitutes a field of research relative young and in constant expansion, a field whose fecundity and relevance are subject to the very nature of their object of study. The critical reflection concerning science, as well as an adequate valuation of their social and environmental impact require us to consider the scientific phenomenon in all of its complexity by analyzing their diverse dimensions and contexts.

During the first half of the 20th Century, classical philosophers of science were focused on the scientific products and results, guiding the analysis towards questions about hypotheses and theories that constitute ‘knowledge’: methods of proof, the evaluation standards, the relation between theory and experience, the logical structure of laws and theories, the prediction and explication models, the nature of the language of science, etc…

This set of topics which fall under the category of ‘justification context’ refer us to the logical, methodological, epistemological, ontological, and semantic dimensions of science, dimensions which apart from constituting the hard core of philosophical analysis they result in profound problems, for instance, the problem of scientific rationality, or the problem of the relation between our knowledge and the world.

During the 60s, the philosophy of science broadened its subject of research by taking into consideration the process of production of knowledge in its diverse aspects. This interest in the different ways of doing science (in the scientific practice) was sparked by the acknowledgements of the profound changes that have marked its historic development, not only in the level of theories but also in the level of methods and objectives of research.

Because of this, the task of coming up with models of the dynamics of science has acquired a great importance. Of course, for this broadening of the philosophical agenda there was a contribution from the consolidation of historiographic studies, as well as from the development in other fields of empiric science (sociological, psychological, anthropological, evolutive), which paved the way for naturalism in philosophy of science.

Finally, the growing links between science and technology, apart from generating a new way of doing research, has allowed for the highlighting of the role played by the communication processes, not only in the very development of knowledge, but also in the consolidation of the kind of society that we live in. Meanwhile, the impact of the long and varied scope of the techno-scientific applications has forced us to rethink the axiological dimension of this activity, especially in its moral and political sense, as well as how to track in the kind of values it promotes in the public sphere.

In summation, the universe in expansion that is philosophy of science, alongside the battery of conceptual tools that have been forged in it, make of this field of research an adequate platform to undertake the multi-faceted ‘thing called science’. It is because of this that philosophy of science, apart from being the backbone of the Graduate Program, it constitutes an area of specialization in itself.