1046318

Professor Hans Siggaard Jensen, Aarhus University

hsj@edu.au.dk

The course is designed as a four-day sequence of extensive seminars and discussions, each covering key topics in the Philosophy of the Human and Social Sciences.

The course requires a heavy reading load that is necessary to meet the aforementioned learning objectives. Reading the materials beforehand and participating actively in class dialogues are essential for getting a firm grasp of the course content.

At the end of the course, students should be able to:

• Position themselves and understand the questions that surround a foundational understanding of research
  
  
• Participate in discussions of the philosophical aspects of research in the human and social sciences
  
  
• Contribute methodological and philosophical points in the discourse of the foundations of their respective research environment

A Pass/Fail grade will be based on individual take-home 15 pages written exam. 
The exam will take the form of an individual 15 pages written exam that is designed to show a grasp of the one or more of the issues from the course.
The paper should relate to the project of the student.
All work must be original material that is produced individually. The paper is due two weeks following the last session of the course. Re-take exam, if necessary, will be administered about a month later.

Required Text

Mandatory Readings: 

See the reading list below. The readings will be provided in digital form. Please plan well ahead.   Additional articles and resources may be provided on a need-to basis.

Optional reference books:

Hollis, M. (1994). The philosophy of social science: An introduction. Cambridge University Press.

Reference List

Day 1

Dauenhauer, B., & Pellauer, D. (2011). Paul Ricoeur. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pp. 1–43).

Ramberg, B., & Gjesdal, K. (2009). Hermeneutics. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pp. 1–39). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2009/entries/hermeneutics/

Thompson, E., & Zahavi, D. (2007). Philosophical Issues: Phenomenology. In M. Moscovitch, P. Zelazo, & E. Thompson (Eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness (pp. 67–87). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Glendinning, S. (2008). What is Phenomenology? Philosophy Compass, 3(1), 30–50. Retrieved from 00-philosophy compas blackwell%5C2008-01-vol 3%5Cj.1747-9991.2007.00113.x.pdf

Reinalter, H. (2012). Makkreel, Rudolf. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pp. 1–39). https://doi.org/10.7767/boehlau.9783205790099.1187

Malpas, J. (2009). Hans-Georg Gadamer. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pp. 1–26).

Beyer, C. (2013). Edmund Huserl. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1–36. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9973.00225

Bird, A. (2011). Thomas Kuhn. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pp. 1–44). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/confirmation/

Smith, D. W. (2011). Phenomenology. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pp. 1–37). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/

Thornton, S. (2011). Karl Popper. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pp. 1–40).

Day 2

Stegenga, J., & Cartwright, N. (2011). A Theory of Evidence for Evidence-Based Policy Nancy Cartwright. Proceedings of the British Academy, 171, 289–319.

Cartwright, N., Goldfinch, A., & Howick, J. (2007). Evidence-based policy: Where is our theory of evidence? Technical Report 07/07. Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science Contingency and Dissent in Science, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Kelly, T. (2009). Evidence. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pp. 1–58).

Reiss, J., & Sprenger, J. (2014). Scientific Objectivity. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1–74. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/confirmation/

Schickore, J. (2014). Scientific Discovery. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1–42. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139165358.008

Cartwright, N., & Efstathiou, S. (2008). Evidence-based policy and its ranking schemes: So, where’s ethnography? In Conference of the Association of Social Antropologists (pp. 1–9). London. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-015-0819-z

Woodward, J. (2013). Causation and Manipulability. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pp. 1–46).

Chignell, A. (2010). The Ethics of Belief. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1–44. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3540-8_1

Day 3

Macfarlane, B., & Cheng, M. (2008). Communism, Universalism and Disinterestedness: Re-examining Contemporary Support among Academics for Merton’s Scientific Norms. Journal of Academic Ethics, 6(1), 67–78. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-008-9055-y

Føkkesdal, D. (1979). Hermeneutics and the hypothetico‐deductive method. Dialectica, 33(3–4), 319–336. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1746-8361.1979.tb00759.x

Matthias, S. (2011). Scientific Explanation. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pp. 1–78). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

Longino, H. (2011). The Social Dimensions of Scientific Knowledge. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pp. 1–27). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

Bogen, J. (2010). Theory and Observation in Science. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pp. 1–34).

Costelloe, T. (2014). Giambattista Vico. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pp. 1–23).

Heath, J. (2011). Methodological Individualism. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pp. 1–27). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

Flyvbjerg, B. (2004). Five misunderstandings about case-study research. In C. Seale, G. Gobo, J. F. Gubrium, & D. Silberman (Eds.), Qualitative Research Practice (pp. 420–434). London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Retrieved from http://flyvbjerg.plan.aau.dk/MSFiveMis9.0SageASPUBL.pdf

Turner, S. (2007). Merton’s “norms” in political and intellectual context. Journal of Classical Sociology, 7(2), 161–178. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795X07078034

Day 4

Phillips, J. W. (2002). Structuralism and Semiotics. In National University of Singapore (pp. 1–11). https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203412688_chapter_1

Mallon, R. (2009). Naturalistic Approaches to Social Construction. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pp. 1–37). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

Ramberg, B. (2009). Richard Rorty. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pp. 1–28). https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511613951

Aylesworth, G. (2015). Postmodernism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1–40.

Bohman, J. (2012). Critical Theory. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.187763