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Syllabus

P000100 Philosophy of Social Science, 5.0 Credits

Subjects

Education cycle

Postgraduate level

Grading scale

Language

English

Prior knowledge

Accepted as a PhD student.

Objectives

Upon completion of the course, the students shall be able to:

• account for and critically discuss distinct social scientific paradigms;
• actively use philosophies of social science to deepen and strengthen their own research work;
• distinguish between distinct levels and forms of scientific analysis and be able to account for their ontological and epistemological preconditions.

Content

The course offers a general introduction to philosophies of social sciences, describing and analysing distinct scientific paradigms and perspectives. The students will be introduced to the major philosophical paradigms of social science, with a specific focus on the contexts, contents, arguments, and main concepts and assumptions. There will also be a focus on how researchers position themselves in relation to the field, as well as on how distinct paradigms of philosophies of science have tackled problems related to ontology, epistemology and interpretation. Furthermore, the course will discuss the connections between philosophy of science and social theory, with a distinct focus on the development of these connections during the last decades.

The core of the course will consist of a series of seminars, introduced by lectures. The seminars will be dedicated to analysing original texts by central social science writers in order to see how philosophical assumptions influence them as well as to discuss general problems of philosophy of social science. The course will be divided into four parts, each devoted to one central question. Lectures will partly be used to present and discuss important theoretical paradigms, concepts and problems of philosophy of science, and introduce central themes that will be discussed in the seminars.

Additional information

Classes/seminars between 2024-11-04 and 2024-11-22.

This course is part of the research school People, Society and Sustainability, a joined research school between the Department of Economics and the Department of Urban and Rural Development.

Responsible department

Department of Urban and Rural Development