PHILOSOPHY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Spring Term, 2011

 

KALAMAZOO COLLEGE

 

 

 

 

PROFESSOR: Chris Latiolais

Philosophy Department

Kalamazoo College

Humphrey House #202

Telephone # 337-7076

Offices Hours:

á          Monday: 1:00 – 3:00

á          Tuesday: 10:30 – 11:30

á          Thursday: 10:30 – 11:30

á          By Appointment.

 

 

COURSE DESCRPTION:

                 

By surveying classical and contemporary debates on the logic of the social sciences, this course introduces students to the philosophical examination of basic epistemological and normative presuppositions that underwrite contemporary empirical social scientific inquiry.  Case studies of classical debates raise the following questions: What distinguishes the social sciences from both the Humanities and the sciences of nature?  In studying human beings, do social researchers look at the micro-level -- for the causes, reasons, motives, meanings, or rules of individual actions -- or, at the macro-level -- for social functions, institutions, structures, practices and fields?  How do micro-individual and macro-social levels of explanation connect up?  Do social scientists explain or interpret human affairs?  Are the social sciences "descriptive," "prescriptive" or both?  Contemporary case studies raise the following questions: How has the critique of Western Logocentrism altered traditional conceptions of individual and social development?  Do the Western social sciences offer universal standards of rationality or merely one -- among many — ethical value systems?  Are radical ethnomethodology and multiculturalism alternatives to, or merely critical realignments of, the Western social sciences.  By addressing such questions, the course offers an historical and critical introduction to contemporary debates about the social scientific study of difference.  The last portion of the course is devoted to an emerging approach to social research called praxeology, the study of the social as networks of bodily-centered social practices.

 

REQUIRED TEXTS:

 

á          Bohman, James. 1993. New Philosophy of Social Science.  Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

á          Habermas, Jurgen. On the Logic of the Social Sciences.  Trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen and Jerry A. Stark. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1988.

á          Martin, Michael & McIntyre, Lee (eds.): Readings in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences.  Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1993 [Handouts].

á          Schatzki, Theodore R. et al. 2001. The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London, New York: Routledge [Handouts].

á          Schatzki, Theodore R. 2002. The Site of the Social: A Philosophical Account of the Constituion of Social Life and Change. University Part, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press of, 2002 [Handouts].

á          Bourdieu, Pierre & Wacquant, Loic 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology.  Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press [Handouts].

 

 

READING SCHEDULE

 

FALL TERM:

 

 

Part One: HabermasÕs Critique of Positivism in the Social Sciences: the Interpretive Turn and its Aftermath in Social Scientific Theory:

 

Week One

á          Tuesday:

o     Introductory Lecture:

á          Thursday:

o     On the Logic of the Social Sciences, Introduction.

o     On the Logic of the Social Sciences, The Dualism of the Natural and Cultural Sciences.

Week Two

á          Tuesday:

o     On the Logic of the Social Sciences, On the Methodology of General Theories of Social Action.

á          Thursday:

o     On the Logic of the Social Sciences, On the Problem of Understanding Meaning in the Empirical-Analytic Sciences of Action.

Week Three

á          Tuesday:

o     On the Logic of the Social Sciences, Sociology as Theory of the Present.

á          Thursday:

o     On the Logic of the Social Sciences: Review

 

On the New Logic of the Social Sciences and Classical Impasses:

 

Week Four

á          Tuesday:

o     New Philosophy of Social Science, Introduction.

o     New Philosophy of Social Science, The Old Logic of the Social Sciences: Actions, Reasons, and Causes.

á          Thursday:

o     New Philosophy of Social Science, The New Logic of Social Science: Rules, Rationality, and Explanation.

Week Five

á          Tuesday:

o     New Philosophy of Social Science, Interpretation and Indeterminacy.

á          Thursday:

o     New Philosophy of Social Science, The Macro-Micro Relation.

Week Six

á          Tuesday:

o     New Philosophy of Social Science, Criticism and Explanation

á          Thursday:

o     Review

 

The Praxeological Turn, Embodiment, and Critical Geography:

 

Week Seven

á          Tuesday:

o      Bourdieu, Pierre & Wacquant, Loic 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, Introduction [Handout].

á          Thursday:

o     Schatzki, Theodore R. et al. 2001. The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London, New York: Routledge, Introduction [Handout].

o     Schatzki, Theodore R. et al. 2001. The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London, New York: Routledge, Practice Mind-ed Orders [Handout].

Week Eight

á          Tuesday:

o     Schatzki, Theodore R. 2002. The Site of the Social: A Philosophical Account of the Constituion of Social Life and Change, Social Orders [Handout].

á          Thursday:

o     Schatzki, Theodore R. 2002. The Site of the Social: A Philosophical Account of the Constituion of Social Life and Change, Practices [Handout].

Week Nine

á          Tuesday:

o     Schatzki, Theodore R. et al. 2001. The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London, New York: Routledge, TBA [Handout]

á          Thursday:

o     Schatzki, Theodore R. et al. 2001. The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London, New York: Routledge, TBA [Handouts]

Week Ten

á          Tuesday:

o     Review.

á          Thursday:

o     Review

o     Student Evaluations

 

Finals Week