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Foundations of Political & Social Science: Philosophy and Theory (SPS-RECHE-PHI-24)

SPS-RECHE-PHI-24

Purpose

This seminar critically examines the conceptual scaffolding that stands behind all social science research: philosophy and theory. It begins – Part I - with six sessions on how we understand the social world we seek to study. As positivists? Critical realists? Interpretivists? Post-structuralists? In these first weeks, we will also explore the extensive philosophical literature behind that little thing upon which almost all of us rely: cause (¿). This broad philosophical focus allows us to see both the strengths and limitations of our preferred way of doing social science, as well as the pluses and minuses of the differing ways we understand cause (expected outcomes; counterfactual; manipulative) and operationalize/measure it (causal effects, causal mechanisms, local causation, constitutive causation).
Part II consists of four sessions on how we use theory to explain, understand, critique or normatively assess the world around us. But how do we develop theory? Deductively? Inductively? Abductively? Do we advance a new theory, starting from first principles? Or do we begin with existing theory, seeking to modify it? What role is there for normative theorizing in our empirical studies? Does sociology’s grounded theory offer a toolkit for what many of us do in practice – going back and forth between deductive hunches and inductive discovery? Should your thesis be an exercise in theory testing or theory building? Which approach is better? How do you decide?
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