Course Syllabus. Week 1: Philosophy of the Social Sciences and its Subject Matter

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1 Course Syllabus Course: Philosophy of the Social Sciences Instructor: Dr. Catherine Herfeld Time and place: WS 2013/14, Wednesdays 2-4 pm, R021 Office hours: by appointment Course language: English Course description: This course introduces students to the main debates in philosophy of the social sciences. Departing from questions about the nature of society and our knowledge of it, we will address issues such as the nature of social facts and human action, the possibility for explanation in the social sciences, the doctrine of Verstehen, individualism versus holism, and the role of value judgments in the social sciences. We will discuss questions including: what could be an appropriate method of the philosophy of the social sciences?; how to explain and predict social phenomena?; are there laws in the social sciences?; what is the scope of rational choice theory?. Most of the readings can be found in Martin, M./McIntyre, L. C. (1994): Readings in the Philosophy of Social Science, Bradford Books (abbreviated MM Chapter x) and in Steel, D. and Guala, F. (2011): The Philosophy of Social Science Reader, Routledge. In preparation for the course, Alex Rosenberg's (2012) of Philosophy of Social Science, 4 th edition, Westview Press, is recommended. Topics and reading list: Week 1: Philosophy of the Social Sciences and its Subject Matter Martin, M./McIntyre, L. (1994): Introduction, in MM, pp. xv-xxi. Fay, B./Moon, D. (1977): What Would an Adequate Philosophy of Social Science Look Like?, MM2. Week 2: Methodological Naturalism Mill, J.S. (first published 1843): System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, being a connected view of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation, Book 6 On the logic of the Moral Sciences, chapters. 9-12; (Available under: Mill, J.S. (first published 1836): On the Definition of Political Economy and the Method of Investigation Proper to it ; (Available under: 1

2 Week 3: The Interpretative Tradition Collingwood, R.G. (1946): Human Nature and Human History, in: Gardiner, Patrick (ed.) (1979): The Philosophy of History, Oxford: Oxford University Press; pp (until the end of the first paragraph). Taylor, Charles (1971): Interpretation and the Sciences of Man, MM13. Week 4: Max Weber and the Doctrine of Verstehen Weber, Max (1978 [1921 & 1922]): Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, Edited by Roth, Guenther And Wittich, Claus, Berkeley: University of California Press; chapter 1, The Nature of Social Action, pp Martin, Jane R. (1969): Another Look at the Doctrine of Verstehen, MM16. Week 5: Intentionality and Rational Choice Elster, J. (1985): The Nature and Scope of Rational Choice Explanations, MM20. Hausman, D. (2012): Preferences, Choice, and Welfare, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; chapter 2. (Read the two texts in this order) Harsanyi, John C. (1976): Advances in Understanding Rational Behavior, in: Essays on Ethics, Social Behavior, and Scientific Explanation, Theory and Decision Library Vol. 12, Dordrecht: Springer; pp (reprinted in: Steel, D. and Guala, F. (2011); chapter 14). Week 6: Social Norms Bicchieri, Cristina (2011): The Rules We Live By, Guala, F./Steel, D. (2011): The Philosophy of Social Science Reader, London and New York: Routledge; pp (A longer version of this paper can be found as chapter 1 of Bicchieri s book The Grammar of Society, which is available under: Bicchieri, Cristina and Muldoon, Ryan, "Social Norms", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.); (Available under: Week 7: The Nature of Social Facts Durkheim, E. (1938): Social Facts, MM27. Watkins, J.W.N. (1957): Historical Explanation in the Social Sciences, MM28 2

3 Week 8: Laws and Explanation in the Social Sciences I Hempel, Carl (1966): The Function of General Laws in History, MM3. Hausman, Daniel (1990): Supply and Demand Explanations and Their Ceteris Paribus Clauses, in: Review of Political Economy, 2 (2), pp Week 9: Individual Actors and Unintended Consequences Hayek, F.A. v. (1967): The Theory of Complex Phenomena, MM4. Schelling, Thomas (1978): Micromotives and Macrobehavior, New York: W.W. Norton; chapter 1. Week 10: Laws and Explanation in the Social Sciences II Mitchell, Sandra (2009): Complexity and Explanation in the Social Sciences, in Mantzavinos, C.: Philosophy of the Social Sciences: Philosophical Theory and Scientific Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp Alt, James (2009): Comment: Conditional Knowledge: An Oxymoron?, in: Mantzavinos, C.: Philosophy of the Social Sciences: Philosophical Theory and Scientific Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp Week 11: Structures, Networks, and Agency Emirbayer, Mustafa (1997): Manifesto for a Relational Sociology, in: American Journal of Sociology, 103 (2), pp Week 12: Agent-based Modeling and Causal-mechanistic Explanations Hedström, P./Ylikoski, P. (2010): Causal Mechanisms in the Social Sciences, in: Annual Review of Sociology, 36, pp Macy, Michael/Willer, Robert (2002): From Factors to Actors: Computational Sociology and Agent-based Modeling, in: Annual Review of Sociology, 28 (1), pp Macy, Michael/Flache, Andreas (2009): Social Dynamics From the Bottom Up: Agent-based Models of Social Interaction, in: Hedström, P./Bearman, P. (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Analytical Sociology, Oxford: Oxford University Press; pp Week 13: Reductionism in the Social Sciences Garfinkel, Alan (1981): Reductionism, in: Boyd, R./Casper, D./Trout, J.D. (eds.): The Philosophy of Science, Cambridge: MIT Press; chapter 24. 3

4 Watkins, J.W.N. (1968): Methodological Individualism and Social Tendencies, in: Boyd, R./Casper, D./Trout, J.D. (eds.) (1991): The Philosophy of Science, Cambridge: MIT Press; chapter 39. Kincaid, H. (1986): Reduction, Explanation, and Individualism, MM32. Week 14: Value Judgments and the Problem of Objectivity Weber, Max (1949): Objectivity in Social Science and Social Policy, MM34. Nagel, Ernest (1979): The Value-Oriented Bias of Social Inquiry, MM36. Week 15: The Scientific Status of the Social Sciences Fodor, Jerry (1974): Special Sciences (or: The Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis), MM44. Papineau, D. (2009): Physicalism and the Human Sciences, in: Mantzavinos, C. (ed.): Philosophy of the Social Sciences: Philosophical Theory and Scientific Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; pp Shulman, R./Shapiro, I. (2009): Comment: Reductionism in the Human Sciences: A Philosopher s Game, in: Mantzavinos, C. (ed.): Philosophy of the Social Sciences: Philosophical Theory and Scientific Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; pp Additional background reading for the course: Elster, Jon (2007): Explaining Social Behavior. More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hausman, D. (3 rd. rev. ed.) (2008): Philosophy of Economics: An Anthology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hausman, D. (2 nd ed.) (1994): Philosophy of Economics: An Anthology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hausman, D. (1992): The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hollis, D. (2002): The Philosophy of Social Science: An Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Little, Daniel (1991): Varieties of Social Explanation: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Social Science, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. Mantzavinos, C. (ed.) (2009): Philosophy of the Social Sciences. Philosophical Theory and Scientific Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 4

5 Rosenberg, Alex (4th ed.) (2012): Philosophy of Social Science, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. Turner, Stephen A./Roth, Paul A. (eds.) (2003): The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Oxford: Blackwell. Webpages: Daniel Little s personal blog: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: 5