Philosophy of Science - 4 ECTS

Course Coordinators:
Justine Grønbæk Pors & Morten Thanning Sørensen

Faculty

Prerequisites

Each participant is required to submit an extended abstract describing their research project of five to eight pages, presenting and positioning their PhD project within the topic of the course. The abstracts should include descriptions of research question(s), design, analytical strategies and methodological approaches. Abstracts should reflect upon questions about philosophy of science and thus discuss how the course’s theories and concepts relate to and may inform the projects. Abstracts must be in English. 

Aim of the PhD course

Questions about philosophy of science are key to producing a high-quality PhD dissertation. The aim of this course is to offer to students an overview of different philosophy of science paradigms and thoroughly work through how questions about philosophy of science relate to their own projects. The course explores a diverse range of paradigms from positivism, over hermeneutics to constructivism and socio-material theories, emphasising their significance in relationship to the quality of a research project. Participants will engage in theoretical discussions of different paradigms as well as reflect upon how these relate to their own project. Through the different course activities, participants will enhance their capacity to position their work in different philosophy of science paradigms and develop competences in arguing for research quality and quality criteria, design, data collection, and analytical strategies. 

Through different pedagogical formats, the course will enable participants to uncover new perspectives and understand how ontological and epistemological implications from different paradigms inform their projects.

Content of the PhD course

Each session will combine lectures and theoretical discussions with group work and plenum discussions. The projects of students will be taken up as part of lectures as well as discussed in group work.

The themes for the sessions are as follows:

Day 1:
Session 1: Workshop and casework: How are questions about philosophy of science relevant in different stages of a research project?
Session 2: Lecture: Positivism, critical rationalism, phenomenology. An overview. 

Day 2:
Session 3: Lecture: Hermeneutics and critical theory.
Session 4: Lecture and group work: Social constructivism and performativity.

Day 3:
Session 5: Lecture: Situated knowledge and material turns
Session 6: Workshop and student papers: Problematising methods: Methodology and data collection.

Day 4:
Session 7: Lecture and group work: Criteria for research quality in different philosophy of science paradigms
Session 8: Student papers. Discussions in groups. 

Teaching pedagogy:

The teaching pedagogy will emphasize close readings of the selected texts, lectures, reflexive questions, questions-based discussions, and workshop formats where students relate their own project to the ontology and epistemology as well as quality criteria of different philosophy of science paradigms.

The lectures will read student papers before preparing lectures so that student papers can be addressed and discussed in relation to the lectures as well as in group work. 

It is crucial to read the assigned texts and prepare in advance. Reflexive questions will be provided alongside the readings. Students are to submit an extended abstract beforehand engaging with questions about philosophy of science and course readings in their presentation of their research projects. 

Preliminary Program:

Preliminary Lecture Plan and Readings:

DAY 1: 

Session 1:

Workshop and casework: How are questions about philosophy of science relevant in different stages of a research project?

Taking a point of departure in the research questions of participants, this session introduces participants to key questions about philosophy of science and the role these play in different stages of the research processes. A key focus will be on question about epistemology highlighting the importance of reflexivity and combinations of diverse perspectives in research methodologies. 

Curriculum:

• Knorr Cetina, Karin D. (1999), Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge, Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press.
• Alvesson, Mats and Sköldberg, Kaj. 2000. Reflexive Methodology – new vistas for qualitative research. London: Sage. (Excerpt)

Session 2. Lecture: Positivism, critical rationalism, phenomenology and hermeneutics. An overview.

This session introduces the students to Positivism, Critical rationalism, Phenomenology, and Hermeneutics. One short, classical text by one of the main exponents of each tradition will also be discussed and their implications for research processes and design will be considered. 

Curriculum:

• Friedman, M. [1953] 2000. The methodology of positive economics. (excerpt)
• Popper, 1963 [2007]. Science as falsification. (excerpt)
• Nussbaum, M. C. (1997b) “Flawed Foundations: The Philosophical Critique of (A Particular Type of) Economics.”
• Titchen, Angie ad Hobson, Dawn. 2005 Phenomenology. In: Research methods in the social sciences. Sage.
• Heidegger, Martin. [1927] 1993. Being and Time. (excerpt) 

DAY 2: 

Session 3: Research question workshop: How are questions about philosophy of science at work in your research questions?

This session is organised as a research question workshop. The session uses both short lectures, group work, and plenum discussions to unpack relationships between philosophy of science, questions about epistemology and the articulation of research questions in contextual and situated settings. 

Curriculum: 

• Gadamer, H.-G. [1960] 2005. Truth and Method (excerpt)
• Honneth, Axel, and Brian Elliott. "Critical theory."
• Watts, Lynelle and Hodgson, David 2019. Critical Social Science and Critical Theory. In: Social justice theory and practice for social work.
• Piketty, T. (2020). Capital and Ideology, excerpt

Session 4:  Lecture and student papers: Constructivism and performativity

This section discusses constructivism as philosophy of science and its implications for the relationship between research subject and research object. Thus, it unpacks the ontology and epistemology of this paradigm and the consequences for validity. With a point of departure in relevant student papers, this session also discusses the analytical possibilities that this perspective open. We discuss how questions about power and politics are key to this paradigm as well as what this means for the conditions of possibility of knowledge production. 

Curriculum:

• Butler, Judith (1990/2006). Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Cornwall: Routledge. Chapter 1, (1-46)
• Haraway, Donna. 1991. Simians, Cyborgs and Women – the reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge. (excerpt: Chapter 9: Situated Knowledges p. 150-183).
•  Haraway, D. (2016): Staying with the trouble, short section uploaded to Canvas.
• Latour, Bruno and Woolgar, Steve. 1986. Laboratory Life – The construction of scientific facts. Princeton University Press. (excerpt).

DAY 3:

Session 5: Lecture: Situated knowledge and the material turns 
This session considers actor-network-theory and Social Technology Studies and how these extends the analytical sensitivities towards materiality and entanglements of sociality and materiality in 

Curriculum:

• Haraway, D., 1988: Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies 14(3) 575-599.
• Latour, B. 2000: ‘On the Partial Existence of Existing and Non-Existing Objects’, in: Biographies of Scientific Objects, Lorraine Daston (red.), Chicago University Press, Chicago, IL: 247-269.
• Mol, A. 2002: The Body Multiple – Ontology in Medical Practice. Durham: Duke University Press. Chapter 1.

Session 6: Problematizing methods – methodological implications of different philosophy of science paradigms

In this session we discuss the relationships between philosophy of science and methodology in the broadest sense.

Curriculum:

• Michael, M. (2012). “What are we busy doing?” Engaging the idiot. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 37(5), 528-554
• Barnwell, A. (2017). Method matters: The ethics of exclusion. What if culture was nature all along, 26-47
• Papazu, I., 2019: Ethnography as Empirical Philosophy: Studying Samsø’s Renewable Energy Transition. SAGE Research Methods Cases Part 2.

DAY 4:

Session 7: Lecture and workshop: Criteria of quality in different paradigms

This session maps the differences and similarities across philosophy of science paradigms in their criteria of quality in research. Based on this, we will discuss how to articulate the criteria for quality in participants’ projects.

Curriculum:

• Law, J. 2004: After Method. Mess in Social Science Research. Routledge. Chapter 1. Technology Studies.
• Yanow, D. 2014: Neither Rigorous nor Objective? Interrogating Criteria for Knowledge Claims in Interpretive Science. In Yanow and Schwartz-Shea (eds.): Interpretation and Method. Empirical Research Methods and the Interpretive Turn. M. E. Sharpe, Second Edition. Chapter 6.
• Winthereik, B. R., & Verran, H. 2012: Ethnographic stories as generalizations that intervene. Science &

 Session 8: Student papers. Discussions in groups.

In this final session, students will discuss each other’s papers in groups focusing on how the insights from the course can develop ideas, approaches, and design. Justine, Irina and Morten chair one group each and participates in the discussions. 

Number of Hours: