SemesterFall Semester, 2023
DepartmentPhD Program of Political Science, First Year PhD Program of Political Science, Second Year
Course NamePhilosophy of Social Sciences
InstructorYEH HAO
Credit3.0
Course TypeRequired
Prerequisite
Course Objective
Course Description
Course Schedule

Week 1: What is Philosophy of Social Sciences?



Week 2: Cause, Agent, and Structure



Week 3: Rationalism & Empiricism



Week 4: System, Function, and Game Theory



Week 5: Understanding & Explanation



Week 6: Neutrality, Objectivity, and Relativism



Week 7: Durkheim



Week 8: Weber



Week 9: Hermeneutics



Week 10: Genealogy



Week 11: Critical Theory



Week 12: Critical Realism



Week 13: The Concept of Scientific History



Week 14: Does Political Theory Still Exist?



Week 15: Historical Inevitability



Week 16: The Counter-Enlightenment



Week 17: The Divorce between the Sciences and the Humanities



Week 18: Final evaluation



Students should pay at least 20hrs/week for this class.


Teaching Methods
Teaching Assistant
Requirement/Grading

Class participation 30%



Final report 70%


Textbook & Reference

1. Martin Hollis, The Philosophy of Social Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).



2. Patrick Baert, Philosophy of the Social Sciences (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005).



3. Peter Winch, The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1958).



4. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism (London: Routledge, 1992).



5. Max Weber, The Methodology of the Social Science (Glencoe: Free Press, 1949).



6. Ian Shapiro, The Flight From Reality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007).



7. D. P. Green and Ian Shapiro, Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994).



8. Steven Lukes, Power: A Radical View (London: Macmillan, 1974).



9. Martin Hollis and Steven Smith, Explaining and Understanding International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).



10. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1970).



11. Colin Hay, Political Analysis (London: Palgrave, 2002).



13. Martin Hollis and Steven Lukes (eds.), Rationality and Relativism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982).



14. Yvonne Sherratt, Continental Philosophy of Social Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).



15. David Marsh and Gerry Stoker, Theory and Methods in Political Science (3rd ed.)(London: Palgrave, 2010).


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