Module PHIL2111: REASON, KNOWLEDGE AND SOCIETY

Department: Philosophy

PHIL2111: REASON, KNOWLEDGE AND SOCIETY

Prerequisites

• At least one module from the following: Ethics and Values (PHIL1011), Knowledge and Reality (PHIL1021), Reading Philosophy (PHIL1041), Philosophy of Science (PHIL1061), OR other appropriate evidence.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To introduce central issues, theories and arguments arising from a philosophical examination of social knowledge.

Content

• The topics to be covered will include some of the following: Science and social science: models of method in the natural and social sciences.
• Agency, consciousness and the limits to social knowledge.
• Prediction and testability in the social sciences with special reference to economic forecasting.
• Objectivity, values and social knowledge: Value-freedom in the natural and social sciences.
• Collective and individual decision-making.
• Classical utilitarianism and the social interest.
• Individual rights and distributive justice.
• Laws and explanation: Nomological, causal, functional and teleological models of explanation, their applicability to the social sciences.
• Political and economic laws.
• Unity of the social sciences: the metaphysics of the social world.
• Supervenience, reduction and explanation.
• Holism and individualism, social facts and their dependence on individual psychological facts.
• Rationality: the place of individual rationality in social and economic explanation.
• Individual rationality and social epistemology.
• Relativism: varieties of relativism.
• The strong programme in the sociology of knowledge and epistemic relativism.
• The intelligibility of epistemic relativism.

Learning Outcomes

• By the end of the module students will have knowledge and understanding of key philosophical theories relating to the following issues: similarities and differences between the natural and social sciences; value-freedom in the social sciences; the nature of laws and explanation in social theory; the dependence, or independence, of social facts on psychological facts; the concept of rationality; varieties of relativism and their relevance to social theory.

• correctly utilise specialist vocabulary
• grasp, analyse, evaluate and deploy subject-specific concepts and arguments
• locate, understand, assess and utilise pertinent philosophical (and, where appropriate, historical) sources

• express themselves clearly and succinctly in writing
• comprehend complex ideas, propositions and theories
• defend their opinions by reasoned argument
• seek out and identify appropriate sources of evidence and information
• tackle problems in a clear-sighted and logical fashion.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Lectures deliver basic module-specific information, and provide a framework for further study.
• Tutorials provide opportunities for students to test their own understanding of the material studies, and defend and debate different opinions.
• Guided reading provides a structure within which students exercise and extend their abilities to make use of available learning resources.
• The Formative essays provide the opportunity for students to test their knowledge and understanding of the module content, and their ability to present and defend relevant arguments and theories, uninhibited by the need for summative assessment.
• The unseen examination tests students' overall knowledge and understanding of the module content at the end of the module, and their ability to bring it to bear on new problems under pressure of time.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Two essays of 1500 words each.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University