PHIL 223 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Jon Elster, Falsifiability, Human Action
15 Apr 2016
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The philosophy of social science: devoted to answering the following: Questions that are sciences physical, biological, social, behavioural that may not be answerable. Questions about why natural & social sciences can"t answer these questions: central problem: Knowledge about humans in groups and individually and their behaviour/action & consequences. Understand and outline difference difference between natural and social sciences. Interpretationists: want to explain and understand/make sense human behaviour, focus on reasons, not causes, to understand an event or practice requires discovering the meaning in particular social context ex. Naturalists: look at spring of causes, believe humans act for a reason. Interested in values: young field, hard to replicate/control variables (ex. people standing in the exact same position, research looks obvious, not impressive, allows us to enhance our lives without controlling it, not very many brute facts. Although, if you only look at the brute facts, you won"t get the meaning & miss what"s going on (charles taylor)
