GOVT2991 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Thomas Kuhn, Neoliberalism, Normal Science

• School: University of Sydney
• Department: Government and International Relations
• Course: GOVT2991
• Professor: Martin John Kear

Document Summary

Week 2: the relevance of political science and epistemology (14 march) Inability to commit to foundationalist and anti-foundationalist impacts its revelance. We can predict unpredability- constantly make bad desisions. Textbook: chapter 9 paul furlong and david marsh a skin not a sweater: ontology and. Two ontological positions: foundationalism/ objectivitism/realism which positis a real world out there and anti-foundationalism/constructivism/relativis m which sees the world as socially constructed. Epistemology is how human agents can enquire about and make sense of ontology. Epistemological position reflects his/her view of what we can know about the world (ontological position) For hay we cannot prove an ontological position or its relationship to epistemology. Post-strusturalists argue that ontology is grounded in epistemology. For spencer ontology cannot be reduced to epistemology. The world is viewed as composed of discrete objects which possess properties that are independent of the observer/researcher. All researchers must view and understand these objects in the same way is they have the skills.