Registration ends 07.4.2026 at 23:59 h

*** IMPORTANT INFORMATION: COURSE REGISTRATION VIA EMAIL (SEE BELOW) ***

This course provides you with insights into how to do more engaging and useful research. So what can philosophy contribute to social science? The answer is straightforward: it helps to construct more interesting research problems by challenging taken-for-granted assumptions. The philosophy of social science raises fundamental questions relevant to the practicing researcher, such as what is the nature of social phenomena? Should we see organizations as accumulations of autonomous individuals, collective actors with goals of their own, or systems embedded into society? What is the appropriate form of investigation? Should we rely on empirical facts, on our reason, on action, or on intuition? Can we investigate society by studying individuals or via their social structures? What values and norms of social actions are appropriate? Should we see the individual's freedom (maximization of individual benefit) or his/her responsibility to the community at large (maximization of collective benefit) as the primary goal of social action?

This course blends specific perspectives from the philosophy of social science with controversies in social studies. Our use of the term social studies is broad; it includes all disciplines that study social systems of different kinds and of different levels such as economics, sociology, political science, culturology, social psychology, and the respective socio-technologies such as management. This course will enable students to explain how philosophy could contribute to the improvement and interestingness of social research. More specifically, students will be made familiar with general philosophical controversies in social science such as individualism versus holism, idealism versus materialism, the positivism versus postmodernism debates. Finally, we address the relation between science and praxis and reflect upon the different statuses of science and technology.

This course is designed as a seminar, which requires preparation by students before each session and dynamic interaction in the class room. Students are encouraged to debate their particular views, philosophical problems underlying their research, and research issues in class.

You will find all readings and my manuscript (including all slides used in class) on the Leuphana learning platform myStudy.

Further information on teaching evaluation: https://www.leuphana.de/en/teaching/quality-management/feedback-instruments.html