Philosophical Foundations of Social Research

By Prof. Sambit Mallick | IIT Guwahati

Learners enrolled: 553

This course is concerned with the nature of social science inquiry. It is intended for students in all disciplines and those early in their masters and doctoral research programmes. The course travels through philosophy of science, epistemology, ontology and specific applications to the major disciplinary areas. The main objectives of the course are to: (a) introduce the philosophy of science and its application to social sciences, (b) outline major differing classes of theory in social sciences and to explicate their metatheoretical foundations, (c) familiarize students with the plurality of views on these issues in the intellectual community, (d) provide students with an opportunity to apply these concepts to the analysis of issues in social sciences, and (e) provide students with an opportunity to practise scholarly discourses.

INTENDED AUDIENCE : UG and PG students of Humanities and Social Sciences, Sciences and Engineering

PREREQUISITES : None

INDUSTRIES SUPPORT : None

Summary

Course Status :	Completed
Course Type :	Elective
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	8 weeks
Category :	Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit Points :	2
Level :	Undergraduate/Postgraduate
Start Date :	24 Jan 2022
End Date :	18 Mar 2022
Enrollment Ends :	07 Feb 2022
Exam Date :	27 Mar 2022 IST

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1: Introduction
History of philosophy of social sciences
Empiricism and rationalism
Auguste Comte and positivism
Epistemology and ontology

Week 2: Emile Durkheim
Rules of sociological method
Influence of sciences on sociology
Objectivity in social sciences
Social facts, autonomy of knowledge and the necessity of science
Commonsense and science
Comparative social sciences Organic analogy and precursor to functionalism

Week 3: Max Weber – I
Positivism and neo Kantianism
Methodology of social sciences

Week 4: Max Weber – II
Methodological individualism
(Meaningful) social action
Interpretative understanding (verstehen) of social action: observatory and explanatory understanding
Ideal types

Week 5: Karl Marx
Idealism versus materialism
Materialist conception of history
Principles of dialectic
Understanding nature
Ideology and science: methodological implications

Week 6: Karl Popper: Principle of falsification
Context of discovery and context of justification
Hypothetico-deductive model
Thomas Kuhn:Consensus-driven paradigm
Normal science: tradition-bound activity
Anomalies
Crisis within normal scientific tradition
Revolutionary science: tradition-shattering activity

Week 7: Positivism versus hermeneutics: conflicting traditions
Natural sciences versus social sciences
Objectivity and subjectivity in social sciences
Quantitative and qualitative research traditions

Week 8:Conclusion
Beginning of the end of philosophy of social sciences
Overview of the course

Books and references

1. P. Baert, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Polity Press, 2005.

2. M. Hollis, The Philosophy of Social Science: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 1994.

3. T. Benton, Philosophical Foundations of the Three Sociologies, Routledge, 2015.

4. E. Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method, Macmillan, 1982.

5. M. Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, Free Press, 1949.

6. P. Halfpenny, Positivism and Sociology: Explaining Social Life, Allen and Unwin, 1982.

7. K. Popper, (1959) 2002. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London and New York: Routledge.

8. T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

9. C.H. Cooley, Human Nature and Social Order, Transaction Publishers, 1983.

10. A. Schütz, Collected Papers III: Studies in Phenomenological Philosophy, I. Schütz (ed.). The Hague: Nijhoff, 1975.

Instructor bio

Prof. Sambit Mallick

IIT Guwahati

Sambit Mallick is Professor of Sociology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. He specializes in the sociology of science and technology, and also includes historical sociology and philosophy of the social sciences among his research interests. His research and teaching are at the intersection of philosophy, social theory, and science and technology studies. His courses under NPTEL have attracted a large number of students even from the remote areas in India and abroad.

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.
The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).
Date and Time of Exams: 27 March 2022 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.
Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.
The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.
Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 6 assignments out of the total 8 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Guwahati .It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team

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