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Theories of Science - Spring 2024 - All you need to know

A docx with this information is available here. The readings - as far as they are not available online - can be accessed here.

All files including the readings are published as releases (see the releases-button on top or use this link), where the newest release is on top. Those of you who consider themselves computer-literate can clone this repository and/or follow changes through the rss feed - or even get an account from me to be able to push changes.

Table of Contents

About the course

The course provides an introduction to theories of science and relevant social science and humanities scholarship, with an emphasis on the history and philosophy of science and the social organization and dynamics of various academic fields, including their strategies for producing knowledge and the interaction between research and society.

The course engages with issues such as philosophical assumptions underlying high-quality scholarship, making claims about truth and objectivity, professional and societal relevance of science, navigation of academic challenges, and classic and contemporary critiques of science. To contribute to a better understanding of academic work, insights into the history of science and academic scholarship and the key features of the modern university are provided. Moreover, the course is one of the few arenas in which PhD students from a wide variety of disciplines meet and work together, which increases their interdisciplinary sensitivities.

Formalities

The course consists of lectures, group work, and plenary discussions. To ensure sufficient engagement with the course’s content, to enable peer-learning and to encourage networking across disciplines physical attendance is mandatory and no digital alternatives for participation are provided. Participants can apply for shorter leaves of absence that should altogether not be longer than one day.

Lecturers

Professor Thomas Berker (responsible for the course: thomas.berker@ntnu.no), Professor Ståle Rainer Strøm Finke, Associate Professor Terje Finstad, Professor Jonathan Knowles, Associate Professor Sofia Moratti, Associate Professor Astrid Rasch, Associate Professor Elisabeth Stubberud, Professor emeritus Knut H. Sørensen, Professor May Thorseth, and Research Professor Govert Valkenburg.

Rooms (all in Dragvoll)

07.02.24: 8563 (walk through the library until you reach the end, then go to the left)

08.02.24: D5

20.03.24: 8563 (walk through the library until you reach the end, then go to the left)

21.03.24: D5

16.04.24: D5

17.04.24: 8563 (walk through the library until you reach the end, then go to the left)

22.05.24: D150

Credit points

To pass the course, you need to attend the lectures, present a paper at the course conference, and deliver a course assignment text (see below). The deadline for the course assignment is January 31st, 2024.

KULT8851 gives 10 credit points. A presentation at the course conference is mandatory in addition to a short conference paper (4000-5000 words). 

KULT8850 gives 7.5 credit points, which presupposes a presentation at the course conference and the handing in of an extended abstract (1000-2000 words).

Required readings

Readings are listed under each of the lectures. All the literature is accessible online or will be made available to the participants in a drop box folder to which they will be given access. Reading and preparing for lectures: All the essential literature must be read before the lectures. Please make sure to prepare some comments/questions for the readings.

Course program

07. February: Philosophy and Research Ethics I (day 1)

0900 Welcome, about the course, structure, course assignment, and other practical information

1000 Getting to know each other, presentations and group work

1200-1300 Lunch

The following lectures on day 1 and 2 will take up philosophical questions about method and truth in relation to natural science, social science, and the humanities, rounding off with a discussion of general research ethics.

1300-1500: Ståle Rainer Strøm Finke: The Role of the Body and Literacy in Research

This session deals with two enabling factors within science and their impact on our understanding of science: The body and literacy. 

  - What role does the body play in the production of scientific knowledge? 
  - How does the customary association between literacy and academic knowledge influence how we theorize about science? 
  - What if things were different – what can we learn from knowledge systems that incorporate the knowing body in more articulate ways than we usually do in the Western academic tradition, without any involvement of literacy?

Essential readings:

  • Molander, B. (2015). Chapter 2: Tacit Knowledge and Silenced Knowledge. The Body, Culture, Action—and Language. In The practice of knowing and knowing in practices (pp. 35-70). Peter Lang Edition. (here)
  • Ong, W. (2013). Chapter 1: Transformation of the Word and Alienation. In Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture (pp 17-49). Cornell University Press. (here)

Additional reading:

  • Merleau-Ponty, M. (1964). The primacy of perception and its philosophical consequences. In The primacy of perception (pp. 12-27). Northwestern University Press. (here)

08. February: Philosophy and Research Ethics II (day 2)

0900-1200: Jonathan Knowles: Philosophy of Science: Objectivity, Method, and Truth

This session introduces the classical issues of the philosophy of science, framed through the lens of the nature and possibility of objectivity in research.

Essential readings:

  • Gaukroger, Stephen. 2012. Objectivity: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Chapter 1. (available here)
  • Jonathan Knowles, Theory of science: A Short Introduction: ‘Logical Positivism’ (p. 21-30). (here)
  • Popper, Karl. 1972. The Bucket and the Searchlight: Two Theories of Knowledge. Appendix to Objective Knowledge. An Evolutionary Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (here)
  • Kuhn, Thomas S. 2012. Postscript - 1969. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 173-208. Fourth edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (here)
  • H.G. Gadamer 'The universality of the hermeneutical problem' in his Philosophical Hermeneutics, ed. D. Linge, California UP 1976. (here)
  • S Harding '"Strong objectivity" and socially situated knowledge' Chapter 6 of her Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Cornell UP 1991. (here)

Additional readings:

1200-1300: Lunch

1300-1500: May Thorseth: Research ethics

This session deals with three levels of research ethics:

  • Quality of research – good research conduct and the ethos of science
  • Protecting persons and/or groups affected by research
  • The social responsibility of research (broad research ethics)

Essential readings:

Additional reading:

Browse through the NESH guidelines, available in both Norwegian: https://www.forskningsetikk.no/retningslinjer/hum-sam/forskningsetiske-retningslinjer-for-samfunnsvitenskap-og-humaniora/ or English: https://www.forskningsetikk.no/en/guidelines/social-sciences-humanities-law-and-theology/guidelines-for-research-ethics-in-the-social-sciences-humanities-law-and-theology/

1545 End of day

20 March: Science in context I (day 3)

0900-1100 Thomas Berker: Introduction: History, institutions, practices (and introduction to our conference)

1115-1200 Knut H. Sørensen: The university as a place and a context for research: Academic freedom and autonomy, the quest for excellence, and strained collegiality.

Essential reading:

  • Knut H. Sørensen and Sharon Traweek: Questing Excellence in Academia: A Tale of Two Universities (Routledge 2022). Chapter 3. In the Shadows of Excellence and Neoliberal Interventions: Enactments of Academic Autonomy and Strained Collegiality (33 p.) The whole book is available here: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780367259334

1200-1300 Lunch

1300-1500 Sørensen cont.

21 March: Science in context II (day4)

0900 Terje Finstad: History of science and changes in scientific life. Situating and historicizing your own discipline/subject.

Essential reading:

Additional readings:

  • Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison. 1992. The image of objectivity. In: Representations 40, p. 81-128 (here)
  • Steven Shapin. 2010. Never pure. Historical studies of science as if it was produced by people with bodies, situated in time, space, culture, and society, and struggling for credibility and authority. The Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 1-15. (here)

1200-1300 Lunch

1300-1500 Govert Valkenburg: Science as practice

Essential readings:

  • H.M. Collins and Steven Yearly (1992). Epistemological Chicken, pp. 301-326 in Andrew Pickering (ed.): Science as Practice and Culture, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (here)
  • Michel Callon and Bruno Latour (1992). Don’t throw the baby out with the Bath School! A reply to Collins and Yearley, pp. 343-368 in Andrew Pickering (ed.): Science as Practice and Culture, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (here)
  • Noortje Marres (2018). Why We Can't Have Our Facts Back. Engaging Science, Technology and Society, vol. 4, 2018. (here)

Additional reading:

  • Valkenburg, G. (2021). Engineering as a socio-political practice. In D. P. Michelfelder & N. Doorn (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Engineering. Routledge. [While strictly about engineering and not scientific research, much of this chapter resonates and pertains to science.] (here)

16. April: Critical perspectives I (day 5)

The program for the next two days is not finalised - it is subject to change!

0900-1100 Sofia Moratti: Situated knowledge and feminist critique of science

In this session we will work on the concept of objectivity based in feminist critique of universality in science and discuss the relevance and importance of acknowledging researcher positionalities.

Essential readings:

  • Rolin, K. "Situated knowledge and objectivity." In The Routledge Handbook of Feminist Philosophy of Science, pp. 216-224. Routledge, 2020. (here)
  • Ashton, N. A., & McKenna, R. (2020). Situating feminist epistemology. Episteme, 17(1), 28-47. (here)
  • Olmos-Vega, Francisco M., Renée E. Stalmeijer, Lara Varpio, and Renate Kahlke. "A practical guide to reflexivity in qualitative research: AMEE Guide No. 149." Medical teacher 45, no. 3 (2023): 241-251. (here)

Additional reading:

  • Collins, Patricia Hill 1986. Learning from the outsider within: the sociological significance of black feminist thought i Social Problems 33(6): 14-32 (here)
  • Haraway, Donna 1988. ”Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective” Feminist Studies, 14(3): 575-599 (24 s) (here)
  • Harding, Sandra, 2001 “Feminist Standpoint Epistemology” in Lederman, M. & Bartsch, i The Gender and Science Reader, London: Routledge: 145-165 (here)

1100-1200 Thomas Berker: Introduction to the "ledger of grievances"

1200-1300 Lunch

1300-1500 Elisabeth Stubberud: Decolonizing knowledge production and objectivity

Essential readings:

Additional reading:

  • Dankertsen, Astrid (2022) ' Avkolonisering av akademia fra et samisk perspektiv' (here)

17 April: Critical perspectives II (day 6)

0900-1100 Astrid Rasch

1115-1500 Thomas Berker: The many uses of science: engagement, interdisciplinarity, innovation and sustainability

Essential readings:

  • Wynne, Brian. 2006. Public Engagement as a Means of Restoring Public Trust in Science – Hitting the Notes, but Missing the Music? Public Health Genomics 9 (3): 211–20. (here)
  • Pfotenhauer, Sebastian M., Joakim Juhl, and Erik Aarden. “Challenging the ‘Deficit Model’ of Innovation: Framing Policy Issues under the Innovation Imperative.” Research Policy, New Frontiers in Science, Technology and Innovation Research from SPRU’s 50th Anniversary Conference, 48, no. 4 (May 1, 2019): 895–904. (here)
  • Berker, Thomas. “Negotiating research norms between academic and industrial research. The case of a research centre on zero emission buildings in Norway”, to be published in Nordic Architectural Research. (here)

22. May: Conference

The participants of the course present papers on how their PhD work relates to the topics of the course. The conference is public and will be organised collectively.