We warmly invite you to the next APSE (Applied Philosophy of Science and Epistemology) talk and Reading Circle. The talk will be held by Anna Alexandrova (University of Cambridge).
When: Thursday, 03.04.2025, 15:00 - 17:00
Where: HS 3A, NIG (Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien)
Social Science: A Constructivist Account
What sort of inquiry is social science? This question used to preoccupy philosophers but fell off their agenda due to a stalemate between so-called naturalists, who took the ideal to be natural science, and exceptionalists, who allied social sciences with humanities. I show that both positions commit the error of contrastivism, namely defining social science in contrast to these two traditions, which inevitably ends up caricaturing them. Using recent advances in philosophy, I formulate constructivism about social sciences, a view that denies an essence to this inquiry and grounds it in the needs of communities to understand and improve themselves.
Reading Circle:
When: right before the talk - Thursday, 03.04.2025, 13:00 - 15:00
Where: same place - HS 3A, NIG (Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien)
We will focus our discussion on a forthcoming article by Anna Alexandrova:
Alexandrova, Anna. (forthcoming) “Social Science: A Constructivist Account”
As introduction to Constructivism, we suggest this article (especially Chapters 1 and 5):
Bagnoli, Carla, "Constructivism in Metaethics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2024 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2024/entries/constructivism-metaethics/.
For further reading regarding the topic:
Anderson, Elizabeth. "Local Knowledge in Institutional Epistemology." Australasian Philosophical Review (2024): 1-23.
Longino, Helen E. (1990). Science as Social Knowledge: Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry. Princeton University Press.
Risjord, M. W. (2022). PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE : a contemporary introduction. (Second edition.).