000922L - EPISTEMOLOGIES OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

courses
ID:
000922L
Duration (hours):
72
CFU:
9
SSD:
STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA
Located in:
CHIETI
Url:
SOCIOLOGY AND CRIMINOLOGY /CORSO GENERICO Year: 1
Year:
2025
Course Catalogue:
https://unich.coursecatalogue.cineca.it/af/2025?co...

Overview

Date/time interval

Secondo Semestre (03/03/2026 - 31/05/2026)

Syllabus

Course Objectives


This course  aims  to introduce  students  to  scientific  reasoning  within  natural  and social  sciences  from  their  origins.  We  will  then  study  the  problem  of  scientificity  and  objectivity  of  natural  and social  sciences, and the  problem  of social  sciences’  unit  research  analysis  (the  debate  around  individual  versus  society). The  course  will  then  focuses  on some  among  the  main  approaches  to the  explanation  of  individual  and  collective  behaviours  in social  sciences, with  particular  attention  to  the  rationality  problem  and  to the  new  frontiers  of social  neurosciences’  contribution.




Course Prerequisites


None




Teaching Methods


Frontal lessons and seminars




Assessment Methods


Written evaluation with open and/or closed questions.

Erasmus students have to contact the teacher concerning final exam's modalities.




Texts


(6 CFU) 

- Rosenberg,  Philosophy  of Social Science, Westview Press,  Fourth  Edition  (January 3, 2012).

 

 

(3 CFU)

- Choose (A) or (B):



A. Bicchieri, The Rules We Live By + M. Van Hees, Explaining Institutions: A Defence of Reductionism + D. Sperber, Selection and Attraction in Evolution, all the three essays are in: F. Guala, D. Steel, The Philosophy of Social Science Reader, Routledge, 2011.



B. Oliverio, Dall’imitazione alla cooperazione. La ricerca sociale e le sue sfide, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2012.



- K. R. Popper, “Science: Conjectures and Refutations”, in K. R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, Basic Books, 1962, from paragraph I to paragraph IX included.




Contents


Reasoning and explanation in science; the problem of induction; problems-theories-critics; verificationism versus falsificationism; objectivity of historical and social knowledge; methodological individualism and methodological holism; human action; social order; theories of action rationality; study of social interactions; individual autonomy and social, cultural and natural determinisms.




Course Language


Italian



Erasmus students have to contact the teacher in order to arrange a number of meeting to summarize main course's themes in English.


More information


To meet the teacher please come to class during teaching semester or contact teacher by email (albertina.oliverio@unich.it).




Degrees

Degrees

SOCIOLOGY AND CRIMINOLOGY  
Bachelor’s Degree
3 years
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