Teaching Philosophy of Science: Foundations of a Methods Sequence

• In Event: Teaching Qualitative Methods in Undergraduate Political Science

Abstract

We unquestioningly call ourselves practitioners of political science, yet few among us question the terms in this name. The emergence of this appellation is entangled with the history of the discipline, replete with now-famous debates and longstanding disagreements, the uneasy resolution of which continues to percolate in methodological cleavages and differences in the contemporary era. Little of this history makes it into methods curricula, however, and without this contextual background, the normalization of the term “science” in our disciplinary identity has served to paper over critically important questions surrounding our production of knowledge. As such, claims that philosophy of science should be included as a standard part of the methods sequence in the classroom often evokes surprise, followed by a demand for justification: given the already crowded curriculum and the pressures facing higher education, why should educators spend precious time on such “background” topics? Even if they add value, how might philosophical positions and debates be profitably introduced? This paper argues that the teaching of philosophy of science is distinctly relevant in concrete terms and easily brought into conversation with contemporary politics. In the so-called “post-truth” era, a deeper understanding of philosophy of science, and its relationship to research design, can help students adjudicate between competing claims and provide essential tools for critical thinking. This paper makes a case for bringing these discussions into the curriculum in hands-on ways, laying out differences between positivist and interpretivist approaches to the study of politics, and offering practical classroom exercises that might profitably be deployed within a broader discussion of methods.

Author

• Michelle Day Weitzel, The Graduate Institute, Geneva