This module introduces students to some of the standard methodological and theoretical problems posed by social inquiry. Many of the issues to be discussed relate to one key question: are the methods of the social sciences essentially the same or essentially different from those of the natural sciences?

The topics to be addressed include:

• Introduction to social research
• Explanation and understanding in social science
• Functionalism and structuralism
• Rational choice theory, collective action and game theory in the social sciences
• Evolutionary explanation in the social sciences
• Questions in the philosophy of knowledge relating to science, realism, language and materialism
• Objectivity in the social sciences
• Understanding democracy and representation in social and politcial science
• Hermeneutic understanding
• Bad science, weird science, and the limits of science
• Explaining denial
• Understanding and expaining suicide missions