Michaelmas and Summer terms: Dr J McKenzie Alexander, LAK. T501b
Lent term: Dr Amandine Catala

The course is primarily intended for MSc Philosophy of the Social Sciences, MSc Philosophy and History of Science, MSc Economics and Philosophy and MSc Philosophy and Public Policy, MSc Biomedicine, Bioscience and Society, MSc European Studies: Ideas and Identities, MSc Social Research Methods and LSE-Sciences Po Double Degree in European Studies The seminar is also open to research students.

Philosophical issues concerning the nature of social scientific theory and its applications. Topics to be covered will include some or all of the following: the explanation and interpretation of action, naturalist and hermeneutic social theory; the nature of 'social facts'; reductionism and methodological individualism; functional and structural explanations; rationality and relativism; the role of values in social science; social norms; the construction of social reality; methods of evolutionary explanation in the social sciences; philosophical and methodological critiques of evolutionary psychology. In additional, philosophical problems of particular social sciences such as anthropology, sociology, and economics will also be addressed.

Lectures PH203 x 20 (MT, LT); Seminars PH405 20 x one-and-a-half hour (MT, LT).

Students will be expected to write two essays per term and may be asked to give seminar presentations.

A detailed reading list will be provided at the beginning of the course. Useful background readings are: D Little, Varieties of Social Explanation; A Rosenberg, Philosophy of Social Science; M Hollis, The Philosophy of Social Science; B Skyrms, Evolution of the Social Contract. A useful anthology is M Martin & L McIntyre (Eds), Readings in the Philosophy of Social Science.

A three-hour written examination in the ST.