Social
Science Honors Sequence I
Professors:
Jeff
Barrett (jabarret@uci.edu) P. Kyle Stanford (stanford@uci.edu)
Office
Hrs T/Th 2-3PM, SST 765 Office Hrs M 3-5PM, SST 769
TA’s:
Rory
Smead (rsmead@uci.edu), Office Hrs Mon 4-5, Tues
10-11, SST 793
Kevin
Zollman (kzollman@uci.edu), Office Hrs Thurs 2-4, SST
793
Tucker
Lentz (tlentz@uci.edu), Office Hrs Mon 10-11, Tues 4-5, SST 764
In this course
we take up a particular subject—the character of human knowledge—and move
ourselves from the style of inquiry about it characteristic of the humanities
to that represented by the social sciences.
We begin with the sort of skeptical challenges to our knowledge from
thinkers like Rene Descartes and (especially) David Hume that have framed the
modern tradition in philosophy, and then move on to consider what empirical
research in the social sciences can contribute to our understanding of human
knowledge. We will find that a number of
classic findings of the social sciences make Hume's own response to skepticism
look implausible, but they simultaneously reveal that the faculties we rely on
in the acquisition of knowledge are systematically unreliable, misleading, and
subject to deception in a myriad of ways we would never have anticipated and
indeed find it difficult to believe even when they are experimentally
demonstrated. We will then explore
Thomas Kuhn's famous suggestion that the theories and methods we use to
establish these empirical scientific results are themselves open to an
important skeptical challenge. What we
will discover in the end is that we cannot acquire any knowledge at all without
making some assumptions about the nature of the world and the processes of
inquiry, but empirical research into the social sciences has much to teach us
about which assumptions are the ones we should and should not be willing to
make.
Week 1:
Introduction: Knowledge,
Skepticism, and Naturalized Epistemology
Week 2:
I: Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Chs.
I-IV
II: Hume, Enquiry,
Chs. V, VII, IX,
Week 3:
I: Hume, Enquiry, Ch. XII; Pinker, selection from How the Mind Works, Ch. 5 entitled “Good Ideas” (pp. 343-351)
II: Hoffman, Visual Intelligence, Chs. 1&2
Week 4: I: Asch, “Effects of Group Pressure…”; Loftus, “Make My Memory:
How Advertising Can Change Our Memories of the Past”; Loftus, “Our
Changeable Memories: Legal and Practical
Implications”
II: Strayer and
Johnston, “Driven to Distraction”; Strayer, et. al., “Cell-phone Induced Failures of Visual Attention During Simulated Driving”; Festinger
and Carlsmith, “Cognitive Consequences of Forced
Compliance” (links available from course website, address below)
Week 5: I:
Maier, “Reasoning in Humans”
II: Nisbett and Wilson, “Telling More Than We Can Know”
Week 6: I: Midterm Examination.
II: Kuhn, The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions, Preface & Ch. I-V
Week 7:
I: Kuhn, SSR, Ch. VI-VIII
II:
Kuhn, SSR, Ch. IX-X
Week 8: I:
Kuhn, SSR, Ch.
XI-XIII
II:
Kuhn, SSR, Postscript
Week 9:
I: Laudan,
“A Problem-Solving Model of Scientific Progress”
II:
Thanksgiving Holiday
Week 10: I: Vos Savant, “Ask Marilyn” Parade magazine columns
from 9/9/90, 12/2/90, 2/17/91, and 7/7/91; Skyrms, Choice and Chance, pp. 205-215
II: Skyrms, Choice and
Chance, pp. 129-158
Week 11: I: Skyrms, Choice and Chance, pp. 167-204
II:
Barrett and Stanford, “Prediction”, in Routledge Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Science
There are two books for the
course and a reader from Anteater Publishing; all are required and are available
at the University Bookstore. All reading
should be completed before lecture.
Grades will be determined by one midterm, and one final examination
(cumulative), each worth approximately ½ of your final grade, and participation
in section (see below). Each examination
will involve answering ten essay-style questions that all have equal weight in
the final grade. The examinations will
allow for some flexibility in which questions one answers. A list of study questions will be made
available before each of the examinations.
There is no direct penalty for not participating in section, but
consistent, active, smart participation can improve one’s course grade by as
much as one-half letter grade and perhaps even more in exceptional cases. We will also have an optional paper
assignment: 1,500-2,000 words, on a
topic discussed with and approved by your TA before the Thanksgiving break,
and due the final regular course meeting.
The grade on this paper can be used to replace your grade on the midterm
if doing so would improve your final grade in the course.
There is an extremely
useful comprehensive website for this course (constructed by several former
TA’s) including weekly summaries, review questions, links to web resources, and
an extensive glossary of important, technical, and/or unfamiliar terms and
concepts. It can be found at
<http://www.lps.uci.edu/SSHonors/>.
We urge you to take full advantage of the website and to provide us your
feedback about how we can make it even better for the future.