Time Schedule:
Ellis Goldberg
POL S 398
Seattle Campus
Intensive and advanced studies in various aspects of political science. Open only to participants in the departmental Honors program.
Class description
European culture was transformed in the nineteenth century by the acquisition of new way of thinking about society. Among these new ways of thinking were the social sciences which claimed affinity with the physical sciences. They often, it is argued, became tools for racial or ethnic domination. How did these new ways of thinking about the social come into being? This course will examine the development of social sciences based on the manipulation of quantitative information and the hypothetico-deductive method Europe between the seventeenth and early twentieth century. How and why did those interested in society come to think about the social world in quantitative terms and what different kinds of arguments did they make? Was there any logical relation between their methods and the substantive concerns they held? Are such approaches so deeply embedded in European culture that they flow naturally from it or naturally affect our own thinking? These are the questions we will ask.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Texts. Readings will center on The Emergence of Probability (Ian Hacking), Trust in Numbers (Theodore Porter), The Mismeasure of Man (Stephen Jay Gould), The Probabilistic Revolution (Lorenz Krueger), a brief selection from The History of Statistics (Stephen Stigler), and some readings from L’Egypte Contemporaine as well as some contemporary issues about the use of quantitative evidence.
Class assignments and grading
Assignments. Grades will be based on a lengthy (20-page) analytic paper. No prior knowledge of statistics required nor will this course provide significant training in statistical method.
