What are some good texts (papers or books) for a PhD-level philosophy of social science course? I’m looking for stuff that’s particularly relevant for psychology but would also be of interest to those in sociology or economics
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I read The Paul Meehl reader in grad school as my first foray into philosophy of psychology. The final time he taught his class is available here https://meehl.umn.edu/video
Oh, he taught that course for almost a quarter-century after that recording. I was in the last class he offered of that; he passed away during the Taxometrics course.
Recently I read Massimo Pigliucci’s “Nonsense on Stilts,” and he addresses the demarcation problem there. It’s written in an accessible, popular press style. Idk if some of it might end up being useful. He actually has a nice critique of Strong Inference in biology.
It’s like 4am, so my brain is a combination of “lol work?” and fluffy bunnies made of cotton candy, but I will note: be sure you’re sourcing outside the white, male academy.
Charnysh & Finkel Death Camp Eldorado paper, Voitlander & Voth Persecution Perpetuated paper. Medium and long-term cultural transmission of values, and value! - highly interdisciplinary and important work imo.
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The beginning of Anthony Chemero’s “Radical Embodied Cognitive Science” has a nice overview of theoretical approaches to #CogSci.
Bruce Ellis also has a good paper on Lakatosian philosophy of science in an evolutionary context I liked during grad school:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/S15327965PLI1101_01
(2) Mary Hesse on Metaphors
(3) On a more applied level, Dienes' "Understanding psychology as a science"
(5) Scheel (2022). Why most psychological research findings are not even wrong
(6) Bailey, @dingdingpeng.the100.ci et al., Causal inference on human behaviour.
(8) Nzinga et al., (2018) Should social scientists be distanced from or engaged with the people they study?
(9) Heinrich et al. (2010) and follow-up papers on WEIRD populations