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Department of History and Philosophy of Science

 

Calculating People is a reading group that examines contemporary social sciences with a special focus on their methodological controversies. All postgraduate researchers are welcome to join, but participants undertake to do the readings ahead of time and endeavour to attend all meetings. The format is in-person.

The meetings take place fortnightly on Thursdays, 1–2pm in the Board Room. Organised by Anna Alexandrova.

Lent Term 2025

23 January

Bacevic, Jana. 'What is social science if not critical?' The British Journal of Sociology (2024).

6 February

Bennett, Andrew, and Benjamin Mishkin, 'Nineteen Kinds of Theories about Mechanisms that Every Social Science Graduate Student Should Know', in Harold Kincaid, and Jeroen Van Bouwel (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Political Science (2023; online edn, Oxford Academic, 23 Feb. 2023).

20 February

Gaukroger, Stephen. The Natural and the Human: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1739–1841. Oxford University Press, 2016. Introduction (discussion chaired by Tvrtko Vrdoljak).

6 March

Gaukroger, chapter 1: 'Dichotomies of Understanding'.