Syllabus and Recommended Readings
Candidates are expected to enjoy (and be puzzled by) reading the following before the start of the course:
Bachelard, G. (2002/1938). The formation of the scientific mind. Ch 1. The idea of the epistemological obstacle (pp. 24-32). Manchester: Clinamen Press.
Weber, M. (1958/1918). Science as a vocation. Daedalus, 87, 1, 111-134.
Tranøy, K. E. (1988). Science and ethics: Some of the main principles and problems. In K. E. Tranøy, The Moral Import of Science. Essays on 70th birthday. London: Routledge.
For wider meta-theoretical background the following is recommended:
Cabell, K. R., and Valsiner, J. (Eds.) (2014). The catalyzing mind: Beyond models of causality. Vol, 11 of Advances of Theoretical Psychology. New York: Springer.
BASIC IDEA: The recommended literature to our encounters should be, in the ideal case, most relevant to your draft essay and/or PhD-project. The candidates are also more than encouraged to look at the other recommended texts from other disciplines—the goal of the essays for this “course” is the arrival at a publishable text on a relevant issue at the intersection of the Ph.D. project and general philosophy and sociology of science that could support the Ph,D. project as a published internationally valuable message in your field. Our encounters over the week are meant to facilitate your move to participation in solving the grand issues of science <> society <> knowledge relationships that continue to haunt us under the new conditions of information flows (“information noise”) and social organization of knowledge construction in the 21st century. A special case under scrutiny is the current expansion of neurosciences, where we show how the myths of their social power actually undermine their capacities for producing basic knowledge. We also cover the state of affairs in sociology and economics in Norway as case studies of how interdisciplinarity in the social sciences actually functions in the real lives of scientists.