What is good science

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Welcome to What is Good Science, a European Studies Course at the Universiteit Maastricht. The project aims at offering summaries of several philosophical texts and enrich them with thoughts and critical reflections.

Please feel free to participate in this project by adding further articles, comments or links to third party websites.

Overview of readings

Week 1 - Lecture

• introductory readings

Week 2 - Tutorial

• Hempel, C.F., (1994). The Function of General Laws in History. In M. Martin & L. C. McIntyre, Readings in the philosophy of historical science (pp. 43-53). Cambridge: MIT Press

• Popper, K.R. (1980). A Survey of some fundamental problems. In idem, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (pp. 27-48). London: Hutchinson

Week 3 - Lecture

• Cartwright, N.D. (2008). Evidence for Evidence-Based Policy. Talk at a Home Office Seminar on Criminology and Evidence-Based Policy, 10th June 2008

Week 4 - Tutorial

• Oreskes, N., & Conway, E. (In Press). Challenging Knowledge: How Climate Science Became a Victim of the Cold War.

• Oreskes, N. (2004). Science and Public Policy: What's got proof to do with it? Environmental Science & Policy 7, pp. 369-383

• Cartwright, N.D. (2008). Evidence for Evidence-Based Policy. Talk at a Home Office Seminar on Criminology and Evidence-Based Policy, 10th June 2008

Week 5 - Tutorial: Science and Understanding Human Actions

• Geertz, C. (1994). Thick Description: Towards an Interpretive Theory of Culture. In M. Martin & L. C. McIntyre, Readings in the philosophy of social science.' Cambridge: MIT Press

• Winch, P. (1990). The Nature of Meaningful Behaviour. In idem, The idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy (pp. 40-65). London: Routledge.

Week 6 - Tutorial: Science as an Artefact

• Kuhn, T. S. (1970). Anomaly and the Emergence of Scientific Discoveries. In idem, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (pp. 52-76). Chicago: Chicago University Press.

• Hacking, I. (1999). Why ask What? In idem, The Social Construction of of What? (pp. 1-34). Havard University Press

Week 7 - Tutorial: Science and Scientific Practice

• Latour, B. (1987). Opening Pandora's Black Box. In idem, Science in Action. How to follow scientists and engineers through society (pp. 1-17). Milton Keynes: Open University Press

• R. Talisse. "On Dewey" Chapters 3-4
• Dewey, J. "the practical character of reality"

Week 8 - Tutorial: Objectivity and Values

• Taylor, Ch. (1994). Neutrality in Political Science. In M. Martin & L. C. MyIntyre, Readings in the philosophy of social science. Cambridge: MIT Press

• Nagel, E. (1994). The Value-Oriented Bias of Social Inquiry. In M. Martin & L. C. MyIntyre, Readings in the philosophy of social science (pp. 571-584)). Cambridge: MIT Press