POLITICAL EPISTEMOLOGY
- Academic year
- 2023/2024 Syllabus of previous years
- Official course title
- POLITICAL EPISTEMOLOGY
- Course code
- FM0459 (AF:444291 AR:252334)
- Modality
- On campus classes
- ECTS credits
- 6
- Degree level
- Master's Degree Programme (DM270)
- Educational sector code
- M-FIL/02
- Period
- 4th Term
- Course year
- 1
- Moodle
- Go to Moodle page
Contribution of the course to the overall degree programme goals
a. the philosophy of science;
b. the history and sociology of science;
c. political theory.
The focus of this year’s class on political epistemology will be the political epistemology of the Anthropocene.
Expected learning outcomes
• To introduce students to research in political epistemology;
• To explore the ways to connect the philosophy of science with the history of science;
• To address a crucial topic of political epistemology, namely the problems of science’s collective character and the politics of science;
• To become capable of reflecting of and discussing a philosophical classic in historical epistemology and critically interpret them in the light of political-theoretical concerns.
Specific objectives
• To explore this year's specific problematic.
Pre-requirements
• Knowledge of English, in order to read the materials and participate in the discussion
Contents
Students will be introduced to the main problems of political epistemology, such as the political aprioris of science, the connection of science and power, knowledge property, knowledge economy, interests and knowledge, ideology and technocracy, science collectivism, etc.
Primary sources will constitute the basis for an in-depth study and comprehension of the scientific, philosophical and political challenges of our epistemic culture on the basis of key topics/cases.
The students are expected to read in advance the texts that constitute the focus of the various classes according to the course calendar.
Referral texts
Crutzen, P.J. and Stoermer, E.F. (2000). “The ‘Anthropocene’,” Global Change Newsletter International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme 41: 17-18 (http://www.igbp.net/download/18.316f18321323470177580001401/1376383088452/NL41.pdf ) (29 November 2021).
Danowski, D. and Viveiros De Castro, E.B. (2016). The Ends of the World (New York : John Wiley & Sons)
Foster, J.B. (2022), “Marx and the Rift in the Universal Metabolism of Nature,” in Capitalism in the Anthropocene (New York: Montly Review Press), Chap. 1, pp. 41-61.
Haff, P. (2019). “The Technosphere and Its Relation to the Anthropocene, in The Anthropocene as a Geological Time Unit: A Guide to the Scientific Evidence and Current Debate, edited by J. Zalasiewicz, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 138-143
Haraway, D.J. (2016). “Staying with the Trouble: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene,” in Jason W. Moore (ed.), Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History and the Crisis of Capitalism (Oakland, Kairos), 34-76.
Klein, N. (2014). This Changes Everything (London: Penguin Books): a selection.
McCarthy, F. et al. (2023), “The varved succession of Crawford Lake, Milton, Ontario, Canada as a candidate Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point for the Anthropocene series,” The Anthropocene Review 10/1: 146-176.
Moore, J. W. (2022). “Anthropocene, Capitalocene & the Flight from World History: Dialectical Universalism & the Geographies of Class Power in the Capitalist World-Ecology, 1492-2022” Nordia Geographical Publications, 51(2): 123–146 (https://nordia.journal.fi/article/view/116148 ) (3 August 2023)
Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K. et al. (2009). “A safe operating space for humanity,” Nature 461, 472–475.
Steffen, W. et al. (2015). “The Trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration,” The Anthropocene Review 2/1: 1-18.
Additional non-mandatory literature:
Pietro Daniel Omodeo, Political Epistemology: The Problem of Ideology in Science Studies (Dordrecht: Springer, 2019).
Referneces to further secondary literature will be made available during the classes or through Moodle.
Assessment methods
The alternative of a written assignment might be considered.
Teaching methods
• frontal teaching, in which the professor will introduce students to the topics of the course;
• and a dialogic seminar-like part, in which students will interact with their classmates and the professor on the basis of the texts they have been assigned and they have to read in preparation for the lessons.