"Understanding and Explaining"

Graduate students from all disciplines in the humanities and social sciences confrontthe issues of understanding and explaining, but:What do 'understanding' and 'explaining' mean? Do understanding & explaining correspond to different knowledge domains? How important are contexts to understanding? How basic are causes to explaining? Are there cases where we ought to understand, rather than explain, and vice versa? What's the significance of misunderstandings & false/inappropriate explanations?

Understanding & explaining stand for two intellectual traditions; one based oninterpretation and historical knowledge, the other founded on natural science. Therelation between the two has been problematized at least since Vico's 'New Science'(1725), which argued for an understanding of 'the true' through historical narratives &interpretations impervious to the universal laws & experimental methods of Cartesianscience.

Within Western philosophy of the 20th century, this debate translated intothe conflict between continental and analytic approaches: the former, deeply rootedin hermeneutic practices of interpretation and ideals of historical knowledge, claimingto understand; the latter, modeled after the natural sciences and their methods andparadigms, claiming to explain; both claiming 'to know' in a way that was superiorto the other.In sociology, a similar dynamic emerged in the opposition between qualitative research(eg. Weberian verstehen) and quantitative research (eg. positivist approaches).

Morerecently, these distinctions have lost some of their earlier force, at least in part dueto developments in philosophy and theory of science & social science. Interpretationswithout links to empirical explanations are increasingly considered as problematic asexplanations lacking historical or cultural contexts.On another level, philosophers and social theorists (Habermas, Luhmann, Derrida,Bourdieu, to name a few) investigate understandings & explanations as speechacts or communications. They challenge easy distinctions between knowing-thatand knowing-how as both understanding & explaining can be said to involve tacitcapacities and practical skills resembling Aristotle's phronesis.

Period
30-04-2012 - 04-05-2012 (1 weeks)

Target group
THEORY & PHILOSOPHY SUMMER SCHOOL has been designed for the needs of post-graduate students & researchers, especially doctoral candidates, in the Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences, in Sociology, Philosophy, History, Anthropology, Politics, Languages, Arts, Literature & Classics; from universities throughout Ireland,Europe & around the world who are developing theoretical & interpretive paradigms for their research.

Course aim
At Theory & Philosophy Summer School you will: Develop high-level conceptual & communicative tools Deepen your disciplinary knowledge Prepare yourself for inter-disciplinary co-operation Learn to evaluate & employ methodological skills

Credits
5.0 ECTS credits

5 or 10 ECTS credits; 3 or 6 American credits

Course fee
EUR 500: Course cost is 500.This includes fees, materials,5 nights accommodation andbreakfast, lunch & dinner for 5days at Blackwater castle.

EUR 500

Course leader
School of Philosophy & Sociology, UCC plus International Guests

University College Cork, Ireland
Address: School of Sociology & Philosophy, UNiversity College Cork, Ireland
Postal code: n/a
City: Cork
Country: Ireland
Website: http://www.tapss.ie
E-mail: admin@tapss.ie
Phone: 353214902318