Teaching
My approach to teaching philosophy involves recognizing that teaching is an ever-evolving process that takes into account the needs of students and the objectives of each class. My pedagogical method prioritizes accessibility, which ought not to be confused with simplifying content. Rather, it entails a symbiotic relationship between instructor and students. Students play a crucial role by offering feedback to ensure material clarity, while as the instructor, my responsibility is to empower them with the requisite skills to navigate the content effectively––e.g., skills necessary for articulating, generating, and evaluating arguments, which are fundamental in philosophy and widely applicable across various fields of study. Also, by emphasizing the importance of communication, I not only ensure that the material is accessible but also cultivate an environment where students enjoy intellectual challenges and active participation.
Philosophy of Social Science
The philosophy of social science is both descriptive and prescriptive. It describes the philosophical assumptions that form the basis of the practice of social inquiry and criticizes them for their alleged inability to explain and predict social phenomena. This course provides an extended overview of the central debates in the philosophy of social sciences. First, we will discuss whether there is an epistemological import difference between natural and social sciences. Second, we will discuss what is the method (or methods) in social sciences, what type of knowledge social inquiry produces, and discuss the ontology of social kinds. Finally, we will discuss whether research in the social sciences can be objective and value-free. The philosophy of social science is both descriptive and prescriptive. It describes the philosophical assumptions that form the basis of the practice of social inquiry and criticizes them for their alleged inability to explain and predict social phenomena. This course provides an extended overview of the central debates in the philosophy of social sciences. First, we will discuss whether there is an epistemological import difference between natural and social sciences. Second, we will discuss what is the method (or methods) in social sciences, what type of knowledge social inquiry produces, and discuss the ontology of social kinds. Finally, we will discuss whether research in the social sciences can be objective and value-free.
Graduate Seminar: Social Scientific Methodology
This seminar will focus, primarily, on social scientific methodology. The main goal of the seminar is to clarify our answers to the question: should a social scientific methodology be different from the methodology employed in the “hard” sciences? To answer this question, first, we will focus on economic methodology. We will assess topics such as epistemic virtues of economic models, whether macroeconomic models need microfoundations, ceteris paribus clauses, randomized control trials, counterfactual analysis, etc. For the second part of the seminar, we will focus on the epistemic value of ethnographic research methods in Anthropology, which is fundamentally different from any method used in the natural (hard) sciences. Although ethnographies have become more popular in the last decades, philosophers of (social) science have failed to focus on their epistemic import. Because of this, we will ponder on questions such as: what type of knowledge is produced by ethnographies? Is this knowledge scientific enough? If not, what is lacking? If yes, should ethnographies be used in other scientific domains?
Feminist Philosophy
Feminism denotes both a political movement and a set of philosophical concerns. This course will focus on the latter to move to the former. The goal is to obtain a philosophical background that will allow us to analyze and understand the philosophical foundations of different political “feminist” movements. First, we will discuss the relationship between biological sex and gender; the relationship between gender and other forms of identity, e.g., race, class, sexual orientation, etc.; issues from the standpoint of oppression as women (any different oppressed identities) in our standard conceptions of knowledge, scientific inquiry, and rationality. In the second part of the course, we will discuss oppression, how it arises, and why women became oppressed; how our ethical and political theories should change to reflect feminists' concerns about the status of women in modern society––not limiting the latter to only feminist concerns and movements in affluent countries. Hence, we will discuss some feminist movements in Latin America and India.