Team Assignment (teams of 3)

Liberal Arts and Sciences (1st sem. 1st year)

Essay Question
In the first couple of lectures we have talked about the rise of the idea of objective
knowledge and science.
We all have our intuitions about what science is, for instance that science is objective,
that it progresses, that it embodies true or at least probable knowledge, that it uses
specific methods of investigations, that it applies specific principles of reasoning, that it
(at least partly) defines what we ought to think about the world, etc. However, in the
course of our inquiry into the nature of science we will see that it is very difficult to
pinpoint the essence of science, the true nature of science. Many of our intuitions
about science will be challenged in the coming lectures. At many points we will have the
option to stick to our intuitions (and look for a better answer to the question What is
science?) or to give up our intuitions (and accept a philosophy of science). Even so, we
will also explore ways to view science in a new light and conclude that not all is lost.
Although we have only scratched the surface of the problem of understanding what
science is, I want you to answer this fundamental question in thinking about a science:
The Scientific Revolution (in fact, a revolution in our thinking about the world)
seems to suggest, in its most radical form, that the cosmos and everything in it,
including human beings, can be mapped by using the new Baconian method of
induction and experiment and explained in terms of (Newtonian) mechanistic
material processes.
Some philosophers of science, however, objected to this idea and argued
that human beings are so special that they cannot be understood by simply using
the method and explanation mode of the physical sciences. In their view, a
scientific understanding of human beings calls for a different method of
investigation and a different mode of understanding.
Given the info in chapters 1-5 of Exploring Humans (textbook of the
course) and the additional information you have found and reported in the
worksheet, how would you assess or evaluate this debate between the naturalists
(a science of human beings can only refer to physical causes) and the
humanists (a science of human beings must (also) refer to the reasons people
have for acting in a particular way)?
To illustrate your point of view and arguments you also need to present a
case (a somewhat worked out example or a small case-study) that is linked to the
interdisciplinary field of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Stage 1: Individually filling out the Information literacy worksheet (see

Blackboard for further material and instructions!)
In the first stage of your research you (individually!) need to come up with relevant and
reliable sources for (ultimately) answering the essay question.
As you will notice, the first two steps on your worksheet are very daring and challenging:
you need to explore your topic and formulate your research question. So, here is a way
you might want to cope with this:
First, you want to explore and take an argued position on the debate between naturalists
(claiming that a science of human beings can only refer to physical causes) and
humanists (claiming that a science of human beings must (also) refer to the reasons
people have for acting in a particular way). It might be that you want to defend the
naturalistic point of view, the humanistic point of view, or a different point of view
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altogether. In chapter 5 you find one way to think about this debate. We did not discuss
this topic in class yet, so you might find your mind to be quite blank on this issue, but
thats OK. This might simply be the point where you start to think about this deep
question. You are allowed to be inventive and creative, as long as you hold on to the
argumentative mode of thinking!
The next thing to do is to think of an illustration or case: what phenomenon illustrates
your view on how to study the behaviour of human beings, what case backs up your
stance in the debate on how to study the behaviour of human beings, or what fact/which
facts support/s your idea?
Once you have taken these two steps, it becomes easier to formulate your research
question. Try to combine your (provisional) point of view (naturalistic, humanistic, or
otherwise) with your illustration, case or fact(s), to get to a research question that
demands further (scientific and/or philosophical) information. Once you have that
research question in place it is a lot easier to take the subsequent steps on your
worksheet!
Stage 2: Giving peer feedback on 3 different worksheets
This is an important step as it will offer you the opportunity to learn from the way others
have performed their preparatory research, how they looked for reliable and relevant
sources to argue for and illustrate (to a certain degree) their point of view. Please, judge
and assess your fellow students worksheets using the Rubrics document (see
Blackboard).
Stage 3: Looking for 2 fellow students to get to a consensus on what position to
explore and defend and how to illustrate your team-view with a
(somewhat) worked out example, illustration, case, or fact(s).
Once you have received the feedback on and assessment of your worksheet you are
ready to team up with two of your fellow students (simply ask those students you want to
work with, invite students to join your team, or accept an unknown or controversial voice
to keep you alert)!
Now it is time to pick a research question all three members of the team are OK with.
Check whether you have enough reliable and relevant information sources. Start to think
of a structure of your (short) team-paper. Perhaps you decide to a form of division of
labour, but make sure there are enough opportunities to collectively discuss the progress
of your paper and make sure all members can in principle explain and defend the essay.
Keep your team-answer to the essay question between 1500 and 1750 words.

The structure of the paper needs to simulate the structure of a scientific article as
much as possible, and if it does not, it needs to be argued why the research question
cannot be answered in any standard scientific way. Given this condition, you might
want to know what we understand by a scientific paper! Hence, my brief
elucidation of what a scientific paper is, and further instructions.
What is a scientific paper?
I can imagine that one may reason as follows: A scientific paper is a paper written
within the domain of science, but as philosophers of science have aptly pointed out
we do not know precisely what science is; therefore, it is unclear what falls within
the domain of science, and so it is impossible for me to understand what turns a
scientific paper into a scientific paper.

To this my answer would be: good point! So what I have done below is to describe, in
an extremely brief account, what a good paper as such is.
Interestingly, any good paper echoes the rules of good old rhetoric.
As you may already know, legal affairs in the first (Syracusian) democracy required
an art of eloquence and persuasion (5th century B.C.). In this young art of rhetoric
the sophists (like Protagoras) argued that rhetoric does not just offer methods of
argumentation but must be seen as a complete educational discipline. Still, Plato
criticized the sophists for merely using hollow rhetoric as a defense of relativism (they
merely bend what is straight and they straighten what is bent), while Aristotle had a
more positive view of rhetoric as it promoted literacy. He wrote an important book
called Retorica of which the second part got lost (by the way, that part plays a major
role in Umberto Ecos seminal The Name of the Rose). Later, Quintillian introduced
Greek philosophy in the Roman world and subsequently (in the tradition of Cicero)
published the standard work in rhetoric, the Institutio Oratoria.
From the Institutio Oratoria you can deduce in brief how you structure a good paper.
Of course, rhetoric was at first concerned with a good oral presentation and the
preparations for such a presentation. But even modern scientific papers closely
mirror the rhetorical plan of an (ancient) oratio. The aim, means, and the general plan
of an oratio seem not to have changed much through the ages. The aim of a
scientific paper still is to persuade the audience by teaching, pleasing, and moving
the audience. But since the audience is restricted to an audience of scientists, we
now understand (or have learned) that the pleasing and moving have (as such) no
place in a scientific paper (although it helps when the paper is pleasing and
moving). The means once used to come up with a fine speech (the so called five
offices) can be seen as the means to come up with a good paper:
1. inventio (analyze topic and collect materials),
2. dispositio (arranging it into a paper/essay), and
3. elocutio (finding fitting words to the topic, audience, and occasion)
the memoria (learning the speech by heart) and actio (delivering the speech
orally) are only relevant for a good presentation of a scientific paper.
Now, what is important to understand in the case of writing a scientific paper is that a
paper has the mark of the scientific if it somehow shows the form and the content
you think a scientific paper should have given a specific interpretation of science.
We know (or rather: we will witness) that there are many different interpretations of
science. So what you need to do in your paper is to take some space to briefly
defend your interpretation of science, so that I can understand why the scientific
paper you wrote can be seen as a scientific paper.
But, after youve given a specific interpretation of science, the plan of the paper itself
echoes the general plan of a classical rhetorical oratio, the main difference being that
(1) your paper is not a speech but a written essay, and
(2) your audience is an audience of scientists which means that the style of
argumentation must somehow be scientific (again: what you see as scientific
in the context of the question you want to discuss depends on your
interpretation of science; so you must not be ambiguous about that
interpretation!).
With this in mind, the plan (or structure) of your paper, then, ought to look like this:
I.
II.

(exordium): introduction/opening/beginning.
(narratio & divisio): story/main text/division of paragraphs.
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III. (argumentatio): argumentation/plea (confirmatio/probatio/refutatio).

IV. (peroratio): epilogue/afterword/conclusion.
This is the structure one can still recognize in every scientific paper:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

intro;
main text;
evidence for and against the proposed hypothesis (discussion); and
an afterword or conclusion;
used sources: bibliography.

How to write a scientific paper.

Another good question would be: OK, but how does one actually go about writing a
paper?.
To answer that question you could make use of the worksheet that we provided for
this assignment, as it also depicts the several phases you go through while
researching and writing a scientific paper.

Phase
Define the problem

Look for info

Scan and process info

Organize info

Activity
Formulate the central question
What do you already know?
Which info do you need?
Select sources of info
Generate search terms
Look within a source of info
Judge sources and info on reliability
Judge sources and info on relevancy
Connect info form different sources
Save found info
Link found info to the central question
Make a bibliography

Once you have gone through these stages of creating a paper you should be able to
pour your central question, the info you have collected, and the ideas (hypotheses)
you have come up with, into the above format of a paper. (Dont forget generating a
bibliography!).
What you need to do in your paper.
Now, as we discussed earlier, I do not expect you to write a complete scientific
paper on some research question in Liberal Arts and Sciences. I want you to virtually
go through all the steps in writing a paper and make a paper/report about that
process and show me at least the following:
(1) The central research question in Liberal Arts and Sciences youd like to
investigate;
(2) The hypothesis you will probe;
(3) The interpretation of science that you will assume for your paper (do not
simply pick one, but also try to (briefly) argue for it);
(4) A brief report on what info you think you need to collect in order to answer
your question, and if you think the info is not available, how you would be
able to generate the info you need;
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(5) A brief report on how the argument would proceed if you had the relevant
and reliable info. Come up with arguments for and against your initial
hypothesis;
(6) A brief report on what could be your provisional conclusion and what you
think ought to be follow-up research.
Remember that you need to present these elements in the general scheme or
structure of a scientific paper.
So,
Hand in your team assignment essay (1500-2000 words) as a hard copy at
the Secretary of Philosophy on the first floor of the Dante Building on or
before Monday, 10 November 2014, before 5 pm.

I will read your essay and give you feedback in a feedback-meeting in week 47. We
will plan those meetings in due course, so keep an eye on the Blackboard page of
the course.
Wishing you lots of success in writing the paper!
Herman de Regt