← Knowledge & Inquiry syllabus

SingaporeKnowledge & Inquiry

Knowledge in the Humanities and Social Sciences

5 dot points across 5 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

How does history establish causes and construct narratives, and can historical knowledge be objective given the role of selection and interpretation?

Examine how history identifies causes and constructs narratives, and assess whether selection, perspective and the absence of laws undermine historical objectivity
A focused answer on knowledge in history. How historians establish causes without general laws, the role of counterfactuals and significance, the constructed nature of narrative, and whether selection and perspective undermine historical objectivity.
10 min answer →

Do the human sciences explain behaviour by causal laws like the natural sciences, or do they aim at a different kind of understanding?

Contrast naturalist explanation with interpretive understanding in the human sciences and assess whether the study of human action requires a distinctive method
A focused answer on explanation versus understanding in the human sciences. Naturalism and the covering-law model, the interpretive (Verstehen) tradition, reasons versus causes, and whether studying human action needs a method distinct from natural science.
11 min answer →

How can interpreting a text or action be knowledge if every interpretation depends on prior assumptions and the part depends on the whole?

Explain the hermeneutic circle and the problem of interpretation, and assess how interpretive disciplines can constrain readings and avoid vicious circularity
A focused answer on interpretation in the humanities. The hermeneutic circle of part and whole, the role of prejudice and the fusion of horizons, the threat of vicious circularity and relativism, and how disciplined interpretation constrains readings.
10 min answer →

Can the humanities and social sciences be objective, or are their findings inescapably coloured by the standpoint of the inquirer?

Assess the prospects for objectivity in the humanities and social sciences, distinguishing senses of objectivity and weighing standpoint and value-freedom
A focused answer on objectivity in the human sciences. Distinguishing senses of objectivity and subjectivity, the ideal of value-freedom and its critics, standpoint theory, and whether intersubjective method can secure objectivity without a view from nowhere.
11 min answer →

Where do the values of the inquirer legitimately enter social research, and where must they be kept out?

Analyse where values enter social inquiry, distinguishing epistemic from non-epistemic values and assessing the threat of bias to social-scientific knowledge
A focused answer on values in social inquiry. The stages at which values enter, the distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic values, the threat of bias, the argument from inductive risk, and how transparency and pluralism manage value influence.
10 min answer →