Summer Seminar with Prof. Richard Ned Lebow, LSE: "What if? Counterfactuals and International Relations"

On July 21st through to 23rd 2010 Prof. Richard Ned Lebow from the London School of Economics will be at BIGSSS for a Summer Course on Counterfactuals.

From Ned Lebow's introduction to the course:

"In every-day life counterfactuals are commonly used as rhetorical strategies, mechanisms for working through problems and as benchmarks for assessment and evaluation.  In science they help researchers build and test theories.  Psychologists have used counterfactuals to probe how the mind works.  In literature, they have been used since the time of Homer to provide the context for narratives and poetry.  For many scholars they nevertheless remain a highly suspect form of speculation.  For others they are an essential component of any causal claim because the statement X causes Y assumes that if X is not present Y will not occur (unless it can be brought about as well by other causes).  We will examine the diverse uses of counterfactuals, their philosophical foundations, objections that have been raised to their use, and methods for conducting counterfactual experiments in relevant to international. "

More detailed onformation on the course program can be downloaded here.

Get more information on Prof. Lebow here.

Course details

If you are interested in participating, please contact Werner Dressel, wdressel@bigsss-bremen.de