HONR 19903: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Academic Writing

How We Know: Writing Empiricism and the History of Science

Summer Semester 2022

Instructor: Dr. Daniel Froid

*Open to all students.*

According to the theory of empiricism, sensory experience is the ultimate source of all human knowledge; what we know comes from what we can observe and experience with our five senses. The search for empirical evidence underlies the scientific method and guides researchers’ work at Purdue University and beyond. This writing-intensive course introduces students to the historical emergence of empiricism as theory and practice. Students will explore its history from early modern England to the present, considering its development, as well as critiques of or challenges to its limitations from a variety of philosophical and cultural perspectives. In exploring how empiricism both drives and limits scientific research and technology, students will also be able to trace the connections between its history and contemporary disciplinary conventions and practices. Students will also engage in original research examining technology from historical and critical perspectives. Ultimately, students will be able to articulate how scientific practices and technologies often preserve cultural bias, as well as how such bias might be resisted. HONR 19903 meets the Written Communication and Information Literacy requirements of the Core Curriculum.