Identity and Action

3-0-9 units · Graduate

Doctoral seminar in theory building for social scientists. Primary goal is to build skills for developing social scientific theory. Secondary goals are to review and integrate a broad array of ideas concerning the foundations of identity and its relation to action, and to suggest how such issues relate to a broader set of questions in the social sciences. Students learn that any account of action is based on ascribing desires, beliefs, and opportunities to specific actors, but such actors cannot be easily explained except as a result of action by prior actors. The focus of this course is around developing this paradox and providing a foundation for resolving it. Restricted to doctoral students.