academic literacies final essay
Order Description
Final Knowledge Essay. Due week 13. 1500 words. Answer one of the following questions:
This short essay should be around 1500 words (please do your best to keep within 10% of this either way. Failure to do so may impact on your grade. This 1500 does not include references but does include citations). Please make your essay a word document, with size 12 font Times New Roman or Arial, 1.5 or double line spaced. Please put the essay question at the start, do not change the question, and please make the first page of your essay this cover sheet linked cover sheet here
1. In lesson 12, Latour & Woolgar were quoted as saying:

‘On principle any alternative [knowledge claim] can be questioned… Alternative readings are always possible and any one reading can always be undermined or faulted.’ (1979, p.35).

Relativists might argue that no claim to knowledge is any more true than others, and that all knowledge is shaped by preconceptions or ideologies. In light of this consider whether there is value in contributing knowledge which is shaped to some extent by preconceptions and ideologies.

Make reference to some of the following academic concepts (or others that you identify from your own reading):

• The social construction of knowledge

• Positivism

• Incorrigible propositions

• Relativism

These concepts are found in lessons 10 and 12, and you may also find some relevant ideas in lesson 8.
2.What are the strengths and limitations in the creation of knowledge within the social sciences? Evaluate this with reference to the concepts raised in the lessons.

• Theory dependence

• Paradigms

• Probabilism

• Peer Review

These concepts are to be found in lessons 10 and 12, so read over these lessons to get an idea of some of the debates and perspectives around this.