Modes of Inquiry

In this course, you will learn to perceive and critically assess claims to knowledge, understand the role of imagination in science, literature, and art, discover the need for meticulous and relevant documentation of insight, as well as gain mastery of scholarly argument and greater attentiveness to norms of communication. You make tangible connections between problems of knowledge, everyday questions, and the impact of the media (print, digital, visual) on the framing of these questions, thereby bolstering general media literacy.

You will learn to:

• Understand the assumptions that underlie the various ways of inquiring used within and across disciplines
• Understand that every mode of inquiry has its own strengths and limitations in the exploration of a given question or problem
• Sustain a line of argument using one or more modes of inquiry
• Articulate the commonalities and/or differences among various modes of inquiry

INQUIRY 100 — Modes of Inquiry

Fall of Second Year

This course examines various ways of studying, knowing, and understanding information and experience. It focuses on the axiomatic (or formal deductive), philosophical, historical, observational (or empirical), imaginative expressive, and interpretive paradigms of discovery and understanding. As a result of taking this course, students will understand the assumptions that underlie the various ways of inquiring used within and across disciplines, understand that every mode of inquiry has its own strengths and limitations in the exploration of a given question or problem, be able to sustain a line of argument using one or more modes of inquiry, and be able to articulate the commonalities and/or differences among various modes of inquiry.