History of Ideas

On 4th August, Dr. Muhammad Jamil Afaqi, Dean PASC, spoke to the participating officers on the “History of Ideas”, examining the epistemological foundations of policy formulation. He discussed the differing approaches to causality adopted by Descartes, Newton, Hume, Kant, Bergson, and the later Wittgenstein, highlighting how each perspective shapes the way knowledge is produced. He stressed that recognising these underlying epistemological assumptions enables students of public policy to interpret policies more accurately and assess their effectiveness with greater insight.