It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that the notion of ecological and social embeddedness is one of the most exploited philosophical ideas these days, both in the academia and beyond. The most troublesome about the overall trend is that many proponents of the idea of social embeddedness simplistically consider selfhood as a form of aberration which merely provides vindication for inequality and violence. In this paper, instead of attacking the problem of the individual versus the collective (...) head-on, I approach it by way of a critique of Stephen Turner’s repudiation of transcendental collectivism. According to Turner, transcendental entities, such as tacit knowledge, presuppositions, or traditions, should be altogether removed from explanatory schemata in the social sciences. I believe that Turner’s razor cuts too deep and the rejection of implicit framing is at best premature. Against the background of the identified shortcomings of Turner’s model of interactive learning, I track the interrelations between social development and the development of the self with an eye to showing that the relationship between individual selves and social reality is an extremely complex and multifactorial matter which we cannot hope to navigate without a proper transcendental frame. The frame is what mediates the relationship between the individual and the collective. (shrink)

Massimiliano Simons provides the first systematic study of Serres' work in the context of late 20th-century French philosophy of science. By proposing new readings of Serres' philosophy, Simons creates a synthesis between his predecessors, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Louis Althusser as well as contemporary Francophone philosophers of science such as Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers. Simons situates Serres' unique contribution through his notion of the quasi-object, a concept, he argues, organizes great parts of Serres' work into a promising philosophy (...) of science as well as a challenge to the narrower field of French epistemology, to which it has often been limited. Simons highlights how the concept encompasses Serres' commitment to positive relations between science and culture and his rejection of pleas to purify the scientific self from imaginative and cultural elements. It helps to situate Serres between the distinct traditions of Bachelard and Latour as well as progressing the innovative aspects of Serres' philosophy for current debates in the philosophy, history, and sociology of science. Showing how Serres' philosophy can serve as a normative approach to science and technology, Michel Serres and French Philosophy of Science takes in themes of materiality, religiosity, modernity and ecology to advance a timely alternative to philosophy of science for contemporary life. (shrink)

Penelope Maddy has recently addressed the set-theoretic multiverse, and expressed reservations on its status and merits ([Maddy, 2017]). The purpose of the paper is to examine her concerns, by using the interpretative framework of set-theoretic naturalism. I first distinguish three main forms of 'multiversism', and then I proceed to analyse Maddy's concerns. Among other things, I take into account salient aspects of multiverse-related mathematics , in particular, research programmes in set theory for which the use of the multiverse seems to (...) be crucial, and show how one may provide responses to Maddy's concerns based on a careful analysis of 'multiverse practice'. (shrink)

‘Post-truth’ is a failed concept, both epistemically and politically because its simplification of the relationship between truth and politics cripples our understanding and encourages authoritarianism. This makes the diagnosis of our ‘post-truth era’ as dangerous to democratic politics as relativism with its premature disregard for truth. In order to take the step beyond relativism and ‘post-truth’, we must conceptualise the relationship between truth and politics differently by starting from a ‘non-sovereign’ understanding of truth.

Philosophical investigation in synthetic biology has focused on the knowledge-seeking questions pursued, the kind of engineering techniques used, and on the ethical impact of the products produced. However, little work has been done to investigate the processes by which these epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical forms of inquiry arise in the course of synthetic biology research. An attempt at this work relying on a particular area of synthetic biology will be the aim of this chapter. I focus on the reengineering of (...) metabolic pathways through the manipulation and construction of small DNA-based devices and systems synthetic biology. Rather than focusing on the engineered products or ethical principles that result, I will investigate the processes by which these arise. As such, the attention will be directed to the activities of practitioners, their manipulation of tools, and the use they make of techniques to construct new metabolic devices. Using a science-in-practice approach, I investigate problems at the intersection of science, philosophy of science, and sociology of science. I consider how practitioners within this area of synthetic biology reconfigure biological understanding and ethical categories through active modelling and manipulation of known functional parts, biological pathways for use in the design of microbial machines to solve problems in medicine, technology, and the environment. We might describe this kind of problem-solving as relying on what Helen Longino referred to as “social cognition” or the type of scientific work done within what Hasok Chang calls “systems of practice”. My aim in this chapter will be to investigate the relationship that holds between systems of practice within metabolic engineering research and social cognition. I will attempt to show how knowledge and normative valuation are generated from this particular network of practitioners. In doing so, I suggest that the social nature of scientific inquiry is ineliminable to both knowledge acquisition and ethical evaluations. (shrink)

REVIEW (1): "Jeff Kochan’s book offers both an original reading of Martin Heidegger’s early writings on science and a powerful defense of the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) research program. Science as Social Existence weaves together a compelling argument for the thesis that SSK and Heidegger’s existential phenomenology should be thought of as mutually supporting research programs." (Julian Kiverstein, in Isis) ---- REVIEW (2): "I cannot in the space of this review do justice to the richness and range of Kochan's (...) discussion [...]. There is a great deal in this foundational portion of Kochan's discussion that I find tremendously interesting and engaging [...]." (David R. Cerbone, in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science) ---- REVIEW (3): "Science as Social Existence will be of interest not only to Heidegger scholars but to anyone engaged in science and technology studies. [...] This is an informative and original book. Kochan should be praised for his clear, pleasant-to-read prose." (Michael Butler, in CHOICE). (shrink)

Truth is a contested concept, yet the current contest takes place within an idealistic picture that accords all conceptions of truth three features: truth is singular, atemporal and independent. Because of these features, conceptions of truth within the idealist picture are ‘sovereign’ conceptions of truth that lead to serious obstacles in different parts of philosophy, e.g. regarding the concept of normativity or the relationship between truth and politics. The article makes a case for changing the underlying philosophical picture in which (...) truth is conceptualised. To that end, it sketches a materialist picture that can account for the contextuality, historicity and plurality of truth, leading to ‘non-sovereign’ conceptions of truth. Thinking of truth as a force that emerges from social practices but is not reducible to them, that is weak in comparison to other forces (like affects or social power), that exclusively targets subjectivities and that has a ‘ratchet effect’ on these subjectivities provides enough details of the materialist picture to overcome the obstacles mentioned. (shrink)

Philosophy of science is showing an increasing interest in the social aspects and the social organisation of science—the ways social values and social interactions and structures play a role in the creation of knowledge and the ways this role should be taken into account in the organisation of science and science policy. My thesis explores a number of issues related to this theme. I argue that a prominent approach to the social organisation of science—Philip Kitcher’s well-ordered science—runs into a number (...) of problems. They undermine its philosophical plausibility and practical usefulness. I agree with Kitcher that arguments about the social organisation of science should recognise profound societal consequences of science. Kitcher argues that the appropriate organisation of science should therefore take into account laypersons’ values and needs when making decisions concerning research planning, evaluation and application. My criticisms show that this is not enough. Drawing on Helen Longino ideas, I argue that laypersons’ perspectives and knowledge may also be relevant when doing research. In order to show how more inclusive research practices may be possible, I discuss connections between philosophy of science and some developments in science policy, which has also recently shown considerable interest in democratic participation. I demonstrate how public participation experiments in science policy may sometimes be close enough to what the philosopher would recommend. Their analysis can thus be helpful for understanding how societal developments may provide opportunities for the involvement of laypersons in science and what factors may endanger its success. I conclude that a way to pursue a more socially relevant philosophy of science is to focus on the points of contact and possibilities of cooperation between philosophical proposals and these public participation initiatives. (shrink)

Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1:*{behavior:url } This part of the Soviet philosophy that corresponds approximately to theoretical philosophy and philosophy of science on the example of Estonia and proceeding from the University of Tartu is discussed. The author concentrates on the period of approximately 1960–1990, when he himself was engaged in the field, i.e. the time before 1960 is not included. The aim of this paper is not to provide an overview of the individual philosophers in Estonia (...) at the time and their works, but to give a more general description of the philosophy of the Soviet era. The Soviet and the East European philosophy of the time have received rather little critical treatment in literature in English. However, a few general overviews trying to prove that this Soviet and East European philosophical legacy is worth studying have still been published. This paper is focused on the question what kind of philosophical researches it was possible to engage oneself in under the abnormal conditions at the time and whether some starting points and problem issues in theseresearches might be viable also today. Estonian experience confirms the general conclusion of these authors who, analyzing the legacy of Marxism, have found that although Marxism is nowadays—not to mention how it existed in the Soviet totalitarian regime—mainly not considered a serious philosophy but rather an ideological basis of a failed political doctrine, it has nevertheless quite something to offer when treated in a more depoliticized manner, in the general context of philosophical quests. Teoreetiline ja teadusfilosoofia Nõukogude ajal: mõned märkused Eesti näitel 1960-1990 Vaatluse all on Eesti näitel ja lähtudes Tartu ülikoolist see osa Nõukogudeaegsest filosoofiast, mis vastab umbes teoreetilisele filosoofiale ja teadusfilosoofiale. Autor peatub ajavahemikul umbes 1960–1990, mil ta ka ise tegev oli, st 1960-ndate aastate eelset aega ei käsitleta. Artikli eesmärgiks ei ole ülevaate andmine Eestis sel ajal tegutsenud filosoofidest ja nende töödest, vaid Nõukogudeaegse filosoofia üldisem iseloomustamine. Nõukogude ja selleagset Ida-Euroopa filosoofiat on ingliskeelses kirjanduses üsna vähe kriitiliselt uuritud. Üksikuid ülevaateteoseid, milles on püütud näidata, etsee Nõukogude ja Ida-Euroopa filosoofiline pärand väärib uurimist, on siiski ilmunud. Käesolevas artiklis on keskendutud eelkõige küsimusele, mis laadi filosoofilise uurimistööga sai tolle aja ebanormaalsetes tingimustes tegelda ja kas mõned lähtekohad ja probleemipüstitused selles on elujõulised ka veel nüüd. Eesti kogemus kinnitab nende autorite üldist järeldust, kes marksismi pärandit uurides on leidnud, et kuigi marksismi tänapäeval — rääkimata sellest, missugune see oli Nõukogude totalitaarses režiimis — enamasti ei peeta tõsiseltvõetavaks filosoofiaks, vaid pigem läbikukkunud poliitilise õpetuse ideoloogiliseks aluseks, on tal siiski nii mõndagi öelda, kui teda käsitleda depolitiseeritumalt, filosoofiliste otsingute üldises kontekstis. Märksõnad: dialektiline materialism, dialektika, ‘eessõna-marksism’, filosoofia põhiküsimus, Nõukogude filosoofia, ‘ontologistid’ ja ‘epistemologistid’, praktika. (shrink)

Feminist standpoint theory remains highly controversial: it is widely advocated, used to guide research and justify its results, and yet is also vigorously denounced. This essay argues that three such sites of controversy reveal the value of engaging with standpoint theory as a way of reflecting on and debating some of the most anxiety-producing issues in contemporary Western intellectual and political life. Engaging with standpoint theory enables a socially relevant philosophy of science.

In this paper I defend a pure proceduralist conception of legitimacy that applies to epistemic democracy. This conception, which I call pure epistemic proceduralism, does not depend on procedure-independent standards for good outcomes and relies on a proceduralist epistemology. It identifies a democratic decision as legitimate if it is the outcome of a process that satisfies certain conditions of political and epistemic fairness. My argument starts with a rejection of instrumentalism–the view that political equality is only instrumentally valuable. I reject (...) instrumentalism on two grounds: (i) because it fails to respect reasonable value pluralism and to recognize the constitutive role of democratic procedures for legitimacy in pluralist societies, and (ii) because it neglects the constructive function of democratic decision-making. I then consider two alternatives to pure epistemic proceduralism: David Estlund's version of epistemic proceduralism and a Deweyan account of epistemic democracy. I argue that only pure epistemic proceduralism can make good on both shortcomings of instrumentalism, whereas each of the other two approaches only makes good on one and neglects the other. (shrink)

This is a sequel to my paper, "Searching for a Foundational Approach to Philosophy of Science", which appeared in an earlier issue of this Journal [Ginev 2001, Journal for General Philosophy of science 32, 27-37]. In the present paper I continue to scrutinize the possibility of a strong hermeneutics of scientific research. My aim is to defend the position of cognitive existentialism that combines the advocacy of science's cognitive specificity and the rejection of any form of essentialism. A special attention (...) will be paid to the notion of the thematizing project of scientific research. (shrink)

Die Debatte um die Differenz von „Verantwortung“ und „Pflicht“ ist kein bloßer Streit um Wörter, geht es doch um Begriffe, für die der Anspruch erhoben wird, sie seien konstitutiv für moralische Normativität oder gar für Normativität per se. Doch welchen Unterschied macht es, die besondere Bindungskraft von Normativität über Verantwortung oder über Pflicht zu explizieren? Die Genealogie der philosophischen Reflexionen auf Verantwortung lokalisiert die Differenz zwischen Pflicht und Verantwortung in den jeweiligen Selbstverhältnissen, die mit diesen Begriffen verbunden werden. Die Analyse (...) der Struktur dieser Selbstverhältnisse erklärt sowohl, warum Verantwortung häufig als moderner Ersatzbegriff für Pflicht gedacht wird, als auch, welchen Unterschied die Explikation der Bindungskraft von Normativität über Verantwortung oder Pflicht macht: Je nachdem, mit welchem Begriff normative Kraft erläutert wird, wandert das entsprechende Selbstverhältnis in die Verfasstheit von Normativität ein. (shrink)

The main problems faced by a conception of perception as passive will be introduced through a critical examination of John McDowell's account of 'empirical thinking'. Overcoming these difficulties will lead to a conception of perception as involving an active cognitive participation of the perceiver, and an account of how observational judgment is warranted that is focused on the conditions of experience. In both cases, analogies to inquiry in scientific experimental practice will be explored.

The philosophy of science has witnessed continuous controversy since the mid-twentieth century regarding the justification of science’s privileged position, and which has also reverberated in the philosophy of science education. This contribution brings to the discussion the viewpoint of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. I suggest that by relating to the idea of the fallibility of knowledge, Gadamerian philosophy provides a compromise between the extreme positions in the aforementioned debate. Gadamerian hermeneutics also has implications for science education: from the Gadamerian perspective, (...) science education should (1) induce experiences of negation that familiarize learners with their own pre-understanding and (2) introduce learners to the fallibility of knowledge. Finally, I argue that both instances (1) and (2) aim to cultivate non-dogmatism in learners. (shrink)

This paper explores the issue of epistemic injustice in research evaluation. Through an analysis of the disciplinary cultures of physics and humanities, we attempt to identify some aims and values specific to the disciplinary areas. We suggest that credibility is at stake when the cultural values and goals of a discipline contradict those presupposed by official evaluation standards. Disciplines that are better aligned with the epistemic assumptions of evaluation standards appear to produce more "scientific" findings. To restore epistemic justice in (...) research evaluation, we argue that the specificity of a discipline's epistemic aims, values, and cultural identities must be taken into account. (shrink)

Don Ihde: Heidegger’s technologies: Postphenomenological perspectives Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-10 DOI 10.1007/s11007-012-9215-z Authors Robert C. Scharff, Department of Philosophy, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824-3574, USA Journal Continental Philosophy Review Online ISSN 1573-1103 Print ISSN 1387-2842.

In Heidi Grasswick?s response to ??Epistemological communities? and the problem of epistemic agency,? she criticizes my move to reconceptualize epistemology as an affair primarily centered on epistemic practises instead of epistemic agency. In this paper, I address some of Grasswick?s counterpoints, and I restate my argument for why epistemology should be centered on practises instead of epistemic agency. However, to advance the discussion, I urge that a more fruitful dialogue would engage looking at what consequences and advantages might follow from (...) reframing epistemology around practises. Therefore, I entertain an additional advantage this turn to practises makes regarding the danger of apriorism, the prior construction and application of theoretical structures upon groups of people and their practises without consideration for the actuality of these people and their practises. I argue that reorientating one?s epistemology around practises gives adequate grounds to avoid aprioristic tendencies, whereas an epistemology primarily centered on epistemic agency can fall into trouble. (shrink)

Joseph Rouse has drawn from Heidegger’s early philosophy to develop what he calls a “practical hermeneutics of science.” With this, he has not only become an important player in the recent trend towards practice-based conceptualisations of science, he has also emerged as the predominant expositor of Heidegger’s philosophy of science. Yet, there are serious shortcomings in both Rouse’s theory of science and his interpretation of Heidegger. In the first instance, Rouse’s practical hermeneutics appears confused on the topic of realism. In (...) the second instance, Rouse suppresses Heidegger’s distinction between existence and essence, and hence fails to grasp the latter’s corollary distinction between scientic research and everyday practice. I argue that, by accepting a correction in his interpretation of Heidegger, Rouse would find the means to resolve the debilitating tensions in his stance towards realism. (shrink)

Why a hermeneutical philosophy of the natural sciences? It is necessary to address the philosophic crisis of realism vs relativism in the natural sciences. This crisis is seen as a part of the cultural crisis that Husserl and Heidegger identified and attributed to the hegemonic role of theoretical and calculative thought in Western societies. The role of theory is addressed using the hermeneutical circle to probe the origin of theoretic meaning in scientific cultural praxes. This is studied in Galileo's discovery (...) of the phases of Venus; the practice of measurement; the different theories and practices of space perception; the historicality and temporality of scientific research communities which ground paradigm change; and the process of discovery. The paper draws particularly from the work of Heidegger. Though envisaging all science and scholarship, the highlighted theme is research in the natural sciences. (shrink)

In this essay, I provide normative guidelines for developing a philosophically interesting and plausible version of social constructivism as a philosophy of science, wherein science aims for social-epistemic values rather than for truth or empirical adequacy. This view is more plausible than the more radical constructivist claim that scientific facts are constructed. It is also more interesting than the modest constructivist claim that representations of such facts emerge in social contexts, as it provides a genuine rival to the scientific axiologies (...) of scientific realists and constructive empiricists. I further contrast my view with positions holding that the aims of science are context dependent, that the unit of normative analysis is the scientific community, and that the aims of science are non-epistemic social values. (shrink)

Making sense of modeling: beyond representation Content Type Journal Article Category Original paper in Philosophy of Science Pages 335-352 DOI 10.1007/s13194-011-0032-8 Authors Isabelle Peschard, Philosophy Department, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave, San Francisco, CA 94132, USA Journal European Journal for Philosophy of Science Online ISSN 1879-4920 Print ISSN 1879-4912 Journal Volume Volume 1 Journal Issue Volume 1, Number 3.

Some think that issues to do with scientific method are last century's stale debate; Popper was an advocate of methodology, but Kuhn, Feyerabend, and others are alleged to have brought the debate about its status to an end. The papers in this volume show that issues in methodology are still very much alive. Some of the papers reinvestigate issues in the debate over methodology, while others set out new ways in which the debate has developed in the last decade. The (...) book will be of interest to philosophers and scientists alike in the reassessment it provides of earlier debates about method and current directions of research. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to revisit an ongoing controversy within the so called “Science Wars”; more specifically, I will address a particular topic within the “human nature” debate: the ontological and epistemological status of homosexuality. I claim that, in this particular chapter of the “Science Wars”, we are continually left in an explanatory impasse even when more data are collected, more rigorous experimental techniques are developed, more subtle arguments are offered and more pluralistic narratives are told. My diagnosis (...) of the source of this impasse leads me to the conclusion that here we are dealing with a structural problem that cannot be solved with an elaboration of new models and theories that maintain an on- tology and an epistemology that are no longer suited as an explanans of human nature in general, and homosexuality in particular. Nevertheless, my analysis of the structural features of the biological explanations and the constructivist counter-explanations also leads me to the belief that, although biologists do not fully understand the intricacies of subjects, neither constructivists understand the facticity of evolution and the challenge that it implies. If so, then the subject might be the right target of explanation. And, if so, constructivists might be right about the uniqueness of human homosexuality as a modern, western phenomenon explainable in terms of subjectivities and identities that mold and are molded by desires and institutions. But, if they are, evolution is not expendable because now we are facing a most intriguing question: How is that we humans became subjects? (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a new way to integrate historical accounts of social interaction in scientific practice with philosophical examination of scientific knowledge. The relation between descriptive accounts of scientific practice, on the one hand, and normative accounts of scientific knowledge, on the other, is a vexed one. This vexatiousness is one instance of the gap between normative and descriptive domains. The general problem of the normative/descriptive divide takes striking and problematic form in the case of social aspects of (...) scientific knowledge. With respect to this issue, history and philosophy of science appear starkly incompatible. I show how this dualism can be overcome, drawing on social action theory and the recent history of cellular immunology. (shrink)

Some 2000 years ago, Virgil wroteThe Georgics, a political tract on Romanagriculture in the form of a poem. Today, as aresult of rising global trade in food andagricultural products, growing economicconcentration, the merging of food andpharmacy, chronic obesity in the midst ofhunger, and new disease and pest vectors, weare in need of a new Georgics that addressesthe two key issues of our time: vigilance andvoice. On the one hand, vigilance must becentral to a new Georgics. Enforceablestandards for food safety, food (...) quality,environmental protection, worker health andsafety, sanitary and phytosanitaryrequirements, animal welfare, and appellationsmust be addressed. On the other hand, a newGeorgics must increase the range of persons whohave voice in the democratic governance of anew global agrifood system. New organizationsand institutions will be needed to accomplishthis task. (shrink)

Recent scholars have called into question the categories “science” and “religion” because they bring metaphysical and theological assumptions that theologians should find problematic. The critique of the categories “science” and “religion” has above all been associated with Peter Harrison and his influential argument in The Territories of Science and Religion (2015). This article evaluates the philosophical conclusions that Harrison draws from his antiessentialist philosophy in the two volumes associated with his “After Science and Religion Project.” I argue that Harrison's project (...) is too skeptical toward the categories “science” and “religion” and places too much emphasis on naturalism being incompatible with Christian theology. One can accept the lessons of antiessentialism—above all, how meanings of terms shift over time—and still use the terms “science” and “religion” in responsible ways. This article defends the basic impulse of most scholars in science and religion who promote dialogue and argues for a more moderate reading of the lesson of Territories. (shrink)

Many young dreamers who want to be modern up to the tips of their toes, and who think they have gotten rid of these barely imaginable old-fashioned ideas, are, without realizing it, mystics in search of a spiritual experience. (Gauchet 2003, p. 311)Several sociologists of science have mobilized secularization metaphors to describe developments in the study of science. Similar to how secularization refers to a decreasing status of religion and God as a transcendent factor in society, the secularization of science (...) refers to an abandonment of Science as something “sacred” and Nature as transcendent. This article aims to explore these secularization metaphors, by arguing for a parallel between how sociologists and philosophers of religion differ and how similar disagreements between sociologists of science and the work of Bruno Latour exist, whose work should rather be linked with that of other philosophers, such as Michel Serres and Isabelle Stengers. (shrink)

This essay is about the ensuing problem that in general it is nothelpful to talk about non-standard knowledge practices as modeled after our Western ideas of what knowledge is. It negotiates this problem by arguing that artisanal knowledge is an independent and self-contained mode of knowledge and is arranged in three parts. In the first part an outline is given of the key assumptions of the interactionist conception of knowledge that needs to be put in place as an alternative to (...) the basically Kantian mixture of empiricist and rationalist assumptions of the folk model of Western academic thinking about knowledge. In this interactionist conception of knowledgeartisanal knowledge gets center stage. In the second part, the notion of craftknowledge is opened up as much as possible. The third and final part takes upthe question whether craft knowledge is a cultural universal. (shrink)

Producing and interpreting functional brain data is part of the negotiation we imagine our brain. To take a closer look at the idea of brain imaging as a form of visual knowledge, it is necessary to put the research of today into a historical context. In my article I will point to a specific approach of functional imaging which depends on historical shifts entangled with the visual aspect of producing pictures of the brain. I will bring out the interaction of (...) issues like techniques, models and historical assumptions of the brain and link them with the way the brain images are presented. The aesthetic dimensions (Rancière) in the pictures are also questions of ethics and normativity. (shrink)

In the philosophy of chemistry a view is developed according to which laws of nature and scientific theories are peculiar in chemistry. This view was criticized in an earlier issue of the Foundations of Chemistry (Vihalemm, Foundation of Chemistry 5(1): 7–22, 2003) referring to an essay by Maureen and John Christie (Christie and Christie, in N. Bushan and S. Rosenfeld (Eds.), Of Minds and Molecules: New Philosophical Perspectives on Chemistry. Oxford University Press, New York, 2000, pp. 34–50). This criticism was (...) responded by the Christies (Christie and Christie, Foundations of Chemistry 5(2): 165–177, 2003). In the present article the debate is continued. The main issues which need to be elucidated in order to carry the analysis forward are pointed out and discussed. The relevance of a theoretical model of science for the philosophy of chemistry is stressed. (shrink)

One of the major themes of Steve Fuller's project of social epistemology is a reconciliation of the normative concerns of epistemologists with the empirical concerns of sociologists of knowledge. Fuller views social epistemologists as knowledge policy makers, who will provide direction for improvements in the cognitive division of labour. However, this paper argues that Fuller's conception of knowledge production and his approval of a panglossian approach to epistemology fail to provide the normative force he claims, and leave us unable to (...) identify anything epistemic about our knowledge-seeking practices. (shrink)

The 1980s, it is often claimed, was the decade when experimentation finally became a philosophical topic. This was the responsibility, the claim continues, of one particular movement within philosophy of science, called “new experimentalism.” The aim of this article is to complicate this historical narrative. We argue that in the 1980s, the study of experimentation was carried out not by one movement with one particular aim but rather in a diverse and open-ended way by people with different aims and backgrounds. (...) We then argue that from the late 1990s onward, this diversity disappeared and made room for disciplinary divisions—questions concerning experimentation became philosophical, others sociological, and so on. The reason for this, we claim, was that science and technology studies, philosophy of technology, and philosophy of science took over aspects of the 1980s study of experimentation. In this way, we argue, these elements became institutionalized, whereas others were forgotten. The importance of this process of institutionalization is illustrated by means of a discussion of other, similar approaches to the philosophy of experimentation that have not been able to ensure continuity because they did not find an institutional home. (shrink)

The heritage of transcendental philosophy, and more specifically its viability when it comes to the problematic of the philosophy of social sciences, has been a key point of dissensus between Jürgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel. Whereas Apel has explicitly aimed at a transcendental-pragmatic transformation of philosophy, Habermas has consequently insisted that his formal pragmatics, and the theory of communicative action which is erected upon it, radically de-transcendentalizes the subject. In a word, the disagreement concerns whether transcendental entities have any substantial (...) role to play in philosophical discourse and social-scientific explanations. My aim is to reconstruct how Apel establishes a connection between transcendentals, qua the ideal communicative community and the possibility of non-objectifying self-reflection. As I shall demonstrate, the principles that transcendental pragmatics sees as underlying social actions are not to be understood in a strictly judicial way, as “supernorms.” Rather, they should be conceptualized and used as a means for action regulation and mutual action coordination. Against this backdrop, I show that the concept of the ideal community provides the necessary underpinnings for Habermas’ schema of validity claims and the project of reconstructive sciences. (shrink)

Diane Vaughan’s analysis of the causes of the Challenger accident suggests ways to apply science and technology studies to the teaching of engineering ethics. By sensitizing future engineers to the ongoing construction of risk during mundane engineering practice, we can better prepare them to address issues of public health, safety, and welfare before they require heroic intervention. Understanding the importance of precedents, incremental change, and fallible engineering judgment in engineering design may help them anticipate potential threats to public safety arising (...) from routine aspects of workplace culture. We suggest modifications of both detailed case studies on engineering disasters and hypothetical, ethical dilemmas employed in engineering ethics classes. Investigating the sociotechnical aspects of engineering practice can improve the initial recognition of ethical problems in real-world settings and provide an understanding of the role of workplace organization and culture in facilitating or impeding remedial action. (shrink)

In this contribution, I refer to a discussion between Jürgen Habermas and Robert Brandom on the latter’s normative pragmatics as advanced in Making it Explicit. Parting with Habermas, I intend to show that though both normative pragmatics and formal pragmatics postulate similar discursive ideals, the former, as compared with the latter, is not a particularly well-calibrated critical tool. I argue that whereas Brandom focuses on making conceptual norms explicit, and takes mutual recognition among participants to a linguistic practice for granted, (...) Habermas proposes a universal frame of reference, which delineates what should be taken as a paradigm case of perception and action, and thus a normative standard according to which all kinds of human endeavors can be judged. Thus construed, the formal frame of reference points to possible perceptual distortions along any of the three dimensions: the subjective, social, and objective worlds. (shrink)

This article responds to Schulz's criticisms of an earlier paper published in Educational Philosophy and Theory. The purpose in this paper is to clarify and extend some of my earlier arguments, to indicate what is unfortunate (i.e. what is lost) from a non‐charitable, modernist reading of Lyotardian postmodernism (despite its weaknesses), and to suggest what new directions are emerging in science education from efforts to move beyond an either/or dichotomy of foundationalism and relativism.

This paper consists of three sections. In the first one, some of the main developments in the philosophy of science through the xx century up to the present will be pointed out, and inserted them in the frame of some more general philosophical transformations, such as the so-called “linguistic turn” and “pragmatic turn”, respectively. In the second one, the established connection will be nuanced, from a revision of the work of a “classical” author such as Carnap. Finally, it will be (...) intended a kind of “balance and future perspectives”. (shrink)

Humanism is blurry. It can have some clarity, but it is mainly blurry. To say anything otherwise is to fool oneself. Yes, we can construct reasonable humanistic theories that attempt to organize our understanding, such as methodologicalhumanism where one unifies discourses or practices according to human subjects or substantivehumanism that touts the importance of humanity via some shared attribute or substance. But to suggest that one can delineate and define the full salience of humanity, whether great or small, in the (...) world we live and understand is to suppose a divine clarity that eludes our possession. Theorists use terms like ‘social causes,’ ‘matter,’ ‘construction,’ and ‘interpretation’ to help us figure out how our cognition and rationality work, and yet they woefully fail to capture the richness of our experiences, which blur distinctions between society and matter all the time. Every account of humanism should take stock of this difficulty, being careful to say only what one. (shrink)

In this chapter I investigate the prospects of integrated history and philosophy of science, by examining how philosophical issues raised by “hidden entities”, entities that are not accessible to unmediated observation, can enrich the historical investigation of their careers. Conversely, I suggest that the history of those entities has important lessons to teach to the philosophy of science. Hidden entities have played a crucial role in the development of the natural sciences. Despite their centrality to past scientific practice, however, several (...) of them (e.g., phlogiston, caloric, and the ether) turned out to be fictitious. For this reason, they have figured prominently in recent debates on scientific realism. The issues I explore in this paper are entangled with those debates. I argue that our understanding of hidden entities and their role in experimental practice can be enhanced by adopting an integrated historical-cum-philosophical approach. On the one hand, philosophical reflection on the reality of those entities has a lot to gain by examining historically how they were ntroduced and investigated. On the other hand, the historical reconstruction of the careers of those entities may profit from philosophical reflection on their existence. (shrink)

Karen Barad develops a view she calls ‘posthumanism,’ or ‘agential realism,’ where the human is reconfigured away from the central place of explanation, interpretation, intelligibility, and objectivity to make room for the epistemic importance of other material agents. Barad is not alone in this kind of endeavor, but her posthumanism offers a unique epistemological position. Her aim is to take a performative rather than a representationalist approach to analyzing ‘socialnatural’ practices and challenge methodological assumptions that may go unnoticed in some (...) disciplinary fields. Yet for all the good of the challenge, Barad must support it with sound epistemological theorizing, theorizing that would apply to any methodology, whether that be sociological, historical, anthropological, or philosophical. Thus, where one might critique Barad on her assessments of sociological, historical, or anthropological incorporations of humans and the nonhuman, I critique Barad’s epistemology on its sense of objectivity and dismissal of the centrality of the human. I argue that Barad’s epistemology must retain a particular form of humanism, a humanism that stakes human subjectivity as the locus of rationality and objectivity, without which it creates intractable problems. To recuperate Barad’s challenge to contest assumptive distinctions while avoiding her epistemological problems, I offer some parting reflections. (shrink)

This paper explains why Clark’s Extended Mind thesis is not capable of sufficiently grasping how and in what sense external objects and technical artifacts can become part of our human cognition. According to the author, this is because a pivotal distinction between inside and outside is preserved in the Extended Mind theorist’s account of the relation between the human organism and the world of external objects and artifacts, a distinction which they proclaim to have overcome. Inspired by Charles S. Peirce’s (...) philosophy of mind, in particular, the author tries to find a way out of this ‘inside–outside’ fallacy. External objects, artifacts or processes should, according to him, not be conceived as inanimate and unintelligent matter utilised by a separately living, inner mental sphere that has set certain pre-established goals for itself. Mind has rather an artifactual character. It is not extended by an inner biological cognitive core but rather unfolds itself through objects and artifacts. Mind as such is, especially in our modern technological culture, shaped by virtue of and through technical artifacts. Recognizing this artifactual dimension of mind will, the author concludes, enable a more critical analysis of contemporary claims that ascribe certain original and irreducible features to thinking. (shrink)