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  1. (2 other versions)The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science | Vol 75, No 3.Daniel Frey & Dunja Šešelja - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (4):1411-1437.
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  • The Fate of Knowledge.Helen E. Longino - 2001 - Princeton University Press.
    Helen Longino seeks to break the current deadlock in the ongoing wars between philosophers of science and sociologists of science--academic battles founded on disagreement about the role of social forces in constructing scientific knowledge. While many philosophers of science downplay social forces, claiming that scientific knowledge is best considered as a product of cognitive processes, sociologists tend to argue that numerous noncognitive factors influence what scientists learn, how they package it, and how readily it is accepted. Underlying this disagreement, however, (...)
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  • Responsibility for Collective Epistemic Harms.Will Fleisher & Dunja Šešelja - 2023 - Philosophy of Science 90 (1):1-20.
    Discussion of epistemic responsibility typically focuses on belief formation and actions leading to it. Similarly, accounts of collective epistemic responsibility have addressed the issue of collective belief formation and associated actions. However, there has been little discussion of collective responsibility for preventing epistemic harms, particularly those preventable only by the collective action of an unorganized group. We propose an account of collective epistemic responsibility which fills this gap. Building on Hindriks' (2019) account of collective moral responsibility, we introduce the Epistemic (...)
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  • The computational philosophy: simulation as a core philosophical method.Conor Mayo-Wilson & Kevin J. S. Zollman - 2021 - Synthese 199 (1-2):3647-3673.
    Modeling and computer simulations, we claim, should be considered core philosophical methods. More precisely, we will defend two theses. First, philosophers should use simulations for many of the same reasons we currently use thought experiments. In fact, simulations are superior to thought experiments in achieving some philosophical goals. Second, devising and coding computational models instill good philosophical habits of mind. Throughout the paper, we respond to the often implicit objection that computer modeling is “not philosophical.”.
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  • Formal Models of Scientific Inquiry in a Social Context: An Introduction.Dunja Šešelja, Christian Straßer & AnneMarie Borg - 2020 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 51 (2):211-217.
    Formal models of scientific inquiry, aimed at capturing socio-epistemic aspects underlying the process of scientific research, have become an important method in formal social epistemology and philosophy of science. In this introduction to the special issue we provide a historical overview of the development of formal models of this kind and analyze their methodological contributions to discussions in philosophy of science. In particular, we show that their significance consists in different forms of ‘methodological iteration’ whereby the models initiate new lines (...)
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  • Evaluating Formal Models of Science.Michael Thicke - 2020 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 51 (2):315-335.
    This paper presents an account of how to evaluate formal models of science: models and simulations in social epistemology designed to draw normative conclusions about the social structure of scientific research. I argue that such models should be evaluated according to their representational and predictive accuracy. Using these criteria and comparisons with familiar models from science, I argue that most formal models of science are incapable of supporting normative conclusions.
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  • Illegitimate Values, Confirmation Bias, and Mandevillian Cognition in Science.Uwe Peters - 2021 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 72 (4):1061-1081.
    In the philosophy of science, it is a common proposal that values are illegitimate in science and should be counteracted whenever they drive inquiry to the confirmation of predetermined conclusions. Drawing on recent cognitive scientific research on human reasoning and confirmation bias, I argue that this view should be rejected. Advocates of it have overlooked that values that drive inquiry to the confirmation of predetermined conclusions can contribute to the reliability of scientific inquiry at the group level even when they (...)
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  • Social Empiricism.Miriam Solomon - 2001 - Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.
    For the last forty years, two claims have been at the core of disputes about scientific change: that scientists reason rationally and that science is progressive. For most of this time discussions were polarized between philosophers, who defended traditional Enlightenment ideas about rationality and progress, and sociologists, who espoused relativism and constructivism. Recently, creative new ideas going beyond the polarized positions have come from the history of science, feminist criticism of science, psychology of science, and anthropology of science. Addressing the (...)
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  • How to Do Digital Philosophy of Science.Charles H. Pence & Grant Ramsey - 2018 - Philosophy of Science 85 (5):930-941.
    Philosophy of science is expanding via the introduction of new digital data and tools for their analysis. The data comprise digitized published books and journal articles, as well as heretofore unpublished material such as images, archival text, notebooks, meeting notes, and programs. The growth in available data is matched by the extensive development of automated analysis tools. The variety of data sources and tools can be overwhelming. In this article, we survey the state of digital work in the philosophy of (...)
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  • What Is the Epistemic Function of Highly Idealized Agent-Based Models of Scientific Inquiry?Daniel Frey & Dunja Šešelja - 2018 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 48 (4):407-433.
    In this paper we examine the epistemic value of highly idealized agent-based models of social aspects of scientific inquiry. On the one hand, we argue that taking the results of such simulations as informative of actual scientific inquiry is unwarranted, at least for the class of models proposed in recent literature. Moreover, we argue that a weaker approach, which takes these models as providing only “how-possibly” explanations, does not help to improve their epistemic value. On the other hand, we suggest (...)
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  • Truth Approximation, Social Epistemology, and Opinion Dynamics.Igor Douven & Christoph Kelp - 2011 - Erkenntnis (2):271-283.
    This paper highlights some connections between work on truth approximation and work in social epistemology, in particular work on peer disagreement. In some of the literature on truth approximation, questions have been addressed concerning the efficiency of research strategies for approximating the truth. So far, social aspects of research strategies have not received any attention in this context. Recent findings in the field of opinion dynamics suggest that this is a mistake. How scientists exchange and take into account information about (...)
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  • Modeling the social organization of science: Chasing complexity through simulations.Carlo Martini & Manuela Fernández Pinto - 2016 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 7 (2):221-238.
    At least since Kuhn’s Structure, philosophers have studied the influence of social factors in science’s pursuit of truth and knowledge. More recently, formal models and computer simulations have allowed philosophers of science and social epistemologists to dig deeper into the detailed dynamics of scientific research and experimentation, and to develop very seemingly realistic models of the social organization of science. These models purport to be predictive of the optimal allocations of factors, such as diversity of methods used in science, size (...)
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  • In Epistemic Networks, is Less Really More?Sarita Rosenstock, Cailin O'Connor & Justin Bruner - 2017 - Philosophy of Science 84 (2):234-252.
    We show that previous results from epistemic network models showing the benefits of decreased connectivity in epistemic networks are not robust across changes in parameter values. Our findings motivate discussion about whether and how such models can inform real-world epistemic communities. As we argue, only robust results from epistemic network models should be used to generate advice for the real-world, and, in particular, decreasing connectivity is a robustly poor recommendation.
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  • Is Water H2O? Evidence, Realism and Pluralism.Hasok Chang - 2012 - Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science.
    This book exhibits deep philosophical quandaries and intricacies of the historical development of science lying behind a simple and fundamental item of common sense in modern science, namely the composition of water as H2O. Three main phases of development are critically re-examined, covering the historical period from the 1760s to the 1860s: the Chemical Revolution, early electrochemistry, and early atomic chemistry. In each case, the author concludes that the empirical evidence available at the time was not decisive in settling the (...)
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  • Sociality and Responsibility: New Essays in Plural Subject Theory.Margaret Gilbert - 2000 - Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
    One of the most distinguished living social philosophers, Margaret Gilbert develops and extends her application of plural subject theory of human sociality, first introduced in her earlier works On Social Facts and Living Together. Sociality and Responsibility presents an extended discussion of her proposal that joint commitments inherently involve obligations and rights, proposing, in effect, a new theory of obligations and rights. In addition, it demonstrates the extensive range and fruitfulness of plural subject theory by presenting accounts of social rules, (...)
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  • Many‐models medicine: diversity as the best medicine.Robin Nunn - 2012 - Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 18 (5):974-978.
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  • When is consensus knowledge based? Distinguishing shared knowledge from mere agreement.Boaz Miller - 2013 - Synthese 190 (7):1293-1316.
    Scientific consensus is widely deferred to in public debates as a social indicator of the existence of knowledge. However, it is far from clear that such deference to consensus is always justified. The existence of agreement in a community of researchers is a contingent fact, and researchers may reach a consensus for all kinds of reasons, such as fighting a common foe or sharing a common bias. Scientific consensus, by itself, does not necessarily indicate the existence of shared knowledge among (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Social empiricism.Miriam Solomon - 1994 - Noûs 28 (3):325-343.
    A new, social epistemology of science that addresses practical as well as theoretical concerns.
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  • Cognitive Archaeology and the Minimum Necessary Competence Problem.Anton Killin & Ross Pain - 2023 - Biological Theory 18 (4):269-283.
    Cognitive archaeologists attempt to infer the cognitive and cultural features of past hominins and their societies from the material record. This task faces the problem of _minimum necessary competence_: as the most sophisticated thinking of ancient hominins may have been in domains that leave no archaeological signature, it is safest to assume that tool production and use reflects only the lower boundary of cognitive capacities. Cognitive archaeology involves selecting a model from the cognitive sciences and then assessing some aspect of (...)
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  • Exploring Scientific Inquiry via Agent-Based Modelling.Dunja Šešelja - 2021 - Perspectives on Science 29 (4):537-557.
    In this paper I examine the epistemic function of agent-based models of scientific inquiry, proposed in the recent philosophical literature. In view of Boero and Squazzoni’s classification of ABMs into case-based models, typifications and theoretical abstractions, I argue that proposed ABMs of scientific inquiry largely belong to the last category. While this means that their function is primarily exploratory, I suggest that they are epistemically valuable not only as a temporary stage in the development of ABMs of science, but by (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Social Empiricism.Miriam Solomon - 2005 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (2):495-498.
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  • (2 other versions)Social Empiricism.Miriam Solomon - 2003 - Philosophy 78 (303):132-136.
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  • The Epistemic Benefit of Transient Diversity.Kevin J. S. Zollman - 2010 - Erkenntnis 72 (1):17-35.
    There is growing interest in understanding and eliciting division of labor within groups of scientists. This paper illustrates the need for this division of labor through a historical example, and a formal model is presented to better analyze situations of this type. Analysis of this model reveals that a division of labor can be maintained in two different ways: by limiting information or by endowing the scientists with extreme beliefs. If both features are present however, cognitive diversity is maintained indefinitely, (...)
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  • Conservatism and the Scientific State of Nature.Erich Kummerfeld & Kevin J. S. Zollman - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67 (4):1057-1076.
    Those who comment on modern scientific institutions are often quick to praise institutional structures that leave scientists to their own devices. These comments reveal an underlying presumption that scientists do best when left alone—when they operate in what we call the ‘scientific state of nature’. Through computer simulation, we challenge this presumption by illustrating an inefficiency that arises in the scientific state of nature. This inefficiency suggests that one cannot simply presume that science is most efficient when institutional control is (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Robustness and Idealizations in Agent-Based Models of Scientific Interaction.Daniel Frey & Dunja Šešelja - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (4):1411-1437.
    The article presents an agent-based model of scientific interaction aimed at examining how different degrees of connectedness of scientists impact their efficiency in knowledge acquisition. The model is built on the basis of Zollman’s ABM by changing some of its idealizing assumptions that concern the representation of the central notions underlying the model: epistemic success of the rivalling scientific theories, scientific interaction and the assessment in view of which scientists choose theories to work on. Our results suggest that whether and (...)
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  • (1 other version)Introduction: Collective Knowledge and Science.K. Brad Wray - 2010 - Episteme 7 (3):181-184.
    The literature on collective belief and collective intentionality has grown rapidly and is now quite extensive. Philosophers have applied the concepts of “collective belief” and “collective intentionality” in a variety of contexts, including political and legal contexts as well as scientific contexts, specifically to model the behavior of research teams and scientific specialties.
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  • Rationality and irrationality in the history of continental drift: Was the hypothesis of continental drift worthy of pursuit?Dunja Šešelja & Erik Weber - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 43 (1):147-159.
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  • Heuristic Reevaluation of the Bacterial Hypothesis of Peptic Ulcer Disease in the 1950s.Dunja Šešelja & Christian Straßer - 2014 - Acta Biotheoretica 62 (4):429-454.
    Throughout the first half of the twentieth century the research on peptic ulcer disease focused on two rivaling hypothesis: the “acidity” and the “bacterial” one. According to the received view, the latter was dismissed during the 1950s only to be revived with Warren’s and Marshall’s discovery of Helicobacter pylori in the 1980s. In this paper we investigate why the bacterial hypothesis was largely abandoned in the 1950s, and whether there were good epistemic reasons for its dismissal. Of special interest for (...)
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  • (1 other version)‘The gut war’: Functional somatic disorders in the UK during the Second World War.Edgar Jones - 2012 - History of the Human Sciences 25 (5):30-48.
    Hospital admission and mortality statistics suggested that peptic ulcer reached a peak prevalence in the mid-1950s. During the Second World War, against this background of serious and common pathology, an epidemic of dyspepsia afflicted both service personnel and civilians alike. In the absence of reliable diagnostic techniques, physicians struggled to distinguish between life-threatening illness and mild, temporary disorders. This article explores the context in which non-ulcer stomach conditions flourished. At a time when fear was considered defeatist and overt psychological disorder (...)
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  • How Scientists Explain Disease.Paul Thagard - 1999 - Princeton University Press.
    "This is a wonderful book! In "How Scientists Explain Disease," Paul Thagard offers us a delightful essay combining science, its history, philosophy, and sociology.
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  • (1 other version)Introduction: Collective Knowledge and Science.K. Brad Wray - 2010 - Episteme 7 (3):181-184.
    The literature on collective belief and collective intentionality has grown rapidly and is now quite extensive. Philosophers have applied the concepts of “collective belief” and “collective intentionality” in a variety of contexts, including political and legal contexts as well as scientific contexts, specifically to model the behavior of research teams and scientific specialties.
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  • (1 other version)The gut war.Edgar Jones - 2012 - History of the Human Sciences 25 (5):30-48.
    Hospital admission and mortality statistics suggested that peptic ulcer reached a peak prevalence in the mid-1950s. During the Second World War, against this background of serious and common pathology, an epidemic of dyspepsia afflicted both service personnel and civilians alike. In the absence of reliable diagnostic techniques, physicians struggled to distinguish between life-threatening illness and mild, temporary disorders. This article explores the context in which non-ulcer stomach conditions flourished. At a time when fear was considered defeatist and overt psychological disorder (...)
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  • (2 other versions)The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science | Vol 75, No 3.Daniel Frey & Dunja Šešelja - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (4):1411-1437.
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  • Five reasons for the use of network analysis in the history of economics.Herfeld Catherine & Malte Doehne - 2018 - Journal of Economic Methodology 25 (4):311-328.
    Network analysis is increasingly appreciated as a methodology in the social sciences. In recent years, it is also receiving attention among historians of science. History of economics is no exception in that researchers have begun to use network analysis to study a variety of topics, including collaborations and interactions in scientific communities, the spread of economic theories within and across fields, or the formation of new specialties in the discipline of economics. Against this backdrop, a debate is emerging about how (...)
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