The status and limits of science are the focus of urgent public debate. This paper contributes a philosophical analysis of representations of science and the supernatural in popular culture. It explores and critiques a threefold taxonomy of supernatural narratives: (1) reduction of the supernatural to contemporary science; (2) reduction to a `future science' methodologically continuous with contemporary science; (3) the supernatural as irreducible. The means by which the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer adroitly negotiates the borderlines between these narratives (...) is related to the `science wars', the two cultures debate, and the ancients vs. moderns dispute. (shrink)

In this paper I offer an appraisal of James Bogen and James Woodward’s distinction between data and phenomena which pursues two objectives. First, I aim to clarify the notion of a scientific phenomenon. Such a clarification is required because despite its intuitive plausibility it is not exactly clear how Bogen and Woodward’s distinction has to be understood. I reject one common interpretation of the distinction, endorsed for example by James McAllister and Bruce Glymour, which identifies phenomena with patterns in data (...) sets. Furthermore, I point out that other interpretations of Bogen and Woodward’s distinction do not specify the relationship between phenomena and theories in a satisfying manner. In order to avoid this problem I propose a contextual understanding of scientific phenomena according to which phenomena are states of affairs which play specific roles in scientific practice and to which we adopt a special epistemic attitude. Second, I evaluate the epistemological significance of Bogen and Woodward’s distinction with respect to the debate between scientific realists and constructive empiricists. Contrary to what Bogen and Woodward claim, I argue that the distinction does not provide a convincing argument against constructive empiricism. (shrink)

Scholars in science and technologies studies talk about a “pure science ideology” or “scientific ideology.” Stereotyping applied science as a dull and mindless practice that generates no new knowledge, the ideology grossly distorts both pure and applied science. What is its origin?

In recent years, pragmatism in general and John Dewey in particular have been of increasing interest to philosophers of science. Dewey's work provides an interesting alternative package of views to those which derive from the logical empiricists and their critics, on problems of both traditional and more recent vintage. Dewey's work ought to be of special interest to recent philosophers of science committed to the program of analyzing ``science in practice.'' The core of Dewey's philosophy of science is his theory (...) of inquiry---what he called ``logic.'' There is a major lacuna in the literature on this point, however: no contemporary philosophers of science have engaged with Dewey's logical theory, and scholars of Dewey's logic have rarely made connections with philosophy of science. This paper aims to fill this gap, to correct some significant errors in the interpretation of key ideas in Dewey's logical theory, and to show how Dewey's logic provides resources for a philosophy of science. (shrink)

As data-intensive and computational science become increasingly established as the dominant mode of conducting scientific research, visualisations of data and of the outcomes of science become increasingly prominent in mediating knowledge in the scientific arena. This position piece advocates that more attention should be paid to the epistemological role of visualisations beyond their being a cognitive aid to understanding, but as playing a crucial role in the formation of evidence for scientific claims. The new generation of computational and informational visualisations (...) and imaging techniques challenges the philosophy of science to re-think its position on three key distinctions: the qualitative/quantitative distinction, the subjective/objective distinction, and the causal/non-causal distinction. (shrink)

Pila (2009) has criticised the recommendations made by requirements engineers involved in the design of a grid technology for the support of distributed readings of mammograms made by Jirotka et al. (2005). The disagreement between them turns on the notion of “biographical familiarity” and whether it can be a sound basis for trust for the performances of professionals such as radiologists. In the first two sections, this paper gives an interpretation of the position of each side in this disagreement and (...) their recommendation for the design of technology for distributed reading, and in the third the underlying reasons for this is agreement are discussed. It is argued that Pila, in attempting to make room for mistrust as well as trust, brings to the fore the question of having and reflecting upon reasons for trust or mistrust. Pila holds that biographical familiarity is not a sound reason for trust/mistrust, as it seems to obliterate the possibility of mistrust. In response to her proposal, an analysis is proposed of the forms of trust involved in biographical familiarity. In particular, implicit trust is focused upon — as a form of trust in advance of reasons, and as a form of trust contained (in the logical sense) within other reasons. It is proposed that implicit trust has an important role in establishing an intersubjectively shared world in which what counts as a reason for the acceptability of performances such as readings of X-rays is established. Implicit trust, therefore, is necessary for professionals to enter into a “space of reasons”. To insist upon judgements made in the absence of the form of implicit trust at play in biographical familiarity is to demand that radiologists (and other relevantly similar professionals) make judgements regarding whether to trust or mistrust on the basis of reasons capable of being reflected upon, but at the same time leave them without reasons upon which to reflect. (shrink)

The collaborative ‹Big Science’ approach prevalent in physics during the mid- and late-20th century is becoming more common in the life sciences. Often computationally mediated, these collaborations challenge researchers’ trust practices. Focusing on the visualisations that are often at the heart of this form of scientific practice, the paper proposes that the aesthetic aspects of these visualisations are themselves a way of securing trust. Kant’s account of aesthetic judgements in the Third Critique is drawn upon in order to show that (...) the image-building capability of imagination, and the sensus communis, both of which are integral parts of aesthetic experience, play an important role in building and sustaining community in these forms of science. Kant’s theory shows that the aesthetic appeal of scientific visualisations is not isolated from two other dimensions of the visualisations: the cognitive-epistemic, aesthetic-stylistic and interpersonal dimensions, and that in virtue of these inter-relationships, visualisations contribute to building up the intersubjectively shared framework of agreement which is basic for trust. (shrink)

I seek to provide a systematic and comprehensive framework for the description and analysis of scientific practice?a philosophical grammar of scientific practice, ?grammar? as meant by the later Wittgenstein. I begin with the recognition that all scientific work, including pure theorizing, consists of actions, of the physical, mental, and ?paper-and-pencil? varieties. When we set out to see what it is that one actually does in scientific work, the following set of questions naturally emerge: who is doing what, why, and how? (...) More specifically, we must arrive at some coherent philosophical accounts of the following elements of scientific practice: the agent?free, embodied, and constantly in second-person interactions with other agents; the purposes and proximate aims of the agent; types of activities that the agent engages in; ontological principles necessarily presumed for the performance of particular activities; instruments and other resources that the agent pulls together for the performance of each activity. After sketching the general framework, I also give some illustrative contrasts between the more traditional descriptions of scientific practice and the kind of descriptions enabled by the proposed framework. (shrink)

In this volume, first published in 1983, Jon Elster approaches the study of technical change from an epistemological perspective.

The present paper examines the role of exact results in the theory of many‐body physics, and specifically the example of the Mermin‐Wagner theorem, a rigorous result concerning the absence of phase transitions in low‐dimensional systems. While the theorem has been shown to hold for a wide range of many‐body models, it is frequently ‘violated’ by results derived from the same models using numerical techniques. This raises the question of how scientists regulate their theoretical commitments in such cases, given that the (...) models, too, are often described as approximations to the underlying ‘full’ many‐body problem. (shrink)

This book describes how scientists bring their own interests and passions to their work, illustrates the dynamics between researchers and the research community ...

In this book Gerald Holton takes an opposing view, illuminating the ways in which the imagination of the scientist functions early in the formation of a new ...

In this thesis, I argue that a good historical science will have the following characteristics: Firstly, it will seek to construct causal histories of the past. Secondly, the construction of these causal histories will utilise well-tested regularities of science. Additionally, well-tested regularities will secure the link between observations of physical traces and the causal events of interest. However, the historical sciences cannot use these regularities in a straightforward manner. The regularities must accommodate the idiosyncrasies of the past, and the degradation (...) of evidence over time. Through an examination of how the historical sciences work in practice, I show how they can confirm these unique causal histories, and the limits to their confirmatory strategies. (shrink)

During the last three decades, reflections on the growth of scientific knowledge have inspired historians, sociologists, and some philosophers to contend that scientific objectivity is a myth. In this book, Kitcher attempts to resurrect the notions of objectivity and progress in science by identifying both the limitations of idealized treatments of growth of knowledge and the overreactions to philosophical idealizations. Recognizing that science is done not by logically omniscient subjects working in isolation, but by people with a variety of personal (...) and social interests, who cooperate and compete with one another, he argues that, nonetheless, we may conceive the growth of science as a process in which both our vision of nature and our ways of learning more about nature improve. Offering a detailed picture of the advancement of science, he sets a new agenda for the philosophy of science and for other "science studies" disciplines. (shrink)

Review of: Dimitri Ginev (2011), The Tenets of Cognitive Existentialism (Athens: Ohio University Press).

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)

Research on bias in peer review examines scholarly communication and funding processes to assess the epistemic and social legitimacy of the mechanisms by which knowledge communities vet and self-regulate their work. Despite vocal concerns, a closer look at the empirical and methodological limitations of research on bias raises questions about the existence and extent of many hypothesized forms of bias. In addition, the notion of bias is predicated on an implicit ideal that, once articulated, raises questions about the normative implications (...) of research on bias in peer review. This review provides a brief description of the function, history, and scope of peer review; articulates and critiques the conception of bias unifying research on bias in peer review; characterizes and examines the empirical, methodological, and normative claims of bias in peer review research; and assesses possible alternatives to the status quo. We close by identifying ways to expand conceptions and studies of bias to countenance the complexity of social interactions among actors involved directly and indirectly in peer review. (shrink)

Psychometrically oriented researchers construe low inter-rater reliability measures for expert peer reviewers as damning for the practice of peer review. I argue that this perspective overlooks different forms of normatively appropriate disagreement among reviewers. Of special interest are Kuhnian questions about the extent to which variance in reviewer ratings can be accounted for by normatively appropriate disagreements about how to interpret and apply evaluative criteria within disciplines during times of normal science. Until these empirical-cum-philosophical analyses are done, it will remain (...) unclear the extent to which low inter-rater reliability measures represent reasonable disagreement rather than arbitrary differences between reviewers. (shrink)

An empirically sensitive formulation of the norms of transformative criticism must recognize that even public and shared standards of evaluation can be implemented in ways that unintentionally perpetuate and reproduce forms of social bias that are epistemically detrimental. Helen Longino’s theory can explain and redress such social bias by treating peer evaluations as hypotheses based on data and by requiring a kind of perspectival diversity that bears, not on the content of the community’s knowledge claims, but on the beliefs and (...) norms of the culture of the knowledge community itself. To illustrate how socializing cognition can bias evaluations, we focus on peer-review practices, with some discussion of peer-review practices in philosophy. Data include responses to surveys by editors from general philosophy journals, as well as analyses of reviews and editorial decisions for the 2007 Cognitive Science Society Conference. (shrink)

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is an organization which seeks to identify the causes of human cancer. Per agent, such as betel quid or Human Papillomaviruses, they review the available evidence deriving from epidemiological studies, animal experiments and information about mechanisms (and other data). The evidence of the different groups is combined such that an overall assessment of the carcinogenicity of the agent in question is obtained. In this paper, we critically review the IARC’s carcinogenicity evaluations. First (...) we show that serious objections can be raised against their criteria and procedures – more specifically regarding the role of mechanistic knowledge in establishing causal claims. Our arguments are based on the problem of confounders, of the assessment of the temporal stability of carcinogenic relations, and of the extrapolation from animal experiments. Then we address a very important question, viz. how we should treat the carcinogenicity evaluations that were based on the current procedures. After showing that this question is important, we argue that an overall dismissal of the current evaluations would be too radical. Instead, we argue in favour of a stepwise re-evaluation of the current findings. (shrink)

In der Wissenschaft spielen Visualisierungen eine immer wichtigere Rolle. Sie sind zum einen Gegenstand der Forschung und zum anderen unverzichtbares Hilfsmittel bei der Präsentation und Distribution von Forschungsergebnissen. Beides stellt neue Anforderungen an den Wissenschaftler und seine praktische wie auch theoretische Arbeit und lässt nach einer kritischen Reflexion dieses Bildhandelns fragen. Was zeigen uns MRT-Bilder in der Medizin wirklich? Wie hat die Weiterentwicklung der Mikroskopie-Technologie unsere Vorstellung von der menschlichen Zelle verändert? Welche Rolle können Bilder bei der Vermittlung von Wissen (...) im didaktischen Kontext spielen? Zeigen uns Visualisierungen die Wirklichkeit? Oder sind sie bloß ein weiterer Anhaltspunkt für die soziale Konstruktion wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis? Kann es eine Logik der Bilder geben? In welchen Begriffen reden wir über Bilder? Ziel des Sammelbandes Visualisierung und Erkenntnis. Bildverstehen und Bildverwenden in Natur- und Geisteswissenschaften ist es, die Forschung mit und an Visualisierungen in den Einzelwissenschaften auf eine reflektierte Basis zu stellen. Zu diesem Zweck werden nicht nur die wissenschafts- und erkenntnistheoretischen Grundlagen und Herausforderungen beleuchtet, die die Verwendung von Visualisierungen mit sich bringt, sondern auch die Rolle der Visualisierungen im konkreten Anwendungsfall betrachtet. Der Band lässt dabei Geistes- und Naturwissenschaftler, Theoretiker und Praktiker in einen Dialog über den gemeinsamen Forschungsgegenstand treten. (shrink)

The 20th century philosophy of science began on a positivistic note. Its focal point was scientific explanation and the hypothetico-deductive (HD) framework of explanation was proposed as the standard of what is meant by “science.” HD framework, its inductive and statistical variants, and other logic-based approaches to modeling scientific explanation were developed long before the dawn of the information age. Since that time, the volume of observational data and power of high performance computing have increased by several orders of magnitude (...) and reshaped the practice and concept of science, and indeed, the philosophy of science. A new observational-inductive (OI) framework for scientific research is emerging due to recent developments in sensors, data systems, computers, and knowledge discovery techniques. We examine the nature of these changes and their impact on the question of what is meant by “science” after discussing five examples of the OI framework, and conclude that the HD and OI frameworks are complementary and synergistic. (shrink)

Academic inquiry has two basic inter-related aims. One is to explore intellectually aspects of our world of intrinsic interest and value, for its own sake, and to encourage non-academics to participate in such exploration, thus improving our knowledge and understanding. The other is, by intellectual means, to help humanity solve its problems of living, so that a more peaceful, just, democratic and environmentally enlightened world may be attained. Both are at present betrayed.

Cosmological speculation about the ultimate nature of the universe, being necessary for science to be possible at all, must be regarded as a part of scientific knowledge itself, however epistemologically unsound it may be in other respects. The best such speculation available is that the universe is comprehensible in some way or other and, more specifically, in the light of the immense apparent success of modern natural science, that it is physically comprehensible. But both these speculations may be false; in (...) order to take this possibility into account, we need to adopt an hierarchy of increasingly contentless cosmological conjectures until we arrive at the conjecture that the universe is such that it is possible for us to acquire some knowledge of something, a conjecture which we are justified in accepting as knowledge since doing so cannot harm the pursuit of knowledge in any circumstances whatsoever. As a result of adopting such an hierarchy of increasingly contentless cosmological conjectures in this way, we maximize our chances of adopting conjectures that promote the growth of knowledge, and minimize our chances of taking some cosmological assumption for granted that is false and impedes the growth of knowledge. The hope is that as we increase our knowledge about the world we improve (lower level) cosmological assumptions implicit in our methods, and thus in turn improve our methods. As a result of improving our knowledge we improve our knowledge about how to improve knowledge. Science adapts its own nature to what it learns about the nature of the universe, thus increasing its capacity to make progress in knowledge about the world. This aim-oriented empiricist conception of science solves outstanding problems in the philosophy of science such as the problems of induction, simplicity and verisimilitude. (shrink)

Most scientists and philosophers of science take for granted the standard empiricist view that the basic intellectual aim of science is truth per se. But this seriously misrepresents the aims of scieince. Actually, science seeks explanatory truth and, more generally, important truth. Problematic metaphysical and value assumptions are inherent in the real aims of science. Precisely because these aims are profoundly problematic, they need to be articulated, imaginatively explored and critically assesseed, in order to improve them, as an integral part (...) of science itself. This was how Einstein did science in developing the special and general theories of relativity. Science needs to put a new aim-oriented empiricist methodology into practice. (shrink)

Philosophers frequently struggle with the relation of metaphysics to the everyday world, with its practical value, and with its relation to empirical science. This paper distinguishes several different models of the relation between philosophical ontology and applied (scientific) ontology that have been advanced in the history of philosopy. Adoption of a strong participation model for the philosophical ontologist in science is urged, and requirements and consequences of the participation model are explored. This approach provides both a principled view and justification (...) of the role of the philosophical ontologist in contemporary empirical science as well as guidelines for integrating philosophers and philosophical contributions into the practice of science. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose that the debate in epistemology concerning the nature and value of understanding can shed light on the role of scientific idealizations in producing scientific understanding. In philosophy of science, the received view seems to be that understanding is a species of knowledge. On this view, understanding is factive just as knowledge is, i.e., if S knows that p, then p is true. Epistemologists, however, distinguish between different kinds of understanding. Among epistemologists, there are those who (...) think that a certain kind of understanding—objectual understanding—is not factive, and those who think that objectual understanding is quasi-factive. Those who think that understanding is not factive argue that scientific idealizations constitute cognitive success, which we then consider as instances of understanding, and yet they are not true. This paper is an attempt to draw lessons from this debate as they pertain to the role of idealizations in producing scientific understanding. I argue that scientific understanding is quasi-factive. (shrink)

' this volume will make a significant contribution to a more adequate understanding of the 'nature of scientific knowledge and inquiry' ' ISIS Vol.79,No.1,1988.

It is sometimes said that simulation can serve as epistemic substitute for experimentation. Such a claim might be suggested by the fast-spreading use of computer simulation to investigate phenomena not accessible to experimentation (in astrophysics, ecology, economics, climatology, etc.). But what does that mean? The paper starts with a clarification of the terms of the issue and then focuses on two powerful arguments for the view that simulation and experimentation are ‘epistemically on a par’. One is based on the claim (...) that, in experimentation, no less than in simulation, it is not the system under study that is manipulated but a system that ‘stands-in’ for it. The other one highlights the pervasive use of models in experimentation. It will be argued that these arguments, as compelling as they might seem, are each based on a mistaken interpretation of experimentation and that, far from simulation and experimentation being epistemically on a par, they do not have the same epistemic function, do not produce the same kind of epistemic results. (shrink)

Experimental activity is traditionally identified with testing the empirical implications or numerical simulations of models against data. In critical reaction to the ‘tribunal view’ on experiments, this essay will show the constructive contribution of experimental activity to the processes of modeling and simulating. Based on the analysis of a case in fluid mechanics, it will focus specifically on two aspects. The first is the controversial specification of the conditions in which the data are to be obtained. The second is conceptual (...) clarification, with a redefinition of concepts central to the understanding of the phenomenon and the conditions of its occurrence. (shrink)

The thesis of theory-ladenness of observations, in its various guises, is widely considered as either ill-conceived or harmless to the rationality of science. The latter view rests partly on the work of the proponents of New Experimentalism who have argued, among other things, that experimental practices are efficient in guarding against any epistemological threat posed by theory-ladenness. In this paper I show that one can generate a thesis of theory-ladenness for experimental practices from an influential New Experimentalist account. The notion (...) I introduce for this purpose is the concept of ‘theory-driven data reliability judgments’ (TDR), according to which theories which are sought to be tested with a particular set of data guide reliability judgments about those very same data. I provide various prominent historical examples (among others, the confirmation of Einstein’s prediction of star light bending in 1919) to show that TDRs are used by scientists to resolve data conflicts. I argue that the rationality of the practices which employ TDRs can be saved if the independent support of the theories driving TDRs is construed in a particular way. (shrink)

In Science, Truth, and Democracy, Philip Kitcher challenges the view that science has a single, context‐independent, goal, and that the pursuit of this goal is essentially immune from moral critique. He substitutes a context‐dependent account of science’s goal, and shows that this account subjects science to moral evaluation. I argue that Kitcher’s approach must be modified, as his account of science ultimately must be explicated in terms of moral concepts. I attempt, therefore, to give an account of science’s goal that (...) is free of direct moral entanglements but still makes this goal context‐dependent and leaves the choice of which projects to pursue subject to moral scrutiny. (shrink)

Response to "Predictive Policies" by R.S.McGowan Mr. McGowan has assumed that there is a clear distinction between inductive inferences and others, that we all know how to make the distinction, that we all agree that the inductive ones are somehow better or more reasonable than the alternatives, and I have criticised all of these assumptions. Further he hasformulated the philosophical problem of induction as the problem of showing why the inductive ones are better, and he has attempted to show that (...) inductive policiesas represented in his flow chart are better than non-inductive and counter-inductive ones. I have criticised some of the details of his argument and put forward the counter-claim that policies based on the weaker principles of desistence are better at avoiding contradictions and conform to past experience more closely than policies based on his strong principle of persistence. Accordingly, some modifications of his predictive rules have been suggested. Perhaps most importantly of all, I have argued that the assertion that one policy or inference is better or more rational than another is an incomplete assertion until a basis of comparison has been specified, since different policies may be better or more rational in relation to different bases, and I have indicated some possible approaches for further investigation of this point. A final line of investigation which should be mentioned is the problem of deciding which of two bases of comparison is better relative to some higher-order basis of comparison, a problem which may turn out to be very important in connexion with justifications of predictive policies. It seems that I have asked more questions than I have answered. Perhaps formulating them will help someone more familiar with the field than I am to find interesting answers. (shrink)

A theme of much work taking an ““economic approach”” to the study of science is the interaction between the norms of individual scientists and those of society at large. Though drawing from the same suite of formal methods, proponents of the economic approach offer what are in substantive terms profoundly different explanations of various aspects of the structure of science. The differences are illustrated by comparing Strevens's explanation of the scientific reward system (the ““priority rule””) with Max Albert's explanation of (...) the prevalence of ““high methodological standards”” in science. Some objections to the economic approach as a whole are then briefly considered. (shrink)

In psychiatry, pharmacological drugs play an important experimental role in attempts to identify the neurobiological causes of mental disorders. Besides being developed in applied contexts as potential treatments for patients with mental disorders, pharmacological drugs play a crucial role in research contexts as experimental instruments that facilitate the formulation and revision of neurobiological theories of psychopathology. This paper examines the various epistemic functions that pharmacological drugs serve in the discovery, refinement, testing, and elaboration of neurobiological theories of mental disorders. I (...) articulate this thesis with reference to the history of antipsychotic drugs and the evolution of the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia in the second half of the twentieth century. I argue that interventions with psychiatric patients through the medium of antipsychotic drugs provide researchers with information and evidence about the neurobiological causes of schizophrenia. This analysis highlights the importance of pharmacological drugs as research tools in the generation of psychiatric knowledge and the dynamic relationship between practical and theoretical contexts in psychiatry. (shrink)

Over the past few years, blogging (“web logging”) has become a major social movement, and as such includes blogs by scientists about science. Blogs are highly idiosyncratic, personal and ephemeral means of public expression, and yet they contribute to the current practice and reputation of science as much as, if not more than, any popular scientific work or visual presentation. It is important, therefore, to understand this phenomenon.

I analyze the importance of parts in the style of biological theorizing that I call compositional biology. I do this by investigating various aspects, including partitioning frames and explanatory accounts, of the theoretical perspectives that fall under and are guided by compositional biology. I ground this general examination in a comparative analysis of three different disciplines with their associated compositional theoretical perspectives: comparative morphology, functional morphology, and developmental biology. I glean data for this analysis from canonical textbooks and defend the (...) use of such texts for the philosophy of science. I end with a discussion of the importance of recognizing formal and compositional biology as two genuinely different ways of doing biology – the differences arising more from their distinct methodologies than from scientific discipline included or natural domain studied. Ultimately, developing a translation manual between the two styles would be desirable as they currently are, at times, in conflict. (shrink)

I examine whether or not it is apt to attribute knowledge to groups of scientists. I argue that though research teams can be aptly described as having knowledge, communities of scientists identified with research fields, and the scientific community as a whole are not capable of knowing. Scientists involved in research teams are dependent on each other, and are organized in a manner to advance a goal. Such teams also adopt views that may not be identical to the views of (...) the individual members of the group. (shrink)

I examine two challenges that collaborative research raises for science. First, collaborative research threatens the motivation of scientists. As a result, I argue, collaborative research may have adverse effects on what sorts of things scientists can effectively investigate. Second, collaborative research makes it more difficult to hold scientists accountable. I argue that the authors of multi-authored articles are aptly described as plural subjects, corporate bodies that are more than the sum of the individuals involved. Though journal editors do not currently (...) conceive of the authors of multi-authored articles this way, this conception provides us with the conceptual resources to make sense of how collaborating scientists behave. (shrink)

I examine the epistemic import of collaborative research in science. I develop and defend a functional explanation for its growing importance. Collaborative research is becoming more popular in the natural sciences, and to a lesser degree in the social sciences, because contemporary research in these fields frequently requires access to abundant resources, for which there is great competition. Scientists involved in collaborative research have been very successful in accessing these resources, which has in turn enabled them to realize the epistemic (...) goals of science more effectively than other scientists, thus creating a research environment in which collaboration is now the norm. (shrink)