Online research in philosophy

In this paper I respond to the criticisms of Helen Longino, Alan Richardson, Naomi Oreskes and Sharyn Clough. There is discussion of the character of social knowledge, the goals of scientific inquiry, the connections between Social Empiricism and other approaches in science studies, productive and unproductive dissent, and the distinction between empirical and non-empirical decision vectors.

Epistemic diversity is widely approved of by social epistemologists. This paper asks, more specifi cally, how much epistemic diversity, and what kinds of epistemic diversity are normatively appropriate? Both laissez-faire and highly directive approaches to epistemic diversity are rejected in favor of the claim that diversity is a blunt epistemic tool. There are typically a number of diff erent options for adequate diversifi cation. The paper focuses on scientifi c domains, with particular attention to recent theories of smell.

Trust in the practice of rational deliberation is widespread and largely unquestioned. This paper uses recent work from business contexts to challenge the view that rational deliberation in a group improves decisions. Pressure to reach consensus can, in fact, lead to phenomena such as groupthink and to suppression of relevant data. Aggregation of individual decisions, rather than deliberation to a consensus, surprisingly, can produce better decisions than those of either group deliberation or individual expert judgment. I argue that dissent is (...) epistemically valuable, not because of the discussion it can provoke (Mill’s and Longino’s view about the benefit of dissent), but because dissenting positions often are associated with particular data or insights that would be lost in consensus formation. Social epistemologists can usefully pay attention to various methods of aggregation of individual opinion for their effectiveness at realizing epistemic goals. (shrink)

: Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch's introductory text, The Golem: What Everyone Should Know About Science (1993), includes a controversy about the significance of pseudosexual behavior in the parthenogenetic whiptail lizard. Collins and Pinch, basing their account on the work of Greg Myers (1990), claim that "in this area of biology, experiments are seldom possible" and that the debate has "battled to an honorable draw." I argue that a closer look at the publications of the scientists involved shows that, at (...) least by the late 1980s, it was widely accepted that pseudosexual behavior is important for reproduction in these lizards. Moreover, a variety of experiments, as well as laboratory and field observations, proved decisive in this acceptance. (shrink)

Because the idea of consensus in contemporary philosophy of science is typically seen as the locus of progress, rationality, and, often, truth, Mill’s views on the undesirability of consensus have been largely dismissed. The historical data, however, shows that there are many examples of scientific progress without consensus, thus refuting the notion that consensus in science has any special epistemic status for rationality, scientific progress (success), or truth. What needs to be developed instead is an epistemology of dissent. I suggest (...) that normative accounts of dissent be used as prototypes for theories of scientific rationality that can also be applied to episodes of consensus. Consensus in this case is to be treated as a special case of dissent, when the amount of dissent approaches zero. My main goal in this paper is to sketch how a normative account of dissent that aims to capture the idea of epistemic fairness can apply to situations of consensus. (shrink)

A new, social epistemology of science that addresses practical as well as theoretical concerns.

Naturalistic epistemologists frequently assume that their aim is to identify generalities (i.e. general laws) about the effectiveness of particular reasoning processes and methods. This paper argues that the search for this kind of generality fails. Work that has been done thus far to identify generalities (e.g. by Goldman, Kitcher and Thagard) overlooks both the complexity of reasoning and the relativity of assessments to particular contexts (domain, stage and goal of inquiry). Examples of human reasoning which show both complexity and contextuality (...) are given. The paper concludes with a discussion of the kind of multivariate model of reasoning that naturalistic epistemologists can use to evaluate processes and methods for specific domains. (shrink)

Social scientists regularly make use of multivariate models to describe complex social phenomena. It is argued that this approach is useful for modelling the variety of cognitive and social factors contributing to scientific change, and superior to the integrated models of scientific change currently available. It is also argued that care needs to be taken in drawing normative conclusions: cognitive factors are not instrinsically more "rational" than social factors, nor is it likely that social factors, by some "invisible hand of (...) reason," generally work to produce scientific success. A multivariate model of the biasing factors within a scientific community at particular times is developed. This model, which is an example of work in social epistemology, yields normative conclusions. (shrink)

The work of Tversky, Kahneman and others suggests that people often make use of cognitive heuristics such as availability, salience and representativeness in their reasoning and decision making. Through use of a historical example--the recent plate tectonics revolution in geology--I argue that such heuristics play a crucial role in scientific decision making also. I suggest how these heuristics are to be considered, along with noncognitive factors (such as motivation and social structures) when drawing historical and epistemological conclusions. The normative perspective (...) is community-wide, contextual, and instrumental. (shrink)