Perspectives of and Challenges for a Social Philosophy of Science (original) (raw)

Perspectives of and Challenges for a social philosophy of science: Highlighting the Challenges

The role of scientific knowledge in general and social science knowledge in particular is changing in emerging and advanced knowledge societies. Science is becoming more important in identifying and framing social challenges and providing ‘suitable and feasible’ solution to decision-makers. Yet, scientific authority is increasingly challenged and contested. This increased social significance of scientific knowledge claims call for an elaborate social philosophy of science. However any attempt to develop a theoretical framework for a social philosophy of science has to face three challenges: (1) an increased challenging of scientific authority, (2) the need for interdisciplinarity to cope with ever more complex problems and (3) to elaborate on a social epistemology and/ or social ontology respectively.

Socially Relevant Philosophy of Science: An Introduction

This paper provides an argument for a more socially relevant philosophy of science (SRPOS). Our aims in this paper are to characterize this body of work in philosophy of science, to argue for its importance, and to demonstrate that there are significant opportunities for philosophy of science to engage with and support this type of research. The impetus of this project was a keen sense of missed opportunities for philosophy of science to have a broader social impact. We illustrate various ways in which SRPOS can provide social benefits, as well as benefits to scientific practice and philosophy itself. Also, SRPOS is consistent with some historical and contemporary goals of philosophy of science. We’re calling for an expansion of philosophy of science to include more of this type of work. In order to support this expansion, we characterize philosophy of science as an epistemic community and examine the culture and practices of philosophy of science that can help or hinder research in this area.

Social Philosophy of Science for the Social Sciences

Theory and History in the Human and Social Sciences, 2019

Theory and History in the Human and Social Sciences will fill in the gap in the existing coverage of links between new theoretical advancements in the social and human sciences and their historical roots. Making that linkage is crucial for the interdisciplinary synthesis across the disciplines of psychology, anthropology, sociology, history, semiotics, and the political sciences. In contemporary human sciences of the 21st there exists increasing differentiation between neurosciences and all other sciences that are aimed at making sense of the complex social, psychological, and political processes. Thus new series has the purpose of (1) coordinating such efforts across the borders of existing human and social sciences, (2) providing an arena for possible inter-disciplinary theoretical syntheses, (3) bring into attention of our contemporary scientific community innovative ideas that have been lost in the dustbin of history for no good reasons, and (4) provide an arena for international communication between social and human scientists across the World.

The social organisation of science as a question for philosophy of science

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.

Social aspects of scientific knowledge

Synthese

From its inception in 1987 social epistemology has been divided into analytic (ASE) and critical (CSE) approaches, represented by Alvin I. Goldman and Steve Fuller, respectively. In this paper, the agendas and some basic ideas of ASE and CSE are compared and assessed by bringing into the discussion also other participants of the debates on the social aspects of scientific knowledgeamong them Raimo Tuomela, Philip Kitcher and Helen Longino. The six topics to be analyzed include individual and collective epistemic agents; the notion of scientific community; realism and constructivism; truth-seeking communities; epistemic and social values; science, experts, and democracy.

The Social Dimensions of Scientific Knowledge

Study of the social dimensions of scientific knowledge encompasses the effects of scientific research on human life and social relations, the effects of social relations and values on scientific research, and the social aspects of inquiry itself. Several factors have combined to make these questions salient to contemporary philosophy of science. These factors include the emergence of social movements, like environmentalism and feminism, critical of mainstream science; concerns about the social effects of science-based technologies; epistemological questions made salient by big science; new trends in the history of science, especially the move away from internalist historiography; anti-normative approaches in the sociology of science; turns in philosophy to naturalism and pragmatism. This entry reviews the historical background to current research in this area and features of contemporary science that invite philosophical attention. The philosophical work can roughly be classified into two camps. One acknowledges that scientific inquiry is in fact carried out in social settings and asks whether and how standard epistemology must be supplemented to address this feature. The other treats sociality as a fundamental aspect of knowledge and asks how standard epistemology must be modified from this broadly social perspective. Concerns in the supplementing approach include such matters as trust and answerability raised by multiple authorship, the division of cognitive labor, the reliability of peer review, the challenges of privately funded science, as well as concerns arising from the role of scientific research in society. The reformist approach highlights the challenge to normative philosophy from social, cultural, and feminist studies of science while seeking to develop philosophical models of the social character of scientific knowledge, and treats the questions of the division of cognitive labor, expertise and authority, the interactions of science and society, etc., from the perspective of philosophical models of the irreducibly social character of scientific knowledge. 1. Historical Background Philosophers who study the social character of scientific knowledge can trace their lineage at least as far as John Stuart Mill. Mill, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Karl Popper all took some type of critical interaction among persons as central to the validation of knowledge claims. Mill's arguments occur in his well-known political essay On Liberty, (Mill 1859) rather than in the context of his logical and methodological writings, but he makes it clear that they are to apply to any kind of knowledge or truth claim. Mill argues from the fallibility of human knowers to the necessity of unobstructed opportunity for and practice of the critical discussion of ideas. Only such critical discussion can assure us of the justifiability of the (true) beliefs we do have and can help us avoid falsity or the partiality of belief or opinion framed in the context of just one point of view. Critical interaction maintains the freshness of our reasons and is instrumental in the improvement of both the content and the reasons of our beliefs. The achievement of knowledge, then, is a social or collective, not an individual, matter. Peirce's contribution to the social epistemology of science is commonly taken to be his consensual theory of truth: " The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate is what we mean by truth, and the object represented is the real. " (Peirce 1878, 133) While often read as meaning that the truth is whatever the community of inquirers converges on in the long run, the notion is interpretable as meaning more precisely either that truth (and " the real ") depends on the agreement of the community of inquirers or that it is an effect of the real that it will in the end produce agreement among inquirers. Whatever the correct reading of this particular statement, Peirce elsewhere makes it clear that, in his view, truth is both attainable and beyond the reach of any individual. " We individually cannot hope