Social Aspects of Scientific Knowledge
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Presidential Address
Empowering Philosophy Christia Mercer COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Presidential Address delivered at the one hundred sixteenth Eastern Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association in Philadelphia, PA, on January 10, 2020. The main goal of my presidential address in January 2020 was to show that philosophy’s past offers a means to empower its present. I hoped to encourage colleagues to make the philosophy we teach and practice more inclusive (both textually and topically) and to adopt a more public- facing engagement with our discipline. As I add these introductory remarks to my January lecture, it is June 2020 and the need to empower philosophy has never seemed more urgent. We’ve witnessed both the tragic death of George Floyd and the popular uprising of a diverse group of Americans in response to the ongoing violence against Black lives. Many white Americans—and many philosophers—have begun to realize that their inattentiveness to matters of diversity and inclusivity must now be seen as more than mere negligence. Recent demonstrations frequently contain signs that make the point succinctly: “Silence is violence.” A central claim of my January lecture was that philosophy’s status quo is no longer tenable. Even before the pandemic slashed university budgets and staff, our employers were cutting philosophy programs, enrollments were shrinking, and jobs were increasingly hard to find. Despite energetic attempts on the part of many of our colleagues to promote a more inclusive approach to our research and teaching, the depressing truth remains: -
Philosophy in Biology and Medicine: Biological Individuality and Fetal Parthood, Part I
Oslo, Norway July 7–12, 2019 ISHP SS B BOOK OF ABSTRACTS 2 Index 11 Keynote lectures 17 Diverse format sessions 47 Traditional sessions 367 Individual papers 637 Mixed media and poster presentations A Aaby, Bendik Hellem, 369 Barbosa, Thiago Pinto, 82 Abbott, Jessica, 298 Barker, Matthew, 149 Abir-Am, Pnina Geraldine, 370 Barragán, Carlos Andrés, 391 D’Abramo, Flavio, 371 Battran, Martin, 158 Abrams, Marshall, 372 Bausman, William, 129, 135 Acerbi, Alberto, 156 Baxter, Janella, 56, 57 Ackert, Lloyd, 185 Bayir, Saliha, 536 Agiriano, Arantza Etxeberria, 374 Beasley, Charles, 392 Ahn, Soohyun, 148 Bechtel, William, 259 El Aichouchi, Adil, 375 Bedau, Mark, 393 Airoldi, Giorgio, 376 Ben-Shachar, Erela Teharlev, 395 Allchin, Douglas, 377 Beneduce, Chiara, 396 Allen, Gar, 328 Berry, Dominic, 56, 58 Almeida, Maria Strecht, 377 Bertoldi, Nicola, 397 Amann, Bernd, 40 Betzler, Riana, 398 Andersen, Holly, 19, 20 Bich, Leonardo, 41 Anderson, Gemma, 28 LeBihan, Soazig, 358 Angleraux, Caroline, 378 Birch, Jonathan, 22 Ankeny, Rachel A., 225 Bix, Amy Sue, 399 Anker, Peder, 230 Blais, Cédric, 401 Ardura, Adrian Cerda, 380 Blancke, Stefaan, 609 Armstrong-Ingram, Tiernan, 381 Blell, Mwenza, 488 Arnet, Evan, 383 Blute, Marion, 59, 62 Artiga, Marc, 383 Bognon-Küss, Cécilia, 23 Atanasova, Nina, 20, 21 Bokulich, Alisa, 616 Au, Yin Chung, 384 Bollhagen, Andrew, 402 DesAutels, Lane, 386 Bondarenko, Olesya, 403 Aylward, Alex, 109 Bonilla, Jorge Armando Romo, 404 B Baccelliere, Gabriel Vallejos, 387 Bonnin, Thomas, 405 Baedke, Jan, 49, 50 Boon, Mieke, 235 Baetu, -
Robert Klee and the Latest Face of Scientific Realism P. Kyle Stanford
Pergamon Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci., Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 367–375, 1999 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0039-3681/99 $ - see front matter Essay Review Preaching to the Choir? Robert Klee and the Latest Face of Scientific Realism P. Kyle Stanford* Robert Klee, Introduction to the Philosophy of Science: Cutting Nature at its Seams (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), xi ϩ 258 pp., ISBN 0- 19-5106113, paperback. Perhaps the most important point to make about Robert Klee’s recent Introduc- tion to the Philosophy of Science: Cutting Nature at its Seams is that we need many more books like it: it is an engaging, accessible and comprehensive introduc- tory text in the philosophy of science which manages to avoid sailing over the head of the beginner philosophy student without talking down to the working pro- fessional. I suspect that many teachers of the philosophy of science will, along with their students, find something in this book to stimulate their own thinking about the subject. Despite its many strengths, however, the book’s central strategy of argument is, as we shall see, compromised by a fundamental weakness. One particularly impressive feature of the text is its effective use of immunology as a case study. Klee’s first chapter presents the basics of immunological science, and it serves him well as a constant source of illustration throughout the text. As Klee notes, this pedagogical strategy avoids the traditional exclusive focus on the (sometimes idiosyncratic) features of physics. Far more importantly, however, it avoids the classic philosopher’s mistake of testing accounts of science against a high-school textbook reconstruction of scientific activity, rather than the sophisticated, complex, richly detailed and messy business in which real science consists. -
Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science
OBJECTIVITY IN THE FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requisites for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Karen Cordrick Haely, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2003 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Louise M. Antony, Adviser Professor Donald C. Hubin _______________________ Professor George Pappas Adviser Philosophy Graduate Program ABSTRACT According to a familiar though naïve conception, science is a rigorously neutral enterprise, free from social and cultural influence, but more sophisticated philosophical views about science have revealed that cultural and personal interests and values are ubiquitous in scientific practice, and thus ought not be ignored when attempting to understand, describe and prescribe proper behavior for the practice of science. Indeed, many theorists have argued that cultural and personal interests and values must be present in science (and knowledge gathering in general) in order to make sense of the world. The concept of objectivity has been utilized in the philosophy of science (as well as in epistemology) as a way to discuss and explore the various types of social and cultural influence that operate in science. The concept has also served as the focus of debates about just how much neutrality we can or should expect in science. This thesis examines feminist ideas regarding how to revise and enrich the concept of objectivity, and how these suggestions help achieve both feminist and scientific goals. Feminists offer us warnings about “idealized” concepts of objectivity, and suggest that power can play a crucial role in determining which research programs get labeled “objective”. -
Fehr, “What Is in It for Me? the Benefits of Diversity in Scientific
Chapter 7 What Is in It for Me? The Benefits of Diversity in Scientific Communities Carla Fehr Abstract I investigate the reciprocal relationship between social accounts of knowledge production and efforts to increase the representation of women and some minorities in the academy. In particular, I consider the extent to which femi- nist social epistemologies such as Helen Longino’s critical contextual empiricism can be employed to argue that it is in researchers’ epistemic interest to take active steps to increase gender diversity. As it stands, critical contextual empiricism does not provide enough resources to succeed at this task. However, considering this view through an employment equity lens highlights areas where such theories need to be further developed. I argue that views such as Longino’s ought to attend to nuances of community structure and cultural features that inhibit critical social interactions, if we are to maximize the epistemic as well as the ethical improvements associated with a social approach to knowing. These developments advance these epistemic theories for their own sake. They also help develop these theories into a tool that can be used by those calling for increased diversity in the academy. Keywords Feminist philosophy of science • Social epistemology • Implicit bias • Employment equity • Workplace environment issues 7.1 What Is in It for Me? A while ago I gave a lecture to science faculty members and university administrators regarding the underrepresentation of women and minorities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.1 After my talk, an administrator, with 1 In this paper I am primarily focusing on gender diversity. -
The Epistemology of Racism and Community-Based
THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF RACISM AND COMMUNITY-BASED ASSESSMENT PRACTICE By ASAO B. INOUE A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY Department of English May 2005 © Copyright by ASAO B. INOUE, 2005 All Rights Reserved © Copyright by ASAO B. INOUE, 2005 All Rights Reserved To the Faculty of Washington State University: The members of the Committee appointed to examine the dissertation of ASAO B. INOUE find it satisfactory and recommend that it be accepted. ___________________________________ Chair ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Victor Villanueva, Dr. Rory Ong, and Dr. William Condon for their careful reading of earlier drafts of this dissertation. Additionally, I appreciate Dr. Peter Elbow’s gracious help and copious suggestions on an earlier version of chapter five, a version of which appeared in the journal Assessing Writing 10.1 (2005). Most of all, I thank kelly Inoue for supporting me, keeping my life in order, and making it possible for me to do the work required for this dissertation. iii iv THE EPISTEMOLGY OF RACISM AND COMMUNITY-BASED ASSESSMENT PRACTICE Abstract by Asao B. Inoue, Ph.D. Washington State University May 2005 Chair: Victor Villanueva, Jr. This is a discussion that theorizes the epistemology of racism and incorporates it into a critical writing pedagogy. It uses primarily a critical sophistic pedagogy, a set of community- based assessment practices, and a rhetoric of hard agreements, all theorized. This discussion draws primarily from three areas: (1) sophistic rhetorical and pedagogical theory, primarily discussions around nomos-physis, Protagoras’ man-measure doctrine and his antilogical heuristics for rhetorical invention; (2) cultural theory and theories surrounding the ideological and rhetorical construction of race, class, and power; and (3) composition theory, primarily assessment theory and critical pedagogical theory. -
Social Epistemology
Social Epistemology Franz Dietrich1 and Kai Spiekermann2 May 2019 Abstract Social epistemology studies knowledge in social contexts. Knowledge is ‘social’ when its holder communicates with or learns from others (Epistemology in groups), or when its holder is a group as a whole, literally or metaphorically (Epistemology of groups). Group knowledge can emerge explicitly, through aggregation procedures like voting, or implicitly, through institutions like deliberation or prediction markets. In the truth-tracking paradigm, group beliefs aim at truth, and group decisions at ‘correctness’ – in virtue of external facts that are empirical or normative, real or constructed, universal or relativistic, etc. Procedures and institutions are evaluated by epistemic performance: Are they truth-conducive? Do groups become ‘wiser’ than their members? We review several procedures and institutions, discussing epistemic successes and failures. Jury theorems provide formal arguments for epistemic success. Some jury theorems misleadingly conclude that ‘huge groups are infallible’ – an artefact of inappropriate premises. Others have defensible premises, and still conclude that groups outperform individuals, without being infallible. Social Epistemology is the branch of Epistemology which studies knowledge in social contexts. In this review, we first set the stage by introducing clarifications, distinctions, and applications (Section 1). We then discuss formal procedures (Section 2) and informal institutional arrangements (Section 3) which generate collective beliefs or decisions that ‘track the truth’, or instead lead to epistemic failures (Section 4). 1 Scope and problems of social epistemology 1.1 Epistemology in groups versus epistemology of groups A first distinction pertains to the knowledge holder, who is either a group member or the group as a whole. -
Toward an Engaged Account of Objectivity: Contributions from Early Phenomenology
Toward an Engaged Account of Objectivity: Contributions from Early Phenomenology Author: Amanda Gibeault Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/730 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2009 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. ! ∀# ∃%∃&∋ ∃! ∃∀( )&∗ ( ) & + ( ∃ !) + , −../ 0 +( ∃ !) −../ ! ∀# ∃%∃&∋ ∃! ∃∀( )&∗ ( ) & + ∃ 1∃2 +321 45 6∃ 45 +1 ++ 72 1 18 +426∃ 8 6∀1∃ 54 2+326∃ 72+321 45 61∃ 1 +326 5 5 + 2+ 9215 5+ +326 1∃ 2 ∗) :815 +32 ,6∗ 1+, 2 6∃2 54 ;15 ∃∗ 6∀1∃+ +81 22251 +326 251 ,+325 2214 281+121 ,6∃ 1∃ + 5 +326 ! ∀ #∃ % ∀ &∋( ) ∗ ∀ %+ ∀ %, %∀ % ∃ %− +∀ + +% ,∀ . +, /∀ 0 +− ∀ 1 23 +4 %∀ . 5 . 6 +! +∀ ∃ 7 8 8 9 ,: ,∀ 3 3; , −∀ 3 6 < 3 ,% /∀ / ,+ ∀ & 3 ,+ %∀ 6∋ . ,∗ +∀ = ∃ >1 2 −% 3 ∀ ( ∃ −, ∀ −∗ ,∀ / −! /∀ 4% % 3 4, ∀ 6 & 4∗ ∀ ? 4∗ %∀ 6 4≅ +∀ 0 . ∗: ,∀ 6∃ 3 6 ∗ ∀ 1 ? 0 & ∗, ∀ ? !− /∀ 7 <∃ 8> 8& ≅, /∀ :+ + ; 3 :4 ∀ ; 3 0 :∗ ∀ Α . ∃ . :! ∋ %∀ 76;1 81 8 % 1 ∀ ; 3 − ∀ ∋ 8∃85 − %∀ 7 5 ∃ ∗ +∀ ; 3 %∗ ,∀ +: ∀ 1 6 +− ∀ 6 +4 %∀ 6 ,: +∀ =3 , ,∀ 6 ; 3 ,% /∀ ,4 ,∃?(6 −: ∀ 6 6 −% ∀ 4: ∀ ∗: ∀ ∗: %∀ ∗− /∀ = ∗≅ ∀ = ∗≅ %∀ = ! +∀ & = !− /∀ 3) 3 !! ∀ 6 ≅% /∀ 6 ≅, /∀ ≅∗ − 6 ≅! ∀ 0 %: ∀ .∃ %:− ∀ %:− %∀ % +∀ = 6∃ %+ ,∀ 66 %≅ -
Philosophical Adventures
Philosophical Adventures Elisabeth A. Lloyd INDIANA UNIVERSITY John Dewey lecture delivered at the one hundred tenth annual Central Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association in New Orleans, Louisiana, on February 21, 2013. I had the lovely opportunity of being introduced by Alison Wylie, to whom I owe a large thank you, and thank you especially to Anne Jacobson, and the whole program committee, for this chance to share a bit of my life and career with you. This invitation charged that I was to give an “autobiographical sort” of talk. Specifically, it required the speaker to provide “an intellectual autobiography, with perhaps some account of the way in which [she] was shaped by or shaped the profession, how the profession seems to have changed over the years, etc. The lecturer might reflect on the people and issues that led [her] into philosophy and provide a personal perspective on the state of the field today.” I tried to stick pretty closely to this mandate. Over the course of my career, which is now—although I find this astounding—over thirty years long, I have had the great pleasure of seeing my primary field of research grow and establish itself as a serious field of thought and activity in philosophy. When I was in graduate school at Princeton in the early 1980s, I was told, and I quote, “there is no such thing as Philosophy of Biology. You can’t write a dissertation on that.” And John Beatty wrote that same year: “In the world of academic specialties and subspecialties, philosophy of biology certainly counts as a self-respecting, if not otherwise respected, field of study.”1 It is impossible to imagine anyone saying that now! Five years later, I was also told that feminist philosophy of science was hopeless, that there were no good cases of male bias in science worth discussing, and that since science was self- correcting, those sorts of bias couldn’t have any long-term significance. -
Social Epistemology and the Project of Mapping Science
City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 9-2015 Social Epistemology and the Project of Mapping Science Kamili Posey Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1097 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY AND THE PROJECT OF MAPPING SCIENCE BY KAMILI POSEY A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York. 2015 © 2015 KAMILI POSEY All Rights Reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Philosophy in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Nikolas Pappas ______________________________ ______________________________ ______________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee Iakovos Vasiliou ______________________________ ______________________________ ______________________________ Date Executive Officer Samir Chopra ______________________________________________ Linda Alcoff ______________________________________________ Robert Sinclair ______________________________________________ Supervisory Committee THE -
Austin & Hempel Lectures 1991-1995
Austin & Hempel Lectures 1991-1995 Dr. Hilary Putnam, Cogan University Professor, Harvard University October 20, 1995: “Wittgenstein & Philosophy of Mathematics” October 19, 1995: “The Importance of Nonscientific Knowledge” Dr. James Tully, McGill University March 23, 1995: "The Quebec Referendum and the Future of Canada" (In cooperation with the Political Science Department at Dalhousie University) March 24, 1995: "Problems of Cultural Recognition" (In cooperation with the Political Science Department at Dalhousie University) Dr. Sandra Harding, Delaware University and UCLA October 6, 1994: "Is Western Science and Ethno-Science? Feminist and Post-colonial Issues" (In cooperation with the Women's Studies Programme of Dalhousie University) October 7, 1994: "Strong Objectivity: After the Neutrality Ideal" (In cooperation with the Women's Studies Programme of Dalhousie University) Dr. Daniel Dennett, Tufts University September 29, 1994: "Some Confusions about Evolution" September 30, 1994: "Consciousness of Time - and Time of Consciousness" Dr. Naomi Scheman, University of Minnesota February 10, 1994: "On Waking Up One Morning and Discovering We Are Them" (In cooperation with the Women's Studies Programme at Dalhousie University) February 11, 1994: "Closets, margins, and Forms of Life" (In cooperation with the Women's Studies Programme at Dalhousie University" Dr. Barbra Partee, University of Massachusetts Amherst November 4, 1993: "Quantification in Natural Languages and Some Questions for Semantic Typology" November 5, 1993: "Generalized context-Dependence in Quantified Structures" Dr. Paul Horwich, MIT October 14, 1993: "Is Time Travel Possible" October 15, 1993: "What is it Like to be a Deflationary Theory of Meaning?" Dr. Ian Hacking, University of Toronto September 30, 1993: "Memoro-Politics: Trauma and the Soul" (In cooperation with the Political Science Department at Dalhousie University) October 1, 1993: "Reasoning and Realism" (In cooperation with the Political Science Department at Dalhousie University) Dr. -
Social Epistemology: Theory and Applications
1 2 Social Epistemology: Theory and 3 Applications 4 5 6 ALVIN I. GOLDMAN 7 8 9 1. Mainstream Epistemology and Social Epistemology 10 11 Epistemology has had a strongly individualist orientation, at least 12 since Descartes. Knowledge, for Descartes, starts with the fact of 13 one’s own thinking and with oneself as subject of that thinking. 14 Whatever else can be known, it must be known by inference from 15 one’s own mental contents. Achieving such knowledge is an individ- 16 ual, rather than a collective, enterprise. Descartes’s successors largely 17 followed this lead, so the history of epistemology, down to our own 18 time, has been a predominantly individualist affair. 19 There are scattered exceptions. A handful of historical epistemolo- 20 gists gave brief space to the question of knowing, or believing justifi- 21 ably, based on the testimony of others. Testimony-based knowledge 22 would be one step into a more social epistemology. Hume took it for 23 granted that we regularly rely on the factual statements of others, and 24 argued that it is reasonable to do so if we have adequate reasons for 25 trusting the veracity of these sources. However, reasons for such 26 trust, according to Hume, must rest on personal observations of 1 27 people’s veracity or reliability. Thomas Reid took a different view. 28 He claimed that our natural attitude of trusting others is reasonable 29 even if we know little if anything about others’ reliability. 30 Testimony, at least sincere testimony, is always prima facie credible th 31 (Reid, 1970: 240–241).