Re-politicising Philosophy of Science: A Continuing Challenge for Social Epistemology

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 365-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kei Yoshida
Author(s):  
Harvey Siegel

The Western philosophical tradition has historically valorized the cultivation of reason as a fundamental intellectual ideal. This ideal continues to be defended by many as educationally basic. However, recent philosophical work has challenged it on several fronts, including worries stemming from relativistic tendencies in the philosophy of science, the apparent ubiquity of epistemic dependence in social epistemology, and broad critiques of objectionable hegemony launched from feminist and postmodernist perspectives. This chapter briefly reviews the historical record, connects the cultivation of reason to the educational ideal of critical thinking, spells out the latter ideal, and evaluates these challenges. It ends by sketching a general, “transcendental” reply to all such critiques of reason.


Author(s):  
Jan Sprenger ◽  
Stephan Hartmann

In this final chapter, we look back on the results of the book and the methods we used. In particular, we enter a discussion whether Bayesian philosophy of science can and should be labeled a proper scientific philosophy due to its combination of formal, conceptual, and empirical methods. Finally, we explore the limitations of the book and we sketch projects for future research (e.g., integrating our results with social epistemology of science and the philosophy of statistical inference).


Author(s):  
Martin Carrier

The social organization of science as a topic of philosophy of science mostly concerns the question of which kinds of social organization are most beneficial to the epistemic aspirations of science. Section 1 addresses the interaction among scientists for improving epistemic qualities of knowledge claims in contrast to the mere accumulation of contributions from several scientists. Section 2 deals with the principles that are supposed to organize this interaction among scientists such that well-tested and well-confirmed knowledge is produced. Section 3 outlines what is supposed to glue scientific communities together and how society at large is assumed to affect the social organization of these communities. Section 4 attends to social epistemology (i.e., to attempts to explore the influence of social roles and characteristics on the system of scientific knowledge and confirmation practices).


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuli Reijula ◽  
Jaakko Kuorikoski

We review prominent modeling approaches in social epistemology aimed at understanding the functioning of epistemic communities. We provide a philosophy-of-science perspective on the use and interpretation of such simple models, and highlight the need for better integration with relevant findings from other research fields studying collective problem solving.


Author(s):  
Christoph Luetge

This paper draws a connection between recent developments in naturalized philosophy of science and in economics. Social epistemology is one part of the naturalistic enterprise that has become especially important. Some approaches in this field use methods borrowed from economics, a fact that has often been overlooked. But there are also genuinely economic approaches to the problems of science and knowledge. Some of these approaches can be seen as contributions to an "economic epistemology." While these contributions are certainly fruitful, they have also raised criticism from economists. I overview of these points of criticism and outline possibilities to deal with these problems. In particular, the Buchanan research program offers some help.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felipe Romero

Replicability is widely taken to ground the epistemic authority of science. However, in recent years, important published findings in the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences have failed to replicate, suggesting that these fields are facing a “replicability crisis.” For philosophers, the crisis should not be taken as bad news but as an opportunity to do work on several fronts, including conceptual analysis, history and philosophy of science, research ethics, and social epistemology. This article introduces philosophers to these discussions. First, I discuss precedents and evidence for the crisis. Second, I discuss methodological, statistical, and social‐structural factors that have contributed to the crisis. Third, I focus on the philosophical issues raised by the crisis. Finally, I discuss several proposals for solutions and highlight the gaps that philosophers could focus on.


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