The democratization of science entails the public having greater influence over science and that influence being shared more equally among members of the public. This chapter will present a thumbnail sketch of the arguments for the democratization of science based on the importance of collectively shaping science’s impact on society, the instrumental benefits of public participation in science, and the need to ensure that the use of science in politics does not undermine collective self-government. It will then outline worries about (...) citizen competence, the abuse of democratic ideals and the limits posed by the nation-state. (shrink)

This book develops an integrated perspective on the practices and politics of making knowledge work in inclusive development and innovation. While debates about development and innovation commonly appeal to the authority of academic researchers, many current approaches emphasize the plurality of actors with relevant expertise for addressing livelihood challenges. Adopting an action-oriented and reflexive approach, this volume explores the variety of ways in which knowledge works, paying particular attention to dilemmas and controversies. The six parts of the book address the (...) complex interplay of knowledge and politics, starting with the need for knowledge integration in the first part and decolonial perspectives on the politics of knowledge integration in the second part. The following three parts focus on the practices of inclusive development and innovation through three major themes of transformative learning, evidence, and digitization. The final part of the book addresses the governance of knowledge and innovation in the light of political struggles about inclusivity. Exploring conceptual and practical themes through case studies from the Global North and South, this book will be of great interest to students, scholars and practitioners researching and working in development studies, epistemology, innovation studies, science and technology studies and sustainability studies more broadly. (shrink)

Regarding the dichotomy between applied science and pure science, there are two apparently paradoxical facts. First, they are distinguishable. Second, the outcomes of pure sciences (e.g. scientific theories and models) are applicable to producing the outcomes of applied sciences (e.g. technological artefacts) and vice versa. Addressing the functional roles of applied and pure science, i.e. to produce design representation and science representation, respectively, I propose a new characterisation of the dichotomy that explains these two facts.

Incentives for improving research productivity at universities prevail in global academia. However, the rationale, methodology, and impact of such incentives and consequent evaluation regimes are in need of scrutinization. This paper explores the influences of financial and career-related publishing incentive schemes on research cultures. It draws on an analysis of 75 interviews with academics, senior university administrators, and journal editors from China, a country that has seen widespread reliance on international publication counts in research evaluation and reward systems. The study (...) focuses on humanities and social sciences as disciplinary sites, which embody distinct characteristics and have experienced the introduction of incentive schemes in China since the early 2000s. Findings reveal tensions between internationalization and indigenization, quality and quantity, integrity and instrumentalism, equity and inequity in Chinese academia. In particular, we argue that a blanket incentive scheme could reinforce a managerial culture in higher education, encourage performative objectification of academics, and jeopardize their agency. We thereby challenge ‘one-size-fits-all’ policymaking, and suggest instead that institutions should have the opportunity to adopt an ethical and ‘human-oriented’ approach when developing their research incentives and evaluation mechanisms. (shrink)

Scientific research that requires space flight has always been subject to comparatively strong external control. Its agenda has often had to be adapted to vacillating political target specifications. Can space scientists appeal to one or the other form of the widely acknowledged principle of freedom of research in order to claim more autonomy? In this paper, the difficult question of autonomy within planned research is approached by examining three arguments that support the principle of freedom of research in differing ways. (...) Each argument has its particular strengths and limitations. Together they serve to demonstrate particular advantages of scientific autonomy, but in the case of space science, their force ultimately remains limited. However, as the arguments highlight the interrelations between scientific autonomy, the democratic process and the collective interest in scientific knowledge, they suggest that a coherent and sustained space science agenda might best be ensured by increasing the transparency of science policy decisions and involving the democratic public. (shrink)

This paper advocates for making epistemic interests a central object of philosophical analysis in epistemology and philosophy of science. It is argued that the importance of epistemic interests derives from their fundamental importance for the notion of objectivity. Epistemic interests are defined as individuated by a set of objectives, each of which represents a dimension of the search for truth. Among these dimensions, specificity, sensitivity, and productivity are discussed in detail. It is argued that the relevance of productivity is often (...) overlooked in debates about the ends and means of science. A definition of the objectivity of inquiry is proposed that takes the notion of epistemic interest as its starting point. (shrink)

Among the various institutional structures of an economy like the firm and the marketplace is one that is like no other. Science is unique. This uniqueness raises an important question: why does science exist? From an economic perspective, there are two potentially meaningful approaches to the existence of science. They both encompass institutional pluralism. A substitutes theory of comparative institutions presupposes the primacy of the commercial marketplace over firms—that firms substitute for the market when markets fail. This theory has not (...) been used to explain the existence of science. A complements theory postulates that many simultaneous institutional responses, including science, are necessary for creating an efficient and equitable economy. The economic function of science is to produce fundamental theoretical abstractions about our world. Scientific theories are public goods that would not likely be produced within the governance structures of commercial markets and firms. The aim is to complement but not supplant traditional philosophical answers that science exists to discover truth and knowledge. (shrink)

The implementation of Responsible Research and Innovation is not without its challenges, and one of these is raised when societal desirability is included amongst the RRI principles. We will argue that societal desirability is problematic even though it appears to fit well with the overall ideal. This discord occurs partly because the idea of societal desirability is inherently ambiguous, but more importantly because its scope is unclear. This paper asks: is societal desirability in the spirit of RRI? On von Schomberg’s (...) account, it seems clear that it is, but societal desirability can easily clash with what is ethically permissible; for example, when what is desirable in a particular society is bad for the global community. If that society chose not to do what was desirable for it, the world would be better off than if they did it. Yet our concern here is with a more complex situation, where there is a clash with ethical acceptability, but where the world would not be better off if the society chose not do what was societally desirable for itself. This is the situation where it is argued that someone else will do it if we do not. The first section of the paper gives an outline of what we take technology to be, and the second is a discussion of which criteria should be the basis for choosing research and innovation projects. This will draw on the account of technology outlined in the first section. This will be followed by an examination of a common argument, “If we don’t do it, others will”. This argument is important because it appears to justify acting in morally dubious ways. Finally, it will be argued that societal desirability gives support to the “If we don’t…” argument and that this raises some difficulties for RRI. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that analyzing pursuitworthiness in science requires that we study possible futures of science. The merits of different criteria of pursuitworthiness need to be assessed against scenarios of the future of science. Different criteria recognize and ignore different scenarios. As a consequence, different criteria enable us to manage different future possibilities. While it might be impossible to predict the future of science, there are still many interesting things we can say about the possible futures of science. (...) We can construct scenarios of the future of science on the basis of philosophical accounts of science. I point out that the topic of pursuitworthiness is not the only topic that can be approached by connecting philosophy of science with the construction of scenarios. (shrink)

Science and technology policy is both faced by unprecedented challenges and itself undergoing seismic shifts. First, policy is increasingly demanding of science that it fixes a set of epochal and global crises. On the other hand, practices of scientific research are changing rapidly regarding geographical dispersion, the institutions and identities of those involved and its forms of knowledge production and circulation. Furthermore, these changes are accelerated by the current upheavals in public funding of research, higher education and technology development in (...) the wake of the economic crisis. The paper outlines an agenda for science & technology policy studies in terms of a research programme of a ‘cultural political economy of research and innovation’ (CPERI). First, the implications of the overlapping crises for science policy analysis are discussed. Secondly, three rough constellations of contemporary approaches to science policy are critically compared, namely: a techno-statist Keynesian governance; a neoliberal marketplace of ideas; and co-productionist enabling of democratic debate. CPERI is then introduced, showing how it builds on the strengths of co-production while also specifically targeting two major weaknesses that are of heightened importance in an age of multiple crises, namely neglect of political economy and the concept of power. (shrink)

Modern humanities are in an ambiguous situation. Their organization is experiencing a radical challenge from the expansion of science-based assessment methods from modern business. We are talking about evaluating the results of researchers’ work on indicators from scientometrics. As a result, the evaluation subject is not the content of the research result, but their popularity and relevance to dominant views and approaches. The science organization turned upside down: it turns out not scientometrics for science, but rather science for the sake (...) of scientometrics. At the same time, digitalization and related information and communication technologies are a great achievement of civilization. Therefore, it is all the more important and useful to resist the thoughtless digitized bureaucracy using the digitization itself. This article is an attempt not to criticize digital methods, but to consider the possibilities of using blockchain technology, its advantages and the problems it generates. There are such opportunities as transparent self-organization of scientific communities, assessing the contribution and its priority, encouraging researchers. At the same time, the implementation of the blockchain implies the interest of a critically significant group of scientists with a high reputation. It is equally important to demonstrate the convenience and effectiveness of scientific work using the blockchain. The article draw attention to the significance to propose and discuss approaches to methods for assessing the quality of humanitarian and interdisciplinary studies that are adequate to the scientific practice itself, that arouse the general confidence of scientists. (shrink)

The chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) is today recognized as one of the most important twentieth-century thinkers about scientific knowledge and scientific community. Yet Polanyi's philosophy of science exhibits an unresolved tension between science as a traditional community and science as an intellectual marketplace. Binding together these different models was important for his overall intellectual and political project, which was a defense of bourgeois liberal order. His philosophy of science and his economic thought were mutually supporting elements within this (...) political project. Polanyi's intellectual corpus formed a contradictory unity, the tensions within which were manageable only under particular historical conditions. His attempt to hold together traditional authority and the free market fit with, and derived plausibility from, the social conditions under which his philosophical work came to maturity: Keynesian class compromise and surviving habits of social deference within postwar Britain. (shrink)

This article analyzes the transformation of Minerva from an intellectual towards a scholarly journal by making use of bibliometric methods. The aim is to provide some empirical insights that help to understand what properties of the journal changed in the course of this transformation process. Minerva was one of the first journals that reflected on science and its role in society and science policy in particular. Analyzing the development of the journal sheds light on the emergence of science (policy) studies (...) and on Minerva’s role as a forerunner in this field. In a first step, the methods will be described. The second section provides some empirical results of the publication output of Minerva and its relations to other journals in the field. The empirical findings are put into a broader perspective in the concluding third section. (shrink)

The legal view of science has changed throughtime, moving from a positivist and noncriticalposition of law towards science to a criticalview of science – providing the potential formore objective knowledge, but value-laden aswell – and of the role of society. This paperexplores some judicial cases that illustratethese attitudes, suggesting that reference toscience (particularly to EBM) can be rigorouslyand equitably made when it serves the cause oftransparency and democratisation both inscience and in law.

The institutionalization of ethics and the direct influence of politics on how ethics bodies frame their opinions have been widely recognized and explored in the last few years. Less attention has been paid to what kind of normative instrument ethics as an institutional phenomenon has become in the State under the rule of law, and which institutional powers it has depended on. This paper analyzes the rise of ethics in the European Union context, where ethics, constructed as an isolated set (...) of values, has been exploited for its symbolic capacity to evoke citizenship, has become quite formalized as to certain features, and has acquired the potential to redefine the traditional divisions of powers in the State under the rule of law. (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)

Recent work on testimony has raised questions about the extent to which testimony is a distinctively second-personal phenomenon and the possible epistemic significance of its second-personal aspects. However, testimony, in the sense primarily investigated in recent epistemology, is far from the only way in which we acquire knowledge from others. My goal is to distinguish knowledge acquired from testimony (learning from being told) from knowledge acquired from teaching (learning from being taught), and to investigate the similarities and differences between the (...) two with respect to the interpersonal dimensions of their structures. (shrink)

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has emerged as a science policy framework that attempts to import broad social values into technological innovation processes whilst supporting institutional decision-making under conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity. When looking at RRI from a ‘principled’ perspective, we consider responsibility and justice to be important cornerstones of the framework. The main aim of this article is to suggest a method of realising these principles through the application of a limited Rawlsian Difference Principle in the distribution of (...) public funds for research and innovation. There are reasons why the world's combined innovative capacity has spewed forth iPhones and space shuttles but not yet managed to produce clean energy or universal access to clean water. (Stilgoe 2013, xii) I derive great optimism from empathy's evolutionary antiquity. It makes it a robust trait that will develop in virtually every human being so that society can count on it and try to foster and grow it. It is a human universal. (de Waal 2009, 209) Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has emerged as a science policy framework that attempts to import broad social values into technological innovation processes whilst supporting institutional decision-making under conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity. In this respect, RRI re-focuses technological governance from standard debates on risks to discussions about the ethical stewardship of innovation. This is a radical step in Science & Technology (S&T) policy as it lifts the non-quantifiable concept of values into the driving seat of decision-making. The focus of innovation then goes beyond product considerations to include the processes and – importantly – the purposes of innovation (Owen et al. 2013, 34). Shared public values are seen as the cornerstone of the new RRI framework, while market mechanisms and risk-based regulations are of a secondary order. What are the values that could drive RRI? There are different approaches to the identification of public values. They can be located in democratically agreed processes and commitments (such as European Union treaties and policy statements) or they can be developed organically via public engagement processes. Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages. For instance, although constitutional values can be regarded as democratically legitimate, their application to specific technological fields can be difficult or ambiguous (Schroeder and Rerimassie 2015). On the other hand, public engagement can accurately reflect stakeholder values but is not necessarily free from bias and lobbyist agenda setting. We argue that if RRI is to be more successful in resolving policy dilemmas arising from poorly described and uncertain technological impacts, basic universal principles need to be evoked and applied. When looking at RRI from a ‘principled’ perspective, we consider responsibility and justice to be important cornerstones of the framework. One could describe them in the following manner: Research and innovation should be conducted responsibly. Publicly funded research and innovation should be focused fairly on socially beneficial targets. Research and innovation should promote and not hinder social justice. The main aim of this article is to suggest a method of realising these principles through the application of a limited Rawlsian Difference Principle in the distribution of public funds for research and innovation. This paper is in three parts. The first part discusses the above principles and introduces the Rawlsian Difference Principle. The second part identifies how RRI is currently applied by public funding bodies. The third part discusses the operationalisation of the Rawlsian Difference Principle in responsible funding decisions. (shrink)

A science war is in full swing which has taken science's reproducibility crisis as a battleground. While conservatives and corporate interests use the crisis to weaken regulations, their opponent deny the existence of a science's crisis altogether. Thus, for the conservative National Association of Scholars NAS the crisis is real and due to the progressive assault on higher education with ideologies such as neo-Marxism, radical feminism, historicism, post-colonialism, deconstructionism, post-modernism, liberation theology. In the opposite field, some commentators claim that there (...) is no crisis in science and that saying the opposite is irresponsible. These positions are to be seen in the context of the ongoing battle against regulation, of which the new rules proposed at the US Environmental Protection Agency are but the last chapter. In this optic, Naomi Oreskes writes on Nature that what constitutes the crisis is the conservatives' attack on science. This evident right-left divide in the reading of the crisis is unhelpful and dangerous to the survival of science itself. An alternative reading ignored by the contendents would suggest that structural contradictions have emerged in modern science, and that addressing these should be the focus of our attention. (shrink)

The purpose of grant peer review is to identify the most excellent and promising research projects. However, sociologists of science and STS scholars have shown that peer review tends to promote solid low-risk projects at the expense of more original and innovative projects that often come with higher risk. It has also been shown that the review process is affected by significant measures of chance. Against this background, the aim of this study is to theorize the notions of academic judgment (...) and agonistic chance, and to present and analyze situations in which expert reviewers are faced with the challenge of trying to decide which grant proposals to select when there is strong disagreement. The empirical analysis is based on ethnographic observations of ten panel groups at the Swedish Research Council in the areas of natural and engineering sciences. By focusing on disagreement, the study provides a more in-depth understanding of how agonistic chance creeps into the peer review process and becomes part of the consensus that is created. (shrink)

This paper investigates the use of metrics to recruit professors for academic positions. We analyzed confidential reports with candidate evaluations in economics, sociology, physics, and informatics at the University of Oslo between 2000 and 2017. These unique data enabled us to explore how metrics were applied in these evaluations in relation to other assessment criteria. Despite being important evaluation criteria, metrics were seldom the most salient criteria in candidate evaluations. Moreover, metrics were applied chiefly as a screening tool to decrease (...) the number of eligible candidates and not as a replacement for peer review. Contrary to the literature suggesting an escalation of metrics, we foremost detected stable assessment practices with only a modestly increased reliance on metrics. In addition, the use of metrics proved strongly dependent on disciplines where the disciplines applied metrics corresponding to their evaluation cultures. These robust evaluation practices provide an empirical example of how core university processes are chiefly characterized by path-dependency mechanisms, and only moderately by isomorphism. Additionally, the disciplinary-dependent spread of metrics offers a theoretical illustration of how travelling standards such as metrics are not only diffused but rather translated to fit the local context, resulting in heterogeneity and context-dependent spread. (shrink)

Half a century after Michael Polanyi conceptualised ‘the tacit component’ in personal knowing, management studies has reinvented ‘tacit knowledge’—albeit in ways that squander the advantages of Polanyi’s insights and ignore his faith in ‘spiritual reality’. While tacit knowing challenged the absurdities of sheer objectivity, expressed in a ‘perfect language’, it fused rational knowing, based on personal experience, with mystical speculation about an un-experienced ‘external reality’. Faith alone saved Polanyi’s model from solipsism. But Ernst von Glasersfeld’s radical constructivism provides scope to (...) rethink personal tacit knowing with regard to ‘other people’ and the intersubjectively viable construction of ‘experiential reality’. By separating tacit knowing from Polanyi’s metaphysical realism and drawing on Benedict Anderson’s concept of ‘imagined communities’, it is possible to conceptualise ‘imagined institutions’ as the tacit dimension of power that shapes human interaction. Whereas Douglass North claimed institutions could be reduced to rules, imagined institutions are known in ways we cannot tell. (shrink)

The ArgumentSociologists of Third World science, who share the dominant assumption in the philosophy of science that the “culture” of specific substantive fields of scientific inquiry is invariant across the globe, have, after a period of blind optimism devoted to building a critical mass of scientists in the developing countries, relapsed into a bleaker mood and see the Third World as a peripheral region lacking in “creativity” in its research programs.Challenging the doctrine of the universality of scientific practice by means (...) of an in situ study of an Indian physics laboratory, an attempt is made to bring to light a particular community's shared ideals of knowledge which animate the everyday practice of its field of study and fashion its choice of problems, style of professional communication, attitudes toward experiment, etc. These local ingredients should not be understood as deficiencies with respect to some arbitrary norm but as what differentiates research practices in different parts of the world. (shrink)

When should a scientific community be cognitively diverse? This article presents a model for studying how the heterogeneity of learning heuristics used by scientist agents affects the epistemic efficiency of a scientific community. By extending the epistemic landscapes modeling approach introduced by Weisberg and Muldoon, the article casts light on the micro-mechanisms mediating cognitive diversity, coordination, and problem-solving efficiency. The results suggest that social learning and cognitive diversity produce epistemic benefits only when the epistemic community is faced with problems of (...) sufficient difficulty. (shrink)

In this contribution, we set out a framework for ethical research and innovation. Our framework draws upon recent scholarly work recommending the introduction of new models at the intersection of ethics, strategy, and science and technology studies to inform and explicate how the decisions of researchers can be considered ethical. Ethical research and innovation is construed in our framework as a dynamic process emerging from decisions of multiple stakeholders in innovation ecosystems prior to, during and after the execution of a (...) research and innovation project. The framework can be used by different types of research organizations to implement governance models of ethical research and innovation. (shrink)

The use of the phrase “basic research” as a term used in science policy discussion dates only to about 1920. At the time the phrase referred to what we today commonly refer to as applied research in support of specific missions or goals, especially agriculture. Upon the publication of Vannevar Bush’s well-known report, Science – The Endless Frontier, the phrase “basic research” became a key political symbol, representing various identifications, expectations and demands related to science policy among scientists and politicians. (...) This paper tracks and evaluates the evolution of “basic research” as a political symbol from early in the 20th century to the present. With considerable attention having been paid to the on-going evolution of post-Cold War science policy, much less attention has focused on the factors which have shaped the dominant narrative of contemporary science policies. (shrink)

U.S. federal research funding is generally justified by promises of public benefits, but the specific natures and distribution of such benefits often remain vague and ambiguous. Furthermore, the metrics by which outcomes are reported often do not necessarily or strongly imply the achievement of public benefits. These ambiguities and discontinuities make it difficult to assess the public outcomes of federal research programs. This study maps the terms in which the purposes and the outcomes of Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy -a relatively (...) young and innovatively structured federal research agency-have been discussed and reported. I find that ARPA-E’s creation and funding have been justified with reference to a broad repertoire of economic, environmental, and national security values, but that the agency has been evaluated only through intermediate scientific and economic metrics and study of internal organizational structure. I suggest that these means of assessment elide ARPA-E’s lack of the financial scale, long time horizon, built-in customer, and radical vision which have been historically important to high-impact federal innovation, and I recommend the tracking of metrics more directly related to ARPA-E’s public value purposes as the agency grows older. This discussion illustrates the inadequacy of currently widespread metrics and conventional wisdom for the design and assessment of societally relevant research. (shrink)

This essay criticizes the current approach to epistemic democracy. Epistemic democrats are preoccupied with the question of how a society can best exploit a given stock of knowledge. This article argues that the problem-solving capability of a society depends on two factors rather than one. The quality of decision-making depends both on how a democracy is able to make use of its stock of knowledge and on the size of the knowledge stock. Society’s problem-solving capability over time is therefore a (...) function of its ability to develop its knowledge exploitation mechanisms and the growth rate of its knowledge stock. Based on this enhanced model of social problem-solving, this essay compares two different political ideal types: experimental democracy, as commonly defended by epistemic democrats; and polycentric democracy, a model defended most commonly by political economists. (shrink)

Science and technology (S&T) policy studies has explored the relationship between the structure of scientific research and the attainment of desired outcomes. Due to the difficulty of measuring them directly, S&T policy scholars have traditionally equated “outcomes” with several proxies for evaluation, including economic impact, and academic output such as papers published and citations received. More recently, scholars have evaluated science policies through the lens of Public Value Mapping, which assesses scientific programs against societal values. Missing from these approaches is (...) an examination of the social activities within the scientific enterprise that affect research outputs and outcomes. We contend that activities that significantly affect research trajectories take place at the levels of individual researchers and their communities, and that S&T policy scholars must take heed of this activity in their work in order to better inform policy. Based on primary research of two scientific communities—ecologists and sustainability scientists—we demonstrate that research agendas are actively shaped by parochial epistemic and normative concerns of the scientists and their disciplines. S&T policy scholarship that explores how scientists balance these concerns, alongside more formal science policies and incentive structures, will enhance understanding of why certain science policies fail or succeed and how to more effectively link science to beneficial social outcomes. (shrink)

This paper examines the broad social purpose of US climate science, which has benefitted from a public investment of more than $30 billion over the last 20 years. A public values analysis identifies five core public values that underpin the interagency program. Drawing from interviews, meeting observations, and document analysis, I examine the decision processes and institutional structures that lead to the implementation of climate science policy, and identify a variety of public values failures accommodated by this system. In contrast (...) to other cases which find market values frameworks (the profit as progress assumption) at the root of public values failures, this case shows how science values ( knowledge as progress ) may serve as an inadequate or inappropriate basis for achieving broader public values. For both institutions and individual decision makers, the logic linking science to societal benefit is generally incomplete, incoherent, and tends to conflate intrinsic and instrumental values. I argue that to be successful with respect to its motivating public values, the US climate science enterprise must avoid the assumption that any advance in knowledge is inherently good, and offer a clearer account of the kinds of research and knowledge advance likely to generate desirable social outcomes. (shrink)

It is commonplace to say that the modern economy is knowledge based but a moment’s reflection points to the vacuity of this notion. For all economies are knowledge based and could not be otherwise. The question is rather how is one kind of knowledge based economy to be distinguished from another? This essay proposes that the answer may lie in three directions: (1) in terms of the variety of knowledge that is engaged; (2) in terms of the processes by which (...) the production of knowledge is organised, and its corollary the resources devoted to knowledge production and dissemination; and, (3) in terms of the purposes to which knowledge is put. In respect of each of these dimensions, the rise of the modern university as a custodian of knowledge in Western economy and society has been of central importance; but universities are not alone in this role, a wide range of other agencies, private firms, public research laboratories for instance play an important role in defining a knowledge economy and have done so increasingly since the turn of the nineteenth century—a first indication of the systemic dimensions of a modern knowledge economy. (shrink)

In this essay, I reflect on the implications of intellectual virtues in scientific endeavor. To this end, I first offer a depiction of scientific endeavor by resorting to the notion of academic attitude, which involves aspects concerning the generation and possession of knowledge. Although there are differences between these activities, they have in common the engagement of diverse intellectual agents (scientists). In this sense, I analyze how intellectual virtues are linked to 1) scientific research tasks, such as theory appraisal, and (...) 2) those tasks of vigilance and intervention in the uses of scientific knowledge. I conclude that intellectual virtues play a leading role in achieving higher quality scientific research and adequate foresight on the uses and impacts of scientific findings. In this order of ideas, I propose an agenda for further inquiries on these matters, highlighting the relevance of reflecting and empirically researching the relationship between intellectual virtues and science, as well as cultivating intellectual virtues in various stages of scientific training. (shrink)

Scientific progress has many facets and can be conceptualized in different ways, for example in terms of problem-solving, of truthlikeness or of growth of knowledge. The main claim of the paper is that the most important prerequisite of scientific progress is the institutionalization of competition and criticism. An institutional framework appropriately channeling competition and criticism is the crucial factor determining the direction and rate of scientific progress, independently on how one might wish to conceptualize scientific progress itself. The main intention (...) is to narrow the divide between traditional philosophy of science and the sociological, economic and political outlook at science that emphasizes the private interests motivating scientists and the subsequent contingent nature of the enterprise. The aim is to show that although science is a social enterprise taking place in historical time and thus is of a contingent nature, it can and in fact does lead to genuine scientific progress - contrary to the claims of certain sociologists of science and other relativists who standardly stress its social nature, but deny its progressive character. I will first deal with the factual issue by way of introducing the main concepts and mechanisms of modern institutional theory and by applying them to the analysis of the cultural phenomenon that we call modern science. I will then turn to the normative issue: what is the appropriate content of the institutional framework, for scientific progress to emerge and be sustained at which level should it be set and by whom? Addressing this problematic is equivalent to conducting a constitutional debate leading to a Constitution of Science. (shrink)

One prominent aspect of recent developments in science studies has been the increasing employment of economic concepts and models in the depiction of science, including the notion of a free market for scientific ideas. This gives rise to the issue of the adequacy of the conceptual resources of economics for this purpose. This paper suggests an adequacy test by putting a version of free market economics to a self-referential scrutiny. The outcome is that either free market economics is self-defeating, or (...) else there must be two different concepts of free market, one for the ordinary economy, the other for science. Both conclusions will impose limits on the applicability of the ordinary economic concept of the market to the study of science. (shrink)

Neoliberalism is invariably presented as a governing regime of market and competition-based systems rather than as a set of migratory practices that are re-setting the ethical standards of the academy. This article seeks to explore the way in which neoliberalism is shifting the prevailing values of the academy by drawing on two illustrations: the death of disinterestedness and the obfuscation of authorship. While there was never a golden age when norms such as disinterestedness were universally practiced they represented widely accepted (...) aesthetic ideals associated with academic life. By contrast, neoliberal academics embrace a new set of assumptions and norms that stand in sharp relief to many of the values that were previously espoused. Practices that might have been regarded as ethically dubious by earlier generations of academics, such as grantsmanship, self-justificatory expressions of interestedness and tangential claims to authorship, are now regarded as legitimate and positive virtues in a more aggressive age of hyper-performativity. (shrink)

Neoliberalism is invariably presented as a governing regime of market and competition-based systems rather than as a set of migratory practices that are re-setting the ethical standards of the academy. This article seeks to explore the way in which neoliberalism is shifting the prevailing values of the academy by drawing on two illustrations: the death of disinterestedness and the obfuscation of authorship. While there was never a golden age when norms such as disinterestedness were universally practiced they represented widely accepted (...) aesthetic ideals associated with academic life. By contrast, neoliberal academics embrace a new set of assumptions and norms that stand in sharp relief to many of the values that were previously espoused. Practices that might have been regarded as ethically dubious by earlier generations of academics, such as grantsmanship, self-justificatory expressions of interestedness and tangential claims to authorship, are now regarded as legitimate and positive virtues in a more aggressive age of hyper-performativity. (shrink)

This paper draws a connection between recentdevelopments in naturalized philosophyof science and the Buchanan research programin economics. Economic approaches innaturalized philosophy of science canbe combined to form an economic philosophy ofscience. After giving an overview of someof these approaches, I lay out the fundamentalsof the Buchanan research program. I arguethat its main elements are a theory of interactionsand a normative foundation in consensus whichhelp to answer some important criticismsof economic philosophy of science.