Объективность и метод социальной эпистемологии

This survey of major developments in North American philosophy of science begins with the mid-1960s consolidation of the disciplinary synthesis of internalist history and philosophy of science (HPS) as a response to criticisms of logical empiricism. These developments are grouped for discussion under the following headings: historical metamethodologies, scientific realisms, philosophies of the special sciences, revivals of empiricism, cognitivist naturalisms, social epistemologies, feminist theories of science, studies of experiment and the disunity of science, and studies of science as practice and culture. A unifying theme of the survey is the relation between historical metamethodologists and scientific realists, which dominated philosophical work in the late 1970s. I argue that many of the alternative cognitive naturalisms, social epistemologies, and feminist theories that have been proposed can be understood as analogues to the differences between metamethodological theories of scientific rationality and realist accounts of successful reference to real causal processes. Recent work on experiment, scientific practice, and the culture of science may, however, challenge the underlying conception of the field according to which realism and historical rationalism (or their descendants) are the important alternatives available, and thus may take philosophy of science in new directions.

The epistemic subject of collective scientific knowledge has been a matter of dispute in recent philosophy of science and epistemology. Following the distributed cognition framework, both collective-subject accounts (most notably by Knorr-Cetina, in Epistemic Cultures, Harvard University Press, 1999) as well as no-subject accounts of collective scientific knowledge (most notably by Giere, Social Epistemology 21:313–320, 2007; in Carruthers, Stich, Siegal (eds), The Cognitive Basis of Science, Cambridge University Press, 2002a) have been offered. Both strategies of accounting for collective knowledge are problematic from the perspective of mainstream epistemology. Postulating genuinely collective epistemic subjects is a high-commitment strategy with little clear benefit. On the other hand, eliminating the epistemic subject radically severs the link between knowledge and knowers. Most importantly, both strategies lead to the undesirable outcome that in some cases of scientific knowledge there might be no individual knower that we can identify. I argue that distributed cognition offers us a fertile framework for analyzing complex socio-technical processes of contemporary scientific knowledge production, but scientific knowledge should nonetheless be located in individual knowers. I distinguish between the production and possession of knowledge, and argue that collective knowledge is collectively produced knowledge, not collectively possessed knowledge. I then propose an account of non-testimonial, expert scientific knowledge which allows for collectively produced knowledge to be known by individuals.

This Element is about the social dimensions of scientific knowledge. The first section asks in what ways scientific knowledge is social. The second section develops a conception of scientific knowledge that accommodates the insights of the first section, and is consonant with mainstream thinking about knowledge in analytic epistemology. The third section asks under what conditions we can tell, in the real world, that a consensus in a scientific community amounts to shared scientific knowledge, as characterized in the second section, and how to deal with scientific dissent. The fourth section reviews the ways epistemic and social elements mutually interact to coproduce scientific knowledge. This Element engages with literature from philosophy of science and social epistemology, especially social epistemology of science, as well as Science, Technology, and Society (STS), and analytic epistemology. The Element focuses on themes and debates that date from the start of the second millennium.

This chapter builds on the author’s programmatic approach to research in social epistemology, according to which such research involves the systematic investigation of the epistemic significance of other minds. This research program is developed by appeal to the thesis of the Division of Epistemic Labor. After formulating this thesis as a thesis of epistemic dependence, the chapter illustrates several ways in which individual subjects are epistemically dependent on one or more of the members of their community in the process of knowledge acquisition. Such an account supports various conclusions about the cognitively distributed nature of some knowledge acquisition, and the chapter ends with these.

One of the major themes of Steve Fuller's project of social epistemology is a reconciliation of the normative concerns of epistemologists with the empirical concerns of sociologists of knowledge. Fuller views social epistemologists as knowledge policy makers, who will provide direction for improvements in the cognitive division of labour. However, this paper argues that Fuller's conception of knowledge production and his approval of a panglossian approach to epistemology fail to provide the normative force he claims, and leave us unable to identify anything epistemic about our knowledge-seeking practices.

In this paper we investigate the intellectual origins of Egan and Shera’s project of social epistemology at the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago and the importance of bibliographic organization for its development. This can be considered a piece of historical research that mainly relies on the retrieval and interpretation of key publications, some of them not very well known, by some of the main actor and commentators of social epistemology in the past century. We present and discuss the development of the concept of bibliographic organization and its main aspects and characteristics in the context of social epistemology. In our analysis, we focus on its relationship with other key concepts for knowledge organization and social epistemology such as bibliography, classification, cataloguing, and indexing.

The aim of this paper is to articulate and defend a particular role for ethico-political values in social epistemology research. I begin by describing a research programme in social epistemology—one which I have introduced and defended elsewhere. I go on to argue that by the lights of this research programme, there is an important role to be played by ethico-political values in knowledge communities, and (correspondingly) an important role in social epistemological research in describing the values inhering in particular knowledge communities. I conclude by noting how, even as it expands its focus beyond the traditional one to include descriptions of our “knowledge practices,” this sort of project relates to some of the core questions that have been pursued by traditional epistemology.

Social epistemology ought to incorporate both a descriptive element (understanding our actual knowledge practices) and a normative element (assessing and evaluating those practices). While the two dominant traditions of social epistemology research in the last three decades tend to privilege one of these elements over the other, this chapter aims to articulate and defend an approach that can accommodate both and avoid the distortions.

Editorial Note Rebecca Kukla This issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal contains a couple of papers that may be difficult to read for some: one concerning the sexual violation of young Black boys (Curry and Utley) and one on the Guatemalans who were intentionally infected with sexually transmitted diseases and sexually abused in the hands of the United States government and other US-based institutions (Spielman). I’m honored and proud to be publishing these papers in the journal; both dive headfirst into formidably painful topics of enormous social and ethical importance. However, readers should understand before reading these papers that they contain descriptions of sexual violation within relationships of gross power inequality, and under conditions of enormous vulnerability. Our first article this issue is Daniel Steel’s “If the Facts Were Not Untruths, Their Implications Were: Sponsorship Bias and Misleading Communication.” This work is an important and innovative contribution to the growing literature on the ineliminable roles that values and interests play in the production of scientific knowledge. This literature draws upon the tools of ethics, social epistemology, and philosophy of science in order to excavate the places in which scientific knowledge is shaped by the investments of scientists, funding agencies, governments, individual researchers, and society-wide ideologies. Most of the focus in this literature has been on the role of values in ‘inductive risk’—that is, in determining our evidentiary standards when we balance the risk of false positives against the risk of false negatives in drawing inferences from statistical data. Recently, some authors have focused on the role of values and interests in shaping other parts of the scientific knowledge production process, including what questions we ask, how we operationalize our terms, how we describe our results, and so forth. Steel argues that research can mislead its users even when it presents only true claims. Even when scientists are confident in the truth of their conclusions and hence worries about inductive risk are not directly at issue, values and interests can shape how research is designed and described, in ways that will have a profound effect on the implications [End Page ix] that readers take from what they read. Steel explores how such interested management of implications shaped industry-funded research on statins, in particular. The management of implications is made possible, in part, by what he calls “inferential asymmetry”: researchers and sponsors can count on readers having different access to information and different background assumptions than they do, and these will help constitute what they infer from the presentation of results. This means we need to vet scientific articles not just for truthfulness, but also for how they may be strategically misleading by implicature. This is a sophisticated and deeply important contribution to our critical thinking about the ethical import and risks of biomedical science as a social institution. In “Effective Reparation for the Guatemala S.T.D. Experiments: A Victim-Centered Approach,” Bethany Spielman takes a hard look at what might count as appropriate reparation for the horrific mistreatment of over 1300 Guatemalans at the hands of U.S.-funded ‘researchers’ studying sexually transmitted diseases. In the late 1940s, Guatemalan prisoners, patients, sex workers, and others were nonconsensually subjected to intentional STD infection and sexual abuse. President Obama apologized for the experiments in 2010, but this leaves open the question of what might count as appropriate reparations. Spielman asks, who do we owe reparations to? What might count as actual restitution and that victims would recognize as valuable? And perhaps most importantly for her purposes, how should we decide such questions. She argues powerfully for a bottom-up, participatory approach, in which victims’ voices are centered. It is victims who are best able to determine what they need by way of restitution. Top-down decisions are likely to result in attempts at reparation that are viewed as irrelevant and out of touch at best, and as symbols of elitist impositions and reminders of harm at worst. In “Reconceptualizing Autonomy for Bioethics,” Lisa Dive and Ainsley Newson argue for a conception of autonomy suited to complex bioethical situations—one that draws on the philosophical literature on the metaphysics of autonomy but is still suited...

Spinoza is usually understood to be internalist about the representation of adequate ideas and externalist about the representation of inadequate ideas. Existing readings of Spinoza's social epistemology do not challenge this view; they argue that the social context of the mind is an empowering enabling condition for acquiring knowledge. In this article, I argue that Spinoza is an externalist about the representation of both adequate and inadequate ideas: adequate ideas are constituted by the relation between the mind's real essence and real objects. Since the mind's essence is desire, the mind knows its own real essence if it desires its real effects, that is, what follows from the common order of nature. Having an adequate idea is a social practice in two senses. It presupposes taking into account the striving of every other being and to desire only what is compatible with those beings (in this sense, it is also epistemically just). It also amounts to participating in the most collective action that can be joined by every other being, that is, in bringing about the world that can be shared by every being.

The proposed paper will address itself to the changing relationship between educational theory and practice in response to the challenge of postmodernism. The formulation of universal theoretical framework to distinct universalia from accidentia both in physical and social world can be traced to the legacy of the Enlightenment. For the philosophers of Enlightenment, the whole world is nothing but a mechanical mathematical structure. Thus the events of the world can be explained, predicted and even controlled by a universal law. Cartesian mathesis universalis and Leibnitzian characteristica universalica represent the scientific ideal of the Enlightenment. The rise of modern social sciences began with the need to understand modernization following the Enlightenment ideals for transforming society. Prediction and control of social development were called for the transformation of society. The rigorous scientific theory was thus required within the context of social modernization. Within the larger context of social modernization resulted from the Enlightenment, there arose a need to establish rational educational science for predicting the changes of humanity, fully developing human perfectibility and thus creating a world better to live. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Ernst Chritian Trapp (1745-1818) were two prominent representatives of the trend towards exact and precise educational science that, analogously to physical sciences, could offer universally valid educational knowledge. The Enlightenment scientific ideal was brought by the educational positivists in 1960's to an extreme, where the quantitative data were used to test rigorously the hypothesis and to formulate nomological theory for the prediction of educational development. Once the rigorous theory was established, it would be served as a scientific basis for identifying the one best policy and practice for all contexts. Educational practice in such a circumstance would be degenerated into technique neglecting the reflection and choice of the subject resonanting the situational changes. constitution of those things that flow upon(the body) and impinge upon it, as ancient Greek philosopher Democritus (Diels & Kranz, 1956, 68 Dem. B9) would say. The universality of knowledge claim and ahistorical epistemological foundation are refuted by postmodernists. An intensive awareness of the significance of language, discourse and socio-cultural locatedness has been arising in the making of any knowledge-claim. As J. -F. Lyotard (1984) properly observes, ”for the last forty years the «leading» sciences and technologies have had to do with language and scientific knowledge has been nothing but a kind of discourse in addition to, and in competition and conflict with another kind of knowledge-narrative knowledge”. Thus scientific knowledge has lost its monopolistic legitimation authority. If the reality is questioned and knowledge ligitimation is floating as a myriad of meaning changes, how can an avowed universally, or at least generally, valid educational theory be set up to regulate educational practice? Education is, as R. Usher and R. Edwards (1994: 24) correctly observe, ”very much the dutiful child of the Enlightenment and, as such, tends to uncritically accept a set of assumptions deriving from Enlightenment thought.” For the philosophers of Enlightenment, the whole world is nothing but a mechanical mathematical structure. Thus the events of the world can be explained, predicted and even controlled by a universal law. Cartesian mathesis universalis and Leibnitzian characteristica universalica represent the scientific ideal of the Enlightenment. The rise of modern social sciences began, as Hollinger (1994: 3) observes, with the need to understand the social and cultural transformation, specifically of modernization, following the Enlightenment ideal of perfecting social development. Within the larger context of social modernization resulted from the Enlightenment, there arose a need to establish rational educational science for predicting the changes of humanity, fully developing human perfectibility and thus creating a world better to live. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Ernst Christian Trapp (1745-1818) were two prominent representatives of the trend towards exact and precise educational science that, analogously to physical sciences, could offer universally valid educational knowledge. The Enlightenment scientific ideal was brought by educational posititivists in the 1960s to an extreme, where the quantitative data were used to test rigorously the hypothesis and to formulate nomological theory for the prediction of educational development. Once the rigorous theory was established, it would be served as a scientific basis for identifying the one best policy and practice for all contexts. Educational practice in such a circumstance would be degenerated into technique neglecting the reflection and choice of the subject resonanting the situational changes. The process of modernization in the western world since the Enlightenment reached its zenith in the last few decades. The abstract nomologocal theories based on western rational logic and experience have been universalized to such an extreme that postmodern decentralism, aestheticism, pluralism have been disseminated in response to modern logocentrism, eurocentrism and totalianism in scientific discourse. Under the impacts of postmodern anti-foundationalism, epistemological pluralism and logic of merchantile and performativity, the relationship between educational theory and practice should be reevaluated to determine what kinds of knowledge are appropriate to actualize educational objectives with a view to emancipating humanity from inner and exterior domination and thus leading to the realization of authentic self. This paper aderesses itself to this debatable issue facing the dialectical confrontation and synthesis of modernity and postmodernity. Educational Theory and Practice of the Enlightment Legacy Education was deemed as worthy vehicle by the Enlightenment philosophers to substantiate and realize the ideals of critical reason, humanistic individual freedom and benevolent progress of that time. Towards actualizing these ideals, the establishment of rational educational science was thought essential to investigate suitable educational methods (H. Blankertz, 1982: 28-29). 1. Kant (1804: 444), as an heir of the Enlightenment, proposed first: The mechanism of educational art must be transformed into a kind of The process of modernization in the western world since the Enlightenment reached its zenith in the last few decades. The abstract nomological theories based on western rationalistic logic and experience have been universalized to such an extreme that postmodern decentralism, aestheticism, pluralism have been disseminated in response to modern logocentrism, eurocentrism and totalitarianism in scientific discourse. Under the impacts of postmodern incredulity to the totalizing metanarrtives pluralistic stance, and logic of merchantile and performativity, the relationship between educational theory and practice should be reevaluated to determine what kinds of knowledge are appropriate to actualize educational objectives with a view to emancipating humanity from inner and exterior domination and thus leading to the realization of authentic self.

Because of their narrative complexity and idiosyncratic themes, conspiracy theories on social media might easily be dismissed as all but detached from scientific or political reality. Adding nuance to this view, this paper demonstrates that online conspiracy theories cannot truly be understood in isolation from established systems of communication and (scientific) knowledge production. To this end, we draw on methods from the field of bibliometrics to offer an empirically-informed discussion of how scientific knowledge is used and abused in extreme communities on the messaging platform Telegram. Our analysis thereby surfaces 1) the different types of scientific sources with which politically extreme communities on Telegram engage, 2) the narratives these channels support by in?voking these sources, and 3) the discursive and rhetorical techniques that are used to frame scientific knowledge in light of extreme narratives. Based on these findings, we critically reflect on the societal implications of the connection between scientific knowledge and extreme narratives.

Under today’s conditions, humanity and all social and state formations, including Ukraine, as part of the world order, is experiencing many changes: we are in a radically new political, economic, spiritual and ideological situation compared to the end of the twentieth century; its main features are socio-economic stagnation, political, cultural, educational and moral-psychological uncertainty, activation of old and the emergence of new stressors at the level of both individual and group (and even mass) consciousness. The complexity and contradictions of socio-economic and political development of our country necessitate the theoretical understanding and development of scientifically sound tools with which to make more effective the process of social interaction, non-criminogenic development of society, crime prevention and counteraction. Without theoretical knowledge that directly serves a specific state-building practice, it is impossible to fulfill a strategic task - to build a democratic state and civil society in Ukraine. Scientists rightly point out that the current criminal situation is characterized by new types of crime, dynamism of development, unpredictability of changes, spread of organized forms and professionalism and the inability of the state to resist corruption necessitates the effectiveness of the fight against crime. The purpose of this article is to study the objects of crime and corruption prevention, to determine their essential characteristics and to separate them from other objects of social reality. The methodological basis of the work is the dialectical method, the application of which allows to study the object and subject of research in their epistemological unity, relationship, as well as differences. The technique used in writing the article consists of several basic methods of scientific knowledge. Using the historical method, historical and general theoretical questions of the essence of the object of crime prevention and corruption are clarified. The use of methods of analysis and synthesis made it possible to separate the objects of prevention from other objects of social reality - this was also facilitated by the use of the structural-functional method. These methods also allowed to investigate the theoretical views on the nature and elements of the object of crime and corruption prevention. The logical-semantic method was used to determine the relationships and mutual influences of crime prevention and corruption objects with other objects. Scientific abstraction and generalization of scientific and theoretical information as a process of establishing general properties and signs, allowed to reach and formulate final conclusions on the subject of research. Based on the considerations set out in the article, it can be noted that the objects of preventive influence on the prevention of crime and corruption are negative phenomena and processes of reality of material or spiritual nature, which lead to causes and conditions conducive to crime. This should keep in mind the properties that are common to such objects, namely: criminogenicity; dynamism; potentiality; latency. Separate objects are objects of victimological influence. Information sources of various origins are covered, which testify to the origins of mass, group, individual victimization and the presence of dangerous victimhood at these levels, to which the theory and practice of victimological crime prevention are directed. , and the special objects of victimological prevention are social and psychological factors of victimization and victimhood as objects of preventive victimological influence at the individual level. Specific objects are the objects of influence in the prevention of corruption, which include: corruption-causing factors; corruption risks in the activities of public authorities, local governments, legal entities of public and private law and their officials; illegal behavior of officials and officials of public authorities and local governments. Thus, a deep and comprehensive knowledge of the nature of criminogenic objects, their scientific, historical and epistemological research will serve as a basis for understanding the danger of this social phenomenon and finding appropriate effective methods, tools and measures to influence it. The state must prevent crime by influencing certain criminogenic objects, which in essence will be the object of crime and corruption prevention at various levels of preventive activities – general social, special criminological, individual, as well as in the implementation of victim prevention measures

Hablar de la enseñanza de la metodología de la investigación científica en la formación profesional es hablar de la formación en y para la producción y difusión de conocimiento científico, a través de la investigación científica y la interacción social universitaria. Asumiendo que esta es la misión de la Universidad, desde la denominada sociedad del conocimiento, en Bolivia se nos remite al modelo educativo que se ha propuesto encarar como política estatal denominado Socio Comunitario Productivo (MEC, 2009) 
 Lo dicho no resulta novedoso, puesto que el Sistema de la Universidad Boliviana, en su VIII Congreso Nacional (CEUB, 1995) resuelve asumir el paradigma productivo, como respuesta a una de las mayores preocupaciones de la sociedad con referencia a la calidad de la Educación Superior cual es la producción del conocimiento desde la investigación, manifestando con ello que es su responsabilidad crear las bases de un nuevo poder, que es el conocimiento y la racionalidad científica. Si bien esta resolución empieza a concretarse con la creación de Institutos de Investigación, la inclusión de la asignatura de Metodología de la Investigación en los Planes Curriculares de todas las Carreras y la implementación de modalidades de titulación que impliquen tanto la investigación cuanto la interacción social, no se ha avanzado en la difusión de trabajos de investigación realizados por los estudiantes durante su formación profesional. Esto quiere decir que tampoco se han desarrollado procesos de enseñanza aprendizaje orientados a la formación de competencias para la producción y difusión de conocimiento científico.

A study of Norwegian science textbooks for grade 8 indicates an individualistic image of science where individual scientists are discovering truth, through experiment. Scientific rationality is grounded in procedures of inquiry alone and not in debate and argumentation within scientific communities. The communal aspects of science tend to become visible in historical examples where science did not function properly due to prejudices or ignorance. Furthermore, science proper and school science are not differentiated between, and 'scientific knowledge about nature' and 'nature' are one and the same. The discourse identified is well suited to provide students with broad and general knowledge about natural and everyday phenomena. However, it is less suitable for teaching about the scientific enterprise in contemporary society. This is worrying for students' scientific literacy as future adults, as this dimension is essential for understanding the nature of science and for democratic citizenship in socio-scientific issues.