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vista
21. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 4
Asya A. Filatova Ася Алексеевна Филатова
“Vicious Minds”: Vice Epistemology and Rhetoric of Resistance to Anti-intellectialism
«Порочные умы»

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Virtue Epistemology (VE) offers a specific approach to the problem of knowledge. The condition for the possibility of knowledge is the presence of certain intellectual abilities or traits in the subject – epistemic virtues. The task of VE is to compile a list of epis - temic virtues, the development and cultivation of which should lead individuals to epistemic success with a high degree of probability. The vice epistemology arises as a branch of VE, which focuses not on virtues, but on vices that hinder achievement and deserve censure. Vices can be attributed to both individuals and communities. As a rule, those who tend to question the scientific consensus are considered to be vicious knowing communities: conspiracy theorists, denialists, religious fundamentalists, etc. The article argues that the logic of imputing blame for bad epistemic traits used in vice epistemology tends to turn from an epistemological tool into an ideological and political one. Since in the logic of the vice epistemology, "vicious minds" pose a threat not only to themselves, but also to the health of modern democratic societies, the eradication of vices is a primary political task. Using the theoretical framework of S. Fuller's social epistemology, the author shows how the rhetoric of vice epistemology is used today in the fight against anti-intellectualism and epistemic populism.
case-studies – science studies
22. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 4
Andrea Lavazza, Mirko Farina Андреа Лавацца
The Virtues Needed by Experts in Action
Добродетели для экспертов-в-действии

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The current Covid-19 pandemic is illustrative of both the need of more experts and of the difficulties that can arise in the face of their decisions. This happens, we argue, because experts usually interact with society through a strongly naturalistic framework, which often places experts’ epistemic authority (understood as neutrality and objectivity) at the centre, sometimes at the expenses of other pluralistic values (such as axiological ones) that people (often non-experts) cherish. In this paper, we argue that we need to supplement such a strong naturalistic framework used to promote epistemic authority with a number of virtues -both intellectual and ethical- which include i. intellectual humility, ii. courage, iii. wisdom and cares, as well as iv. relational autonomy. To illustrate this claim, we discuss these ideas in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and analyse a set of real-life examples where important decisions have been delegated to experts merely based on their epistemic authority. We use the illustrative failures described in the case studies above-mentioned to call for a revision of current understandings of expertise (merely based on epistemic soundness). Specifically, we argue that in social contexts we increasingly need “experts in action”; that is, people with certified specialist knowledge, who can however translate it into practical suggestions, decisions, and/or public policies that are ethically more balanced and that ultimately lead to fairer, more inclusive, and more representative decisions.
23. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 4
Olga V. Popova Ольга Владимировна Попова
Gift-giving as an Epistemic Virtue: A Case of Biomedicine
Дар как эпистемическая добродетель

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The article presents a study of gift-giving practices in the context of the development of modern biomedicine and shows their relationship to the realization of epistemic virtues. In biomedicine, the gain and production of knowledge (the gift of knowledge) is often grounded in bodily gift (sacrifice) and donor practices. The latter are associated with a number of mishaps in the history of biomedicine, reflecting the violation of moral norms in the process of obtaining scientific data and demonstrating the need for a clear differentiation of intellectual and moral virtues. An important factor in the formation of the epistemic norms of modern biomedicine has been the transformation of the values of scientific knowledge from practices of coercion to giving. As a result, the involuntary sacrifice of biomaterials to science was replaced by voluntary practices of somatic giving and informational exchange that determine the process of mutual recognition in science. It is shown that gift-giving in science is closely associated with intellectual virtues, with intellectual generosity characterizing the idea of openness in science and scientists’ intention for production and constant growth of knowledge, and can also be related to the idea of altruistic service to science, involving the exchange of received scientific data and access to free information in the network space. A number of examples of the modern digital gift ethos and the implementation of the principles of openness of knowledge and knowledge exchange in the context of the creation of biomedical expert digital platforms, the formation of social scientific networks – platforms with open access to scientific information, the development of the phenomenon of “garage” science and other “zones of exchange” experience are considered.
interdisciplinary studies
24. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 4
Vladimir P. Vizgin Владимир Павлович Визгин
Albert Einstein’s Epistemic Virtues and Vices
Эпистемические добродетели и пороки А. Эйнштейна

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The article is based on the concepts of epistemic virtues and epistemic vices and explores A. Einstein’s contribution to the creation of fundamental physical theories, namely the special theory of relativity and general theory of relativity, as well as to the development of a unified field theory on the basis of the geometric field program, which never led to success. Among the main epistemic virtues that led Einstein to success in the construction of the special theory of relativity are the following: a unique physical intuition based on the method of thought experiment and the need for an experimental justification of space-time concepts; striving for simplicity and elegance of theory; scientific courage, rebelliousness, signifying the readiness to engage in confrontation with scientific conventional dogmas and authorities. In the creation of general theory of relativity, another intellectual virtue was added to these virtues: the belief in the heuristic power of the mathematical aspect of physics. At the same time, he had to overcome his initial underestimation of the H. Minkowski’s four-dimensional concept of space and time, which has manifested in a distinctive flexibility of thinking typical for Einstein in his early years. The creative role of Einstein’s mistakes on the way to general relativity was emphasized. These mistakes were mostly related to the difficulties of harmonizing the mathematical and physical aspects of theory, less so to epistemic vices. The ambivalence of the concept of epistemic virtues, which can be transformed into epistemic vices, is noted. This transformation happened in the second half of Einstein’s life, when he for more than thirty years unsuccessfully tried to build a unified geometric field theory and to find an alternative to quantum mechanics with their probabilistic and Copenhagen interpretation In this case, we can talk about the following epistemic vices: the revaluation of mathematical aspect and underestimation of experimentally – empirical aspect of the theory; adopting the concepts general relativity is based on (continualism, classical causality, geometric nature of fundamental interactions) as fundamental; unprecedented persistence in defending the GFP (geometrical field program), despite its failures, and a certain loss of the flexibility of thinking. A cosmological history that is associated both with the application of GTR (general theory of relativity) to the structure of the Universe, and with the missed possibility of discovering the theory of the expanding Universe is intermediate in relation to Einstein’s epistemic virtues and vices. This opportunity was realized by A.A. Friedmann, who defeated Einstein in the dispute about if the Universe was stationary or nonstationary. In this dispute some of Einstein’s vices were revealed, which Friedman did not have. The connection between epistemic virtues and the methodological principles of physics and also with the “fallibilist” concept of scientific knowledge development has been noted.
archive
25. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 4
Kirill V. Karpov Кирилл Витальевич Карпов
Epistemic Virtue of Wisdom and Evidentialism
Интеллектуальная добродетель мудрости и эвиденциализм

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My primary concern in this article is the connection between virtue epistemology and evidentialism. This possible connection is analyzed upon, firstly, the example of the intellectual virtue of wisdom, and, secondly, the historical case – Thomas Aquinas’ approach to virtue of wisdom as an intellectual disposition (habitus). I argue that it is possible to offer such an interpretation of ‘intellectual virtue’ that aligns with the peripatetic tradition broadly understood (to which the epistemology of virtues ascends), and on the basis of which an evidentialist theory of justification is offered. In the first part of the paper, I briefly present the main interpretations of virtue epistemology and evidentialism in the light of externalism/internalism debate. In the second part I discuss Aquinas’ understanding of intellectual virtue as a disposition (habitus). The main concern here are virtues of theoretical habitus – wisdom and (scientific) knowledge. I show that habitus in this case is understood in two ways: as an ability, inherent to human beings, and as objective knowledge. Thus, there are two understandings of wisdom – as a virtue and knowledge (scientia). Finally, in the concluding parts of the paper, I outline possible ways of solving presented in the first part challenges to evidentialism and internalism.
new trends
26. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 4
Sergei Yu. Shevchenko Сергей Юрьевич Шевченко
Extended Mind and Epistemic Responsibility in a Digital Society
Расширенный разум и эпистемическая ответственность в цифровом обществе

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The article deals with the problem of compatibility of the extended mind thesis with the concept of epistemic responsibility. This compatibility problem lies at the intersection of two current trends in Virtue Epistemology (VE): the study of extended cognition, and the return of VE to the topic of epistemic responsibility. I give objections to two seemingly independent positions; their acceptance makes it difficult or even impossible to make the concept of epistemic responsibility applicable to the agents of digital society whose cognition is extended. The core of both positions can be illustrated by the following thesis: “Since the subject cannot voluntarily change his/her beliefs, we cannot ascribe to him/her either epistemic responsibility or intellectual virtues that allow him/her to take responsibility”. The counter-arguments to this thesis are based on the distinction between the causal (responsibility-in) and normative (responsibility-for) components of responsibility. The absence of the former allows us to characterize the subject as not responsible, the absence of the latter as irresponsible. I propose two conceptual foundations that can make possible the consistent talk about the epistemic responsibility of an extended subject. 1) The subject may not be responsible for the beliefs taken from the epistemic environment, but the subject bears significant responsibility for what environment he finds himself in. 2) Being epistemically responsible means deliberately reducing the number of possible causal excuses – excuses based on agent’s unresponsibiity due to his causal dependence on his epistemic environment (‘cognitive extensions’).
jubilee
27. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 4
Sergei G. Sekundant
К 70-летию Сергея Григорьевича Секунданта

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28. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 4
Memo to Authors
Памятка для авторов

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editorial
29. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 3
Daria N. Drozdova Дарья Николаевна Дроздова
Francis Bacon, Between Myth and History
Фрэнсис Бэкон: между мифом и историей

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Over the last 400 years, attitudes toward Francis Bacon's philosophy have changed considerably: the 17-century interest and the 18-century enthusiasm have been replaced by the 20-century criticism and reevaluation. However, both the praise and the rejection of the Lord Chancellor’s philosophical ideas often originate from the isolation and absolutization of particular features of his philosophy that can sometimes be in opposition to each other. These partial readings are justified by the fact that the reference to Bacon’s methodological and epistemological legacy has a symbolic meaning and is part of what is called “image of science” in Y. Elkana’s terminology. The way in which references to Bacon are used at different times and in different contexts is, in fact, a functional myth or theoretical fiction (I. Kasavin) in which the “historical Bacon” is fading away and what emerges is important and meaningful to those who declare themselves his followers or who lash out at him with criticism.
panel discussion
30. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 3
Daniel Garber Дэниел Гарбер
Bacon’s Metaphysical Method
Метафизический метод Бэкона

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In this paper, I would like to examine the method that Bacon proposes in Novum organum II.1-20 and illustrates with the example of the procedure for discovering the form of heat. One might think of a scientific method as a general schema for research into nature, one that can, in principle, be used independently of the particular conception of the natural world which one adopts, and independently of the particular scientific domain with which one is concerned. Indeed, Bacon himself suggested that as with logic, his method, or as he calls it there his “system of interpreting” is widely applicable to any domain, and not just to natural philosophy. [Novum organum I.127] Now, recent studies of Bacon have emphasized his own natural philosophical commitments, and the underlying conception of nature that runs through his writings. In my essay I argue that the method Bacon illustrates in Novum organum II is deeply connected to this underlying view of nature: far from being a neutral procedure for decoding nature, Bacon’s method is a tool for filling out the details of a natural philosophy built along the broad outlines of the Baconian world view.
31. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 3
Elodie Cassan Elodie Cassan
Bacon’s Novum organum: “The Marriage Bed Between the Mind and the Universe”
«Новый Органон» Бэкона

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Dan Garber’s paper provides materials permitting to reply to an objection frequently made to the idea that the Novum Organum is a book of logic, as the allusion to Aristotle’s Organon included in the very title of this book shows it is. How can Bacon actually build a logic, considering his repeated claims that he desires to base natural philosophy directly on observation and experiment? Garber shows that in the Novum Organum access to experience is always mediated by particular questions and settings. If there is no direct access to observation and experience, then there is no point in equating Bacon’s focus on experience in the Novum Organum with a rejection of discursive issues. On the contrary, these are two sides of the same coin. Bacon’s articulation of rules for the building of scientific reasoning in connection with the way the world is, illustrates his massive concern with the relation between reality, thinking and language. This concern is essential in the field of logic as it is constructed in the Early Modern period.
32. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 3
Dolores Iorizzo Долорес Иориццо
Self-preservation and the Transformation of Nature: A Response to Garber
Самосохранение и преобразование природы

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Garber demonstrates the shortcomings of a popular and idealised version of Baconian scientific method set against his close reading of Bacon’s Novum Organum II. The results of Garber’s analysis show that Bacon had not one but two philosophies, both of which were informed by his matter theory and speculative cosmology. This paper draws out the implications of Garber’s reading of Baconian induction in physics transferred to the natural sciences, and draws attention to the ultimate aim of Bacon’s philosophical programme as the prolongation of life.
33. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 3
Ori Belkind Ори Белкинд
Bacon’s Inductive Method and Material Form
Индуктивный метод Бэкона и материальные формы

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This paper contends that Bacon’s inductive method depends crucially on his general account of matter. I argue that Bacon develops a dynamic form of corpuscularianism, according to which aggregates of corpuscles undergo patterns of change that derive from active inclinations and appetites. The paper claims that Bacon’s corpuscularianism provides him with a theory of material form that enables him to theorize bodily change and possible material transformations. The point of natural histories and experiments is then to find the processes of corpuscular change that correlate with making present or making absent simple natures.
34. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 3
William Lynch Уильям Линч
Method and Control: Naturalizing Scientific Culture in Bacon’s Novum organum
Метод и контроль

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It has been widely noted that rules for scientific method fail to produce results consistent with those rules. Daniel Garber goes further by showing not only that there is a gap between Francis Bacon’s methodological rules, outlined in the Novum organum, and his natural philosophical conclusions, but that his conception of natural forms informs the method in the first place. What needs further examination is why Bacon’s application of his method manifestly violates his rules. Garber appeals to the spirit of Bacon’s method, rather its letter, which allows him to reconcile an appreciation of Bacon’s impact on modern science with a contextualist approach to the history of philosophy. A better approach looks at the larger significance of mythological accounts of scientific method, that understand seventeenthcentury methodological doctrines as ideologies naturalizing scientific culture and outlining news ambitions for the control of nature. By examining Bacon’s followers in the Royal Society, we can see how Bacon’s “temporary” use of hypotheses helped secure support with the promise of future utility. The history of philosophy of science should focus on the conditions leading to emergence of certain kinds of distinctively modern discourses, practices, and ambitions going beyond the internal history of science.
35. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 3
Steve Fuller Стив Фуллер
The Prophetic Bacon: Response to Garber
Пророческий Бэкон

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This paper is both a reflection on Francis Bacon’s social epistemology and a meta-reflection on how we should be think about historical figures such as Bacon, who are of continuing philosophical, scientific and even political relevance. The impetus for this paper is provided by Daniel Garber’s ‘Bacon’s Metaphysical Method’, which depicts Bacon as making various moves in the scholastic debates of his time. In contrast, I draw two sorts of conclusions: (1) At the historiographical level, I argue against the sort of ‘contextualism’ that artificially constrains the ‘transcendental’ horizons of a thinker such as Bacon, who was clearly addressing not simply his immediate contemporaries but perhaps more importantly, some future readers whose identities he cannot know. What is sometimes called the ‘conversation of mankind’ has just this rather odd communicative character. (2) At the more substantive philosophical level, it is clear that Bacon does not have a conception of knowledge as a kind of (justified) belief at all. On the contrary, knowledge is the product of a process that is largely conducted by humans on humans, very much in the spirit of a judicial inquisition. In this context, humans – no less than the technologies normally found in laboratories – are instruments of knowledge production. Here Bacon presages the c19-c20 ideas of media as the ‘extension of the senses’ and Karl Popper’s World 3.
36. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 3
Daniel Garber Дэниел Гарбер
Responses to Cassan, Iorizzo, Belkind, Lynch and Fuller
Ответ оппонентам

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epistemology & cognition
37. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 3
Dana Jalobeanu Дана Жалобяну
On Metaphysics and Method, Or How to Read Francis Bacon’s Novum organum
О метафизике и методе, или Как читать «Новый Органон» Ф. Бэкона

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The purpose of this paper is to offer a preliminary survey of one of the most widely discussed problems in Bacon’s studies: the problem of the interplay between the speculative (i.e., metaphysical) and operative (i.e., methodological) layers of Bacon’s works. I propose to classify the various answers in three categories. In the first category I place attempts claiming that Bacon’s inquiries display his appetitive metaphysics. In the second category are those seeing Bacon’s more “scientific” works as disclosing some of the inner metaphysical layers and presuppositions. The third category see Bacon’s experimental inquiries as attempts to “fix” metaphysics, by redefining concepts of metaphysical origins. In discussing these three categories of interpretative stances I show that we can gain further insights if we take into account recent and less recent trends in philosophy of science, and especially if we think in terms of background theory and bottom-up strategies of concept formation. I offer examples of such procedures in Bacon’s natural and experimental histories and show what we can gain if we apply the same interpretative strategy of focusing on concept-formation to the reading of the Novum organum.
language & mind
38. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 3
Natalia A. Osminskaya Наталия Александровна Осминская
Language of Reality and Reality of Language in Francis Bacon’s Philosophy
Язык реальности и реальность языка в философии Ф. Бэкона

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The most important of Francis Bacon’s argument against Aristotelian syllogistic logic as a main method of investigation was his doctrine of Idols, closely connected to the contemporary Anglican theological views on imperfect human nature. In his criticism of the first notion of human mind, based on mistaken abstraction, Bacon separated “ars inveniendi”, “ars judicandi” and “ars tradendi” and argued for a new nonverbal form of communication, based on “real characters”. Bacon's conventional concept of the universal language, strongly influenced by Aristotle, was not realized by the philosopher himself, but it was of great popularity in both European rationalism and British empiricism in the middle – second half of the 17th century.
vista
39. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 3
Lada V. Shipovalova Лада Владимировна Шиповалова
The Owner of the Right over Nature, or Expert Mediators in the Modern Era and at Present
О субъекте «права на природу». Или эксперты-посредники в Новое время и в современности

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F. Bacon in his work New Organon proposes a project of a new science, which ensures the desire of human race “to recover its right over nature”. The article examines the work on the universal owner of “the right over nature” in two historical contexts. The first context determines the emergence of modern science. Here Bacon plays the role of an expert mediator who introduces the new scientific method in its broader social meaning. His work on the universal owner of “the right over nature” combines and intersects the cognitive and political aspects of scientific endeavor. The second context covers the present situation after the Scientific-Technical Revolution, when the use of the “right over nature” becomes actual, and not only possible. The contradictions revealed in the first context in the activities of the expert mediator serve as the basis for analyzing the present situation of interaction between science and society. The author describes the expert mediator, corresponding to the modern context of uncertainty and conflict of values, through the concept of “honest broker of policy alternatives” by R. Pielke, as well as through the palette of expert knowledge types presented by the STS researchers. She shows why the presented differentiation of expert knowledge types is not enough to organize the work of an expert mediator as an “honest broker”. In conclusion, she puts forward the hypothesis about distributed expertise, which can represent contemporary work on the owner of the “right over nature” and describes some aspects of this work. The author associates the significance of the hypothesis of distributed expertise with the preservation of the openness of the project of Bacon's new science.
case-studies – science studies
40. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 58 > Issue: 3
Pietro Daniel Omodeo Пьетро Даниель Омодео
Bacon’s Anthropocene: The Historical-Epistemological Entanglement of Power, Knowledge and Nature Reassessed
Бэконовский антропоцен

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The current predicament, marked by an unprecedented environmental crisis and novel debates on the anthropic-technological transformation of the earth-system, calls for a reassessment of the historical-epistemological question of the entanglement between power, knowledge, and nature. Francis Bacon is the classical reference point for this thematic cluster – a focal point for both historical reconstructions and epistemological reflections, for both those who extol the merits of scientific progress and those who criticize the risks posed by its abuse. I begin this essay by considering Merchant’s eco-feminist interpretation of Bacon. Additionally, I briefly recount how Bacon is envisaged as a symbol of science as domination within the critique of capitalism provided in another classic, Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment. I also consider the flipside of the reception of Bacon in assessments of our modern scientific world, namely the empowerment-and-emancipation discourse on technology, typical of much of Marxism. In this respect, I deem it expedient to mention the knowledge-power problem in relation to the Anthropocene debate, and in particular in relation to the theme of the transformation of the world in praxeological terms. These considerations, which deal with various assessments of techno-scientific capitalist modernity, are at the basis of my final remarks on the most urgent Anthropocene dilemma, namely, whether we need more or less technoscience. This concerns the historico-political question of whether the ecological limits of growth are an intrinsic limit of capitalism.