Overview
Descartes once argued that, with sufficient effort and skill, a single scientist could uncover fundamental truths about our world. Contemporary science proves the limits of this claim. From synthesizing the human genome to predicting the effects of climate change, some current scientific research requires the collaboration of hundreds (if not thousands) of scientists with various specializations. Additionally, the majority of published scientific research is now co-authored, including more than 80% of articles in the natural sciences, meaning small collaborative teams have become the norm in science. This volume is the first to address critical philosophical questions regarding how collective scientific research could be organized differently and how it should be organized. For example, should scientists be required to share knowledge with competing research teams? How can universities and grant-giving institutions promote successful collaborations? When hundreds of researchers contribute to a discovery, how should credit be assigned - and can minorities expect a fair share? When collaborative work contains significant errors or fraudulent data, who deserves blame? In this collection of essays, leading philosophers of science address these critical questions, among others. Their work extends current philosophical research on the social structure of science and contributes to the growing, interdisciplinary field of social epistemology. The volume's strength lies in the diversity of its authors' methodologies. Employing detailed case studies of scientific practice, mathematical models of scientific communities, and rigorous conceptual analysis, contributors to this volume study scientific groups of all kinds, including small labs, peer-review boards, and large international collaborations like those in climate science and particle physics.
Full Product Details
Author: Thomas Boyer-Kassem (ATER (temporary assistant professor), ATER (temporary assistant professor), Physics Department, Université Lille 1 Sciences and Technologies) ,
Conor Mayo-Wilson (Assistant Professor, Assistant Professor, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) ,
Michael Weisberg (Associate Professor, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania)
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:
Width: 23.60cm
, Height: 2.30cm
, Length: 15.70cm
Weight: 0.458kg
ISBN: 9780190680534
ISBN 10: 0190680539
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 21 December 2017
Audience:
General/trade
,
College/higher education
,
General
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
""I highly recommend this collection to anyone interested in interdisciplinary research connecting social epistemology, formal epistemology, and the philosophy of collaborative sciences. "" -- Atoosa Kasirzadeh, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science ""[T]he volume exemplifies the kind of careful work which manages to simultaneously be rigorous and philosophically interesting. ... the editors are to be commended for collecting a highly focused, original, and engaging volume. All of the essays address the topic in distinctive ways, and I would be hard pressed to pick any as especially stronger than the others. Philosophers of science and social epistemologists will find this collection highly rewarding."" -- P.D. Magnus, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
[T]he volume exemplifies the kind of careful work which manages to simultaneously be rigorous and philosophically interesting. ... the editors are to be commended for collecting a highly focused, original, and engaging volume. All of the essays address the topic in distinctive ways, and I would be hard pressed to pick any as especially stronger than the others. Philosophers of science and social epistemologists will find this collection highly rewarding. * P.D. Magnus, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *
I highly recommend this collection to anyone interested in interdisciplinary research connecting social epistemology, formal epistemology, and the philosophy of collaborative sciences. -- Atoosa Kasirzadeh, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science [T]he volume exemplifies the kind of careful work which manages to simultaneously be rigorous and philosophically interesting. ... the editors are to be commended for collecting a highly focused, original, and engaging volume. All of the essays address the topic in distinctive ways, and I would be hard pressed to pick any as especially stronger than the others. Philosophers of science and social epistemologists will find this collection highly rewarding. -- P.D. Magnus, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
[T]he volume exemplifies the kind of careful work which manages to simultaneously be rigorous and philosophically interesting. ... the editors are to be commended for collecting a highly focused, original, and engaging volume. All of the essays address the topic in distinctive ways, and I would be hard pressed to pick any as especially stronger than the others. Philosophers of science and social epistemologists will find this collection highly rewarding. * P.D. Magnus, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews * I highly recommend this collection to anyone interested in interdisciplinary research connecting social epistemology, formal epistemology, and the philosophy of collaborative sciences. * Atoosa Kasirzadeh, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science *
Author Information
Thomas Boyer-Kassem is an AXA post-doctoral research fellow at TiLPS, Tilburg University, The Netherlands. He holds a PhD in philosophy (Paris 1, 2011) and a Master in physics (ÉNS de Cachan, 2006). He has published articles in philosophy of science, social epistemology, and decision theory, in particular on scientific collaboration and publication strategies. Conor Mayo-Wilson is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Washington. His primary interests are in epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, and logic. Michael Weisberg is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at the Univeristy of Pennsylvania, where he co-directs the Penn Laboratory for Understanding Science.
