Review of Alvin Goldman, Knowledge in a Social World,

Study of the social dimensions of scientific knowledge encompasses the effects of scientific research on human life and social relations, the effects of social relations and values on scientific research, and the social aspects of inquiry itself. Several factors have combined to make these questions salient to contemporary philosophy of science. These factors include the emergence of social movements, like environmentalism and feminism, critical of mainstream science; concerns about the social effects of science-based technologies; epistemological questions made salient by big science; new trends in the history of science, especially the move away from internalist historiography; anti-normative approaches in the sociology of science; turns in philosophy to naturalism and pragmatism. This entry reviews the historical background to current research in this area and features of contemporary science that invite philosophical attention. The philosophical work can roughly be classified into two camps. One acknowledges that scientific inquiry is in fact carried out in social settings and asks whether and how standard epistemology must be supplemented to address this feature. The other treats sociality as a fundamental aspect of knowledge and asks how standard epistemology must be modified from this broadly social perspective. Concerns in the supplementing approach include such matters as trust and answerability raised by multiple authorship, the division of cognitive labor, the reliability of peer review, the challenges of privately funded science, as well as concerns arising from the role of scientific research in society. The reformist approach highlights the challenge to normative philosophy from social, cultural, and feminist studies of science while seeking to develop philosophical models of the social character of scientific knowledge, and treats the questions of the division of cognitive labor, expertise and authority, the interactions of science and society, etc., from the perspective of philosophical models of the irreducibly social character of scientific knowledge. 1. Historical Background Philosophers who study the social character of scientific knowledge can trace their lineage at least as far as John Stuart Mill. Mill, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Karl Popper all took some type of critical interaction among persons as central to the validation of knowledge claims. Mill's arguments occur in his well-known political essay On Liberty, (Mill 1859) rather than in the context of his logical and methodological writings, but he makes it clear that they are to apply to any kind of knowledge or truth claim. Mill argues from the fallibility of human knowers to the necessity of unobstructed opportunity for and practice of the critical discussion of ideas. Only such critical discussion can assure us of the justifiability of the (true) beliefs we do have and can help us avoid falsity or the partiality of belief or opinion framed in the context of just one point of view. Critical interaction maintains the freshness of our reasons and is instrumental in the improvement of both the content and the reasons of our beliefs. The achievement of knowledge, then, is a social or collective, not an individual, matter. Peirce's contribution to the social epistemology of science is commonly taken to be his consensual theory of truth: " The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate is what we mean by truth, and the object represented is the real. " (Peirce 1878, 133) While often read as meaning that the truth is whatever the community of inquirers converges on in the long run, the notion is interpretable as meaning more precisely either that truth (and " the real ") depends on the agreement of the community of inquirers or that it is an effect of the real that it will in the end produce agreement among inquirers. Whatever the correct reading of this particular statement, Peirce elsewhere makes it clear that, in his view, truth is both attainable and beyond the reach of any individual. " We individually cannot hope

Sociology, 2005

The widespread impression that recent philosophy of science has pioneered exploration of the ''social dimensions of scientific knowledge'' is shown to be in error, partly due to a lack of appreciation of historical precedent, and partly due to a misunderstanding of how the social sciences and philosophy have been intertwined over the last century. This paper argues that the referents of ''democracy'' are an important key in the American context, and that orthodoxies in the philosophy of science tend to be molded by the actual regimes of science organization within which they are embedded. These theses are illustrated by consideration of three representative philosophers of science:

Journal of Chemical Education, 1971

Epistemology & Philosophy of Science, 2015

The role o f s cie n tific knowledge in general and social science knowledge in partic u la ris changing in em ergingand advanced knowledge societies. Science is beco ming more im p o rta n t in id e n tify in g and fram ing social challenges and providing 'suitable and feasible' solution to decision-makers. Yet, s c ie n tific a u th o rity is in creasingly challenged and contested. This increased socia lsign ifica n ce o f s c ie n ti fic knowledge claims call fo r an elaborate social philosophy o f science. However any a tte m p t to develop a th e o re tica l framework fo r a social philosophy o f science has to face three challenges: (1) an increased challenging of s c ie n tific authority, (2) th e need fo r in te rd is c ip lin a rity to cope w ith ever more complex problems and (3) to elaborate on a social epistem ology a n d / or social ontology respectively.

Synthese

From its inception in 1987 social epistemology has been divided into analytic (ASE) and critical (CSE) approaches, represented by Alvin I. Goldman and Steve Fuller, respectively. In this paper, the agendas and some basic ideas of ASE and CSE are compared and assessed by bringing into the discussion also other participants of the debates on the social aspects of scientific knowledgeamong them Raimo Tuomela, Philip Kitcher and Helen Longino. The six topics to be analyzed include individual and collective epistemic agents; the notion of scientific community; realism and constructivism; truth-seeking communities; epistemic and social values; science, experts, and democracy.

Science & Technology Studies, 2008

International Journal of Science Education, 2010

This research study sought to identify prominent features of the nature of science (NOS) embedded in authentic scientific inquiry. Fourteen well-established scientists from different parts of the world, working in experimental or theoretical research, in both traditional fields such as astrophysics and rapidly growing research fields such as molecular biology, participated as the informants of the study. The descriptions of their practices revealed eight prominent categories of NOS features. In an earlier paper (Wong & Hodson, 2009a), we have reported four categories under the two themes: (1) the methods of scientific investigation and (2) the role and status of scientific knowledge. In this paper, we focus on the remaining four categories under the theme: social dimensions of science. Scientists' descriptions of their practices have 'put some flesh on the bones' of the assertion that science is socially and culturally embedded. These descriptions also have considerable potential for development into interesting case studies as teaching resources to enhance and enrich students' understanding of NOS.

Essays in Philosophy, 2013