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Philosophy Social Aspects of Scientific Knowledge
by
Helen E. Longino
  • LAST REVIEWED: 22 May 2019
  • LAST MODIFIED: 29 October 2013
  • DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0011

Introduction

Attention to the social dimensions of scientific knowledge is a relatively recent focus of philosophers of science. While some earlier philosophers made contributions to the topic that are still of relevance today, modern interest was stimulated by historians and sociologists of science such as Thomas Kuhn and the growing role played by the sciences in society and, by extension, in the lives of its citizens. There are two main vectors of interest: internal relations within scientific communities, and relations between science and society. This article covers literature in both categories. It starts with work that functions as historical backdrop to current work. As a subfield within philosophy of science, this area is too recent to have dedicated journals and has only a few anthologies. Nevertheless, there are resources in both categories. The remainder of the article lists work in specific subareas.

Historical Background

This section lists work prefiguring current discussions, as well as more-recent work more directly generative of the current literature. Among the former, Mill 1978 is a strong defense of the role of criticism in the justification of knowledge claims. Dewey 1925 and Peirce 1958 emphasize different aspects of the sociality of science, John Dewey focused more on the interrelation of science and democratic society, while Charles Peirce was more interested in the importance of community in the validation of knowledge. Popper 2002 (first published in 1963), Kuhn 2012 (first published in 1962), and Feyerabend 1978 represent the work of mid-20th-century antagonists, with Karl Popper upholding a role for criticism but within the limits of his falsificationism, while Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend rejected the assumptions of empiricism and offered radical challenges to the then-dominant picture of scientific knowledge and scientific change. Kuhn emphasized the role of the community and community standards in inquiry; Feyerabend argued for the proliferation of methods and theories. The notion of an episteme in Foucault 1970 is similar to but broader than Kuhn’s concept of paradigm and has a political dimension absent from the latter. Fuller 2002 is also concerned with political dimensions, especially with the regulation of science.

  • Dewey, John. Experience and Nature. Lectures upon the Paul Carus Foundation 1. Chicago: Open Court, 1925.

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    Dewey’s best-known work; an account of the character of ideas and knowledge as tools and plans of action. Science is thus linked to experience and prediction. Republished as recently as 2012 (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger).

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  • Feyerabend, Paul K. Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. London, UK: Verso, 1978.

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    A rejection of the idea of a “scientific method” in favor of multiplicity of theories and methods.

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  • Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. World of Man: A Library of Theory and Research on the Human Sciences. New York: Pantheon, 1970.

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    A study of 18th-century human sciences that introduces Foucault’s idea of an episteme, as the system of meanings, questions, and authorization structures that determine the shape of a science. Republished as recently as 1997 (London: Routledge).

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  • Fuller, Steve. Social Epistemology. Science, Technology, and Society. 2d ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.

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    Fuller’s idiosyncratic reading of the philosophy and sociology of science, from which he draws a mandate for the social epistemologist as regulator of the process of inquiry. First published in 1988.

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  • Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.

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    A classic work. Science as cycles of normal puzzle-solving inquiry punctuated by revolutions in which a current paradigm (set of worldviews, meanings, instrumentation, experimental methods, standards of evaluation, in the context of which puzzles are solved) is replaced by a new one. The social character of science is emphasized. Originally published in 1962, the 2012 edition features a substantial introduction by Ian Hacking.

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  • Mill, John Stuart. “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion.” In On Liberty. By John Stuart Mill, 15–52. Edited by Elizabeth Rapaport. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1978.

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    The classic statement of liberalism, advocating the value of diversity of opinion and critical exchange among those holding diverse views. First published in 1859 (London: J. W. Parker); republished as recently as 2012 (New York: Cambridge University Press).

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  • Peirce, Charles Sanders. Values in a Universe of Choice: Selected Writings of Charles S. Peirce (1839–1914). Edited by Philip Wiener. New York: Doubleday, 1958.

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    See “The Fixation of Belief” (pp. 91–112) and “How to Make Our Ideas Clear” (pp. 113–136). These two essays, first published in 1878 and 1877, respectively, articulate Peirce’s view about the communitarian character of inquiry, and his conception of truth as that to which all inquirers would assent at the end of inquiry.

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  • Popper, Karl R. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. London: Routledge, 2002.

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    The Popperian form of criticism: conjectures may come from any source; the scientific approach is to attempt to refute them. Conjectures are corroborated after such refutation attempts but not confirmed. Originally published in 1963 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul).

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Studies of Historical Figures

In addition to websites wholly devoted to the work of some of the above figures, there are also books or articles studying in particular those aspects of their thought relevant to social dimensions of scientific knowledge. Both Thomas Kuhn and Michel Foucault have spawned a voluminous secondary literature. On Kuhn, Horwich 1993 and Hoyningen-Huene 1993 are examples of collections and monographs, respectively. Of the large literature on Foucault, Gutting 1989 is that most focused on his relevance to science studies. Much literature on Charles Peirce concentrates on his contributions to semiotics, but Burch 2010 includes an assessment of his views on science. Jarvie 2001 and Lloyd 1997 represent briefer but informative studies of their subjects. Longino 2013 is an overview of the whole topic, locating the contributions of these predecessors to its development.

Anthologies

Several anthologies were published in the late 1980s and 1990s, articulating or responding to varieties of social constructivism. These include Hollis and Lukes 1982, McMullin 1992, and Pickering 1992. The mid-1990s saw publication of Biagioli 1999 and Galison and Stump 1996, incorporating and to some extent integrating philosophical and sociological perspectives. Later in the 1990s and into the early 21st century, as the social dimensions of science became respectable philosophical topics, anthologies and conference proceedings focused on issues of science and values started to appear. Carrier, et al. 2008; Kincaid, et al. 2007; and Machamer and Wolters 2004 all grew out of international conferences.

  • Biagioli, Mario, ed. The Science Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 1999.

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    Primarily cultural studies of science articles previously published in journals.

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  • Carrier, Martin, Don Howard, and Janet Kourany, eds. The Challenge of the Social and the Pressure of Practice: Science and Values Revisited. Papers presented at a conference on science and values held at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) in Bielefeld, Germany, in July 2003. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008.

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    Original articles by philosophers concerned with social dimensions. Some critical interchange among positions.

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  • Galison, Peter, and David J. Stump, eds. The Disunity of Science: Boundaries, Contexts, and Power. Writing Science. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.

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    Original articles by philosophers, historians, and social scientists, focused on the theme of disunity.

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  • Hollis, Martin, and Steven Lukes, eds. Rationality and Relativism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982.

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    A collection of original articles, including the well-known programmatic statement of the Strong Programme in Sociology of Science by Barry Barnes and David Bloor. Reprinted as recently as 1997.

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  • Kincaid, Harold, John Dupré, and Alison Wylie, eds. Value-Free Science?: Ideals and Illusions. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

    DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195308969.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Papers from a 2001 conference held on University of Alabama, Birmingham, February 2001 supporting or criticizing the concept of value-free science.

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  • Machamer, Peter, and Gereon Wolters, eds. Values, Objectivity, and Science. Papers presented at the 6th Pittsburgh-Konstanz Colloquium, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in October 2002. Pittsburgh-Konstanz Series in Philosophy and History of Science. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004.

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    Original articles by philosophers adopting a variety of different stances to claims about the social nature of science.

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  • McMullin, Ernan, ed. The Social Dimensions of Science. Studies in Science and the Humanities from the Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values 3. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992.

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    Essays by philosophers responding to various challenges to then-orthodox accounts of scientific rationality.

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  • Pickering, Andrew, ed. Science as Practice and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

    DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226668208.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Original essays, primarily by scholars in the social and cultural studies of science. Many are philosophically relevant, though not philosophical in character. Contains both case studies and methodological debate.

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Databases

The Internet has become a major venue for exchange of ideas, for the broad distribution of work, and for rapid publication. The resources in this section were actively maintained and updated as of 2013. They include compendia of resources on individual philosophers, such as Arisbe: The Peirce Gateway on Charles Sanders Peirce and Center for Dewey Studies on John Dewey. Because both Peirce and Dewey covered many topics in their long philosophical careers, their work on science constitutes only a small part of the concerns on these websites, but burgeoning interest in pragmatism in philosophy of science may change that. This section also includes information-sharing sites such as Situating Science, online platforms for research communities such as Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, and encyclopedia coverage such as Longino 2013 (cited under Studies of Historical Figures).

Journals

As noted in the Introduction, there are as yet no dedicated journals in this area. Episteme, which has recently reverted to general epistemology, and Social Epistemology come the closest, but neither is restricted to scientific knowledge. Social Studies of Science, a journal on sociology of science, often publishes articles of philosophical interest. Perspectives on Science and Metascience are interdisciplinary journals including social perspectives. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Science, British Journal for Philosophy of Science, and European Journal for Philosophy of Science each occasionally publish articles on social dimensions of science. All the journals below are peer reviewed.

Social Epistemology of Science

Philosophical thinking about the social character of scientific knowledge has clustered in three categories, which correspond to the three subsections under this heading. Under Models of the Sociality of Scientific Knowledge are books and articles outlining the major approaches to thinking about the social character of knowledge. The other two subsections list work about two aspects of the social organization of research that have attracted special attention: deference to experts and the division of cognitive labor. Because they involve the allocation of resources, they are often treated with forms of formal economic modeling. The final section of this article, under the heading Science and Policy, includes some works on peer review, another aspect of the social organization of science.

Models of the Sociality of Scientific Knowledge

Philosophers began advancing explicit models of the sociality of science for different reasons. The authors of Fagan 2010, Hull 1988, Longino 2002, and Solomon 2001 were led to a social account by case studies that exacerbated their dissatisfaction with the then-dominant models of inquiry. The authors of Goldman 1999 and Kitcher 2001 were concerned to rebut what they saw as the damagingly antirationalist claims about knowledge made by researchers in the social and cultural studies of science, here represented in Latour 1987 and Shapin and Schaffer 2011 (first published in 1985). The effort in Goldman 1999 and Kitcher 2001 was an attempt to accommodate the acceptable portions of the claims of the social and cultural researchers within more-traditional accounts of the rationality of science.

  • Fagan, Melinda B. “Social Construction Revisited: Epistemology and Scientific Practice.” Philosophy of Science 77.1 (2010): 92–116.

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    Applies philosophical accounts of social action to develop and defend a justificationist account of social construction. Social interactions argued to be intrinsic to justification. Available online for purchase or by subscription.

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  • Goldman, Alvin I. Knowledge in a Social World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

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    Goldman’s veritism applied to social dimensions of knowledge, including science. Focus is on how individuals cognitively navigate through a world in which we are dependent on one another for the accumulation and communication of knowledge. Sociality has to do with distribution of knowledge, not with its production.

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  • Hull, David L. Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science. Science and Its Conceptual Foundations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.

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    A study combining ethnographic and intellectual study of two competing taxonomic communities—pheneticists and cladists—and an evolutionary approach to understanding scientific change. Reprinted as recently as 1998.

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  • Kitcher, Philip. Science, Truth and Democracy. Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

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    A study that reprises the author’s repudiation of extreme positions in the so-called science wars, while also going beyond his earlier work to argue for dual standards of scientific significance: epistemic and social. A principal contribution is his introduction of the concept of well-ordered science.

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  • Latour, Bruno. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987.

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    Actor-network theory presented through a series of case studies. Latour controversially claims that if one “follows scientists around,” the need for cognitive or epistemological analysis of science evaporates. Reprinted as recently as 2005.

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  • Longino, Helen E. The Fate of Knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.

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    The author identifies and deconstructs a rational-social dichotomy shared by sociologists and philosophers and defends an alternative conception of knowledge as constituted partially through critical discursive interaction.

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  • Shapin, Steven, and Simon Schaffer. Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011.

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    A classic work (originally published in 1985) of the Strong Programme approach; this edition contains a new introduction by the authors. Links the debate between Robert Boyle and Thomas Hobbes regarding the trustworthiness of experiment to their respective political orientations.

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  • Solomon, Miriam. Social Empiricism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.

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    Naturalized epistemology of science that draws on psychological and sociological research. Argues that rationality pertains to the outcome of community decisions and can characterize scientific knowledge in spite of the individual irrationality of community members.

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Trust, Expertise, and Authority

This is an active area of research for philosophers, whether working on individually based epistemology or on communitarian models. It was originally instigated by questions regarding communication among scientists, as in Hardwig 1985, a study of a multidisciplinary physics experiment, as well as questions about how lay people can distinguish among different claimants to expertise. Hardwig 1985, Kitcher 1993, and Wilholt 2012 are explicitly focused on authority and trust in science, while Collins and Evans 2007, Goldman 2001, and Selinger and Crease 2006 address a broad range of forms of expertise.

  • Collins, Harry, and Robert Evans. Rethinking Expertise. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

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    A sociological analysis of forms of dependence on expertise in modern societies, distinguishing between “contributory” expertise and “interactional” expertise.

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  • Goldman, Alvin I. “Experts: Which Ones Should You Trust?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63.1 (2001): 85–110.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1933-1592.2001.tb00093.xSave Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Applies Goldman’s veritistic criteria to the identification of experts. Available online for purchase or by subscription.

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  • Hardwig, John. “Epistemic Dependence.” Journal of Philosophy 82.7 (1985): 335–349.

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    Draws on the author’s case study of a high-energy physics experiment involving close to one hundred scientists with different specializations, to argue for the importance of trust among researchers. Spawned a renewed debate over the evidentiary status of testimony. Available online for purchase or by subscription.

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  • Kitcher, Philip. “The Organization of Cognitive Labor.” In The Advancement of Science: Science without Legend, Objectivity without Illusions. By Philip Kitcher, 303–389. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

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    Sections 2 through 12 in this chapter (pp. 306–343) concern trust and deference to authority. Kitcher uses the machinery of formal decision theory to provide criteria of appropriate deference.

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  • Selinger, Evan, and Robert P. Crease, eds. The Philosophy of Expertise. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.

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    A collection of articles on a wide variety of domains of expertise, from science to morality. Includes several classic articles.

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  • Wilholt, Torsten. “Epistemic Trust in Science.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. Published online 29 September 2012.

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    Inter-investigator trust as an integral part of the successful operation of science. What attitudes constitute such trust. Available online for purchase or by subscription.

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Division of Cognitive Labor

The division of labor in this literature refers to the tendency of research on some topic to be divided among teams and laboratories following orthodox methods and those experimenting with unorthodox methods. Hardwig 1985 is a case study of division of labor within a single experiment, while Kitcher 1993, Strevens 2003, and Muldoon and Weisberg 2011 attempt to provide formal models of the ideal distribution of cognitive labor within a research community. The aim of formalizing restricts the division to that between leaders and followers or between mavericks and conventionals rather than including differentiations of approach.

  • Hardwig, John. “Epistemic Dependence.” Journal of Philosophy 82.7 (1985): 335–349.

    DOI: 10.2307/2026523Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Study of communication among the various subspecializations required for production of an article in particle physics. Available online for purchase or by subscription.

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  • Kitcher, Philip. “The Organization of Cognitive Labor.” In The Advancement of Science: Science without Legend, Objectivity without Illusions. By Philip Kitcher, 303–389. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

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    Second half of the chapter (pp. 344–388) concerns the division of cognitive labor. Kitcher again uses the machinery of formal decision theory to determine the appropriate division of labor. One point is to show that individuals motivated “impurely” may yet contribute to the community’s arriving at true theories.

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  • Muldoon, Ryan, and Michael Weisberg. “Robustness and Idealization in Models of Cognitive Labor.” Synthese 183.2 (2011): 161–174.

    DOI: 10.1007/s11229-010-9757-8Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A critique of the formal approaches both in Kitcher 1993 and Strevens 2003 as dependent on uniformly ideal agents. Muldoon and Weisberg propose agent-based modeling, in which agents have different information (about resources, about one another) at their disposal, as a more realistic alternative. Available online for purchase or by subscription.

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  • Strevens, Michael. “The Role of the Priority Rule in Science.” Journal of Philosophy 100.2 (2003): 55–79.

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    The priority rule explained as a mechanism for achieving an efficient distribution of cognitive labor (between leaders and followers). Available online for purchase or by subscription.

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Feminist Studies

Feminist studies of science commenced in tandem with the development of women’s studies in the 1970s. Concentrated at first on contesting sexist assumptions in the representation and analysis of gender relations in the human sciences, the field expanded to include critique of models of science as value neutral, and the assumptions about the methods and goals of inquiry that were presupposed by such models. Feminist philosophers developed a variety of models of knowledge intended both to reveal the operations of gender and gender bias in the sciences and to facilitate the emergence of alternatives. Keller 1985, Haraway 1989, and Harding 1986 are commonly regarded as foundational texts for feminist science studies. Nelson 1990 and Okruhlik 1994 use approaches of Willard Van Orman Quine and Otto Neurath, respectively, to bring feminist concerns into contact with orthodox philosophy of science. Lloyd 1995 exposes the double standard employed by mainstream philosophers to dismiss feminist work, while Anderson 2004 and Ruetsche 2004 bring techniques of analytic philosophy to evaluate and support feminist claims.

  • Anderson, Elizabeth. “Uses of Value Judgments in Science: A General Argument, with Lessons from a Case Study of Feminist Research on Divorce.” In Special Issue: Feminist Science Studies. Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 19.1 (2004): 1–24.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1527-2001.2004.tb01266.xSave Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Rejection of standard arguments for value neutrality of the sciences. Distinguishes between legitimate and illegitimate roles of values in research and illustrates with an example of research on divorce. Available online for purchase or by subscription.

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  • Haraway, Donna J. Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science. New York: Routledge, 1989.

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    Bravura synthesis of Marxist, poststructuralist, literary, and feminist analysis brought to bear on 20th-century primatology.

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  • Harding, Sandra. The Science Question in Feminism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986.

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    A critical overview of feminist work published by the mid-1980s, including a sympathetic account of feminist standpoint theory.

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  • Keller, Evelyn Fox. Reflections on Gender and Science. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.

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    One of the classics of feminist science studies. Includes chapters on the history of science, including some modern work, and the author’s well-known criticism of orthodox accounts of scientific objectivity as being masculinist. Reprinted as recently as 1995.

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  • Lloyd, Elisabeth A. “Objectivity and the Double Standard for Feminist Epistemologies.” In Special Issue: Feminism and Science. Synthese 104.3 (1995): 351–381.

    DOI: 10.1007/BF01064505Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A response to critics of feminist interventions, showing that what is effectively the same philosophical content is treated as worthy of serious discussion when attributed to male authorship and as frivolous when attributed to feminist authorship. Available online for purchase or by subscription.

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  • Nelson, Lynn Hankinson. Who Knows: From Quine to a Feminist Empiricism. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990.

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    Uses a version of Quine’s naturalism to argue for the continuity of value and factual claims and for treating the community, rather than individuals, as the cognitive agent. Available as an e-book since 2010.

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  • Okruhlik, Kathleen. “Gender and the Biological Sciences.” In Special Issue: Biology & Society: Reflections on Methodology. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 20 (1994): 21–42.

    DOI: 10.1080/00455091.1994.10717393Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Argues that scientific justification is always comparative, and that no account of justification can exempt research from “value-ladenness” if the source of hypotheses is not also examined. The question to ask is why this set of hypotheses is regarded as containing the plausible candidates, and not some other set.

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  • Ruetsche, Laura. “Virtue and Contingent History: Possibilities for Feminist Epistemology.” In Special Issue: Feminist Science Studies. Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 19.1 (2004): 73–101.

    DOI: 10.1111/j.1527-2001.2004.tb01269.xSave Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A review of approaches in feminist epistemology, from a sympathetic and rigorously analytic point of view. Aristotelian virtue proposed as a model for feminist forms of epistemic warrant. Available online for purchase or by subscription.

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Philosophically Engaged Historical and Cultural Studies of Science

Once one accepts that there is some kind of exchange between scientific research and its social and cultural context, a great deal of historical and cultural investigation of the sciences comes to be philosophically relevant. Philosophical topics addressed in this literature include concept formation, objectivity, innovation, and theory acceptance. Philosophers as well as historians and cultural theorists contribute to this literature. Beller 1999, Chang 2004, Knorr Cetina 1999, and Traweek 1988 exemplify work developing philosophical ideas through case studies, while others exemplify work on topics invoked in the historical and cultural study of the sciences. Daston and Galison 2010 focuses on objectivity, and Hacking 1999 focuses on social construction. Rouse 1987 and Stengers 1997 address different notions of power.

  • Beller, Mara. Quantum Dialogue: The Making of a Revolution. Science and Its Conceptual Foundations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.

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    How debate among the founders of quantum theory gave the theory its distinctive shape. Argues for a dialogical approach to history of science.

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  • Chang, Hasok. Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress. Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

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    A study of how concepts are made measurable, through the case of temperature.

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  • Daston, Lorraine, and Peter Galison. Objectivity. New York: Zone, 2010.

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    The emergence of objectivity as an ideal in the sciences of the 19th century, focused on visual representation. Originally published in 2007.

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  • Hacking, Ian. The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

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    A series of essays analyzing the concept of social construction, arguing that what is meant by “social construction” varies by the phenomenon said to be so constructed.

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  • Knorr Cetina, Karin. Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

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    A comparative analysis of the knowledge cultures of high-energy physics and molecular biology, highlighting differences in relations of researcher to object, in constructions of data, and in relations among researchers. Reprinted as recently as 2003.

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  • Rouse, Joseph. Knowledge and Power: Toward a Political Philosophy of Science. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.

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    Includes both a set of theoretical chapters drawing out a pragmatist interpretation of work by thinkers from Ian Hacking and Nancy Cartwright to Michel Foucault, and a set of case studies using this interpretation to analyze the imbrications of power/knowledge of modern sciences.

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  • Stengers, Isabelle. Power and Invention: Situating Science. Translated by Paul Bains. Theory out of Bounds 10. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.

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    Stengers takes for granted science’s entanglement with its supporting culture but does not see this entanglement as compromising scientific integrity. Writing from the perspective of modern French philosophy, this work analyzes the mutual transformative impacts of scientific theories and social context.

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  • Traweek, Sharon. Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physicists. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.

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    Anthropological study of physicists working in high energy particle physics, centered on those involved in research at the Stanford Linear Accelerator. Demonstration of the role of community practices in shaping shared values.

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Science and Non-Western Cultures

Western scholars are beginning to appreciate both the diversity of approaches to systematic and empirical understanding of the natural world, and the importance to the development of the distinctively modern, Western, form of such understanding of thinking in non-Western civilizational contexts. Habib and Raina 2001, Nandy 1995, and Needham 1954 are studies of science in major civilizations. Figueroa and Harding 2003 and Nader 1996 include studies of so-called indigenous knowledge, and Bala 2008 demonstrates the indebtedness of Western science to the ideas of non-Western civilizations.

  • Bala, Arun. The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

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    Argues for the influence of Chinese, Indian, Arabic, and Egyptian scientific and mathematical ideas in facilitating the development of modern science. First published in 2006.

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  • Figueroa, Robert, and Sandra Harding, eds. Science and Other Cultures: Diversity in the Philosophy of Science and Technology. New York: Routledge, 2003.

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    Original essays on a variety of encounters between modern science and a nonscientific public, including indigenous societies and marginalized subcommunities in industrialized societies (e.g., disabled individuals, racial and sexual minorities), concluding with essays considering technological development in a global context.

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  • Habib, S. Irfan, and Dhruv Raina, eds. Situating the History of Science: Dialogues with Joseph Needham. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001.

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    Essays on the history of science in India, arguing against the application of Needham’s civilizational thesis to India. First published in 1999.

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  • Nader, Laura, ed. Naked Science: Anthropological Inquiry into Boundaries, Power, and Knowledge. New York: Routledge, 1996.

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    Essays on science in cultures that treat indigenous science and modern (Western) science as equally enmeshed in their cultural contexts.

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  • Nandy, Ashis. Alternative Sciences: Creativity and Authenticity in Two Indian Scientists. 2d ed. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995.

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    Study of the cultural distinctiveness of two South Asian scientists: physicist and, later, plant scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose and mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.

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  • Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 1, Introductory Orientations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1954.

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    A magisterial study of the achievements of Chinese science, technology, and mathematics. Needham wrote the first fifteen volumes himself, and the remainder have been published by the Needham Research Institute. Needham was piqued by the question why China had been overtaken by the West in the development of modern science. Reprinted as recently as 1988.

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Science and Policy

This entry includes a subsection on science, values, and public policy and one on policy about science. During the Cold War, there was a consensus about the relation between science and society: pure research progressed according to its own internal logic, independently of social interests and pressures, eventually producing results that could be applied to the development of technologies or to address social needs. The political movements beginning in the 1960s rejected that consensus, as did new postlogical-empiricist work in philosophy of science. The antinuclear movement, environmental movements, civil-rights movements, and feminist movements all had reason to reject certain parts of science, without rejecting all. Philosophers saw that the presumed isolation of science from the economy and culture could not be sustained. This required a rethinking of the relation between the social values and social policy of science. In addition, the rapid expansion of the sciences in the 20th century, as well as their power to affect daily life, made investigation of the workings of the sciences, from an ethical point of view, a crucial aspect of fostering reliability.

Science, Values, and Public Policy

This subsection includes work addressing the management of values in science, such as Douglas 2009 (a monograph) and Mayo and Hollander 1991 (an edited collection), as well as works such as Shrader-Frechette 2005 that argue for the introduction of appropriate values into research, Anderson 2011 and Kitcher 2011 address problems regarding lay uptake of scientific research relevant to such issues as climate change and genetically modified foods. Mitchell 2009 is concerned with epistemological models for policy-relevant science, while Dupré 2001 exposes specific methodological failings of a number of human sciences, and Cartwright and Hardie 2012 targets inadequacies in policymakers’ expectations of scientific methodology.

  • Anderson, Elizabeth. “Democracy, Public Policy, and Lay Assessments of Scientific Testimony.” Episteme: A Journal of Individual and Social Epistemology 8.2 (2011): 144–164.

    DOI: 10.3366/epi.2011.0013Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Scientific disagreement is not a barrier to public understanding of complex scientific issues. Resources for assessing the state of scientific discourse are publicly accessible. The problem for climate activists is not in educating the public regarding the technical issues, but in motivating them to care sufficiently to take action. Available online for purchase or by subscription.

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  • Cartwright, Nancy, and Jeremy Hardie. Evidence-Based Policy: A Practical Guide to Doing It Better. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

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    Critique of some popular approaches to developing and evaluating policy.

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  • Douglas, Heather E. Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009.

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    Addresses the challenges of realizing value-free science in the context of multiple social and economic pressures on science and scientists. Also relevant to the next subsection, Research Ethics and Peer Review.

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  • Dupré, John. Human Nature and the Limits of Science. Oxford: Clarendon, 2001.

    DOI: 10.1093/0199248060.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Scathing critiques of assumptions in modern science about human nature, from evolutionary psychology to economics, with attention to their practical effects in policy and culture.

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  • Kitcher, Philip. Science in a Democratic Society. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2011.

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    Diagnoses of various instances of public resistance to the conclusions of scientific research, including climate change, genetically modified foods, and evolutionary theory, coupled with proposals to remedy such resistance.

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  • Mayo, Deborah G., and Rachelle D. Hollander, eds. Acceptable Evidence: Science and Values in Risk Management. Environmental Ethics and Science Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

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    Essays addressing the ways in which values enter into the interpretation and evaluation of evidence of risk in a variety of scientific and technological arenas.

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  • Mitchell, Sandra D. Unsimple Truths: Science, Complexity, and Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

    DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226532653.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Proposes Mitchell’s “integrative pluralism” as a better epistemological account of scientific knowledge of complex systems, and hence a better basis from which to make science-based policy than are more-orthodox epistemological approaches.

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  • Shrader-Frechette, Kristin. Environmental Justice: Creating Equality, Reclaiming Democracy. Environmental Ethics and Science Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

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    Analysis of ethical concepts relevant to questions of environmental justice, coupled with their application to contemporaneous cases such as the disparate impacts of pollution and resource depletion on different populations.

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Research Ethics and Peer Review

There is a huge literature in research ethics. Much of it concerns the responsibilities of individual scientists. This list concentrates on readings that include in their purview issues concerning peer review or other aspects of the modern social organization of science. Chubin and Hackett 1990 and Hackett 2002, written by sociologists of science, survey modern practices of peer review and the pressures the contemporaneous economic and social configuration of science place on its practice. Lee, et al. 2013, the lead author of which is a philosopher, focuses specifically on bias, while Shamoo and Resnik 2009 incorporates discussion of peer review into a broader discussion of research ethics.

  • Chubin, Daryl E., and Edward J. Hackett. Peerless Science: Peer Review and U.S. Science Policy. SUNY Series in Science, Technology, and Society. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.

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    A classic study of peer review that initiated much of the current discussion of peer review.

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  • Hackett, Edward J. “Four Observations about ‘Six Domains of Research Ethics.’” Science and Engineering Ethics 8.2 (2002): 211–214.

    DOI: 10.1007/s11948-002-0020-7Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Challenges to peer review, from the increasing heterogeneity and interdisciplinarity of research, to the ambivalences in the practice of peer review, the social tensions of research life, and the heightened concern for social and economic returns from federal research investments. A call to integrate ethical considerations with empirical study of the social organization of science. Available online for purchase or by subscription.

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  • Lee, Carole J., Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Guo Zhang, and Blaise Cronin. “Bias in Peer Review.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 64.1 (2013): 2–17.

    DOI: 10.1002/asi.22784Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A brief review of the function, history, and scope of peer review, followed by an articulation and critique of the conception of bias unifying research on bias in peer review and an examination of the empirical, methodological, and normative claims of bias in peer review research.

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  • Shamoo, Adil E., and David B. Resnik. Responsible Conduct of Research. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

    DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195368246.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A comprehensive review of issues in research ethics, including a chapter on peer review, as well as chapters on related topics such as authorship, intellectual property, conflicts of interest, etc. Originally published in 2003.

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