Epistemic Commitments Research Articles

Calculating life? Duelling discourses in interdisciplinary systems biology

A high profile context in which physics and biology meet today is in the new field of systems biology. Systems biology is a fascinating subject for sociological investigation because the demands of interdisciplinary collaboration have brought epistemological issues and debates front and centre in discussions amongst systems biologists in conference settings, in publications, and in laboratory coffee rooms. One could argue that systems biologists are conducting their own philosophy of science. This paper explores the epistemic aspirations of the field by drawing on interviews with scientists working in systems biology, attendance at systems biology conferences and workshops, and visits to systems biology laboratories. It examines the discourses of systems biologists, looking at how they position their work in relation to previous types of biological inquiry, particularly molecular biology. For example, they raise the issue of reductionism to distinguish systems biology from molecular biology. This comparison with molecular biology leads to discussions about the goals and aspirations of systems biology, including epistemic commitments to quantification, rigor and predictability. Some systems biologists aspire to make biology more similar to physics and engineering by making living systems calculable, modelable and ultimately predictable—a research programme that is perhaps taken to its most extreme form in systems biology’s sister discipline: synthetic biology. Other systems biologists, however, do not think that the standards of the physical sciences are the standards by which we should measure the achievements of systems biology, and doubt whether such standards will ever be applicable to ‘dirty, unruly living systems’. This paper explores these epistemic tensions and reflects on their sociological dimensions and their consequences for future work in the life sciences.

Temps comme degrés d'engagement épistémique

This article addresses the question as to whether time is a primitive concept or rather is composed of conceptually more basic building blocks. After a brief analysis of tense-time mismatches with examples from English, Polish, Thai and Swahili, I present a hypothesis that time is conceptualized in terms of degrees of epistemic modality. Expressions with future, present and past reference are ordered on scales of epistemic commitment. I demonstrate that the theory of Default Semantics has no difficulty with representing tense-time mismatches in that it reflects the fact that information about temporality is conveyed via a variety of processes, some of them pertaining not to the processing of the lexicon or grammar but even to pragmatic inference. The theory also gives support to the thesis of time as modal detachment.

“This is Why you’ve Been Suffering”: Reflections of Providers on Neuroimaging in Mental Health Care

Mental health care providers increasingly confront challenges posed by the introduction of new neurotechnology into the clinic, but little is known about the impact of such capabilities on practice patterns and relationships with patients. To address this important gap, we sought providers' perspectives on the potential clinical translation of functional neuroimaging for prediction and diagnosis of mental illness. We conducted 32 semi-structured telephone interviews with mental health care providers representing psychiatry, psychology, family medicine, and allied mental health. Our results suggest that mental health providers have begun to re-conceptualize mental illness with a neuroscience gaze. They report an epistemic commitment to the value of a brain scan to provide a meaningful explanation of mental illness for their clients. If functional neuroimaging continues along its projected trajectory to translation, providers will ultimately have to negotiate its role in mental health. Their perspectives, therefore, enrich bioethical discourse surrounding neurotechnology and inform the translational pathway.

“I think this is I mean perhaps this is too erm too tough a view of the world but I often think …”. Redundancy as a contextualization device

This contribution examines the connectedness between the qualification of a conversational contribution with cognitive-verb-based parentheticals regarding force and commitment and the theory and practice of redundancy in discourse in the social context of political discourse. The methodological framework adopted is an integrated one based on the Gricean cooperative principle ( Grice, 1975) supplemented by interactional sociolinguistics ( Gumperz, 1996). The focus is on their form, function and distribution, especially on I think, accommodating (1) a paradigmatic description accounting for possible functional synonyms, such as possibly or perhaps, (2) a syntagmatic description accounting for possible collocates, such as I don’t think, I should think or but I think, and (3) their distribution in discourse regarding the local linguistic-context phenomenon of pre- and post-posed position, and its more global distribution in communicative genre. A single coding of epistemic modality infringes on the maxim of quality, signifying subjectification. Multiply coded epistemic modality from one semantic category infringes on quantity, intensifying epistemic commitment and pragmatic force, and multiply coded epistemic modality from different semantic categories infringes on manner, generating a particularized conversational implicature.

Epistemology and allegiance: exploring the role of therapists’ epistemic commitments on psychotherapy outcomes

This paper explores the relationship between epistemology and psychotherapy, examining the possible role of therapists’ epistemic commitments on their psychotherapeutic outcomes. The epistemic match between therapists’ worldviews and their psychotherapeutic practices are viewed as a potential source of the allegiance effects that are commonly cited in the psychotherapy literature. This notion is examined in relation to current literature concerning psychotherapy process and style, and examined in an exploratory study of psychotherapy outcomes. As expected, results indicated that when therapists conducted a constructivist form of therapy, Coherence Therapy, stronger commitments to constructivist beliefs were linked to more effective psychotherapy outcomes. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the overall role of epistemic commitments in guiding psychotherapeutic practices in a way that might inform an understanding of allegiance effects in counseling and psychotherapy.

Epistemology as a Predictor of Psychotherapists' Self-Care and Coping

The present study examines whether the epistemic leanings of experienced psychotherapists (N = 151; 85 women and 66 men) predicted their self-care and coping strategies in relation to stress. Self-care is seen as a preventative measure against stress, whereas coping is viewed as an individual's adaptive response to stress or difficulties. Results showed a range of evidence that linked stronger constructivist epistemic commitments with higher levels of therapist self-care, but they did not provide strong evidence for the link between epistemic commitments and differential styles of coping. These findings are discussed in relation to the contemporary literature concerning the translation of epistemology into practice, and the limitations and future directions of this work.

On Coordinating Theory with Evidence: The Role of Epistemic Commitments in Scientific Reasoning among College Students

This study examined the impact of two epistemic commitments on the quality of college students‟ scientific reasoning in the domain of hydrostatics. These were the commitment to the consistency of theory with prior knowledge and commitment to the consistency of theory with evidence. Participants were 12 sophomore science majors enrolled in a large Midwestern university in the United States. They were first administered a 10 short-answer item questionnaire to assess their understandings of buoyancy, and then participated in an individual, think-aloud interview centered on four paper-and-pencil scenarios involving systems of objects immersed in water. During the interview, participants also were asked to justify their responses and explain certain reported “observations” in each scenario. The interviews aimed to explore the impact of participants‟ epistemic commitments on their reasoning. A majority of participants did not demonstrate coherent reasoning schemes when working with buoyancy problems. To be sure, participants‟ prior conceptions of buoyancy interacted with the target epistemic commitments in impacting their reasoning. Still, there was a discernable impact for the target epistemic commitments on the quality of participants‟ reasoning.

What is Genealogy?

AbstractThis paper offers a theory of genealogy, explaining its rise in the nineteenth century, its epistemic commitments, its nature as critique, and its place in the work of Nietzsche and Foucault. The crux of the theory is recognition of genealogy as an expression of a radical historicism, rejecting both appeals to transcendental truths and principles of unity or progress in history, and embracing nominalism, contingency, and contestability. In this view, genealogies are committed to the truth of radical historicism and, perhaps more provisionally, the truth of their own empirical content. Similarly, genealogies operate as denaturalizing critiques of ideas and practices that hide the contingency of human life behind formal ahistorical or developmental perspectives.

Critical heuristics: a contribution to addressing the vexed question of so‐called knowledge management

AbstractThis study addresses a long‐standing and well‐recognized problem in Knowledge Management (KM) research, namely, that the KM research community is fragmented. Journeying across boundaries is hazardous because there is a lack of mutual understanding on conceptual, methodological and theoretical issues. The authors believe that researchers may make more robust claims to the validity of their work if they are aware of their own epistemic commitments and those of others. Consequently we address the problem of fragmentation by identifying heuristics for both individual choice (diversity) and collective coherence (integration) in KM research. We propose a framework for inquiry that supports diversity and integration through a synthesis of concepts from Churchman's inquiring systems and Habermas's critical social theory. The key architectural element in this framework is a three‐level structure comprised of Habermas's three knowledge interests (technical, practical and emancipatory). Framework development consists of describing how four other design elements (Habermas's three rationalities, Churchman's roles, knowledge dynamics, and research paradigms) relate to these three levels. Some initial suggestions are made for the practical use of the framework for the purpose of ethical inquiry. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The energy behind Vernon Smith's experimental economics

This paper begins with the interplay of the induced value theory and the Hayek hypothesis, and subsequently suggests that we need to understand Vernon Smith's experimental method as not simply empirical, but encompassing a commitment to a special version of neoclassical demand theory. To this end, we compare his commitment to Harold Hotelling's important work on demand, an exemplar of what we dub the Mirowski-Hands thesis. By providing an overview of Smith's research up until the mid-1970s, we place this progenitor of experimental economics in a new light, revealing his special epistemic commitments.

Folk Epistemology and the Justification of Democracy

In introduce the concept of a "folk epistemology" and argue that norms arising from our folk epistemic commitments provide a compelling social epistemic justification for democratic political norms.

Scientific Realism and the Stratagema de Divide et Impera

In response to historical challenges, advocates of a sophisticated variant of scientific realism emphasize that theoretical systems can be divided into numerous constituents. Setting aside any epistemic commitment to the systems themselves, they maintain that we can justifiably believe those specific constituents that are deployed in key successful predictions. Stathis Psillos articulates an explicit criterion for discerning exactly which theoretical constituents qualify. I critique Psillos's criterion in detail. I then test the more general deployment realist intuition against a set of well-known historical cases, whose significance has, I contend, been overlooked. I conclude that this sophisticated form of realism remains threatened by the historical argument that prompted it. 1. A criterion for scientific realism2. Assessing the criterion3. A return to the crucial insight: responsibility4. A few case studies5. Assessing deployment realism

Reflexing Complexity

Dominant social sciences approaches to complexity suggest that awareness of complexity in late-modern society comes from various recent scientific insights. By examining today’s plant and human genomics sciences, I question this from both ends: first suggesting that typical public culture was already aware of particular salient forms of complexity, such as limits to predictive knowledge (which are often denied by scientific cultures themselves); second, showing how up-to-date genomics science expresses both complexity and its opposites, predictive determinism and reductionism, as coexistent representations of nature and scientific knowledge. I suggest we can understand this self-authored epistemic confusion in modern science by avoiding ‘the usual suspects’ – fading simpler discourses left over from previous scientific times; media oversimplifications; or the need to ‘simplify’ to essentials, for ignorant publics – and looking instead at the silent imaginations of extra-scientific reference groups reflected and projectively performed in scientific discourses-practices themselves. Thus contradictions of complex scientific understandings are systematically created by science’s own embodiment of epistemic commitments influenced by commercial cultures, and by imagined publics who are important new constructed objects of institutional scientific concerns – over authority and trust. New dimensions of complexity thus come alive through paying attention to neglected tacit dimensions of science–society interrelations.

Non-inferential justification and epistemic circularity

It seems implausible that one can gain knowledge via epistemically circular arguments. Vogel (2000) and Cohen (2002) have recently argued against certain epistemic views on the grounds that they endorse epistemically circular reasoning. However, we might have to accept epistemically circular reasoning despite its initial implausibility if it were shown to follow from an epistemic commitment which is unavoidable. In this paper I examine whether, as Bergmann suggests, epistemically circular reasoning is a consequence of the plausible assumption that some justification is non-inferential.

Fishing Lifestyles: ‘Territorians’, Traditional Owners and the Management of Recreational Fishing in Kakadu National Park

AbstractThe relationships between traditional Aboriginal land owners and other Park users in Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory are characterised by competing agendas and competing ideas about appropriate ways of relating to the environment. Similarly, the management of recreational fishing in the Park is permeated by the tensions and opposition of contested ideas and perspectives from non‐Aboriginal fishers and Aboriginal traditional owners. The local know‐ledge and rights of ‘Territorians’[non‐Aboriginal Northern Territory residents] are continually pitted against the local knowledge and rights of Aboriginal traditional owners. Under these circumstances, debates between non‐Aboriginal fishers and Aboriginal traditional owners are overwhelmingly dominated by the unequal power relationships created through an alliance between science and the State. The complex and multi‐dimensional nature of Aboriginal traditional owners’ concerns for country renders these concerns invisible or incomprehensible to government, science and non‐Aboriginal fishers who are each guided by very different epistemic commitments. It is a state of affairs that leaves the situated knowledge of Aboriginal traditional owners with a limited authority in the non‐Aboriginal domain and detracts from their ability to manage and care for their homelands. ACRONYMSAFANT Amateur Fishermen's Association of the Northern TerritoryALRA Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cth)ANCA Australian Nature Conservation AgencyANPWS Australian National Parks and Wildlife ServiceKNPBoM Kakadu National Park Board of Management

Reason or Reasoning?

Everyone, we moderns believe(d), has a history, though not everyone has historiography. The West developed a tradition of history writing; the Muslim world and the Chinese are admitted to have had such a tradition, albeit in an underdeveloped form; but most cultures had myths and religious epics instead of history writing, even if they sometimes confused the former for the latter. But because everyone nonetheless had a history, that history could be narrated in the terms of a rational historiography that would redescribe this past in terms alien to those whose past it was. Their own forms of recording and relating to the past—be they myths, legends, religious epics, or other—could serve, at best, as (rather unreliable) raw materials in the reconstruction of this past. This did not occasion any discomfort, for these indigenous intellectual traditions were held to have demonstrated that they were unequal to the task of recording and narrating their history by mixing myth with reality, wish with fact, gods with men. And the epistemic commitments that suggested that these were people incapable of representing their own past were the same as those which further suggested that these people were backward. Or vice versa: that these people still belonged to the past was indicated, among other things, by their inability to properly represent their past.

Practical Identities and Autonomy: Korsgaard's Reformation of Kan's Moral Philosophy

Kant has long been taxed with an inability to explain the detailed normative content of our lives by making universalizability the sole arbiter of our values. Korsgaard addresses one form of this critique by defending a Kantian theory amended by a seemingly attractive conception of practical identities. Identities are dependent on the contingent circumstances of each person's world. Hence, obligations issuing from them differ from Kantian moral obligations in not applying to all persons. Still, Korsgaard takes Kantian autonomy to mean the normativity of all obligations is rooted in universalizability. The wealth of values informing our lives is thus said to be accommodated within a Kantian framework.After briefly explaining Korsgaard's understanding of practical identities and their role in her reformation of Kant's moral philosophy, I argue that she gives an inadequate explanation of how the obligations that arise from a person's practical identities derive their authority from the person's will. I then consider how her position might be developed to meet this objection in accordance with her allegiance to “constructivism” and I argue that the epistemic commitments of people's actual identities makes it unlikely that such a development could preserve Kantian autonomy as she interprets it.

The Construction of Global Warming and the Politics of Science

Having outlined a theory of heterogeneous social construction, this article describes the scientific construction of climate change as a global-scale environmental problem caused by the universal physical properties of greenhouse gases. Critics have noted that this reductionist formulation serves a variety of political purposes, but instrumental and interest-based critiques of the use of scientific knowledge tend to ignore the ways in which a politics gets built into science at the upstream end. By retracing the history of climate modeling and of several scientific controversies, I unmask the tacit social and epistemic commitments implied by its specific practices. The specific scientific framing of global climate change has reinforced and been reinforced by the technocratic inclinations of global climate management. The social organization of climate change science and its articulation with the political process raise important questions about trust, uncertainty, and expertise. The article concludes with a discussion of the political brittleness of this dominant science-led and global-scale formulation of the climate change problem and the need for a more reflexive politics of climate change and of scientific knowledge based on active trust.

The Third Party Standpoint, Postmodernism, and the Study of Social Transactions

The development of generic principles is advocated as the goal of sociology. Recent postmodern concerns with particularistic and local explanations are compared with the New Iowa School's commitment to uncovering generic forms of social life. While postmodern theorists such as Denzin, Ellis, Richardson, and Seidman advocate an epistemic approach that denies an interest in the development of generic principles, their analyses belie this epistemic commitment. The New Iowa School advocates the development of generic principles of social life and offers a methodological standpoint to achieve this goal—the third party standpoint.

Scientific innovation and the limits of social scientific prediction

Philosophers and historians of philosophy have come to recognize that at the core of logical positivism was an attachment to prediction as the necessary condition for scientific knowledge.1 The inheritors of their tradition, especially the Bayesians among us, continue to seek a theory of confirmation that reflects this epistemic commitment. The impor tance of prediction in the growth of scientific knowledge is a com mitment I share with the positivists, so I do not blanch at that design ation, much less employ it as a term of abuse. Precisely expressing and conclusively establishing the claims of pre diction as a necessary condition for certifying claims as increments of knowledge is a goal that has so far eluded us post-positivists. Philoso phers know the problems well: defining a positive instance, distin guishing projectible from nonprojectible predicates, deciding whether retrodiction is as epistemically probative as prediction.2 But I can't help thinking that these problems are technicalities important and arresting, but not impediments to embracing the positivist demand that increments in scientific knowledge withstand tests of predictive success.