Hans Radder

Selling science has become a common practice in contemporary universities. This commodification of academia pervades many aspects of higher education, including research, teaching, and administration. As such, it raises significant philosophical, political, and moral challenges. This volume offers the first book-length analysis of this disturbing trend from a philosophical perspective and presents views by scholars of philosophy of science, social and political philosophy, and research ethics. The epistemic and moral responsibilities of universities, whether for-profit or nonprofit, are examined from several philosophical standpoints. The contributors discuss the pertinent epistemological and methodological questions, the sociopolitical issues of the organization of science, the tensions between commodified practices and the ideal of “science for the public good,” and the role of governmental regulation and personal ethical behavior. In order to counter coercive and corruptive influences of academic commodification, the contributors consider alternatives to commodified research and offer practical recommendations for establishing appropriate research standards, methodologies and institutional arrangements, and a corresponding normative ethos.

At issue in this paper is the question of the appropriate relationship between the philosophy and history of science. The discussion starts with a brief sketch of Kuhn's approach, followed by an analysis of the so-called ‘testing-theories-of-scientific-change programme’. This programme is an attempt at a more rigorous approach to the historical philosophy of science. Since my conclusion is that, by and large, this attempt has failed, I proceed to examine some more promising approaches. First, I deal with Hacking's recent views on the issues in question, particularly his notion of a ‘style of reasoning’. Next, Nickles's reconstructionist interpretation of the development of science and his views on Whig history are addressed. Finally, I propose an account of philosophy as a theoretical, an interpretative and explanatory, enterprise. Thus, three alternatives to the Kuhnian paradigm are discussed, alternatives that share a recognition of the relative autonomy of philosophy from history. Hence, they assume a less tight relationship between philosophy and history of science than is the case within the Kuhnian paradigm.

Several philosophers of science have claimed that the correspondence principle can be generalized from quantum physics to all of (particularly physical) science and that in fact it constitutes one of the major heuristical rules for the construction of new theories. In order to evaluate these claims, first the use of the correspondence principle in (the genesis of) quantum mechanics will be examined in detail. It is concluded from this and from other examples in the history of science that the principle should be qualified with respect to its nature and relativized with respect to its scope of application. At the same time this conclusion implies a qualification and a relativization of the heuristic power of the principle. Generally speaking, intertheoretical correspondence is primarily of a formal-mathematical and empirical but not of a conceptual nature. Moreover, it only applies to certain parts of the theories involved. Finally, a number of philosophical justifications of the principle are discussed and some conclusions are drawn concerning the debates on theory reduction and on the discovery-justification distinction.

Advancements in computing, instrumentation, robotics, digital imaging, and simulation modeling have changed science into a technology-driven institution. Government, industry, and society increasingly exert their influence over science, raising questions of values and objectivity. These and other profound changes have led many to speculate that we are in the midst of an epochal break in scientific history. This edited volume presents an in-depth examination of these issues from philosophical, historical, social, and cultural perspectives. It offers arguments both for and against the epochal break thesis in light of historical antecedents. Contributors discuss topics such as: science as a continuing epistemological enterprise; the decline of the individual scientist and the rise of communities; the intertwining of scientific and technological needs; links to prior practices and ways of thinking; the alleged divide between mode-1 and mode-2 research methods; the commodification of university science; and the shift from the scientific to a technological enterprise. Additionally, they examine the epochal break thesis using specific examples, including the transition from laboratory to real world experiments; the increased reliance on computer imaging; how analog and digital technologies condition behaviors that shape the object and beholder; the cultural significance of humanoid robots; the erosion of scientific quality in experimentation; and the effect of computers on prediction at the expense of explanation. Whether these events represent a historic break in scientific theory, practice, and methodology is disputed. What they do offer is an important occasion for philosophical analysis of the epistemic, institutional and moral questions affecting current and future scientific pursuits.

Thus far, the philosophical study of patenting has primarily focused on sociopolitical, legal, and ethical issues, such as the moral justifiability of patenting living organisms or the nature of (intellectual) property. In addition, however, the theory and practice of patenting entails many important problems that can be fruitfully studied from the perspective of the philosophy of science and technology. The principal aim of this article is to substantiate the latter claim. For this purpose, I first provide a concise review of the main features of the theory and practice of the patenting of scientific and technological inventions. Second, I discuss several philosophical issues implied by these features and explore the possible contributions of the philosophy of science and technology to the clarification, or resolution, of these issues. The seven features discussed are: patents as commercial monopolies on scientific and technological inventions, the contrast between natural and non-natural subject matter, the distinction between inventions and discoveries, the reproducibility of inventions, the question of the sameness of two inventions, the distinction between the invented and the protected object, and the contrast between material objects versus concepts and theories. The article concludes with some observations on the problems and prospects of the philosophical study of the theory and practice of patenting scientific and technological inventions

This paper proposes a framework for a critical philosophy of technology by discussing its practical, theoretical, empirical, normative and political dimensions. I put forward a general account of technology, which includes both similarities and dissimilarities to Andrew Feenberg’s instrumentalization theory. This account characterizes a technology as a “(type of) artefactual, functional system with a certain degree of stability and reproducibility”. A discussion of how such technologies may be realized discloses five different levels at which alternative choices might be made. On this basis, I argue that a critical philosophy of technology should analyse and assess the choices that have, and have not, been made in actual practice, and contribute to social experiments that aim at more democratic and more desirable alternatives.

Universities are occupied by Management, a regime obsessed with ‘accountability' through measurement, increased competition, efficiency, ‘excellence', and misconceived economic salvation. Given the occupation's absurd side-effects, we ask ourselves how Management has succeeded in taking over our precious universities. An alternative vision for the academic future consists of a public university, more akin to a socially engaged knowledge commons than to a corporation. We suggest some provocative measures to bring about such a university. However, as Management seems impervious to cogent arguments, such changes can only happen if academics take action. Hence, we explore several strategies for a renewed university politics.

TWO OPPOSING VIEWS ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP between concepts and the world can be found in the history of philosophy. One view—deriving from Immanuel Kant and endorsed by Karl Popper, among many others—claims that in forming and using concepts we structure the world. Concepts produce or increase order. Hence, the world, insofar as it is knowable by human beings, is necessarily a conceptually structured world. The second, still older view—represented by the Aristotelian tradition and by John Locke, for example—holds that concepts are formed by abstracting from the particularities of the world. By leaving out the accidental or irrelevant features of particular entities, we abstract a concept as a general representative of a kind.

Since the late 1980s, the neglect of experiment by philosophers and historians of science has been replaced by a keen interest in the subject. In this volume, a number of prominent philosophers of experiment directly address basic theoretical questions, develop existing philosophical accounts, and offer novel perspectives on the subject, rather than rely exclusively on historical cases of experimental practice. Each essay examines one or more of six interconnected themes that run throughout the collection: the philosophical implications of actively and intentionally interfering with the material world while conducting experiments; issues of interpretation regarding causality; the link between science and technology; the role of theory in experimentation involving material and causal intervention; the impact of modeling and computer simulation on experimentation; and the philosophical implications of the design, operation, and use of scientific instruments.

In his influential book, "Changing Order", H.M. Collins puts forward the following three claims concerning experimental replication. (i) Replication is rarely practiced by experimentalists; (ii) replication cannot be used as an objective test of scientific knowledge claims, because of the occurrence of the so-called experimenters' regress; and (iii) stopping this regress at some point depends upon the enculturation in a local community of practitioners, who tacitly learn the relevant skills. In my paper I discuss and assess these claims on the basis of a more comprehensive analysis of experimentation and experimental reproducibility. The main point is that Collins' claims are not, strictly speaking, wrong, but rather too one-sided and therefore inadequate. This point also calls for a reconsideration of the radical (social constructivist) conclusions that Collins has drawn from his studies of scientific experimentation.

This paper proposes a framework for a critical philosophy of technology by discussing its practical, theoretical, empirical, normative and political dimensions. I put forward a general account of technology, which includes both similarities and dissimilarities to Andrew Feenberg's instrumentalization theory. This account characterizes a technology as a "(type of) artefactual, functional system with a certain degree of stability and reproducibility". A discussion of how such technologies may be realized discloses five different levels at which alternative choices might be made. On this basis, I argue that a critical philosophy of technology should analyse and assess the choices that have, and have not, been made in actual practice, and contribute to social experiments that aim at more democratic and more desirable alternatives.