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43Animism and Science in European PerspectiveStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 103 46-57. 2024.The European tradition makes a sharp distinction between animism and science. On the basis of this distinction, either animism is reproved for failing to reach the heights of science, or science is reproved for failing to reach the heights of animism. In this essay, I draw on work in the history and philosophy and science, combined with a method from the sociology of scientific knowledge, to question the sharpness of this distinction. Along the way, I also take guidance from the research of Nort…Read more
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502Animism and Natural Teleology from Avicenna to BoyleScience in Context 34 (1): 1-23. 2021.Historians have claimed that the two closely related concepts of animism and natural teleology were both decisively rejected in the Scientific Revolution. They tout Robert Boyle as an early modern warden against pre-modern animism. Discussing Avicenna, Aquinas, and Buridan, as well as Renaissance psychology, I instead suggest that teleology went through a slow and uneven process of rationalization. As Neoplatonic theology gained influence over Aristotelian natural philosophy, the meaning of anim…Read more
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307Ingold, Hermeneutics, and Hylomorphic AnimismAnthropological Theory 24 (1): 88-108. 2024.Tim Ingold draws a sharp line between animism and hylomorphism, that is, between his relational ontology and a rival genealogical ontology. He argues that genealogical hylomorphism collapses under a fallacy of circularity, while his relationism does not. Yet Ingold fails to distinguish between vicious or fallacious circles, on the one hand, and virtuous or hermeneutic circles, on the other. I demonstrate that hylomorphism and Ingold’s relational animism are both virtuously circular. Hence, there…Read more
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51Steve Fuller: Knowledge, the philosophical quest in history: Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2015, viii+304pp, $49.95Metascience 25 (1): 3-23. 2015.This is a review symposium on Fuller”s Knowledge: A Philosophical Quest in History
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72Ingold’s Animism and European SciencePerspectives on Science 30 (4): 783-817. 2022.Anthropologist Tim Ingold promotes Indigenous animism as a salve for perceived failures in modern science, failures he claims also hobbled his own early work. In fact, both Ingold’s early and later work rely on modern scientific ideas and images. His turn to animism marks not an exit from the history of European science, but an entrance into, and imaginative elaboration of, distinctly Neoplatonic themes within that history. This turn marks, too, a clear but unacknowledged departure from systemat…Read more
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74Animism, Aristotelianism, and the Legacy of William Gilbert’s De MagnetePerspectives on Science 29 (2): 157-188. 2021.William Gilbert’s 1600 book, De magnete, greatly influenced early modern natural philosophy. The book describes an impressive array of physical experiments, but it also advances a metaphysical view at odds with the soon to emerge mechanical philosophy. That view was animism. I distinguish two kinds of animism – Aristotelian and Platonic – and argue that Gilbert was an Aristotelian animist. Taking Robert Boyle as an example, I then show that early modern arguments against animism were often effec…Read more
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316Review of Rhonda L. Hinther, "Perogies and Politics: Canada's Ukrainian Left, 1891-1991" (review)East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies 7 (1): 283-285. 2020.Using an intersectionalist analysis, Hinther recounts efforts by Canada’s Ukrainian minority to build an ethnically distinct leftist movement. Opposed from without by both left-wing internationalists and right-wing nationalists, and hobbled from within by stubborn gender and generational inequalities, the movement finally lost its radical political momentum and so took up its allotted place in Canada’s polite multicultural mosaic. (Published in the series “Studies in Gender and History,” Univers…Read more
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257In response to Anderson and Arzyutov’s paper, I argue that ambiguities in the Russian social-scientific concept of “etnos” reveal its place in what I call a “field style” for thinking and doing science. Tolerance for ambiguity is, I suggest, a methodological strength of the field sciences. I support these reflections by also addressing the etnos concept’s origins in the complex history of Ukrainian nationalism.
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335Disassembling the System: A Reply to Paolo Palladino and Adam RiggioSocial Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7 (12): 29-38. 2018.Final instalment of a book-review symposium on: Jeff Kochan (2017), Science as Social Existence: Heidegger and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (Cambridge UK: Open Book Publishers). -- Author's response to: Paolo Palladino (2018), 'Heidegger Today: On Jeff Kochan’s Science and Social Existence,' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7(8): 41-46; and Adam Riggio (2018), 'The Very Being of a Conceptual Scheme: Disciplinary and Conceptual Critiques,' Social Epistemology Review and …Read more
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251Suppressed Subjectivity and Truncated Tradition: A Reply to Pablo SchyfterSocial Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7 (12): 15-21. 2018.Author's response to: Pablo Schyfter, 'Inaccurate Ambitions and Missing Methodologies: Thoughts on Jeff Kochan and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge,' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7, no. 8 (2018): 8-14. -- Part of a book-review symposium on: Jeff Kochan (2017), Science as Social Existence: Heidegger and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (Cambridge UK: Open Book Publishers).
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383Decolonising Science in Canada: A Work in ProgressSocial Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7 (11): 42-47. 2018.This paper briefly highlights a small part of the work being done by Indigenous groups in Canada to integrate science into their ways of knowing and living with nature. Special attention is given to a recent attempt by Mi'kmaw educators in Unama'ki (Cape Breton, Nova Scotia) to overcome suspicion of science among their youth by establishing an 'Integrative Science' (Toqwa'tu'kl Kjijitaqnn, or 'bringing our knowledges together') degree programme at Cape Breton University. The goal was to combine …Read more
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304On the Sociology of Subjectivity: A Reply to Raphael SassowerSocial Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7 (5): 39-41. 2018.Author's response to: Raphael Sassower, 'Heidegger and the Sociologists: A Forced Marriage?,' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7, no. 5 (2018): 30-32. -- Part of a book-review symposium on: Jeff Kochan (2017), Science as Social Existence: Heidegger and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (Cambridge UK: Open Book Publishers).
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1128Science as Social Existence: Heidegger and the Sociology of Scientific KnowledgeOpen Book Publishers. 2017.REVIEW (1): "Jeff Kochan’s book offers both an original reading of Martin Heidegger’s early writings on science and a powerful defense of the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) research program. Science as Social Existence weaves together a compelling argument for the thesis that SSK and Heidegger’s existential phenomenology should be thought of as mutually supporting research programs." (Julian Kiverstein, in Isis) ---- REVIEW (2): "I cannot in the space of this review do justice to the ri…Read more
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499Objective Styles in Northern Field ScienceStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 52 1-12. 2015.Social studies of science have often treated natural field sites as extensions of the laboratory. But this overlooks the unique specificities of field sites. While lab sites are usually private spaces with carefully controlled borders, field sites are more typically public spaces with fluid boundaries and diverse inhabitants. Field scientists must therefore often adapt their work to the demands and interests of local agents. I propose to address the difference between lab and field in sociologic…Read more
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347Reason, Emotion, and the Context DistinctionPhilosophia Scientiae 19 (1): 35-43. 2015.Recent empirical and philosophical research challenges the view that reason and emotion necessarily conflict with one another. Philosophers of science have, however, been slow in responding to this research. I argue that they continue to exclude emotion from their models of scientific reasoning because they typically see emotion as belonging to the context of discovery rather than of justification. I suggest, however, that recent work in epistemology challenges the authority usually granted the …Read more
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16Reason, Emotion, and the Context DistinctionPhilosophia Scientiae 19 35-43. 2015.La recherche empirique et philosophique récente remet en question l’idée selon laquelle raison et émotion sont nécessairement en conflit l’une avec l’autre. Pourtant, les philosophes des sciences ont été lents à réagir à cette recherche. Je soutiens qu’ils continuent à exclure l’émotion de leurs modèles du raisonnement scientifique, parce qu’ils considèrent qu’elle appartient typiquement au contexte de découverte plutôt qu’au contexte de justification. Je suggère toutefois, en prenant pour exemp…Read more
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451Getting Real with Rouse and HeideggerPerspectives on Science 19 (1): 81-115. 2011.Joseph Rouse has drawn from Heidegger’s early philosophy to develop what he calls a “practical hermeneutics of science.” With this, he has not only become an important player in the recent trend towards practice-based conceptualisations of science, he has also emerged as the predominant expositor of Heidegger’s philosophy of science. Yet, there are serious shortcomings in both Rouse’s theory of science and his interpretation of Heidegger. In the first instance, Rouse’s practical hermeneutics ap…Read more
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38Scientific Practice and Epistemic Modes of ExistenceIn Dimitri Ginev (ed.), Debating Cognitive Existentialism: Values and Orientations in Hermeneutic Philosophy of Science, Brill. pp. 95-106. 2015.Proponents of practice-based accounts of science often reject theory-based accounts, and seek to explain scientific theory reductively in terms of practice. I consider two examples: Dimitri Ginev and Joseph Rouse. Both draw inspiration from Martin Heidegger’s existential conception of science. And both allege that Heidegger ultimately betrayed his insight that theory can be reduced to practice when he sought to explain modern science in terms of a theory-based “mathematical projection of nature.…Read more
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100Technological Democracy or Democratic Technology?Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 35 (2): 401-412. 2004.Essay review of Andrew Barry, Political Machines: Governing a Technological Society (Athlone, 2001).
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72On Your Feet, Philosophers! (review)Metascience 19 (1): 101-104. 2010.Review of: Steve Fuller (2009), The Sociology of Intellectual Life: the Career of the Mind in and around the Academy (London: SAGE Publications).
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119Contrastive Explanation and the 'Strong Programme' in the Sociology of Scientific KnowledgeSocial Studies of Science 40 (1): 127-44. 2010.In this essay, I address a novel criticism recently levelled at the Strong Programme by Nick Tosh and Tim Lewens. Tosh and Lewens paint Strong Programme theorists as trading on a contrastive form of explanation. With this, they throw valuable new light on the explanatory methods employed by the Strong Programme. However, as I shall argue, Tosh and Lewens run into trouble when they accuse Strong Programme theorists of unduly restricting the contrast space in which legitimate historical and sociol…Read more
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49Review of Dimitri Ginev, The Tenets of Cognitive Existentialism. (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2012.04.23). 2012.Review of: Dimitri Ginev (2011), The Tenets of Cognitive Existentialism (Athens: Ohio University Press).
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156Realism, Reliabilism, and the 'Strong Programme' in the Sociology of Scientific KnowledgeInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 22 (1). 2008.In this essay, I respond to Tim Lewens's proposal that realists and Strong Programme theorists can find common ground in reliabilism. I agree with Lewens, but point to difficulties in his argument. Chief among these is his assumption that reliabilism is incompatible with the Strong Programme's principle of symmetry. I argue that the two are, in fact, compatible, and that Lewens misses this fact because he wrongly supposes that reliabilism entails naturalism. The Strong Programme can fully accomm…Read more
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186Husserl and the Phenomenology of ScienceStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 42 (3): 467-471. 2011.This article critically reviews an outstanding collection of new essays addressing Edmund Husserl’s Crisis of European Sciences. In Science and the Life-World (Stanford, 2010), David Hyder and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger bring together an impressive range of first-rate philosophers and historians. The collection explicates key concepts in Husserl’s often obscure work, compares Husserl’s phenomenology of science to the parallel tradition of historical epistemology, and provocatively challenges Husserl’…Read more
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53The Eggs Speak Up: Review of Fuller's Knowledge (review)Metascience 25 (1). 2016.Contribution to a book symposium on Steve Fuller's _Knowledge: The Philosophical Quest in History_ (Routledge, 2015). The title reproduces the title of an essay by Hannah Arendt. Fuller uses the idea of theodicy to promote a creationist philosophy of science, according to which one is justified in breaking eggs in order to produce a divine omelette of technologically orchestrated human transcendence. The review nods to Arendt's essay, and a short story by Ursula LeGuin, in challenging this propo…Read more
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506Circles of Scientific Practice: Regressus, Mathēsis, DenkstilIn Dimitri Ginev (ed.), Critical Science Studies after Ludwik Fleck, St. Kliment Ohridski University Press. pp. 83-99. 2015.Hermeneutic studies of science locate a circle at the heart of scientific practice: scientists only gain knowledge of what they, in some sense, already know. This may seem to threaten the rational validity of science, but one can argue that this circle is a virtuous rather than a vicious one. A virtuous circle is one in which research conclusions are already present in the premises, but only in an indeterminate and underdeveloped way. In order to defend the validity of science, the hermeneuticis…Read more
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93The Exception Makes the Rule: Reply to HowsonInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 23 (2): 213-216. 2009.Colin Howson argues that (1) my sociologistic reliabilism sheds no light on the objectivity of epistemic content, and that (2) sorites does not threaten the reliability of modus ponens . I reply that argument (1) misrepresents my position, and that argument (2) is beside the point.
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906Putting a Spin on Circulating Reference, or How to Rediscover the Scientific SubjectStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 49 103-107. 2015.Bruno Latour claims to have shown that a Kantian model of knowledge, which he describes as seeking to unite a disembodied transcendental subject with an inaccessible thing-in-itself, is dramatically falsified by empirical studies of science in action. Instead, Latour puts central emphasis on scientific practice, and replaces this Kantian model with a model of “circulating reference.” Unfortunately, Latour's alternative schematic leaves out the scientific subject. I repair this oversight through …Read more
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109Review of Finn Collin, Science Studies as Naturalized Philosophy (review)International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 26 (1): 121-124. 2012.Review of: Finn Collin (2011), Science Studies as Naturalized Philosophy (Dordecht: Springer).
Konstanz, Baden-Württemberg, Germany