Manuela Fernández Pinto

Expanding on recent philosophical contributions to the conceptual and normative framework of scientific imperialism, I examine whether the economics approach to social epistemology can be considered a case of economics imperialism and determine whether economics’ explanatory expansionism appropriately contributes to this philosophical subfield or not. I argue first that the economics approach to social epistemology counts as a case of economics imperialism under a broad conception of the term, and second that we have good reasons to doubt the appropriateness of the incursion of economics into social epistemology, insofar as economics’ attempt at explanatory unification fails to express significant human interests.

As scientific research moves increasingly to the private sector, the social organization of science undergoes important transformations. Focusing on the production of ignorance, agnotology has been a fruitful approach to understanding the social and epistemic consequences of the recent commercialization of scientific research. Despite their important contributions, scholars working on agnotology seem to hold implicit normative commitments that are in tension with their descriptive accounts of ignorance-constructive practices. The main aim of this article is to uncover these commitments and to expose the emerging tensions. Thus, this article begins an exploration into normative aspects of the studies of ignorance. In particular, it shows that agnotology still needs the support of a well-articulated normative approach capable of identifying and evaluating the epistemic and social concerns raised by the private funding and performance of science.