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Ontological pluralism and social valuesStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 104 (C): 61-67. 2024.There seems to be an emerging consensus among many philosophers of science that non-epistemic values ought to play a role in the process of scientific reasoning itself. Recently, a number of philosophers have focused on the role of values in scientific classification or taxonomy. Their claim is that a choice of ontology or taxonomic scheme can only be made, or should only be made, by appealing to non-epistemic or social values. In this paper, I take on this “argument from ontological choice,” cl…Read more
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Ethnobiological kinds and material grounding: comments on LudwigEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Science 14 (1): 1-10. 2024.
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The social contract for science and the value-free idealSynthese 203 (2): 1-19. 2024.While the Value-Free Ideal (VFI) had many precursors, it became a solidified bulwark of normative claims about scientific reasoning and practice in the mid-twentieth century. Since then, it has played a central role in the philosophy of science, first as a basic presupposition of how science should work, then as a target for critique, and now as a target for replacement. In this paper, we will argue that a narrow focus on the VFI is misguided, because the VFI coalesced in the midst of other impo…Read more
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Wageningen University and ResearchCommunication, Philosophy and Technology (CPT)Associate Professor
Wageningen, Gelderland, Netherlands