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209Universities as Anarchic Knowledge InstitutionsSocial Epistemology (2): 119-134. 2023.Universities are knowledge institutions. Compared to several other knowledge institutions (e.g. schools, government research organisations, think tanks), research universities have unusual, anarchic organisational features. We argue that such anarchic features are not a weakness. Rather, they reflect the special standing of research universities among knowledge institutions. We contend that the distributed, self-organising mode of knowledge production maintains a diversity of approaches, topics …Read more
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38Social and cognitive diversity in science: introductionSynthese 202 (2): 1-10. 2023.In this introduction to the Topical Collection on Social and Cognitive Diversity in Science, we map the questions that have guided social epistemological approaches to diversity in science. Both social and cognitive diversity of different types is claimed to be epistemically beneficial. The challenge is to understand how an increase in a group’s diversity can bring about epistemic benefits and whether there are limits beyond which diversity can no longer improve a group’s epistemic performance. …Read more
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26The division of cognitive labor and the structure of interdisciplinary problemsSynthese 201 (6): 1-20. 2023.Interdisciplinarity is strongly promoted in science policy across the world. It is seen as a necessary condition for providing practical solutions to many pressing complex problems for which no single disciplinary approach is adequate alone. In this article we model multi- and interdisciplinary research as an instance of collective problem solving. Our goal is to provide a basic representation of this type of problem solving and chart the epistemic benefits and costs of researchers engaging in d…Read more
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9The Diversity-Ability Trade-Off in Scientific Problem SolvingPhilosophy of Science 88 (5): 894-905. 2021.According to the diversity-beats-ability theorem, groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers. We argue that the model introduced by Lu Hong and Scott Page is inadequate for exploring the trade-off between diversity and ability. This is because the model employs an impoverished implementation of the problem-solving task. We present a new version of the model that captures the role of ‘ability’ in a meaningful way, and we use it to explore the trade-off…Read more
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77Social categories in the making: construction or recruitment?Synthese 199 (5-6): 12315-12330. 2021.Real kinds, both natural and social categories, are characterized by rich inductive potential. They have relatively stable sets of conceptually independent projectable properties. Somewhat surprisingly, even some purely social categories show such multiple projectability. The article explores the origin of the inductive richness of social categories and concepts. I argue that existing philosophical accounts provide only a partial explanation, and mechanisms of boundary formation and stabilizatio…Read more
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1512Hacking, Ian (1936–)Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2021.Ian Hacking (born in 1936, Vancouver, British Columbia) is most well-known for his work in the philosophy of the natural and social sciences, but his contributions to philosophy are broad, spanning many areas and traditions. In his detailed case studies of the development of probabilistic and statistical reasoning, Hacking pioneered the naturalistic approach in the philosophy of science. Hacking’s research on social constructionism, transient mental illnesses, and the looping effect of the human…Read more
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88The diversity-ability trade-off in scientific problem solvingPhilosophy of Science (Supplement). forthcoming.According to the diversity-beats-ability theorem, groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers. We argue that the model introduced by Lu Hong and Scott Page is inadequate for exploring the trade-off between diversity and ability. This is because the model employs an impoverished implementation of the problem-solving task. We present a new version of the model which captures the role of ‘ability’ in a meaningful way, and use it to explore the trade-offs …Read more
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98Argumentative landscapes: the function of models in social epistemologySynthese 199 (1-2): 369-395. 2021.We argue that the appraisal of models in social epistemology requires conceiving of them as argumentative devices, taking into account the argumentative context and adopting a family-of-models perspective. We draw up such an account and show how it makes it easier to see the value and limits of the use of models in social epistemology. To illustrate our points, we document and explicate the argumentative role of epistemic landscape models in social epistemology and highlight their limitations. W…Read more
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Olemukset piilopremisseinä argumentaatiossaIn Juho Ritola (ed.), Tutkimuksia Argumentaatiosta. pp. 191-206. 2012.Tarkastelemme tässä artikkelissa, kuinka ihmisen psykologinen taipumus olemusajatteluun eli niin kutsuttu psykologinen essentialismi voisi näkyä argumentaatiossa. Esittelemme ensin psykologista tutkimusta aiheesta, minkä jälkeen tarkastelemme ilmiön merkitystä argumentaation ja sen tutkimuksen kannalta. Olemusajattelu näkyy julkilausumattomina taustaoletuksina, jotka kuitenkin vaikuttavat ihmisten tapaan tehdä päätelmiä ja rakentaa argumentteja. Argumentaation yhteydessä olemusajattelua tulee ta…Read more
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33Carving the mind by its joints. Natural kinds and social construction in psychiatryIn Talmont-Kaminski K. Milkowski M. (ed.), Regarding the Mind, Naturally: Naturalist Approaches to the Sciences of the Mental, Cambridge Scholars Press. pp. 30-48. 2013.I propound a mechanistic theory of natural kinds in the human sciences. By examining a culture- bound psychiatric disorder, bulimia nervosa, I illustrate how partially socially constructed phenomena raise a serious challenge to traditional theories of natural kinds. As a solution to the challenge, I show how the mechanistic approach allows us to include real but partly socially sustained phenomena among natural kinds. This is desirable because the theory of natural kinds supplies the human scien…Read more
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69Looping kinds and social mechanismsSociological Theory 30 (3): 187-205. 2012.Human behavior is not always independent of the ways in which humans are scientifically classified. That there are looping effects of human kinds has been used as an argument for the methodological separation of the natural and the human sciences and to justify social constructionist claims. We suggest that these arguments rely on false presuppositions and present a mechanisms-based account of looping that provides a better way to understand the phenomenon and its theoretical and philosophical i…Read more
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90Understanding non-modular functionality – lessons from genetic algorithmsPhilosophy of Science 80 (5): 637-649. 2013.Evolution is often characterized as a tinkerer that creates efficient but messy solutions to problems. We analyze the nature of the problems that arise when we try to explain and understand cognitive phenomena created by this haphazard design process. We present a theory of explanation and understanding and apply it to a case problem – solutions generated by genetic algorithms. By analyzing the nature of solutions that genetic algorithms present to computational problems, we show that the reason…Read more
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59Natural Kinds and Concept EliminativismIn Vassilios Karakostas & Dennis Dieks (eds.), EPSA11 Perspectives and Foundational Problems in Philosophy of Science, Springer. pp. 167--179. 2013.Recently in the philosophy of psychology it has been suggested that several putative phenomena such as emotions, memory, or concepts are not genuine natural kinds and should therefore be eliminated from the vocabulary of scientific psychology. In this paper I examine the perhaps most well known case of scientific eliminativism, Edouard Machery’s concept eliminativism. I argue that the split-lump-eliminate scheme of con- ceptual change underlying Machery’s eliminativist proposal assumes a simplis…Read more
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79Explanatory power of extended cognitionPhilosophical Psychology 27 (5): 735-759. 2014.I argue that examining the explanatory power of the hypothesis of extended cognition (HEC) offers a fruitful approach to the problem of cognitive system demarcation. Although in the discussions on HEC it has become common to refer to considerations of explanatory power as a means for assessing the plausibility of the extended cognition approach, to date no satisfying account of explanatory power has been presented in the literature. I suggest that the currently most prominent theory of explanat…Read more
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28Addiction-as-a-kind hypothesisInternational Journal of Addiction and Drug Research 4 (1): 21-25. 2015.The psychiatric category of addiction has recently been broadened to include new behaviors. This has prompted critical discussion about the value of a concept that covers so many different substances and activities. Many of the debates surrounding the notion of addiction stem from different views concerning what kind of a thing addiction fundamentally is. In this essay, we put forward an account that conceptualizes different addictions as sharing a cluster of relevant properties (the syndrome) t…Read more
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Psykologia tieteenalana ja asiakastyönä (review)Niin and Näin 16 132-134. 2016.Psykologian identiteetti tieteenalana ja ammattikuntana on jännitteinen. Etenkin akateemisissa yhteyksissä psykologia pyrkii usein erottautumaan muista ihmistieteistä metodisesti luonnontieteitä ja niiden kvantitatiivisia menetelmiä lähellä olevana tutkimusalana. Ihmismielen tutkimuksessa neurotieteen rooli on viime vuosikymmeninä kasvanut merkittävästi, ja parhailla julkaisufoorumeilla psykologisten tulosten tukemisesta aivotason evidenssillä on tullut lähes välttämättömyys. Toisaalta kuten Ves…Read more
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40Nudge, Boost or Design? Limitations of behavioral policy under social interaction.Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy 2 (1): 99-105. 2018.Nudge and boost are two competing approaches to applying the psychology of reasoning and decision making to improve policy. Whereas nudges rely on manipulation of choice architecture to steer people towards better choices, the objective of boosts is to develop good decision-making competences. Proponents of both approaches claim capacity to enhance social welfare through better individual decisions. We suggest that such efforts should involve a more careful analysis of how individual and social …Read more
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Kokeellinen yhteiskuntatiedeIn Tuukka Kaidesoja, Tomi Kankainen & Petri Ylikoski (eds.), Syistä selityksiin. Kausaalisuus ja selittäminen yhteiskuntatieteissä, Gaudeamus. pp. 279-307. 2018.Tässä luvussa tarkastelemme hypoteesien testaamista ja kokeellista kausaalista järkeilyä tieteenfilosofisesta näkökulmasta. Arvioimme kokeellisen menetelmän mahdollisuuksia ja rajoituksia yhteiskuntatieteellisen tutkimuksen kontekstissa, jossa luonnontieteille ominaisia yleispäteviä teorioita harvoin on saatavilla ja jossa suoraviivaisiin kausaaliväitteisiin suhtaudutaan usein epäillen. Tämä luku ei siis ole menetelmäopas, joka kädestä pitäen opastaisi, kuinka yhteiskuntatieteellisiä kokeita tul…Read more
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122Modeling epistemic communitiesIn Miranda Fricker, Peter Graham, David Henderson & Nikolaj Jang Pedersen (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Social Epistemology, Routledge. 2019.We review the most prominent modeling approaches in social epistemology aimed at understand- ing the functioning of epistemic communities and provide a philosophy of science perspective on the use and interpretation of such simple toy models, thereby suggesting how they could be integrated with conceptual and empirical work. We highlight the need for better integration of such models with relevant findings from disciplines such as social psychology and organization studies.
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140Value of cognitive diversity in scienceSynthese 194 (11): 4519-4540. 2017.When should a scientific community be cognitively diverse? This article presents a model for studying how the heterogeneity of learning heuristics used by scientist agents affects the epistemic efficiency of a scientific community. By extending the epistemic landscapes modeling approach introduced by Weisberg and Muldoon, the article casts light on the micro-mechanisms mediating cognitive diversity, coordination, and problem-solving efficiency. The results suggest that social learning and cognit…Read more
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103What is mechanistic evidence, and why do we need it for evidence-based policy?Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 73 54-63. 2019.It has recently been argued that successful evidence-based policy should rely on two kinds of evidence: statistical and mechanistic. The former is held to be evidence that a policy brings about the desired outcome, and the latter concerns how it does so. Although agreeing with the spirit of this proposal, we argue that the underlying conception of mechanistic evidence as evidence that is different in kind from correlational, difference-making or statistical evidence, does not correctly capture t…Read more
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430How could a rational analysis model explain?COGSCI 2017: 39th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society,. 2017.Rational analysis is an influential but contested account of how probabilistic modeling can be used to construct non-mechanistic but self-standing explanatory models of the mind. In this paper, I disentangle and assess several possible explanatory contributions which could be attributed to rational analysis. Although existing models suffer from evidential problems that question their explanatory power, I argue that rational analysis modeling can complement mechanistic theorizing by providing mod…Read more
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350Memory as a cognitive kind: Brains, remembering dyads, and exogramsIn Catherine Kendig (ed.), Natural Kinds and Classification in Scientific Practice, Routledge. pp. 145-156. 2016.Theories of natural kinds can be seen to face a twofold task: First, they should provide an ontological account of what kinds of (fundamental) things there are, what exists. The second task is an epistemological one, accounting for the inductive reliability of acceptable scientific concepts. In this chapter I examine whether concepts and categories used in the cognitive sciences should be understood as natural kinds. By using examples from human memory research to illustrate my argument, I criti…Read more
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39Concepts in changeScience & Education 22 (6). 2013.In this article we focus on the concept of concept in conceptual change. We argue that (1) theories of higher learning must often employ two different notions of concept that should not be conflated: psychological and scientific concepts. The usages for these two notions are partly distinct and thus straightforward identification between them is unwarranted. Hence, the strong analogy between scientific theory change and individual learning should be approached with caution. In addition, we argue…Read more
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University of HelsinkiDepartment of Philosophy (Theoretical Philosophy, Practical Philosophy, Philosophy in Swedish)Lecturer
University of Helsinki
Department of Philosophy (Theoretical Philosophy, Practical Philosophy, Philosophy in Swedish)
PhD, 2013
Helsinki, Southern Finland, Finland
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Philosophy of Social Science |
Formal Social Epistemology |