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23Scientific knowledge in the age of computation: Explicated, computable and manageable?Theoria. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science 34 (2): 213. 2019.We have two theses about scientific knowledge in the age of computation. Our general claim is that scientific Knowledge Management practices emerge as second-order practices whose aim is to systematically collect, take care of and mobilise first-hand disciplinary knowledge and data. Our specific thesis is that knowledge management practices are transforming biological research in at least three ways. We argue that scientific Knowledge Management a. operates with founded concepts of biological kn…Read more
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153Facing animal research: Levinas and technologies of effacementIn Peter Atterton & Tamra Wright (eds.), Face to face with animals: Levinas and the animal question, Suny Press. pp. 139-163. 2019.This chapter proposes that encountering the Other through the face can be conditioned by social and built technologies. In “The Name of a Dog, or Natural Rights,” Emmanuel Levinas relates his experience as a prisoner of war, held in a forced-labor camp in Nazi Germany. He contrasts being denied his humanity by other humans, “called free” (DF, 152), while being recognized as human—indeed as a friend—by a dog the prisoners named Bobby. The episode suggests that though the concept of the face appli…Read more
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280Meat we don't greet: How sausages can save pigs or how effacing livestock makes room for emancipationIn Arve Hansen & Karen Lykke Syse (eds.), Changing Meat Cultures: Food Practices, Global Capitalism, and the Consumption of Animals, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 102-112. 2021.I propose that the intensification of meat production ironically makes meat concepts available to be populated by plants. I argue that what I call “technologies of effacement” facilitate the intensification of animal farming and slaughter by blocking face-to-face encounters between animals and people (Levinas 1969; Efstathiou 2018, 2019). My previous ethnographic work on animal research identifies technologies of effacement as including (a) architectures and the built environment, (b) entry and …Read more
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297Performing 'meat': Meat replacement as dragTransforming Food Systems: Ethics, Innovation and Responsibility. 2022.I propose that meat replacement is to meat, as drag is to gender. Meat replacement has the potential to shake concepts of meat, like drag does for gender. Meat replacements not only mimic meat but disclose how meat itself is performed in carnivorous culture -and show that it may be performed otherwise. My approach is inspired by the show RuPaul’s Drag Race. The argument builds on an imitation of Judith Butler’s work on gender performativity, performed by replacing ‘drag/ gender/ sex/ heterosexis…Read more
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Interdisciplinarity in actionIn Nancy Cartwright & Eleonora Montuschi (eds.), Philosophy of Social Science: A New Introduction, Oxford University Press. 2014.
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20Knowledge repositories. In digital knowledge we trustMedicine, Health Care and Philosophy 23 (4): 543-547. 2020.
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525Investigating the elasticity of meat consumption for climate mitigation: 4Rs for responsible meat useIn Eija Vinnari & Markus Vinnari (eds.), Sustainable Governance and Management of Food Systems: Ethical Perspectives, Brill Wageningen Academic. pp. 19-25. 2019.Our main research question is how pliable Norwegian meat consumption practices are. However it is not any type of elasticity we are interested in. We are specifically interested in the scope for what we dub the “4Rs” of responsible meat consumption within existing food systems: 1. Reducing the amount of animal-based proteins used 2. Replacing animal-based protein with plant-based, or insect-based alternatives 3. Refining processes of utilization of animal-based protein to minimize emissions,…Read more
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13Appreciation Through Use: How Industrial Technology Articulates an Ecology of Values Around Norwegian SeaweedPhilosophy and Technology 32 (3): 405-424. 2019.This paper offers a moral history of the industrialisation of seaweed harvesting in Norway. Industrialisation is often seen as degrading natural resources. Ironically, we argue, it is precisely the scale and scope of industrial utilisation that may enable non-instrumental valuations of natural resources. We use the history of the Norwegian seaweed industry to make this point. Seaweed became increasingly interesting to harvest as a fruit and then as a crop of the sea in the early twentieth centur…Read more
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21Causation is in trouble—at least as it is pictured in current theories in philosophy and in economics as well, where causation is also once again in fashion. In both disciplines the accounts of causality on offer are either modelled too closely on one or another favoured method for hunting causes or on assumptions about the uses to which causal knowledge can be put—generally for predicting the results of our efforts to change the world. The first kind of account supplies no reason to think that …Read more
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341Scientific knowledge in the age of computationTheoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 34 (2): 213-236. 2019.With increasing publication and data production, scientific knowledge presents not simply an achievement but also a challenge. Scientific publications and data are increasingly treated as resources that need to be digitally ‘managed.’ This gives rise to scientific Knowledge Management : second-order scientific work aiming to systematically collect, take care of and mobilise first-hand disciplinary knowledge and data in order to provide new first-order scientific knowledge. We follow the work of …Read more
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26Appreciation Through Use: How Industrial Technology Articulates an Ecology of Values Around Norwegian SeaweedPhilosophy and Technology 1-20. 2018.This paper offers a moral history of the industrialisation of seaweed harvesting in Norway. Industrialisation is often seen as degrading natural resources. Ironically, we argue, it is precisely the scale and scope of industrial utilisation that may enable non-instrumental valuations of natural resources. We use the history of the Norwegian seaweed industry to make this point. Seaweed became increasingly interesting to harvest as a fruit and then as a crop of the sea in the early twentieth centur…Read more
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42The Nazi cosmetic: Medicine in the service of beautyStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 43 (3): 634-642. 2012.This paper examines how aesthetic ideals shaped the practice of Nazi medicine. It proposes that Nazi eugenics relied on the conflation of norms of health with norms of beauty determined and performed by Nazi cultures of action. Though theories of biological holism served as vehicles of Nazi ideology, they did so contingently. The anti-totalitarian thinking of biological holist Kurt Goldstein shows that the use of biological holism to promote Nazi ideology was not inevitable. This examination of …Read more
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53How Ordinary Race Concepts Get to Be Usable in Biomedical Science: An Account of Founded Race ConceptsPhilosophy of Science 79 (5): 701-713. 2012.This essay unpacks a seeming paradox: a concept used to formulate, promote, and legitimate oppressive ideologies—a concept used to formulate mistaken, because they were typological, biological theories about human diversity—is, it seems, the same concept that now promises to deliver wonderful, socially sensitized, innovative results in social and genetic epidemiology. But how could that be? How could scientists expect a concept as problematic as ordinary race to deliver useful scientific results…Read more
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637Grand Challenges and Small Steps. Introduction to the Special Issue 'Interdisciplinary Integration: The Real Grand Challenge for the Life Sciences?'Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 56 39-47. 2016.This collection addresses two different audiences: 1) historians and philosophers of the life sciences reflecting on collaborations across disciplines, especially as regards defining and addressing Grand Challenges; 2) researchers and other stakeholders involved in cross-disciplinary collaborations aimed at tackling Grand Challenges in the life and medical sciences. The essays collected here offer ideas and resources both for the study and for the practice of goal-driven cross-disciplinary resea…Read more
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700Is it possible to give scientific solutions to Grand Challenges? On the idea of grand challenges for life science researchStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 56 46-61. 2016.This paper argues that challenges that are grand in scope such as "lifelong health and wellbeing", "climate action", or "food security" cannot be addressed through scientific research only. Indeed scientific research could inhibit addressing such challenges if scientific analysis constrains the multiple possible understandings of these challenges into already available scientific categories and concepts without translating between these and everyday concerns. This argument builds on work in phil…Read more
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149Hunting Causes and Using Them: Is There No Bridge from Here to There?International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 25 (3): 223-241. 2011.Causation is in trouble—at least as it is pictured in current theories in philosophy and in economics as well, where causation is also once again in fashion. In both disciplines the accounts of causality on offer are either modelled too closely on one or another favoured method for hunting causes or on assumptions about the uses to which causal knowledge can be put—generally for predicting the results of our efforts to change the world. The first kind of account supplies no reason to think that …Read more
Sophia Efstathiou
Norwegian University Of Science And Technology - NTNU
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Norwegian University Of Science And Technology - NTNUPermanent Externally Funded Researcher
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Gender, Race, and Sexuality |
General Philosophy of Science |