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22Harmful Research and the Paradox of CredibilityInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 36 (3): 193-209. 2023.This paper discusses how to deal with research that threatens to cause harm to society—in particular, whether and in what cases bans and moratoria are appropriate. First, it asks what normative resources philosophy of science may draw on to answer such questions. In an effort to presuppose only resources acknowledgeable across different comprehensive worldviews, it is claimed that the aim of credibility provides a good basis for normative reflection. A close analysis reveals an inner tension inh…Read more
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On Knowing What One Does Not Know: Ignorance and the Aims of ResearchIn Janet A. Kourany & Martin Carrier (eds.), Science and the production of ignorance: when the quest for knowledge is thwarted, The Mit Press. pp. 195-218. 2020.
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Collaborative research, scientific communities, and the social diffusion of trustworthinessIn Michael Brady & Miranda Fricker (eds.), The Epistemic Life of Groups: Essays in the Epistemology of Collectives, Oxford University Press Uk. 2016.
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181The new demarcation problemStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 91 (C): 211-220. 2022.There is now a general consensus amongst philosophers in the values in science literature that values necessarily play a role in core areas of scientific inquiry. We argue that attention should now be turned from debating the value-free ideal to delineating legitimate from illegitimate influences of values in science, a project we dub “The New Demarcation Problem.” First, we review past attempts to demarcate the uses of values and propose a categorization of the strategies by where they seek to …Read more
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64Epistemic interests and the objectivity of inquiryStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 91 (C): 86-93. 2022.This paper advocates for making epistemic interests a central object of philosophical analysis in epistemology and philosophy of science. It is argued that the importance of epistemic interests derives from their fundamental importance for the notion of objectivity. Epistemic interests are defined as individuated by a set of objectives, each of which represents a dimension of the search for truth. Among these dimensions, specificity, sensitivity, and productivity are discussed in detail. It is a…Read more
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42The Independence of Research—A Review of Disciplinary Perspectives and Outline of Interdisciplinary ProspectsMinerva 60 (1): 105-138. 2022.The independence of research is a key strategic issue of modern societies. Dealing with it appropriately poses legal, economic, political, social and cultural problems for society, which have been studied by the corresponding disciplines and are increasingly the subject of reflexive discourses of scientific communities. Unfortunately, problems of independence are usually framed in disciplinary contexts without due consideration of other perspectives’ relevance or possible contributions. To overc…Read more
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5The architecture of modern mathematics: Essays in history and philosophy, edited by José Ferreirós and Jeremy J. Gray, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2006, xii + 442 pp (review)Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 13 (3): 368-369. 2007.
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81Lost on the way from Frege to Carnap: How the philosophy of science forgot the applicability problemGrazer Philosophische Studien 73 (1): 69-82. 2006.This paper offers an explanation of how philosophy of science in the second half of the 20th century came to be so conspicuously silent on the problem of how to explain the applicability of mathematics. It examines the idea of the early logicists that the analyticity of mathematics accounts for its applicability, and how this idea was transformed during Carnap's efforts to establish a consistent and substantial philosophy of mathematics within the larger framework of Logical Empiricism. I argue …Read more
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383Bias and values in scientific researchStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 40 (1): 92-101. 2009.When interests and preferences of researchers or their sponsors cause bias in experimental design, data interpretation or dissemination of research results, we normally think of it as an epistemic shortcoming. But as a result of the debate on science and values, the idea that all extra-scientific influences on research could be singled out and separated from pure science is now widely believed to be an illusion. I argue that nonetheless, there are cases in which research is rightfully regarded a…Read more
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83Review: Philip Kitcher: Science in a Democratic Society (review)Philosophy of Science 81 (1): 165-171. 2014.
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80Explaining models: Theoretical and phenomenological models and their role for the first explanation of the hydrogen spectrum (review)Foundations of Chemistry 7 (2): 149-169. 2004.Traditional nomological accounts of scientific explanation have assumed that a good scientific explanation consists in the derivation of the explanandum’s description from theory (plus antecedent conditions). But in more recent philosophy of science the adequacy of this approach has been challenged, because the relation between theory and phenomena in actual scientific practice turns out to be more intricate. This critique is here examined for an explanatory paradigm that was groundbreaking for …Read more
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60How to Serve the Customer and Still Be Truthful: Methodological Characteristics of Applied ResearchScience and Public Policy 33 (6): 435-444. 2006.Transdisciplinarity includes the assumption that within new institutional settings, scientific research becomes more closely responsive to practical problems and user needs and is therefore often subject to considerable application pressure. This raises the question whether transdisciplinarity affects the epistemic standards and the fruitfulness of research. Case studies show how user-orientation and epistemic innovativeness can be combined. While the modeling involved in all cases under conside…Read more
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79Think about the Consequences! Nominalism and the Argument from the Philosophy of LogicDialectica 60 (2): 115-133. 2006.Nominalism faces the task of explaining away the ontological commitments of applied mathematical statements. This paper reviews an argument from the philosophy of logic that focuses on this task and which has been used as an objection to certain specific formulations of nominalism. The argument as it is developed in this paper aims to show that nominalism in general does not have the epistemological advantages its defendants claim it has. I distinguish between two strategies that are available t…Read more
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26Philip Kitcher, Science in a Democratic Society. New York: Prometheus , 270 pp., $28.00 (review)Philosophy of Science 81 (1): 165-171. 2014.
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26Conditions of Science: The Three-Way Tension of Freedom, Accountability and UtilityIn M. Carrier & A. Nordmann (eds.), Science in the Context of Application, Springer. pp. 351--370. 2011.
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61Scientific autonomy and planned research: The case of space sciencePoiesis and Praxis 4 (4): 253-265. 2006.Scientific research that requires space flight has always been subject to comparatively strong external control. Its agenda has often had to be adapted to vacillating political target specifications. Can space scientists appeal to one or the other form of the widely acknowledged principle of freedom of research in order to claim more autonomy? In this paper, the difficult question of autonomy within planned research is approached by examining three arguments that support the principle of freedom…Read more
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1377Epistemic Trust in ScienceBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (2): 233-253. 2013.Epistemic trust is crucial for science. This article aims to identify the kinds of assumptions that are involved in epistemic trust as it is required for the successful operation of science as a collective epistemic enterprise. The relevant kind of reliance should involve working from the assumption that the epistemic endeavors of others are appropriately geared towards the truth, but the exact content of this assumption is more difficult to analyze than it might appear. The root of the problem …Read more
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645Conventionalism: Poincaré, Duhem, ReichenbachIn James Robert Brown (ed.), Philosophy of Science: The Key Thinkers, Continuum Books. pp. 32. 2012.
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132When Realism Made a Difference: The Constitution of Matter and its Conceptual Enigmas in Late 19th Century PhysicsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 39 (1): 1-16. 2008.The late 19th century debate among German-speaking physicists about theoretical entities is often regarded as foreshadowing the scientific realism debate. This paper brings out differences between them by concentrating on the part of the earlier debate that was concerned with the conceptual consistency of the competing conceptions of matter—mainly, but not exclusively, of atomism. Philosophical antinomies of atomism were taken up by Emil Du Bois-Reymond in an influential lecture in 1872. Such ch…Read more
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21Review of José Ferreiros and Jeremy J Gray (eds.): The Architecture of Modern Mathematics: Essays in History and Philosophy (review)Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 13 (2). 2007.
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91Die Objektivität der Wissenschaften als soziales PhänomenAnalyse & Kritik 31 (2): 261-273. 2009.Scientific procedures are widely expected to be unbiased, in the sense that they do not single out one specific set of claims about which they yield false results more often than about others. This assumed feature of the practices of science can be called procedural objectivity. I argue that attempts to analyze procedural objectivity on the level of individual rationality fail. The appropriate balance of inductive risks for each scientific investigation hinges upon value judgments for which no b…Read more
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145Scientific freedom: its grounds and their limitationsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 41 (2): 174-181. 2010.In various debates about science, appeal is made to the freedom of scientific research. A rationale in favor of this freedom is rarely offered. In this paper, two major arguments are reconstructed that promise to lend support to a principle of scientific freedom. According to the epistemological argument, freedom of research is required in order to organize the collective cognitive effort we call science efficiently. According to the political argument, scientific knowledge needs to be generated…Read more
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107Kausalität ohne UrsachenZeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 60 (3). 2006.Die philosophische Theorie der Kausalität hat sich bisher stark auf die Analyse des Ursachenidioms „A ist eine Ursache von B“ konzentriert und weitgehend eine entsprechende Relation zwischen Ereignissen als grundlegend für das Phänomen der Kausalität vorausgesetzt. Diese Abhandlung ist ein Plädoyer dafür, die weithin bekannten Schwierigkeiten, die insbesondere in David Lewis’ Umsetzung dieser Strategie zu Tage getreten sind, zum Anlass zu nehmen, die Ursache-Wirkung-Relation als Ausgangspunkt au…Read more
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706Ludwig Boltzmann's Mathematical Argument for AtomismVienna Circle Institute Yearbook 9 199-211. 2001.In recent years, the philosophy of Ludwig Boltzmann has become a point of interest within the field of history of philosophy of science. Attention has centred around Boltzmann’s philosophical considerations connected to his defense of atomism in physics. In analysing these considerations, several scholars have attributed a pragmatist stance to Boltzmann. In this paper, I want to argue that, whatever pragmatist traits may be found in Boltzmann’s diverse writings, his defense of atomism in physics…Read more
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37When realism made a difference: The constitution of matter and its conceptual enigmas in late 19th century physicsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 39 (1): 1-16. 2008.The late 19th century debate among German-speaking physicists about theoretical entities is often regarded as foreshadowing the scientific realism debate. This paper brings out differences between them by concentrating on the part of the earlier debate that was concerned with the conceptual consistency of the competing conceptions of matter---{}mainly, but not exclusively, of atomism. Philosophical antinomies of atomism were taken up by Emil Du Bois-Reymond in an influential lecture in 1872. Suc…Read more
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33Review of John Blackmore (Ed.): Ludwig Boltzmann: Troubled Genius as Philosopher (review)Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 8 (6). 2001.
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72Design Rules: Industrial Research and Epistemic MeritPhilosophy of Science 73 (1): 66-89. 2006.A common complaint against the increasing privatization of research is that research that is conducted with the immediate purpose of producing applicable knowledge will not yield knowledge as valuable as that generated in more curiosity‐driven, academic settings. In this paper, I make this concern precise and reconstruct the rationale behind it. Subsequently, I examine the case of industry research on the giant magnetoresistance effect in the 1990s as a characteristic example of research underta…Read more
Hannover, NDS, Germany
Areas of Specialization
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General Philosophy of Science |
Social Epistemology |
Science and Values |
Philosophy of Mathematics |
Scientific Practice |
Applications of Science |