Difference between revisions of "Scientonomy Conference & Workshop 2019"

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* Does the descriptive theory of scientific change have normative implications for the conduct of science? Can descriptive scientonomy help address the traditional issues in normative philosophy of science, such as realism, rationality, progress, etc.?
 
* Does the descriptive theory of scientific change have normative implications for the conduct of science? Can descriptive scientonomy help address the traditional issues in normative philosophy of science, such as realism, rationality, progress, etc.?
|Participants List=Hasok Chang, Jutta Schickore, Karen Yan, Jamie Shaw, Hakob Barseghyan, Paul Patton, Kye Palider, William Rawleigh, Patrick Fraser, Ameer Sarwar, Guillaume Dechauffour,
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|Participants List=Hasok Chang, Jutta Schickore, Karen Yan, Jamie Shaw, Hakob Barseghyan, Paul Patton, Kye Palider, William Rawleigh, Patrick Fraser, Ameer Sarwar, Guillaume Dechauffour, Justin Donhauser, Deivide Garcia, Michael Lissack, Andrea Roselli,
 
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Revision as of 16:55, 11 February 2020

Title The Challenges of Constructing a Theory of Scientific Change
Start Date 23 May 2019
End Date 24 May 2019
URL https://scientoconference.com/conference2019/

Since the 1990’s, few have attempted to formulate general theories of scientific change like those proposed by Fleck, Kuhn, Lakatos, and Laudan. The quest for such a theory seems to have been abandoned due to a growing awareness that science’s history was far more diverse, and employed far more methods, than general theories of scientific change could account for. For an increasing number of scholars, however, this historical and sociological data is not an obstacle to the search for a theory of scientific change. Rather it is an opportunity to craft a more nuanced theory that would explain how our theories and methods of their evaluation change through time. Such a theory must be historical rather than whiggish, and descriptive rather than normative. Developing such a theory of scientific change is in line with the growing interest in Integrated History and Philosophy of Science, Social Epistemology, and Cognitive Historiography.

The main goal of this conference & workshop is twofold:

  1. Conference: share recent work on scientific change and open new avenues of inquiry by inviting new perspectives on important questions.
  2. Workshop: discuss some of the contentious suggested modifications with the aim of reaching communal consensus and advancing our knowledge on scientific change in a piecemeal and transparent fashion.

In the spirit of the Scientonomy community’s belief that our knowledge of scientific change is best advanced collectively, this conference/workshop brings the best scholarship from the history, philosophy, and sociology of science to bear on the current state of scientonomy and its prospects. Some potential topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Is a general descriptive theory of scientific change possible/feasible? Are there any patterns, law-like regularities in the process of scientific change?
  • What are the strengths and drawbacks of the current scientonomic theory of scientific change? Do the patterns of scientific change captured in the current scientonomic theory withstand critical scrutiny?
  • How can the current taxonomy of epistemic stances be improved? Do epistemic agents accept, use, and pursue theories, or is there something else? Are these stances independent of one another or are some of them reducible to others?
  • Is the current taxonomy of theories, methods, and questions sufficient for capturing the types of epistemic elements that undergo scientific change? Do we need to introduce, say, paradigms, research programs, worldviews, values, or concepts, as distinct epistemic elements?
  • What is an epistemic agent and what types of epistemic agents are there? Is it just individuals? Communities? Distributed cognitive networks of people and artifacts?
  • Can there be a systematic taxonomy for the practice of science, i.e. a taxonomy for activities, instruments, institutions, etc.?
  • What are the benefits and challenges of using the scientonomic theory in historical or sociological investigations of scientific change?
  • Does the descriptive theory of scientific change have normative implications for the conduct of science? Can descriptive scientonomy help address the traditional issues in normative philosophy of science, such as realism, rationality, progress, etc.?

Modifications Discussed

Participants

Ameer Sarwar
Amna Zulfiqar
Andrea Roselli
David Stump
Deivide Garcia
Guillaume Dechauffour
Hakob Barseghyan
Hasok Chang
Jamie Shaw
Jessica Rapson
Julia Da Silva
Justin Donhauser
Jutta Schickore
Karen Yan
Kye Palider
Michael Lissack
Nichole Levesley
Patrick Fraser
Paul Patton
Torin Doppelt
William Rawleigh
Yifang Zhang


References

  1. ^  Barseghyan, Hakob et al. (Eds.). (2022) Scientonomy: The Challenges of Constructing a Theory of Scientific Change. Vernon Press.