Abstract Summary
Kevin Elliot (Michigan State University) - This talk will focus on practical strategies that can help promote successful efforts at socially relevant, or engaged, philosophy of science. It will begin by clarifying and illustrating a wide range of activities that could potentially fall under the label of “engaged philosophy of science”: (1) studying topics that are relevant in some way to society; (2) working on highly “applied” topics or projects that are of fairly direct relevance to members of the public; (3) communicating philosophical work in venues that are accessible to the public; (4) working with scientists or scholars from other disciplines in order to strengthen their scholarship; (5) working to make the practice of science more socially responsible; (6) engaging with political or nongovernmental institutions in an effort to have a societal impact; and (7) assisting and training students who want to pursue engaged activities. A range of different strategies may be more or less helpful, depending on the kinds of engaged activities one wants to pursue. After clarifying these different activities, the talk will discuss strategies that can help make this work as successful as possible. It is helpful to distinguish strategies that can be pursued by individuals from those that need to be pursued at an institutional level. Some of the strategies that I will discuss at an individual level include seeking collaborations with scholars from other disciplines, publishing in scholarly journals and attending scholarly conferences that reach beyond the philosophical community, writing pieces directed toward non-scholarly audiences, communicating with media outlets, looking for opportunities to get involved with organizations doing public-interest work, and choosing research topics that address social concerns. At an institutional level, I will discuss how philosophy departments can provide better training opportunities for graduate students and alter incentives for faculty members, universities can also alter incentives for their faculty members, funding agencies can provide better support for this sort of scholarship, and scholarly societies can take steps to promote this kind of work. I will provide concrete examples of how these individual and institutional strategies have helped to facilitate my own work. In keeping with the “workshop” format of this session, the talk will lead into an extended period of discussion among the other speakers and attendees. Topics for discussion will include: (1) the adequacy of the typology and the terms typically used for describing engaged work; (2) additional strategies that could be pursued for promoting the success of engaged scholarship; (3) practical ways of implementing these strategies at both an individual and an institutional level; and (4) opportunities for training students who want to employ these strategies in their own work.
