Nancy Tuana (Penn State University) - Based on almost a decade of practicing “embedded philosophy” through working with scientific teams on climate change risk management, I will discuss opportunities for such work as well as the challenges philosophers face when trying to engage scientific communities. My work has demonstrated the benefits of applying a coupled ethical-epistemic lens to the practices of science. This work has helped to support the development of two major collaborations: the Network for Sustainable Climate Risk Management (scrimhub.org) and Visualizing Forest Futures (https://sites.google.com/a/pdx.edu/visualizing-forest-futures/). These collaborations have led to new tools, publications, and additional research grants. The challenges of such work arise at a number of levels — individual, interpersonal, disciplinary, and institutional -- and often interact with one another. For example, the publication culture in philosophy can be significantly different from the culture of publication in the sciences. The expectation of co-authored work in the sciences may not translate well in some philosophy departments, for example. But even when co-authored work is valued, the venues for publication and the style of publication between scientists and philosophers can vary tremendously. I will discuss ways of addressing such problems. Other barriers concern the time and effort needed for collaborative work. It can take time to learn how to work with a scientific team — learning each other’s language, coordinating different work habits and expectations, for example, can both take time and carry some risk. When such collaborations are successful, they often lead to greater time commitments (additional grants), which also have to be balanced against the other components of one’s career (e.g. sole authored publications). Building on the first presentation, this presentation will also include suggestions for identifying collaborators and strategies for building successful collaborations.
