Minimizing Barriers and Maximizing Benefits of Engaged Philosophy of Science: A “How-to” Workshop

Kathryn Plaisance (University of Waterloo), Alexander Graham (University of Waterloo), John McLevey (University of Waterloo), Janet Michaud (University of Waterloo) - As the motivation for this workshop session stipulates, more and more philosophers of science are expressing interest in doing work that is not only relevant to other communities but that actually engages with those outside the discipline. However, philosophers of science who are interested in taking an engaged approach often express concern about the barriers to disseminating their work more broadly and/or collaborating with others. While some of these concerns have been discussed in print (e.g., Fehr and Plaisance 2010), most have arisen in informal venues, such as conferences and workshops, making it difficult to critically assess and advance these types of discussions. Furthermore, the publications that directly address these issues are typically based on personal experience (Thagard 2006; Dennett 2009) or anecdotal data from a select few (Plaisance and Fehr 2010). As a result, we have little-to-no empirical data about the actual views and experiences of most philosophers of science with respect to engaged work. This gap in our collective knowledge is both a practical problem and an epistemological one. Practically speaking, we need to understand the challenges philosophers face when trying to engage other communities and/or increase the broader impact of their work, especially if we wish to cultivate actionable knowledge that can be used to overcome those challenges. Epistemologically, we lack a comprehensive understanding of how knowledge in philosophy of science is and could be mobilized across disciplinary boundaries. This presentation addresses this gap by providing empirical data on the actual views and experiences of philosophers of science working in the field today, as well as drawing on and providing a broader context for the lessons shared in the first two presentations regarding strategies for doing engaged work. Specifically, this presentation will discuss the results of a survey of 299 philosophers of science, as well as relevant findings from in-depth interviews with 35 philosophers of science working in the field today. The emerging picture from our study suggests that the majority of philosophers of science are interested in and think the discipline ought to value work that engages communities outside the discipline. Almost all respondents reported that it is at least somewhat important that scientists and/or science policy makers read or make use of their work; most have tried to disseminate their work to scientific communities or policy makers; and many have collaborated in a variety of ways (e.g., about half have co-authored a peer-reviewed paper with a scientist). In addition, most respondents believe engaged work is undervalued by the discipline, and just over half think philosophy of science, as a discipline, has an obligation to have an impact on science and on society. (Notably, respondents did not suggest that an engaged approach should be the only one, nor that it is necessarily better or more valuable than more traditional work in philosophy of science.) Participants reported a variety of barriers to doing engaged work, though the significance of those barriers were mixed and varied substantially depending on one’s career stage.

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.

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.