Search

In this article, I put forward a basic philosophical claim: empirical scientific knowledge, that is, knowledge generated in experimental and observational practices, presupposes real causation. My discussion exploits two core notions from the philosophical analysis of scientific experimentation and observation: the aim of realizing object-apparatus correlations and the required control of the relevant interactions between environment and experimental or observational system. The conclusion is that, without the notion of real causation, acquiring epistemically sound empirical knowledge is impossible. Several empiricist objections to this conclusion are discussed and refuted. As a consequence, empiricism faces an unsolvable dilemma: either it cannot account for empirical knowledge or it should accept the existence of unobservable but real causal interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Frodeman and Briggle briefly address some critical interpretations of Socrates (15-16), they still see him as a worthy representative of field philosophy, who certainly deserves tenure. This appraisal of basic science is not meant as an endorsement of the scientistic doctrine that science, and only science, is the royal road to solving all our problems. Furthermore, in contrast to what is suggested by critics of the so-called linear model of the relation between science and technology, including Frodeman and Briggle (137-139), we do not need to interpret basic research as a sufficient, or even as a strictly necessary, condition of technological invention and economic or social innovation. Krisis 2019, Issue 1 123 www.krisis.eu Field Philosophy and the Societal Value of Basic Research Hans Radder Review of Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle (2016), Socrates tenured: The institutions of 21st-century philosophy. [Extracted from the article]

In this article, I address the question of whether science can and should be seen as a common good. For this purpose, the first section focuses on the notion of (scientific) knowledge and examines its main characteristics. I discuss and assess the core view of analytic epistemology, that knowledge is, basically, justified true belief. On the basis of this analysis, I then develop an alternative, multi-dimensional theory of the nature of (scientific) knowledge. Section 2 reviews and evaluates several answers to the question of what to understand by the notion of a common (or public) good. It discusses both economic and socio-political interpretations of this notion. In Section 3, I develop an alternative account of the common good of scientific knowledge. This knowledge constitutes a common good if it is both non-exhaustible and in the public interest. The two notions are equally important, but in this article, the focus is on the former. For reasons of space, a detailed discussion of the latter is impossible; it will be provided in a forthcoming book. My answer to the question posed in the title of this article builds on the critical discussion of extant views in Sections 1 and 2: some aspects of these views are included in this alternative account, while others are shown to be unhelpful or untenable. The final section discusses some practical implications of this account for the politics of science. The main conclusion is that scientific research should not be privatized through patenting its products. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents a brief response to the replies by Vicky Singleton and Brian Wynne. The author will base what he has to say on the original papers and his response to them, take account of the replies by Singleton and Wynne, and summarizes his main conclusions from the exchange. The two replies to the author's original response to the Special Issue of Social Studies of Science on "The Politics of SSK" carry on the debate in rather different ways. Hence, the author discusses them separately in this paper.