Abstract
The present volume, which comprises a select group of papers presented during the North-East Research Conclave: Sustainable Science and Technology, May 20–22, 2022.
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Notes
- 1.
An anti-realist would contest that interesting scientific claims are either not truth-evaluable or we cannot ascertain the truth of those claims on the basis of available evidence. The achievements of science should be understood in terms of empirical justification instead of truth for an anti-realist reading of this chapter.
- 2.
Apart from the general, inductive nature of scientific theories, the problem of underdetermination gives us reasons to doubt the representational accuracy of some of our fundamental theories. Cf. Kashyap and Sirola (2019a, 2019b) for discussions of underdetermination and holism, and Kashyap (2023) for the problem as it arises for fundamental theories of spacetime.
- 3.
The rapid growth of science has been understood by many as a consequence of a series of events that took place in Europe between fifteenth and seventeenth century CE, referred to as the Scientific Revolution; see, for example, Butterfield, 1965. This received view has been criticised in recent scholarship for ignoring contributions from the non-Western world that shaped modern science; see, for example, Poskett (2022).
- 4.
Popper’s philosophy of science gave a central role to criticism, which subsequent philosophers have interpreted as a social activity. Logical empiricists worked with a context distinction which assumed that social factors responsible for science’s success were non-normative. Sociologists writing around the same time, most notably Robert Merton and Karl Mannheim, did pay attention to the success-inducing norms of science.
- 5.
Social epistemological analyses of science have been prominent in the post-Kuhnian philosophy of science. Longino (2019) contains an extensive bibliography as well as an excellent overview of the various ways in which philosophers have looked at the social dimensions of scientific knowledge.
- 6.
- 7.
A representative definition from Jonathan Turner identifies social institutions as ‘a complex of positions, roles, norms and values lodged in particular types of social structures and organising relatively stable patterns of human activity with respect to fundamental problems in producing life-sustaining resources, in reproducing individuals, and in sustaining viable societal structures within a given environment’ (1997: 6).
- 8.
For a detailed discussion of the ways in which philosophers have conceptualised the relation between norms and conventions, cf. Southwood and Eriksson (2011).
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
A distinction is often made between epistemic and cognitive values, where the former are truth-linked while the latter are features of good theories without being truth-linked. For our discussion, we can ignore this distinction as the contrast being explored here is between values internal to science and those that are not features of theories. Both epistemic and cognitive values are considered internal to science.
- 12.
Philosophers have offered contrasting accounts of how the value-free ideal came to be. According to Heather Douglas (2009), a disillusionment with the old image of science, pressures of the Cold War and the need to professionalise philosophy of science were some of the key impulses that led to the formulation and entrenchment of the value-free ideal. Lacey (2005) emphasises on the metaphysical, epistemological, and logical sources of the ideal, and the value-free ideal is itself seen as part of the intellectual history of science.
- 13.
Lacey discussed two other features of value-free science—neutrality and autonomy. These two are derived from impartiality, and for that reason we limit the discussion here to impartiality.
- 14.
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Kashyap, A., Dutta, V. (2024). Introduction. In: Sharma, S., Uppaluri, R.V.S., Dutta, V., Kashyap, A. (eds) Policies for Research and Innovation. NERC 2022. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-5681-0_1
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