Pub Date : 2022-12-23DOI: 10.1080/03080188.2022.2149736
D. Parker
ABSTRACT The term neuroscience originated in the early 1960s, but the questions it asks date to antiquity. The nineteenth-century reticular view of the brain as a diffuse net-like synctium was negated by the neuron doctrine, but certain aspects (e.g. glial cells) are better described as a synctium. System views of the brain were popular in the first half of the twentieth century, but a reductionist focus has since dominated with the development of experimental tools that focus on components. This article will begin by considering twentieth-century views of both philosophers and scientists that highlight the tension between integrating in a field while retaining the ability to think critically. This will be illustrated by considering two common assumptions in neuroscience: that reductionist approaches will explain the brain; and the technological metaphor that sees the brain as a computer.
{"title":"Assumptions of twentieth-century neuroscience: reductionist and computational paradigms","authors":"D. Parker","doi":"10.1080/03080188.2022.2149736","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03080188.2022.2149736","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The term neuroscience originated in the early 1960s, but the questions it asks date to antiquity. The nineteenth-century reticular view of the brain as a diffuse net-like synctium was negated by the neuron doctrine, but certain aspects (e.g. glial cells) are better described as a synctium. System views of the brain were popular in the first half of the twentieth century, but a reductionist focus has since dominated with the development of experimental tools that focus on components. This article will begin by considering twentieth-century views of both philosophers and scientists that highlight the tension between integrating in a field while retaining the ability to think critically. This will be illustrated by considering two common assumptions in neuroscience: that reductionist approaches will explain the brain; and the technological metaphor that sees the brain as a computer.","PeriodicalId":50352,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Science Reviews","volume":"48 1","pages":"217 - 234"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44723476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-21DOI: 10.1080/03080188.2022.2150414
H. Collins
ABSTRACT Science is the search for truth about the observable world. But it rests on values. The only thing that can be discovered by observation is the immediate here and now. Otherwise, knowledge about the observable world is based on hearsay, spoken or recorded, about others' observations. Apart from small and fleeting observations, science rests on trust. Our scientific lives and scientific knowledge depend on choosing who and what to trust. Since we can meet only a few scientists at best, we have to decide whether to trust science as an institution. Science is a good bet because its aim is to create truth, perhaps posthumously; truth is its end as well as its means. In today's world, science is vitally important as a check and balance on democratic power and an object lesson for decision-makers. To do good, honest, science is to support democracy in the face of populism.
{"title":"The most important thing about science is values","authors":"H. Collins","doi":"10.1080/03080188.2022.2150414","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03080188.2022.2150414","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Science is the search for truth about the observable world. But it rests on values. The only thing that can be discovered by observation is the immediate here and now. Otherwise, knowledge about the observable world is based on hearsay, spoken or recorded, about others' observations. Apart from small and fleeting observations, science rests on trust. Our scientific lives and scientific knowledge depend on choosing who and what to trust. Since we can meet only a few scientists at best, we have to decide whether to trust science as an institution. Science is a good bet because its aim is to create truth, perhaps posthumously; truth is its end as well as its means. In today's world, science is vitally important as a check and balance on democratic power and an object lesson for decision-makers. To do good, honest, science is to support democracy in the face of populism.","PeriodicalId":50352,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Science Reviews","volume":"48 1","pages":"264 - 275"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44379972","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-21DOI: 10.1080/03080188.2022.2156150
Rafael Ambríz González, L. Bortolotti
ABSTRACT In this paper, we offer a brief overview of the debate between realism and anti-realism in the philosophy of science. On the background of that debate, we consider two recently developed approaches aimed at vindicating realist intuitions while acknowledging the limitations of scientific knowledge. Perspectivalists explain disagreement in science without giving up the idea that currently accepted scientific theories describe reality largely accurately: they posit the existence of different perspectives within which scientific claims can be produced and tested. The integrative approach instead encourages researchers to embrace pluralism: conflicting frameworks and methodologies can be integrated when new knowledge is gained. In the natural and human sciences, researchers sometimes behave as if perspectivism is true; at other times, they hope for a reconciliation between conflicting frameworks and believe that this can be achieved by progressively filling knowledge gaps.
{"title":"Putting scientific realism into perspective","authors":"Rafael Ambríz González, L. Bortolotti","doi":"10.1080/03080188.2022.2156150","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03080188.2022.2156150","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this paper, we offer a brief overview of the debate between realism and anti-realism in the philosophy of science. On the background of that debate, we consider two recently developed approaches aimed at vindicating realist intuitions while acknowledging the limitations of scientific knowledge. Perspectivalists explain disagreement in science without giving up the idea that currently accepted scientific theories describe reality largely accurately: they posit the existence of different perspectives within which scientific claims can be produced and tested. The integrative approach instead encourages researchers to embrace pluralism: conflicting frameworks and methodologies can be integrated when new knowledge is gained. In the natural and human sciences, researchers sometimes behave as if perspectivism is true; at other times, they hope for a reconciliation between conflicting frameworks and believe that this can be achieved by progressively filling knowledge gaps.","PeriodicalId":50352,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Science Reviews","volume":"48 1","pages":"299 - 310"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48510917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-21DOI: 10.1080/03080188.2022.2152246
R. Peels
ABSTRACT An increasing number of scientists, philosophers, and popular science writers claim that science is the measure of all. They assert that science can answer all questions, that there are no limits to science, or that only science provides reliable knowledge, either in a particular realm, such as morality, or about any subject matter whatsoever. This view is often referred to as ‘scientism’. But what exactly is scientism? What is to be said in favour of it and against it? This paper suggests, after a careful evaluation of the arguments for and against scientism, that a helpful way to think of scientism is as of a variety of fundamentalism. It turns out that scientism meets nearly all conditions formulated in family resemblance accounts of fundamentalism. Finally, it is suggested that science and scientists can learn much from religion when it comes to how to deal with scientific fundamentalism.
{"title":"Scientism and scientific fundamentalism: what science can learn from mainstream religion","authors":"R. Peels","doi":"10.1080/03080188.2022.2152246","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03080188.2022.2152246","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT An increasing number of scientists, philosophers, and popular science writers claim that science is the measure of all. They assert that science can answer all questions, that there are no limits to science, or that only science provides reliable knowledge, either in a particular realm, such as morality, or about any subject matter whatsoever. This view is often referred to as ‘scientism’. But what exactly is scientism? What is to be said in favour of it and against it? This paper suggests, after a careful evaluation of the arguments for and against scientism, that a helpful way to think of scientism is as of a variety of fundamentalism. It turns out that scientism meets nearly all conditions formulated in family resemblance accounts of fundamentalism. Finally, it is suggested that science and scientists can learn much from religion when it comes to how to deal with scientific fundamentalism.","PeriodicalId":50352,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Science Reviews","volume":"48 1","pages":"395 - 410"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48336464","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-17DOI: 10.1080/03080188.2022.2131086
G. M. Mejía, D. Henriksen, Yumeng Xie, Alex García-Topete, R. Malina, Kendon Jung
ABSTRACT Addressing complex future challenges requires transdisciplinary practices. However, existing approaches for transdisciplinary collaboration tend to be limited to science-expert directions. Successful collaboration across disciplines and diverse contexts requires community agency, blurring disciplinary boundaries, and combining sciences and arts. We argue that traditional and emergent design practices provide a powerful mindset to support productive transdisciplinary collaborations for addressing complex societal problems such as climate change and social justice. Designers, historically, have struggled to translate the practices of arts and sciences into professional practice; and design can be understood as a third way of knowing that is unique from arts and sciences. Designers may use evidence, but they also generate proposals that are about preferred possibilities. We propose components of a design mindset (synthesis, modelling, speculation, facilitation, and implementation) for transdisciplinary teams to enhance future-oriented collaboration outcomes. These guidelines expand research-oriented approaches and can be used for co-designing futures in collaborative work.
{"title":"From researching to making futures: a design mindset for transdisciplinary collaboration","authors":"G. M. Mejía, D. Henriksen, Yumeng Xie, Alex García-Topete, R. Malina, Kendon Jung","doi":"10.1080/03080188.2022.2131086","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03080188.2022.2131086","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Addressing complex future challenges requires transdisciplinary practices. However, existing approaches for transdisciplinary collaboration tend to be limited to science-expert directions. Successful collaboration across disciplines and diverse contexts requires community agency, blurring disciplinary boundaries, and combining sciences and arts. We argue that traditional and emergent design practices provide a powerful mindset to support productive transdisciplinary collaborations for addressing complex societal problems such as climate change and social justice. Designers, historically, have struggled to translate the practices of arts and sciences into professional practice; and design can be understood as a third way of knowing that is unique from arts and sciences. Designers may use evidence, but they also generate proposals that are about preferred possibilities. We propose components of a design mindset (synthesis, modelling, speculation, facilitation, and implementation) for transdisciplinary teams to enhance future-oriented collaboration outcomes. These guidelines expand research-oriented approaches and can be used for co-designing futures in collaborative work.","PeriodicalId":50352,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Science Reviews","volume":"48 1","pages":"77 - 108"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45138240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-16DOI: 10.1080/03080188.2022.2134539
Zeynep Birsel, L. Marques, E. Loots
ABSTRACT This conceptual paper focuses on understanding the interactions between art, science, and technology as forms of wide interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary collaboration. There is scarce knowledge about how the wide interdisciplinary interaction between artists, scientists, and technologists can be conceptualized through a shared framework for collaboration. The ecology of collaboration involves a complex set of social structures varying between autonomous individually organized teams and institutional programmes. By using a social ecological approach, integrating social, organizational, and cultural factors, art, science, and technology (AST) collaborations can be characterized by a sequence of antecedent, process, and outcome conditions. These elements are organized to form a conceptual framework for art-science collaborations, elaborating on AST in its relationship to knowledge, aesthetics, interdependence, and experimentalism as antecedent conditions, while outlining the process elements and possible outcomes of the collaborations. The framework can be a vehicle for evaluation and reflection for practitioners, researchers, educators, and policymakers.
{"title":"Daring to disentangle: towards a framework for art-science-technology collaborations","authors":"Zeynep Birsel, L. Marques, E. Loots","doi":"10.1080/03080188.2022.2134539","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03080188.2022.2134539","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This conceptual paper focuses on understanding the interactions between art, science, and technology as forms of wide interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary collaboration. There is scarce knowledge about how the wide interdisciplinary interaction between artists, scientists, and technologists can be conceptualized through a shared framework for collaboration. The ecology of collaboration involves a complex set of social structures varying between autonomous individually organized teams and institutional programmes. By using a social ecological approach, integrating social, organizational, and cultural factors, art, science, and technology (AST) collaborations can be characterized by a sequence of antecedent, process, and outcome conditions. These elements are organized to form a conceptual framework for art-science collaborations, elaborating on AST in its relationship to knowledge, aesthetics, interdependence, and experimentalism as antecedent conditions, while outlining the process elements and possible outcomes of the collaborations. The framework can be a vehicle for evaluation and reflection for practitioners, researchers, educators, and policymakers.","PeriodicalId":50352,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Science Reviews","volume":"48 1","pages":"109 - 128"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41415331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-07DOI: 10.1080/03080188.2022.2125614
R. van der Merwe
ABSTRACT Stuart Kauffman has, in recent writings, developed a thought-provoking and influential argument for strong emergence. The outcome is his Theory of the Adjacent Possible (TAP). According to TAP, the biosphere constitutes a non-physical domain qualitatively distinct from the physical domain. The biosphere exhibits strongly emergent properties such as agency, meaning, value and creativity that cannot, in principle, be reduced to the physical. In this paper, I argue that TAP includes various (explicit or implicit) metaphysical commitments: commitments to (1) scientific realism, (2) downward causation and teleology, and (3) modal realism. If TAP is to hang together as the kind of robust philosophical thesis it evidently aspires to be, it needs an account – an account that is currently absent – of its metaphysical commitments. It is, however, unclear how such an account can be developed since various dilemmas present themselves when one explores how subscribers to TAP might do so.
{"title":"Stuart Kauffman’s metaphysics of the adjacent possible: a critique","authors":"R. van der Merwe","doi":"10.1080/03080188.2022.2125614","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03080188.2022.2125614","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Stuart Kauffman has, in recent writings, developed a thought-provoking and influential argument for strong emergence. The outcome is his Theory of the Adjacent Possible (TAP). According to TAP, the biosphere constitutes a non-physical domain qualitatively distinct from the physical domain. The biosphere exhibits strongly emergent properties such as agency, meaning, value and creativity that cannot, in principle, be reduced to the physical. In this paper, I argue that TAP includes various (explicit or implicit) metaphysical commitments: commitments to (1) scientific realism, (2) downward causation and teleology, and (3) modal realism. If TAP is to hang together as the kind of robust philosophical thesis it evidently aspires to be, it needs an account – an account that is currently absent – of its metaphysical commitments. It is, however, unclear how such an account can be developed since various dilemmas present themselves when one explores how subscribers to TAP might do so.","PeriodicalId":50352,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Science Reviews","volume":"48 1","pages":"49 - 61"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47072174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/03080188.2022.2124347
I. Morris
ABSTRACT Reviel Netz offers a radically contingent counterfactual history in which the absence of Archimedes would have prevented early modern Europe's scientific revolution and perhaps the nineteenth-century industrial revolution too. I argue that we need to be more explicit about methods in counterfactual arguments. Techniques developed by economic historians and political scientists seem to point toward a more constrained range of possibilities, and also favor assigning more importance to external material forces. Absent Archimedes, I suggest, we would live in a different world from this one, but not very different.
{"title":"Absent Archimedes – what?","authors":"I. Morris","doi":"10.1080/03080188.2022.2124347","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03080188.2022.2124347","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Reviel Netz offers a radically contingent counterfactual history in which the absence of Archimedes would have prevented early modern Europe's scientific revolution and perhaps the nineteenth-century industrial revolution too. I argue that we need to be more explicit about methods in counterfactual arguments. Techniques developed by economic historians and political scientists seem to point toward a more constrained range of possibilities, and also favor assigning more importance to external material forces. Absent Archimedes, I suggest, we would live in a different world from this one, but not very different.","PeriodicalId":50352,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Science Reviews","volume":"47 1","pages":"440 - 448"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45900683","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/03080188.2022.2120236
Dhruv Raina
ABSTRACT This essay engages with some of the central arguments presented in the essay by Reviel Netz. The intention is not to disagree with his arguments but to raise an additional set of questions and salient concerns. The first section discusses the importance of an iterative praxis in the transformation of scientific or mathematical concepts within a school or tradition. In a subsequent section, this is linked with the interpretation of classical texts and the possible sources of anachronism. The essay discusses the multiplicity of genealogies of mathematics and the exact sciences in order to foreground other possible traditions and styles and their role in constituting the identity of the exact sciences. Similarly, the essay closes with a brief discussion of the consequences of recent studies on South Asian history in order to pluralize the narratives of the origins of the exact and modern sciences.
{"title":"One or many? Genealogies of the mathematical sciences","authors":"Dhruv Raina","doi":"10.1080/03080188.2022.2120236","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03080188.2022.2120236","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This essay engages with some of the central arguments presented in the essay by Reviel Netz. The intention is not to disagree with his arguments but to raise an additional set of questions and salient concerns. The first section discusses the importance of an iterative praxis in the transformation of scientific or mathematical concepts within a school or tradition. In a subsequent section, this is linked with the interpretation of classical texts and the possible sources of anachronism. The essay discusses the multiplicity of genealogies of mathematics and the exact sciences in order to foreground other possible traditions and styles and their role in constituting the identity of the exact sciences. Similarly, the essay closes with a brief discussion of the consequences of recent studies on South Asian history in order to pluralize the narratives of the origins of the exact and modern sciences.","PeriodicalId":50352,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Science Reviews","volume":"47 1","pages":"478 - 490"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45954409","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/03080188.2022.2133399
K. Chemla
ABSTRACT This introduction to the issue of Interdisciplinary Science Reviews outlines the rules of the game on which all contributors agreed. Thirteen scholars have responded to a root essay written by Reviel Netz, under the title ‘The Place of Archimedes in World History.’ The introduction outlines the main lines of the arguments they put forward.
{"title":"Thirteen scholars reply to Reviel Netz’s ‘The Place of Archimedes in World History’","authors":"K. Chemla","doi":"10.1080/03080188.2022.2133399","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03080188.2022.2133399","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This introduction to the issue of Interdisciplinary Science Reviews outlines the rules of the game on which all contributors agreed. Thirteen scholars have responded to a root essay written by Reviel Netz, under the title ‘The Place of Archimedes in World History.’ The introduction outlines the main lines of the arguments they put forward.","PeriodicalId":50352,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Science Reviews","volume":"47 1","pages":"295 - 300"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44949863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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