Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T22:42:22.963Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Do Collaborators in Science Need to Agree?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Haixin Dang
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I argue that collaborators do not need to reach broad agreement over the justification of a consensus claim. This is because maintaining a diversity of justifiers within a scientific collaboration has important epistemic value. I develop a view of collective justification that depends on the diversity of epistemic perspectives present in a group. I argue that a group can be collectively justified in asserting that P as long as the disagreement among collaborators over the reasons for P is itself justified. In conclusion, I make a case for multimethod collaborative research and work through an example in the social sciences.

Type
Ethics, Values, and Social Epistemology
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 86 , Issue 5 , December 2019 , pp. 1029 - 1040
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

Thanks to James Woodward, Sandra Mitchell, Kevin Zollman, and Liam Kofi Bright for valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this article.

References

Andersen, Hanne, and Wagenknecht, Susann. 2013. “Epistemic Dependence in Interdisciplinary Groups.” Synthese 190:1881–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beatty, John. 2006. “Masking Disagreement among Scientific Experts.” Episteme 3:52–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beatty, John, and Moore, Alfred. 2010. “Should We Aim for Consensus?” Episteme 7:198–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bright, Liam Kofi, Dang, Haixin, and Heesen, Remco. 2018. “A Role for Judgment Aggregation in Coauthoring Scientific Papers.” Erkenntnis 83:231–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, Alvin. 2014. “Social Process Reliabilism: Solving Justification Problems in Collective Epistemology.” In Essays in Collective Epistemology, ed. Lackey, Jennifer, 11–41. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heesen, Remco, Bright, Liam Kofi, and Zucker, Andrew. 2019. “Vindicating Methodological Triangulation.” Synthese 196 (8): 3067–81..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors). 2017. “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.” http://icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf.Google Scholar
Janssen, Macro A., and Ostrom, Elinor. 2006. “Empirically Based, Agent-Based Models.” Ecology and Society 11:37–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lackey, Jennifer. 2016. “What Is Justified Group Belief?” Philosophical Review 125:341–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longino, Helen. 1990. Science as Social Knowledge: Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longino, Helen. 2002. The Fate of Knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahoney, James, and Goertz, Gary. 2006. “A Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative and Qualitative Research.” Political Analysis 14:227–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Boaz. 2013. “When Is Consensus Knowledge Based? Distinguishing Shared Knowledge from Mere Agreement.” Synthese 190 (7): 1293–316..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Munafò, Marcus R., and Smith, George Davey. 2018. “Robust Research Needs Many Lines of Evidence.” Nature 553:399–401.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ostrom, Elinor. 2006. “Converting Threats into Opportunities.” PS: Political Science and Politics 39:3–12.Google Scholar
Poteete, Amy, Janssen, Marco A., and Ostrom, Elinor. 2010. Working Together: Collective Action, the Commons, and Multiple Methods in Practice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rolin, Kristina. 2008. “Science as Collective Knowledge.” Cognitive Systems Research 9:115–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rolin, Kristina. 2010. “Group Justification in Science.” Episteme 7:215–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rolin, Kristina. 2015. “Values in Science: The Case of Scientific Collaboration.” Philosophy of Science 82:157–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitt, Frederick F. 1994. “The Justification of Group Beliefs.” In Socializing Epistemology: The Social Dimensions of Knowledge, ed. Schmitt, Frederick F., 257–87. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Solomon, Miriam. 2015. Making Medical Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wray, K. Brad. 2002. “The Epistemic Significance of Collaborative Research.” Philosophy of Science 69:150–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wray, K. Brad. 2006. “Scientific Authorship in the Age of Collaborative Research.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science A 37:505–14.Google Scholar
Wray, K. Brad. 2007. “Who Has Scientific Knowledge?” Social Epistemology 21:337–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wray, K. Brad. 2014. “Collaborative Research, Deliberation, and Innovation.” Episteme 11:291–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zollman, Kevin J. 2010. “The Epistemic Benefit of Transient Diversity.” Erkenntnis 72:17–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar