The Fate of Fellow Travelers: Regenerating the Relationship of STS, Analytic Philosophy, and Social Epistemology

Abstract

STS and social epistemology once traveled the same path. As a fellow traveler, social epistemology heralded both the “coming of” and a “new beginning for” STS. STS, in potential collaboration with social epistemology, held the bright promise of a synthesis among interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge. However, the path to epistemic accord led through the Science Wars. In the war’s aftermath, the promise of collaboration hardened into criticisms about methods and aims. Receding into a general indifference regarding epistemology, STS would yet again “turn”—this time to ontology. In keeping with the conference themes, this open panel seeks participants interested both in examining the interruption of the relationship among STS, social epistemology, and analytic epistemology, and in wishing to regenerate this relationship. Innovative paths that might be explored include—field philosophy; the narrative capture produced by potted disciplinary histories; the idea of science as a game; the concept of post-truth; issues related to the extended mind/extended cognition thesis; the ecology and governance of scholarly publication; and interpretations and applications of David Bloor’s symmetry principle. In addition, as analytic epistemology has undergone something of a renaissance given developments related to “epistemic justice,” we welcome participants who want to take up the future conduct of epistemology and, so, a potential rapprochement among the factions comprising social epistemology.

Chair

• Georg Theiner, Villanova University

Discussants

• Georg Theiner, Villanova University

• Steve Fuller, University of Warwick

Individual Presentations

• Knowing Well amid Inequality and Diversity - Gwen Ottinger, Drexel University

• Potted Disciplinary Histories, the Material Logic of Scholarly Practice, and the Demise of Social Epistemology - Jim Collier, Virginia Tech

• The War on All Standards of Expertise - Adam Riggio, Royal Crown College of Business and Technology

Session Organizer

• Jim Collier, Virginia Tech