Scientific Epistemology as a Foundation for Realizing Open Science

• In Event: Communicating Open Science: What the Communication Field Has to Offer to the Next Scientific Revolution

Abstract

The enterprise of science involves a community of scholars at work building knowledge through set standards and practices. Establishing an epistemological foundation for building scientific knowledge or identifying how scholars come to do such a thing is central to one’s contributing to it. Graduate students may receive training on the philosophical underpinnings of science, but often, they come to practice as they have seen others practice. This presentation aims to highlight important epistemological points for promotion in an open science campaign (e.g. intersubjectivity, abstractness, empirical relevance). Highlighting these points in a campaign for open science would provide burgeoning scholars clear, colloquial advice on the ethical and productive standards held by scientists in their discipline. Identifying what constitutes rigorous behaviors and practices in open science helps preempt the inadvertent development of problematic habits and recasts the process of science from being inherently antagonistic to being collaborative and communal.

Author

• Nicholas L Matthews, University of Connecticut