tint blog post, In English

Practical Philosophy in Practice: Thinking, Feeling, Imagining and Acting at the End of the World / Michiru Nagatsu

Professor Michiru Nagatsu gave his inaugural lecture on 29 May 2024. This is the script of that fascinating and thought-provoking lecture.

I’d like to use this special occasion to share my recent thoughts on sustainability with you. As you can guess from the title of my lecture, my intention is to give you an example of the questions practical philosophy could grapple with in practice. It is not a standard question I address in my day job as a philosopher of science, but nevertheless I believe that it is an interesting and an important question we may want to investigate more seriously than I can do here today.

Outline

I will start with “the end of the world”: what is it? and what does it do to us? In the second part, I will discuss how researchers in the university could respond to the end of the world. I will suggest that you ‘Slow down!’. Finally, I will conclude the lecture by introducing an alternative conception of sustainability, with an accomp on anying ethical attitude called hope.

The end of the world

So, let’s start with the end of the world. This graph [Figure 1] shows how often the phrase ‘the end of the world’ appeared in a database of English books from 1900 to 2019. The frequency is not that high compared to ‘collapse’, for example, but its usage is increasing as you can see; in 2019, it appeared 4 times more frequently than when I was born, which was 1978.

Figure 1. The relative frequency of the phrase “the end of the world” in English books. (Source: Google books Ngram Reader (English 2019).)

This is a similar graph [Figure 2], but with a database from English fiction books. The frequency is slightly higher, and the trend is generally upward, but not as sharp an increase as in the other graph. One can tell from the two graphs that the non-fiction books increasingly talk about the end of the world, catching up with our fictional imaginations, as it were.

Figure 2. The relative frequency of the phrase “the end of the world” in English fiction books. (Source: Google books Ngram Reader (English Fiction 2019).)

But which end and which world are we talking about when we talk about the end of the world?  According to Lynskey (2024), just published in April, we can distinguish three versions.

We know that the first one is a certainty, based on geoscience and astronomy. In this sense, it is a bit like our own death, which we know is also certain. In fact, if we normalize a bit and convert one billion as a decade, we could say that at the age of 46, the earth is in a kind of mid-life crisis, with which I can fully sympathize as an almost 46-year-old middle-aged person.

The second meaning is also almost certain, and there is little we can do about a comet or volcano, but humans added the Bomb in 1945, just to make it more realistic within anyone’s lifetime.

The third meaning is more nuanced, because here the world refers to our complex industrial-capitalist civilization, the so-called the world as we know it. And we might be most afraid of the end of this world, because we don’t know what comes after. The word “barbarism” captures our fear very well. The alternative term “simplicity” is more ambivalent.

To this tri-part categorization, I would like to add my fourth type. This end refers to the time when a story we used to tell each other loses its grip, or a magical spell. Since the story gives meanings to our collective life, its losing appeal means that a particular form of collective life comes to an end. “What shall we play next?” we might ask, like a small child who got bored of a game.

Narratives of progress

But what is it that has lost its appeal? According to a recent analysis (Danowski and Viveidos de Castro 2017), it is a set of optimistic narratives of humanist progress, which says that we are successfully implementing the project of making human life on earth better and better. In particular, this narrative assumes that scientific and social progress go hand in hand in a specific way: namely, science and society, or science and policy, are linked in such a way that society gives resources, autonomy and time to science; science then lays the golden egg for society, which in turn gives dividends back to science. Repeat.

This idea of progress, and its positive feedback loop between science and society, face many challenges, which are not seen merely as a setback against the backdrop of otherwise steady march toward enlightenment. Rather, the challenges indicate the destructive nature of this very loop. I might be too honest, but overall, I agree with the assessment by these authors that ‘we have no idea what to do about it.’ In response to this crisis of meaning, however, there has been a proliferation of new ideas and concepts in academia, which try to critically reflect on the uniqueness of our time. We are at the crossroads, many suggest, nudging us to take this turn or that turn. But maybe we got lost because we have made too many turns.

The ends as stories

If theoretical turns in academia merely motivate us to come up with even more clever turns, what kind of alternative stories will hold a collective together, namely orienting and motivating us to act differently? Are there any secrets for success of a narrative?

Some critics note that convincing stories themselves need to have a template of beginnings and ends for them to provide a meaning in between. I want to challenge this theory in the last part of my lecture. But before that, let’s have a quick look at a more concrete sustainability debate, just to see that the narrative of beginnings and ends is also at work in an otherwise very technical and empirical debate.

Narratives on growth

In sustainability science, the limits to growth have been one of the central questions for more than 50 years, since the publication of the book with the same title in 1972 (Meadows et al. 1972). In recent years, the debate has been framed as a feasibility of so-called ‘decoupling’, that is, achieving economic growth all the while reducing its net negative environmental impact.

To put simply, there’s green growth believers on the one side, and degrowth believers on the other, who envisions economic degrowth of the North and growth of the South that would eventually lead to a global steady-state economy. I don’t have time to go into the scientific nuances of this debate here. Rather, I just wanted to highlight the fact that the whole debate is closely connected to the question of how to tell a story of beginnings and ends, as much as it is about the scientific data, measurement and modelling. The debate cannot be resolved by evidence alone, because evidence must be interpreted in terms of stories we tell each other.

In other words, depending on which narrative framework you adopt, the same empirical data is interpreted differently [Figure 3]. Should we celebrate the achievements of the industrial capitalism? Or should we lament what it has destroyed and is destroying? Should we be more nuanced and try to see both the rabbit and the duck at the same time? Can we declare that the glass is half-empty AND half-full, suspending any overall evaluation of its content?

Figure 3. “Kaninchen und Ente” (“Rabbit and Duck”) from the 23rd October 1892 issue of Fliegende Blätter. (Source: Wikimedia.org.)

What can researchers do in practice?

You might ask: Is this kind of grand questions something that we as researchers should be concerned about? Aren’t we better off keeping ourselves busy with what we are trained for and good at? For example, we could do some survey on these questions with clever design, perhaps? or a systematic, interdisciplinary literature review with a new method? Maybe we need first to do more rigorous conceptual analysis to dissect ambiguous terms into facts and values, epistemic and non-epistemic, legitimate and illegitimate, and meaningful and meaningless.

I don’t discourage academics from doing all these things, which will surely be interesting. But I’m concerned with something more practical here. To put it simply, I suggest that we situate ourselves in the world, attend to our feelings and those of others, and share our sentiments and concerns, rather than trying to measure, model and manipulate the world from an imaginary, detached position.

Reclaiming-healing

My biggest inspiration in thinking along this line comes from the philosopher Isabelle Stengers, who wrote this great book of agitation (Stengers 2018). Stengers discusses dual un-sustainability of economic development and what she calls “fast science”, both of which are entangled in a complex way.

Importantly, she points out that it is not enough for us to be critically reflexive and transparent about these situations. In game theoretical terms, we as citizens and researchers are like the prisoners of the dilemma, unable to cooperate with each other, despite, or because of, the full knowledge of our predicament. Alternatively, we are unable to cooperate in a more ecologically adaptive way, because we are hyper-cooperative, conforming to the assigned social roles just to keep our complex society running. The crucial first step then is to notice that we don’t feel very well in those roles.

Slowing down…

Unlearning old habits is the next step. In this process, it is important to attend to your embodied feelings. Mild forms of fear such as hesitancy, reluctance, or concern should be expressed and articulated, rather than suppressed.

If we suppress those feelings, we risk becoming more manipulable by others, and more vulnerable to environmental harm. But because we are social animals, we need to exchange and share with others those sentiments and concerns to let them motivate us for joint action which we find more meaningful and adaptive. Academic activism in this sense, is not necessarily about ‘dropping out’ or protesting ‘in the streets’, although these forms of activism is also fun and important. In the words of the epidemiologist Donna Armstrong, everyday activism refers to ‘the simple act of interrupting the daily, normal, social role-playing by speaking “off-script” within our bureaucracies and within all of the societal organizations that comprise our complexity.’ (Armstrong 2014, p. 205). It is a micro-action to challenge the seductive power of the fictive play that no longer serves us.

It is these moments of “off-script” play, and their cumulative and non-linear ramifications, that might be able to transform us, allowing us to reinvent ourselves in new relations with each other and with our environment. We don’t need to blame “the system” as it probably doesn’t motivate us. Instead, we could start cultivating the art of slow science as apprentices now. There is no methodology for slow science. We just have to be experimental and opportunistic, and foster those transformative moments to let new values emerge.

Sustainability

But to what end? Isn’t it all in vain when sustainability is a lost cause, with a diminishing prospect of staying within carbon budgets, 2.0 degrees, or planetary boundaries? What’s the point of the apprenticeship if it won’t help us achieve those goals?

To answer such a voice of despair, I would like to conclude my discussion by advocating an alternative ethical attitude, namely hope. This attitude is inspired by Tim Ingold’s recent work on sustainability (Ingold 2024).

It is an alternative in two ways: first, seen as an ethical theory, it is not based on the standard utilitarian, consequentialist framework for practical reason, which concerns trade-offs, discounts and optimization of known goals and values of well-defined agents; second, seen as a narrative, it does not require a clear beginning and an end. Whenever you start is a beginning, and hope doesn’t presuppose the end, be it the end of history, the world, or of life. It is an ethic with no end in view. And yet, at least it seems to motivate me to care about the world as a researcher and as a person.

Now, this narrative without beginnings and ends reminds me of the famous Confucian metaphor of the Way, or the Path, with no crossroads. Confucius of the Analects did not talk about choice, as the philosopher Herbert Fingarette famously pointed out in his classic (Fingarette 1972/2023). In this view, there is no choice between this path or that at the crossroads, leading you to hell or heaven depending on your decision. For Confucius, there is no choice, really: “either one follows or fails.” (xii). But crucially, you can do it better or worse. It is an art, not a choice.

To me, hope as understood this way is a promising, even coherent, philosophy for sustainability.

No end

I started my lecture with the end of the world, particularly its specific interpretation as a loss of compelling narratives in the face of looming social-ecological disasters. Stengers calls this “cold panic”, a general state of political impotence (2018), and urges us to become reclaiming activists in our own situated way in academia and elsewhere. I have addressed the snigger’s pessimism about the success of such a micro-scale apprenticeship of activism, by introducing an alternative ethic which Ingold calls hope, accompanied by an alternative notion of sustainability, sustainability of everything for everyone for all time. Interestingly, with such hope, I feel motivated to live and research with care for the world. In the end, I don’t seem to need the end of the world as a grand schema to orient myself. I’ll just follow the path, and I’ll try to follow it well. I hope you will follow yours, and that we will meet along the way, and learn from each other.

Thank you for listening.

Michiru Nagatsu is Professor of Philosophy of Social Science and Sustainability at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Nagatsu’s latest projects include The Art of knowing through (un)learning: A Transdisciplinary research study on time, play and dance with children and trees (co-led by Dr Anna Rainio, KONE foundation, 2025-2028) and A tree of knowledge: Practicing slow science in accelerating society (co-led by Dr Anna Rainio, HSSH Catalyst Grant 2024-2025. The lecture was presented on 29.05.2024.

References

Armstrong, Donna L. (2014) Seducing Ourselves: Understanding Public Denial in a Declining Complex Society, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Danowski, Déborah, and Eduardo Viveiros De Castro. (2017) The Ends of the World. John Wiley & Sons: New York.

Meadows, Donella H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J., Behrens_III, W.W. (1972) The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. Universe Books: New York.

Fingarette, Herbert. (2023/1972) Confucius: The Secular as Sacred, The Apocryphile Press: Hannacroix, NY.

Ingold, Tim. (2024). How to imagine a sustainable world. Acta Borealia, 0(0), 1–9.

Lynskey, Dorian (2024). Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World. Pan MacMillan: Basingstoke, UK.

Stengers, Isabelle. (2018) Another Science is Possible: A Manifesto for Slow Science, translated by Stephen Muecke, Polity: London.

tint blog post, In English

Dissecting Arguments for Pluralism: Summary and Comments on Interview with Ha-Joon Chang / Teemu Lari

Economics professor Ha-Joon Chang visited Helsinki in the summer of 2023 to give a lecture in which he presented his new book aimed at the general public, Edible Economics: A Hungry Economist Explains the World. In the book, he uses food-related anecdotes as a bridge to entice readers into exploring economic ideas.

Within economics, Chang is quite a contrarian. While many consider certain uniformity and consensus as scientific achievements and signs of progress in economics, Chang views this development as unfortunate and believes economics has become an unreasonably one-sided discipline. The history of economics includes numerous theoretical approaches or schools of thought that once had a major position within the discipline but have become marginalized or virtually extinct. In his lecture, Chang mentioned Marxist, Schumpeterian, and Austrian economics as examples of such schools. Such advocacy for diversity is called pluralism.

Furthermore, Chang is a maverick when it comes to views on the role of economics in politics. While many economists would like to see economic research carry more weight in policymaking—after all, shouldn’t economic decisions be informed by research and evidence?—Chang rather wants to limit economists’ influence. He wants citizens to understand economics so they won’t blindly accept all claims and policy recommendations made by economists. In his view, democracy requires limiting economists’ authority. 

I interviewed Chang about his views on pluralism and democracy. The full interview has been published in the Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics (Chang & Lari 2024). In this blog post, I summarize some of the key points of our discussion. 

Plurality of perspectives

What does Chang mean by pluralism? Pluralism takes different forms depending on what kind of diversity is being advocated. Economics uses many different theoretical and empirical models, and I asked Chang what he thinks about “model pluralism,” which economist Dani Rodrik (2015), for example, has advocated for. Chang emphasized that he believes fundamental theoretical starting points should be diverse. Although mainstream economics today encompasses different approaches—alongside neoclassical economics, there’s behavioral and institutional economics, as well as empirical economics which often isn’t thought to belong to any particular school—Chang believes these directions still share the same foundations with neoclassical economics. Therefore, the diversity remains superficial. 

An essential background to Chang’s pluralism is that he defines economics as the science of the economy, that is, a science whose task is to investigate how goods and services are produced, exchanged, consumed, and also wasted. This might sound obvious, but this view isn’t widely shared among economists. Economics is often defined by referring to certain methodological, theoretical, and/or conceptual starting points. In this view, economics is a discipline centered on scientific modeling of human behavior, utilizing the concept of equilibrium in modeling, and assumptions about the goal-centered nature of human action. Economists can use this perspective to study various phenomena including, but not limited to, economic phenomena. 

When economics isn’t definitionally tied to specific research commitments, this opens up the possibility to study the economy using multiple frameworks. In Chang’s thinking, schools of thought outside mainstream economics are precisely such alternative frameworks.  

Critiques and replies 

However, in our discussion, it remained somewhat unclear to me through what kind of reasoning Chang moves from the possibility of alternative approaches to their necessity. And not just necessity in general, but necessity specifically within economics. It’s undisputable that the economy can be studied through various approaches, but this doesn’t directly imply that economics should study the economy through various approaches. This logical leap is not a peculiarity of Chang’s reasoning; it also appears repeatedly in the broader research literature on pluralism. 

Chang noted that different approaches have their own strengths and weaknesses. One can ask many kinds of questions about the economy, only some of which can be satisfactorily answered using the concepts and methods employed in mainstream economics. We discussed the study of power. There are many types of power, and bargaining power which appears in economic research is just one of them. Chang emphasized that influencing people’s thoughts, values, and opinions is a significant form of exercising power. The starting point familiar from neoclassical theory of taking people’s desires and values (preferences) as given doesn’t provide tools for understanding this type of power. From neoclassical theory’s individualistic foundations, it’s also not easy to examine the concept of social class and class-related questions. 

The fact that different approaches have their strengths and weaknesses means they are value-laden. Different questions matter to different interest groups, so the choice of approach affects which groups the knowledge produced serves. 

I presented Chang with some counter-arguments based on my own research (Lari, 2024a, 2024b; Lari & Mäki, 2024). First, while diversity is beneficial in many ways, uniformity in research also has its advantages. The fact that researchers in a discipline share conceptual, methodological, and theoretical starting points benefits cooperation and discussion between researchers. Common ground reduces misinterpretations and helps in evaluating others’ claims. 

Economists have also opposed excessive diversity with the public image of economics in mind. Differences in the starting points of research easily lead to differences in conclusions. Such disagreements might be interpreted as a sign of the discipline’s weak scientific quality. The impression of scientificity may require some degree of unanimity, and if that impression suffers, influence and research funding might be threatened. This issue has been highlighted by, for example, Jean Tirole, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2014. “If there were no majority opinion, financing research in economics would be hard to justify” (Tirole 2017, 75). 

These arguments received no sympathy. Chang considered both concerns completely unfounded. The concern about smooth communication, in his view, underestimates both students’ and researchers’ intelligence and their ability to adopt new perspectives. As for the public image of economics, there’s no reason to protect it with an artificial façade of consensus. If what Chang calls neoclassical economics is worth funding, the general public will understand that, despite the plurality of perspectives. If it is not, too bad for neoclassical economics. 

In my opinion, both of his responses reveal a striking level of optimism. The challenges of interdisciplinarity have been discussed by researchers as long as interdisciplinarity has existed. Multi-perspectival research hardly becomes any easier just because it is done within a single discipline. It is worth remembering that many economic approaches, which are now considered distinct schools of thought, originally diverged from the mainstream of economics precisely because fundamental differences in perspective led to unresolved disputes. Post-Keynesianism is a good example of this. From the 1950s to the 1970s, economists from prestigious universities (Cambridge and MIT) engaged in the so-called ”capital controversies”, during which the parties faced insurmountable difficulties in making their perspectives comprehensible to each other (see, e.g., Cohen & Harcourt, 2003). As a result, the theoretical approach now known as Post-Keynesianism separated from the mainstream of economics.  

Chang has remarkable confidence in the general public’s ability to evaluate and appreciate research. He seems to believe that plurality and discord within a discipline cannot threaten public trust in science or the authority of scientific knowledge. However, scholars of science studies have repeatedly highlighted scientists’ concerns about how disagreements appear to outsiders, including citizens and other disciplines (e.g., Beatty, 2006; Goodwin, 1998). Strong optimism regarding public trust in pluralistic research is particularly thought-provoking in an era when anonymous social media accounts challenge research projects based solely on headlines and public summaries, singling out for criticism those that fail to align with preconceived folk notions of quality research. 

The question of what kind of pluralism is warranted in economics thus wasn’t resolved in this discussion either. Nevertheless, it’s important that pluralism is discussed and that specifically researchers who know their field well engage in informed discussion about it. Professor Chang’s activisim is commendable in this regard. The self-correcting nature of science is based on critical discussion. That discussion must concern not only research results but also the institutional structures within which research is conducted, including how those structures encourage or suppress non-mainstream ideas.  

Teemu Lari holds a Doctor of Social Sciences degree from the University of Helsinki and is a working group member in the Rethinking the Serviceability of Economics to Society (ReSES) project, which invited Chang to Helsinki. His doctoral dissertation examined pluralism in economics. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Leibniz University Hannover, in the SOCRATES Centre for Advanced Studies. 

This is a slightly modified translation of an earlier post in Finnish. AI tools were used in the translation.

References 

Beatty, J. (2006). Masking Disagreement among Experts. Episteme, 3(1–2), 52–67. https://doi.org/10.3366/epi.2006.3.1-2.52   

Chang, H.-J. (2022). Edible Economics: A Hungry Economist Explains the World. Allen Lane.  

Chang, H.-J., & Lari, T. (2024). Economics, Pluralism and Democracy: An Interview with Ha-Joon Chang. Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, 17(2). https://doi.org/10.23941/ejpe.v17i2.920    

Cohen, A. J., & Harcourt, G. C. (2003). Retrospectives: Whatever happened to the Cambridge capital theory controversies? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 17(1), 199–214. https://doi.org/10.1257/089533003321165010     

Goodwin, C. D. (1998). The patrons of economics in a time of transformation. In M. S. Morgan & M. Rutherford (Eds.), From Interwar Pluralism to Postwar Neoclassicism (pp. 53–81). Duke University Press.  

Lari, T. (2024a). Diversity for the Common Good? Philosophical Inquiries into Pluralism in Economics [Doctoral dissertation, University of Helsinki]. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-84-0211-4   

Lari, T. (2024b). What counts as relevant criticism? Longino’s critical contextual empiricism and the feminist criticism of mainstream economics. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 104, 88–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.02.005   

Lari, T., & Mäki, U. (2024). Costs and Benefits of Diverse Plurality in Economics. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 54(5), 412–441. https://doi.org/10.1177/00483931241255230   

Rodrik, D. (2015). Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science. W. W. Norton.  

Tirole, J. (2017). Economics for the Common Good. Princeton University Press. 

tint blog post, In English

Competency assessment tests in the application process for salaried PhD positions do not promote fairness, objectivity, or transparency / Inkeri Koskinen & Päivi Seppälä

The University of Helsinki has started using epistemically opaque competency assessment tests sold by a private recruitment company in the application process for salaried PhD positions. This does not promote fairness, objectivity, or transparency. It also goes against the principles of responsible researcher evaluation.

The University of Helsinki has renewed its application process for salaried PhD positions. This change affects both the PhD students applying for over 100 paid four-year doctoral positions, and the ones applying for 236 three-year positions in the doctoral training pilot. (University of Helsinki, Flamma News 3.10.2024). The renewed process has an element that has raised concerns in the academic community. Each applicant must now complete a series of online competency assessment tests. One test is claimed to assess the personality of the applicant, while others are meant to evaluate verbal and mathematical skills. 

The University of Helsinki purchases these tests from AON, an international company that develops and sells recruitment-related assessment services. The overall goal of the revised application process is to improve efficiency and to “ensure a fair and objective assessment of applicants in large numbers of applicants, as well as to ensure transparency and consistency in recruitment processes” (University of Helsinki, 2024, Flamma News 3.10.2024). We share the concerns of many in our community: the use of these tests does not promote fairness, objectivity, or transparency. 

Psychometric tests in recruitment

Psychometric testing has been a mainstream recruitment trend for decades (Searle & Al-Sharif, 2018). During the 20th century, psychometric testing was developed to meet the needs of educational institutions, the military, and companies recruiting employees. The guiding values in the development of psychometric testing have been objectivity, fairness, and utility (Wijsen et al., 2020).

Given the significance of psychometric testing in modern societies, it is unsurprising that the concepts of objectivity and fairness are cited as motivators for introducing psychometric assessments at the University of Helsinki. However, the doctoral school responsible for the new application process has not clearly defined what is meant by the “objective” and “fair” processes that are supposed to add to the “transparency” of the selection process. Our aim is to clarify these terms based on our previous and ongoing research. Unfortunately, this clarity does not alleviate the concerns raised by University of Helsinki researchers and students. On the contrary, shedding light on these concepts reveals central problems in the use of psychometric testing.

The concepts of objectivity and fairness in psychometric testing

In psychometric testing, “psychometric objectivity” (Seppälä & Małecka, 2024) refers to the aspiration to eliminate personal judgement from the assessment of personality and skills, ensuring that test results do not vary depending on the person conducting the measurement (Wijsen et al., 2020). This form of objectivity aligns with the notion of meritocratic fairness, which holds that the most qualified individuals should receive the greatest rewards (Wijsen et al., 2020) — in this case, the salaried PhD positions. In psychometrics, fairness has often been operationalized as developing methods to ensure that similar individuals are treated similarly (Wijsen et al., 2020). 

However, meritocratic notions of objectivity and fairness have long been criticised for neglecting fairness of outcomes, particularly across demographic groups (Seppälä & Małecka, 2024). Socioeconomic backgrounds shape individuals’ skills and motivation, and these backgrounds are unequally distributed among groups. For example, parental academic background influences young adults’ higher education choices in Finland, although the effect is smaller than the OECD average (OECD, 2024). Therefore, meritocratically fair and objective procedures produce outcomes that sustain inequalities between groups (Au, 2016; Sandel, 2020). In other words, tests that strive for “psychometric objectivity” are inefficient tools if the aim is the fair treatment of demographic groups.

The use of such tests can also heighten discrimination against some groups. When “psychometric objectivity” is sought by using standardised tests with time limits, there is a significant risk of discriminating against many minorities, such as neurodivergent people. For instance, in the United States, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation has recently appealed to the Federal Trade Commission, claiming that AON’s personnel assessment products discriminate against individuals based on disability, health status, and ethnic background. Regarding the ADEPT-15 test used by the University of Helsinki, the complaint states the following:

Algorithmically driven Adaptive Employee Personality Test (“ADEPT-15”) adversely impacts autistic people, otherwise neurodivergent people, and people with mental health disabilities such as depression and anxiety because it tests for characteristics that are close proxies of their disabilities – characteristics which are likely not necessary for essential job functions for most positions – and their disabilities are likely to significantly impact the scores they receive for those characteristics. (ACLU 2024.)

Competency assessment tests do not promote fairness 

“Fair” methods may be “fairer” to some groups than others (Rios & Cohen, 2023), as they sustain inequalities between social groups, and may heighten discrimination against some groups. This does not sound fair. But how then should we understand fairness? 

Luckily, the University of Helsinki is committed to a relatively clear characterisation of fairness. Fairness in researcher evaluation means, among other things, that “[c]haracteristics or circumstances associated with persons being evaluated or people close to them that are irrelevant to the objective of the evaluation must not be used as evaluation criteria.” (University of Helsinki: Responsible Evaluation of a Researcher.)

The use of a personality test in recruitment requires choosing a set of personality traits that are sought, and others that are not. We have tried to ask how these personality traits have been chosen in the case at hand, and whether AON took part in the choosing process, but so far have not received an answer.

There is an ongoing discussion about whether personality tests – even the best ones – are able to predict job performance (Zell & Lesick 2021). But we are not talking about typical jobs here: we are talking about academia. It is doubtful that there are any personality traits that would be beneficial in all academic fields. Nor does it seem plausible that there would be any personality traits that might not be useful in some academic field. And it is quite likely that there are academic fields where the personality traits of a researcher do not matter at all. Therefore, using a personality test in the application process for salaried PhD positions means using characteristics associated with persons being evaluated that are irrelevant to the objective of the evaluation. By the definition accepted by the University of Helsinki, this is unfair.

But even more worryingly, it is highly questionable whether any personality traits of an individual, or even their competencies, can be reliably recognised by the means of any kind of an online test without combining it with a personal interview with a trained professional such as a psychologist. The Finnish Psychological association (2019) strongly discourages against the use of any test results – either personality test results or competency test results – without such an interview, where the results are discussed and interpreted.

It is therefore reasonable to doubt the ability of AON’s tests to reliably measure what they claim to measure. If the tests are unreliable, they either bias against some applicants in ways unknown and unjustified, or are tantamount to tossing a coin. Neither option promotes fairness.

Competency assessment tests can decrease cognitive diversity

In addition to being unfair, the use of such tests may be epistemically harmful.There is ample evidence of the epistemic benefits of social and cognitive diversity in science (see Rolin, Koskinen, Kuorikoski & Reijula 2023). 

The introduction of psychometric testing threatens diversity among PhD students and university staff. Because such tests sustain inequalities between social groups, their use does not increase social diversity in the academic community. And particularly the introduction of a personality test in the application process may decrease cognitive diversity in the selected group.

A group is cognitively diverse when its members differ, for instance, with respect to their expertise and skills, or problem-solving heuristics. 

As noted above, the use of the ADEPT-15 personality test may discriminate against some groups, notably neurodivergent people. In general, the use of such a test in the application process for salaried PhD positions may mean discriminating against people whose problem solving strategies do not lead to “successful” performance in the alleged personality test. This is worrisome for two reasons: first, it is unfair, and, secondly, it is epistemically harmful.

Competency assessment tests do not promote objectivity

As mentioned above, “psychometric objectivity” refers to the attempt to eliminate personal judgement from the assessment of personality and skills. According to many critics, this just creates an illusion of objectivity, as the assessment methods sustain inequalities between social groups. In other words, they are biased against some groups – which gives reasons to question their objectivity.

Objectivity is a contested concept with multiple meanings. One of us has suggested a way to understand the relations between the different meanings of objectivity in science: When we call something objective, we claim that some important risk or risks of error to which we as human beings are prone has been effectively mitigated, and we can therefore rely on that something. For instance, we may call a research process objective because we have ensured that we can change the researcher in charge of the process, and the results stay the same. In other words, the subjective biases of an individual researcher do not bias the outcome (Koskinen 2020). 

This idea can be applied here, even though we are talking about HR, not science. When people strive for “psychometric objectivity”, the very human risk that is being avoided is that the evaluators might be biased, and their personal judgements could therefore lead to suboptimal decisions. The suggested solution is to replace the evaluators’ judgement with test results. The critics we discussed above (Au, 2016; Wijsen et al., 2020) claim that focusing on individual biases is misleading. It is the inequalities ingrained in our societies and operating on multiple levels that are the really important problem: they lead to suboptimal decisions in recruitment, because some candidates never have a proper chance. Psychometric objectivity is toothless against this problem, as the tests do nothing to alleviate the systematic disadvantages of some demographic groups. 

We agree. The problem is well illustrated by the fact that several companies currently offer training packages and courses promising better performance in AON’s tests. If they really work, then the applicants who have the resources to pay for the training fare better in the tests. In other words, the tests discriminate against the poorer candidates in a very familiar way, sustaining inequalities between social groups. Recruitment decisions based on the test results are therefore bound to be suboptimal.

The use of competency assessment tests can also decrease the objectivity of the selection process.The tests are introduced as a strategy for ensuring that the individual evaluators’ biases do not lead to suboptimal decisions in recruitment: the candidate is not chosen just because the evaluator, for instance, liked their charisma. However, there are many different kinds of risks of error that should be taken into account. In addition to the evaluators individual biases, systematic biases in the tests can lead to suboptimal decisions. It is not a good idea to replace the first type of bias with the latter (Koskinen 2023). If the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation is right, and AON’s tests really do systematically discriminate against individuals based on disability, health status, and ethnic background, then the use of the tests leads to suboptimal decisions with regard to individuals belonging to these groups. As a result, it may become even less likely than before that such individuals are recruited. If so, then the use of the tests has decreased the objectivity of the selection process.

To whom do “objective” and “fair” recruitment methods give power? 

Another important question to ask when introducing psychometric methods is to whom power is transferred and from whom it is taken away (Kalluri, 2020; Seppälä & Małecka, 2024). At the University of Helsinki, the power dynamics are quite clear. The psychometric competency assessments diminish the importance of the scientific merits of the PhD plans in selecting PhD students for salaried positions. This means that the decision-making power is transferred to AON and AON-certified personnel in the university’s HR department. This means that the academic community’s power to choose its new members is reduced. 

There could perhaps be arguments for this shift in power if AON and the HR department could demonstrate 

1) that the personality and skills assessments are grounded in the best theories of personality and organisational psychology, and 

2) that the test results have sufficient predictive power for successfully conducting PhD research in all academic fields.

We have already expressed some doubts about the second point. It seems unlikely that any competence test or personality test could produce results that would be relevant in all academic fields. The University of Helsinki is committed to the national recommendation of researcher evaluation, according to which “evaluation must take into account the diversity of research and outputs” (University of Helsinki: Responsible Evaluation of a Researcher), so this is problematic. Moreover, we have seen no independent evidence of AONs tests’ predictive power in any contexts, let alone academic ones.

As to the first point, AON, of course, claims that high scientific standards have been met. According to AON (2024), “Aon’s solutions strengthen hiring through psychometric assessments that are backed by science.” In other words, the assessments are “[r]eliable, robust, and research-based psychometric assessments.” But are AON’s claims justified, and how can we verify them? 

This takes us to our biggest concern: how can we secure the transparency of a recruitment process if we use tests that are not transparent?

Epistemically opaque competency assessment tests do not promote transparency   

AON’s tests, like all similar tests developed by commercial enterprises, are protected as business secrets. The companies typically claim that the tests are valid, reliable, robust, “research-based”, “backed by science”, and so on, and have marketing materials that support these claims. However, these tests are not independently validated. They do not compare to the kind of genuine psychometric tests that are used in clinical work and that have gone through an academic process of test development and validation. To put it simply, psychometric tests developed by commercial enterprises are not peer-reviewed, and independent replication studies seldom happen – and when they do happen, the results might not be flattering to the firms (Rhea et al. 2022).

Because the tests are protected as business secrets, they are epistemically opaque black boxes both to the applicants who must take the tests and to the employers who use such services – in this case, the University of Helsinki. So it is not possible to assess how they work, and to what degree they are perhaps based on psychological research. Based on AON’s website, it is, for instance, not possible to tell even the psychological theory of personality that the company uses in their personality test – if any. The ADAPT-15 test – which the University of Helsinki now uses – seems to include six “broad work styles” and fifteen “aspects of personality”  (AON, 2022; AON, 2024), so at least it appears that it is not based on Big Five, the best-known and widely accepted psychological model of personality (Zell & Lesick 2021; see also Forsell & Koskinen unpublished manuscript). 

The same problem of epistemic opacity applies to all of AONs tests that the University of Helsinki (Flamma News, 3.10.2024) now uses: we know nothing about the alleged research on which “the scales lst, scales clx, and scales numerical & verbal tests” are based. Because there are no independent studies that would confirm that the tests do what they are claimed to do, and because we have no access to the tests, it is impossible to assess their epistemic value. We have no idea whether they do what AON’s marketing materials claim they do, and there is no independent evidence of their predictive power.

This is against the principle of transparency as it is characterised in the general principles of responsible researcher evaluation, to which the University of Helsinki is committed. Transparency, according to these principles, means that the “objectives, methods, materials and interpretation of the results must be known to everyone” (University of Helsinki: Responsible Evaluation of a Researcher). 

The University of Helsinki should not use epistemically opaque tests in recruitment

The University of Helsinki is committed to the national recommendation of researcher evaluation (University of Helsinki: Responsible Evaluation of a Researcher). The general principles of this recommendation are transparency, integrity, fairness, competence, and diversity. We have just argued that the use of epistemically opaque, not independently validated psychometric competency tests in recruitment goes against the principles of fairness, diversity, and transparency. Competency remains an open question, as due to trade secrecy, we cannot evaluate it.

“Integrity” on this list of principles is specified to mean that “the evaluation must be conducted in accordance with practices recognized by the research community”. Using epistemically opaque “black box” tests that have not been independently validated – using them for any purpose – is against basic practices that are recognised across all academic fields. Members of our community are now being selected in ways that go against some of the most elementary established practices in academia. The University of Helsinki should never use such tests in recruitment.

Inkeri Koskinen is an Academy Research Fellow in Practical Philosophy and the president of the National Committee of Philosophy of Science. In her project Objectivity in Contexts she studies the notion and the normative ideal of objectivity. She is also the PI of the Aaltonen foundation project Pseudoscience in Finnish Work Life.

Päivi Seppälä is a doctoral researcher in the Doctoral Programme in Philosophy, Arts, and Society  at the University of Helsinki. She is a member of the research team of the Aaltonen foundation project Pseudoscience in Finnish Work Life. She is also a STOry-certified professional supervisor and has a 10-year work experience in financial administration and HR. Her PhD research focuses on recruitment technologies, discrimination in recruitment, and pseudotechnologies, and is currently funded by the Kone Foundation.   

References

ACLU complaint to the FTC regarding Aon Consulting, Inc. May 30, 2024. https://www.aclu.org/documents/aclu-complaint-to-the-ftc-regarding-aon-consulting-inc Accessed 17.10.2024.

AON (2022). ADEPT-15: Adaptive Employee Personality Test. https://www.aonhumancapital.co.in/home/for-employers/assessment-solutions/leadership-assessments/adept . Accessed 15.10.2024.

AON (2024). Pre-Hire Talent Assessment. 

https://www.aon.com/en/capabilities/talent-and-rewards/pre-hire-talent-assessment . Accessed 10.10.2024.

Au, W. (2016). Meritocracy 2.0. Educational Policy 30, pp. 39–62.

Finnish Psychological Association, Henkilöarvioinnin sertifiointilautakunta  (2019). Henkilöarviointi työelämässä: ohjeistus hyviksi käytännöiksi. 4.9.2019. https://www.psyli.fi/psykologin-tyo-ja-koulutus/patevyydet-ja-sertifikaatit/henkiloarvioinnin-sertifikaatti/ . Accessed 15.10.2024

Forsell, M & Koskinen, I. Unpublished manuscript. Commercialisation, Opacity, and Demarcation: The Use of Personality Tests in Recruitment.

Kalluri, P (2020). Don’t ask if artificial intelligence is good or fair, ask how it shifts power. Nature 583, pp. 169–169. 

Koskinen, I  (2020). Defending a risk account of scientific objectivity. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71:4, pp. 1187–1207.

Koskinen, I (2023). Participation and Objectivity. Philosophy of Science 90(2), pp. 413-432.

OECD (2024). Education at a Glance 2024: OECD Indicators. OECD Publishing, Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/c00cad36-en. Accessed 10.10.2024.

Rhea, A. K. et al (2022). An external stability audit framework to test the validity of personality prediction in AI hiring. Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 36, pp. 2153–2193.

Rios, K. & Cohen, A. B (2023). Taking a “multiple forms” approach to diversity: An introduction, policy implications, and legal recommendations. Social Issues Policy Review 17, pp. 104–130.

Rolin, K., Koskinen, I., Kuorikoski, J., Reijula, S. (2023) Social and cognitive diversity in science: introduction. Synthese 202, 36. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04261-9

Sandel, M. (2020). The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 

Searle, R. H. & Al-Sharif, R. (2018). Recruitment and Selection. in Human Resource Management – a critical approach, eds. Collings, D. G., Wood, G. T. & Szamosi, L. T. Routledge, pp. 215–237.

Seppälä, P. & Małecka, M (2024). AI and discriminative decisions in recruitment: Challenging the core assumptions. Big Data and Society 11(1).

University of Helsinki: Responsible Evaluation of a Researcher. https://www.helsinki.fi/en/research/research-integrity/responsible-evaluation-researcher Accessed 17.10.2024.

University of Helsinki (2024). The competency assessment used in the application process for doctoral researchers raises questions – the Doctoral School answers. In University of Helsinki News, Flamma, 3.10.2024. https://flamma.helsinki.fi/en/group/ajankohtaista/news/-/uutinen/vaitoskirjatutkijoiden-haussa-kaytetty-kyvykkyysarviointi-herattaa-kysymyksia-tutkijakoulu-vastaa/38547657 (login requires University of Helsinki user account). 

Wijsen, L. D., Borsboom, D. & Alexandrova, A. (2021). Values in Psychometrics. Perspectives on Psychological Science 17(3).  doi:10.1177/17456916211014183.
Zell, E. & Lesick, T. L. (2022). Big five personality traits and performance: A quantitative synthesis of 50+ meta‐analyses. Journal of Personality 90, pp. 559–573.

tint Event, In English

20.11 Mariana Mazzucato: Industrial Strategy | ReSES AD Lecture

Date: 20.11.2024
Time: 16:00 (EET, Helsinki time)
Place: Online
Zoom link

ARGUMENTA DISTINGUISHED LECTURE

A New Approach to Industrial strategy:
Directing the economy toward an inclusive and sustainable future
Mariana Mazzucato

The ReSES project is happy to announce an upcoming online public lecture titled “A New Approach to Industrial Strategy” to be delivered by Mariana Mazzucato. This event is part of the Argumenta Distinguished Lectures series organized by ReSES at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki.

Industrial strategy is experiencing a renaissance. Getting the details right matter. Mission-oriented industrial strategy needs to be more than words if we want to avoid missions becoming part of the problem, not the solution. During this lecture, Professor Mariana Mazzucato will offer insights gained from work with governments around the world – on opportunities ranging from healthy and sustainable housing estates in our local Camden Council to the ecological transition in Brazil – that are advancing new approaches to bring economic, social, and environmental policy goals into alignment at the centre of their growth strategies. She will explore what it takes for governments to design, implement, and govern new industrial strategies and examine the tools, institutions, partnerships, and capabilities governments need to deliver transformative change.

Mariana Mazzucato (PhD) is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL), where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose. She is winner of international prizes including the Grande Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana in 2021, Italy’s highest civilian honour, the 2020 John von Neumann Award, the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values, and 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. Most recently, Pope Francis appointed her to the Pontifical Academy for Life for bringing ‘more humanity’ to the world.

As well as The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (2013), she is the author of The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy (2018), Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism (2021), and most recently The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies (2023). She advises policymakers around the world on innovation-led inclusive and sustainable growth. Her roles have included for example Chair of the World Health Organization’s Council on the Economics of Health for All, Co-Chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, a member of the South African President’s Economic Advisory Council, and the Co-Chair of the Group of Experts to the G20 Task Force for the Global Mobilization against Climate Change.

Funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the ReSES project aims to rethink how economics can better serve society. The project’s Argumenta Distinguished Lectures series provides a platform for leading experts to present ideas that challenge conventional economic thought and promote societal well-being. Professor Mazzucato’s lecture, “A New Approach to Industrial Strategy” is a significant addition to this series.

The lecture is free and open to the public, reflecting the ReSES project’s dedication to making scholarly discussions accessible to a broad audience.

You can join the Zoom webinar via this link

admin blog post, In English, In Finnish

TINT blog relaunches itself / TINTin blogi uudistuu

TINTin blogi siirtyy uuteen aikaan. Edelleen julkaisemme tässä blogissa tekstejä, jossa maailmaa katsotaan tieteenfilosofisesta perspektiivistä. Tekstit voivat olla esimerkiksi tutkimukseen perustuvia katsauksia ja mielipiteitä tai kirja-arvioita. Kirjoittaa voi suomeksi, ruotsiksi ja englanniksi. Jos haluat julkaista vastineen täällä julkaistuun tekstiin, ota yhteyttä toimitukseen. 

Jatkossa kaikki julkaistavat tekstit käyvät läpi toimitusprosessin, ja siksi tutkijat voivat merkitä ne tutkimustietokantoihin vertaisarvioimattomina julkaisuina. Suositeltu merkkimäärä suomeksi (sis. sanavälit) on 3000-10000 merkkiä, englanniksi noin 500-1700 sanaa, mutta tämä riippuu hyvin paljon myös jutun aiheesta.  
 
Yhteystiedot: Jani Raerinne / jani.raerinne () helsinki.fi 
 
 
TINT blog is entering a new era. We will continue to publish posts that view the world from a philosophy of science perspective. The content may include, for example, reviews and opinions based on research or book reviews. Contributions can be written in Finnish, Swedish, or English. If you would like to publish a response to a text published here, please contact the editorial team. 

From now on, all texts published will go through an editorial process, allowing researchers to list them in research databases as non-peer-reviewed publications. The recommended length for texts in Finnish (including spaces) is 3,000-10,000 characters, and in English, approximately 500-1700 words, though this can vary depending on the topic. 

Contact: Jani Raerinne / jani.raerinne () helsinki.fi 

admin blog post, In English

Science vs. non-science! Why the demarcation problem is still relevant and what we can do about it / Carlo Martini

What separates science from pseudoscience? In this post, Carlo Martini takes a fresh look at the familiar but largely forgotten problem of demarcation. He argues that demarcation is still a relevant problem, as scientific misinformation continues to plague public debates on topics such as global warming, vaccines, and more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic.

Continue reading “Science vs. non-science! Why the demarcation problem is still relevant and what we can do about it / Carlo Martini” →
admin blog post, In English

Institutional knowledge / Säde Hormio

Under what circumstances can we correctly attribute knowledge to an institution? The question is interesting not only because it can assist us in attributing responsibility, but also because it can illuminate what information structures and lines of communication should look like in institutions. This post by Säde Hormio is based on her forthcoming article “Institutional knowledge and its normative implications”.

Continue reading “Institutional knowledge / Säde Hormio” →
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Law, economics and interdisciplinarity / Péter Cserne & Magdalena Małecka

Péter Cserne and Magdalena Małecka tell us how their book Law and Economics as Interdisciplinary Practice came to be and give an overview on what kind of issues the book tackles. They discuss the position of Law and Economics at a time when questions are raised about the identity and possible further developments of the research project.

Written by Péter Cserne and Magdalena Małecka

Law and Economics is the poster child of interdisciplinary research in the social sciences. Since the 1970s, Law and Economics scholars have formed several associations, published half a dozen journals, and organised entire specialised programmes in economic analysis of the law. They developed a shared terminology and came to agree, at least implicitly, that standard microeconomic models provide better explanations of how law impacts behaviour than any other social scientific studies of the law and legal systems.

To be sure, this aspiration of economic analysis of law faces criticism and is sometimes conceived of as imperialistic. Critics claim that Law and Economics provides a rather limited understanding of the law. They also think that it violates some norms of academic practice because it does not respond to scholarly criticism according to commonly shared standards. It is in fact true that there is an asymmetry in the interaction of economics and law, which might be conceived of as being problematic in either an epistemic or an institutional sense. The question is, what does Law and Economics owe its success to? Is it successful because of its epistemic power or the institutional power of its proponents?

With this question in mind, more than two years ago, we started thinking about organizing a workshop on Law and Economics. Even though Law and Economics had already been discussed from many theoretical angles we knew that a perspective of the contemporary philosophy of science is still missing. So, we thought, this must be a focal point of the workshop.

As we kept on discussing the workshop’s idea, it became clear to us very quickly that the debates on interdisciplinarity in philosophy of science can shed new light on continuing and nascent doubts about both the coherence and the future of Law and Economics, raised from the inside of this field. Hence, we jotted down the following questions: Is the behavioural model underlying standard Law and Economics limited or superseded by empirical findings and insights from cognitive psychology? Have efficiency and welfare maximisation really managed to replace values such as justice and rights in evaluating the law? Are they still considered superior to other consequentialist evaluative standards such as innovation and growth? How are empirical or theoretical generalisations of economics relevant for and channelled into the core of legal discourse which typically focuses on particularities of individual transactions and disputes?

The workshop, Law and Economics: Theoretical and Practical Dimensions of Interdisciplinarity, took place at the University of Helsinki in November 2017. The event was organised by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science of the University of Helsinki and MetaLawEcon, an interdisciplinary academic network of legal scholars, philosophers, economists and other social scientists focusing on foundational issues of Law & Economics.

It was a very productive event, and the contributions to the workshop encouraged us to share the results with others in the form of a book. So, we edited a book which contains some papers from our workshop together with a few additional contributions.

The book, Law and Economics as Interdisciplinary Practice, brings together economists, philosophers, historians and legal scholars. It explores whether, and in what sense Law and Economics has indeed been an exemplar of interdisciplinarity. And, inspired by insights from the philosophy of the social sciences, the book

Image: Routledge.                     

  • shows how concepts travel between legal scholarship and economics and change meanings when applied elsewhere,
  • illustrates how economic theories and models inform and transform judicial practice,
  • asks whether the transfers of knowledge between economics and law are symmetrical exchanges between the two disciplines, and
  • explores the causes and consequences of the asymmetrical relationship between law and economics.

In sum, the book provides insights on the foundations, methods, achievements and challenges of Law and Economics, at a time when both the continuing criticism of academic economics and the growth of empirical legal studies raise questions about the identity and possible further developments of this research project.

In the book, the authors address three key issues which are pertinent for judging whether Law and Economics is indeed a successful interdisciplinary research project.

1. In what sense can we characterise Law and Economics as a scientific enterprise and how can we locate it within the broader set of possible interactions of the two disciplines?

2. Which transfers of concepts and methods from economics to legal scholarship have features of symmetric exchanges and which are asymmetrical, and why?

3. In which ways are different kinds of normative reasoning relevant for legal practice informed by economic theory and what are the tensions between them?

Contents page of Law and Economics as Interdisciplinary Exchange. Philosophical, Methodological and Historical Perspectives.

These are challenging questions and the authors do not provide easy answers. Nevertheless, they provide the reader with a lot of rich material and original analysis that (we hope) will carry the debates concerning Law and Economics forward and provide a better understanding of the challenges.

If you are interested in exploring the book further, the link to purchasing options is available here.

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Yet another handbook on the philosophy of social sciences? / Michiru Nagatsu & Attilia Ruzzene

There are many excellent handbooks on the philosophy of the social sciences out there. So who needs another one? Perhaps no one, at least not now. In this post, Michiru Nagatsu and Attilia Ruzzene explain why they prepared another handbook,  Contemporary Philosophy and Social Science: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue, and why this is different.

Continue reading “Yet another handbook on the philosophy of social sciences? / Michiru Nagatsu & Attilia Ruzzene” →
admin blog post, In English

TINT in context / Uskali Mäki

Written by Uskali Mäki

The story of Finnish philosophy of science is often told in terms of sequential generations, expanding from individuals to groups. There was Eino Kaila, logical empiricist, followed by Georg Henrik von Wright and his student Jaakko Hintikka, followed by the latter’s students such as Ilkka Niiniluoto, Raimo Tuomela, and Risto Hilpinen. The generic style of research has been markedly analytic, but the modes of analysis have not been uniform, and the themes addressed have evolved in the course of the past decades. (For a story of Finnish philosophy of science, see e.g. Niiniluoto EPSA Newsletter 2013.)

Continue reading “TINT in context / Uskali Mäki” →