Dear All,
In our first event of Autumn 2026, the Perspectives on Science Seminar will have a talk by Luis Mireles-Flores (TINT/Helsinki) titled “A Multi-Stage approach to the role of evidence in policy making: opening the black-box of the public policy process”.
The seminar will take place in Metsätalo (room 10) from 14:15 to 15:45 on Monday, September 28, 2026.
Perspectives on Science is a research seminar that brings together experts from the philosophy of science and several fields of science studies. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar can be found on the TINT webpage https://tint.helsinki.fi.
What: “A Multi-Stage approach to the role of evidence in policy making: opening the black-box of the public policy process” by Luis Mireles-Flores
When: Monday 28.09.2026, from 2 to 4 pm (EEST, Helsinki time).
Where: Metsätalo (room 10) and Zoom.
Zoom link: Contact mirja-leena.zgurskaya@helsinki.fi for the Zoom link.
Abstract:
In recent decades, philosophers concerned with how scientific knowledge interacts with social and policy issues have been investigating the varieties, and epistemic particularities of different forms of causal evidence and evidential methods employed in scientific practice. This has led to an extremely valuable collection of epistemological insights and accounts of scientific evidence, evidential diversity, causal inference, extrapolation, and other causality-related topics, together with philosophical elaborations on how these insights could have implications for policy making (e.g., Cartwright 2006, 2009, 2012; Cartwright and Hardie 2012; Shan and Williamson 2021, 2023).
The existing accounts have made significant contributions to our understanding of the epistemic virtues and limitations of different kinds of evidence and inferential methods that are employed to support policy-oriented causal claims, i.e., causal claims that could be relevant to support decisions about policy interventions. Nevertheless, this literature has focused on unpacking and assessing the roles of causality and evidence mainly on the scientific side of the science-policy interaction, leaving the details of the distinct roles that evidence can have at the policy-making side almost entirely unexplored. As I will argue, this approach amounts to take the policy process as a simplistic unidimensional black-box notion within the analysis of evidence for policy.
To illustrate the limitations of the existing approaches, I review two influential accounts of evidence for policy: Cartwright’s evidence for use, and Shan and Williamson’s evidential pluralism. Then, as an alternative perspective, I put forward a Multi-Stage approach to the role of evidence in public policy making: an approach that understands policy making as a dynamic process with several stages, and that proceeds from the characterization of policy problems, to the examination of how scientific evidence can contribute in various ways to the specific evidential needs and challenges at each stage of the process.
The Multi-Stage approach is meant to offer an expansion of the possibilities of research for philosophers interested in the policy relevance of scientific knowledge. By considering and interpreting policy making as a dynamic process with clear stages (and each stage with distinct aims and evidential requirements), researchers can analyse and assess separately and more precisely how different types of causal knowledge, evidential methods, or contextual factors are more or less relevant, in which ways, and to which extent, to the specific aims and evidential requirements emerging at each of the different stages of the policy process.
Bio:
Luis Mireles-Flores is academic researcher at TINT (Centre for Philosophy of Social Science). He is currently Academy of Finland Fellow and the principal investigator of the project “Causality, Empirical Economics, and the Economy: New Perspectives on Causal Inference for Policy Purposes”, funded by the Research Council of Finland. His areas of specialization include philosophy of economics and the social sciences, philosophy of causal inference and evidence, political economy, and the history of economic analysis.
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If you have any questions about the seminar, do not hesitate to contact mirja-leena.zgurskaya@helsinki.fi.