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In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, N. Emrah Aydinonat (University of Helsinki) will give a talk on “The puzzle of model-based explanations”.

The seminar takes place online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on the 17th of October. To join the seminar, please contact jessica.north@helsinki.fi for the Zoom invitation.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

Abstract:

Almost everyone agrees that one of the many functions of scientific models is the help scientists explain real-world phenomena. Nevertheless, there is no agreement about how models perform this function. How do models explain? What is the relation between models and explanations? Can idealized models, which contain falsehoods, provide true explanations? This talk gives a brief overview of the philosophical literature on the so-called model explanations and outlines a framework to understand the explanatory role of idealized models.

Author bio:

N. Emrah Aydinonat (PhD, Docent) is a researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki and TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science. He is one of the chief editors of the Journal of Economic Methodology (w/ J. Vromen). He is a member of the board of directors of the International Network for Economic Method (INEM), the editorial board of the History of Economic Ideas and the International Advisory Board of The Review of Evolutionary Political Economy (REPE). He is the author of The Invisible Hand in Economics (Routledge, 2008) and the co-editor of Economics Made Fun: Philosophy of the pop-economics (Routledge, 2015). Aydinonat is currently working on an Academy of Finland research project entitled Economics as Serviceable Social Knowledge (ESSK) led by Uskali Mäki at University of Helsinki. More information at http://neaydinonat.com

In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Mary S. Morgan (London School of Economics) will give a talk on “Narrative: A General Purpose Technology for Science”.

The seminar takes place online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on the 3rd of October. To join the seminar, please contact jessica.north@helsinki.fi for the Zoom invitation.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

Abstract:

Narrative is ubiquitous inside the sciences. While it might be hidden, evident only from its traces, it can be found regularly in scientists’ accounts both of their research, and of the natural, human and social worlds they study.  Investigating the functions of narrative, it becomes clear that narrative-making provides scientists a means of making sense of the phenomena in their field, that narrative provides a means of representing that knowledge, and that narrative may even provide the site for scientific reasoning.  Narrative emerges as a ‘general purpose technology’, used in many different forms in different sites of science, enabling scientists to figure out and express their scientific knowledge claims. Understanding scientists’ use of narrative as a sense-making technology suggests that narrative functions as a bridge between the interventionist practices of science and the knowledge gained from those practices.

Abstract from Narrative Science: Reasoning, Representing and Knowing since 1800, edited M.S. Morgan, K.M. Hajek and D.M. Berry (CUP, 2022).]

Author bio:

Mary S. Morgan is the Albert O. Hirschman Professor of History and Philosophy of Economics at the London School of Economics; she is a Fellow of the British Academy (and served as Vice President 2014-6), and an Overseas Fellow of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences.  She is currently President-Elect of the Royal Economic Society, to become President for 2023-4.

In the first Perspectives on Science seminar of autumn 2022, Adrian Blau (King’s College London) will give a talk on “The Logic of Inference of Thought Experiments in Moral and Political Philosophy: Scientific Parallels”.

The seminar takes place in hybrid format, both in person at Metsätalo (University of Helsinki) and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on the 19th of September. To join the seminar, please contact jessica.north@helsinki.fi for the location details or Zoom invitation.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

Abstract:

Thought experiments are a key tool in political theory and philosophy, but they remain controversial. I first justify thought experiments in new ways, for instance by showing their role in conceptual analysis, and by denying the false dichotomy between ‘real’ examples and hypothetical thought experiments. I then highlight important and largely overlooked parallels between thought experiments in political philosophy and comparison in the natural and social sciences. This gives us powerful tools for testing and improving thought experiments, by using ideas like internal and external validity, controlled comparison, omitted variable bias, interaction effects, spurious correlations, testable implications, and parsimony. Focusing on variables is the key. This helps me address longstanding debates about ‘weird’ and ‘wacky’ thought experiments. Without exaggerating the scientific parallels – there are also important differences – this paper shows significant links between political philosophy and political science, and offers new insights into whether and how to use thought experiments, and about their limitations.
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Author bio:

Adrian Blau was an undergraduate at Cambridge and did his Masters and PhD in Oxford. Since 2011 he has worked in the Political Economy department at King’s College London, where he is now a professor. He edited the first ever textbook in political theory methods, Methods in Analytical Political Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2017), and has published more than 10 articles and book chapters on the methodology of history of political thought, including articles in the American Journal of Political Science (“How [not] to use the history of political thought for contemporary purposes”, 2021) and the Journal of Politics (“Anti-Strauss”, 2012). He also works on democratic theory and practice, on post-truth politics, on rationality, on Habermas, and on the political theory of Thomas Hobbes.

The seminar program for autumn 2022 is here, with international experts giving talks on their recent research as well as upcoming and published papers. This semester the seminar will be organised in hybrid format, with the possibility of in-person meetings as well as keeping the option to join via Zoom.

The seminar runs on a bi-weekly basis, the first session being on the 19th of September with Adrian Blau from King’s College London giving a talk on The Logic of Inference of Thought Experiments in Moral and Political Philosophy: Scientific Parallels.

Everyone is welcome to join! See the seminar page for updates and to attend.

In the last Perspectives on Science seminar of the semester, on Monday 6.6., Paul Thagard (University of Waterloo) will give a presentation titled “MisInformation: How Information Works, Breaks, and Mends”. The seminar takes place in Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 EET.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

JOINING THE SEMINARS: To get a link for joining the seminars in Zoom, please contact research assistant jessica.north@helsinki.fi

Abstract:

Barack Obama has described disinformation as the single biggest threat to democracy. Misinformation is also threatening medicine, science, politics, social justice, and international relations, in problems such as vaccine hesitancy, climate change denial, conspiracy theories, claims of racial inferiority, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Dealing with misinformation requires explanation of how information is generated and spread, and how it breaks down but can be mended.  This talk offers a new theory of information and misinformation that provides concrete advice on how improved thinking and communication can benefit individuals and societies.

Author bio:

Paul Thagard is a philosopher, cognitive scientist, and author of many interdisciplinary books. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo, where he founded and directed the Cognitive Science Program.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Cognitive Science Society, and the Association for Psychological Science.  His books include the 3-book Treatise on Mind and Society published by Oxford University Press in 2019. In October 2021, MIT Press published his Bots and Beasts: What Makes Machines, Animals, and People Smart?  In July, 2022,  Columbia University Press will publish Balance: How it works and what it means. He is now working on a book on misinformation and planning a book on complex consciousness.

At the next Perspectives on Science seminar on Monday 23.5., Antoinette Baujard (Université Jean Monnet) will give a presentation titled “Ethical values and scientific integrity in normative economics”. The seminar takes place in Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

JOINING THE SEMINARS: To get a link for joining the seminars in Zoom, please contact research assistant jessica.north@helsinki.fi

Abstract:

This talk aims at discussing minimal criteria of scientific integrity in economics when social welfare is eventually the main challenge, as notably in welfare economics or in social choice theory. It is based on a typology of views regarding the positive-normative demarcation in normative economics (Baujard, A. Values in Welfare Economics, 2021, in Ch. 15: Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Economics, Conrad Heilmann and Julian Reiss Eds.). Elaborating on this typology, I first show that the best practices of scientific integrity should logically differ depending on how demarcation is viewed; I however emphasize that transparency rules and attention to entanglement issues remain prominent in every case. Second, focusing on normative transparency, I elaborate on a case study in voting theory, based on the experiment of different voting rules in French presidential elections: I defend my own view on the positive-normative demarcation, and the associated required values of scientific integrity in normative economics.

Author bio:

Antoinette Baujard is a Professor of Economics at Université Jean Monnet and a member of CNRS GATE Lyon Saint-Etienne. Her research is based on reflexive studies (concretely history and philosophy of science) on how economics deals with normative issues. It is meant to convey pragmatic knowledge regarding the properties of instruments of public decision, such as methods of evaluation of public policies, voting procedures, deliberative processes. She published papers in journals such as the Journal of Economic Methodology, Social Choice and Welfare, or The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, and book review in journals such as Economics and Philosophy, History of Political Economy or Oeconomia. Her last book, Welfare theory, public action and ethical values, co-edited with Roger Backhouse and T. Nishizawa, and published in 2021 at Cambridge University Press, revisited the history of welfare economics.

At the next Perspectives on Science seminar on Monday 9.5., Karoliina Pulkkinen (University of Helsinki) will give a presentation titled “Values in climate modelling: testing the practical applicability of the Moral Imagination ideal”. The seminar takes place in Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

To join the seminar, please sign up here.

Abstract:

There is much debate on how social values should influence scientific research. However, the question of practical applicability of philosophers’ normative proposals has received less attention. In this talk, I test the attainability of Matthew Brown’s (2020) Moral Imagination ideal (MI ideal), which aims to help scientists to make warranted value-judgements through reflecting on goals, options, values, and stakeholders of research. The MI ideal is applied to a climate modelling setting, where researchers are developing aerosol-cloud interaction parametrizations of a model with the broader goal of improving climate sensitivity estimation. After the identification of minor hinders to applying the MI ideal, I propose two more substantial ways for developing it further. First, its tools should be accompanied with more concrete guidance for identifying how social values enter more technical decisions in scientific research. Second, since research projects can have multiple goals, examining the alignment between the broader societal aims of research and the more technical goals should be part of the tools of the MI ideal.

Author bio:

Karoliina Pulkkinen is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki’s Aleksanteri Institute. Currently she is working on a project on the role of values in science in the Soviet Union with the aim of determining how past science can inform philosophers’normative guidance regarding the management of social, political, and epistemic values in scientific practice. She received her PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge. Her previous postdoc was at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in a project titled Values, Choices, and Uncertainties in Climate Modelling, which was a 2-year collaboration between philosophers and climate scientists in Stockholm. Her research articles have appeared in Philosophy of Science, Centaurus, and Ambix. Her recent comment for Nature Climate Change can be accessed here.

At the next Perspectives on Science seminar on Monday 28.3., Monika Krause (LSE) will give a presentation titled “Model Cases: On Canonical Research Objects and Sites”. The seminar takes place in Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45.

Perspectives on Science is a weekly research seminar which brings together experts from science studies and philosophy of science. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar here.

To join the seminar, please sign up here.

Abstract:

Model Cases: On Canonical Research Objects and Sites

Drawing on a comparison between the use of model systems in biology and practices in the social sciences, I distinguish between the material research object (what researchers study) and the epistemic research object (what researchers are trying to understand) to ask how social scientists chose the former. The selection of research objects is influenced by a range of ideological but also by mundane factors. Eurocentrism and historicist ideas about development over time, convenience, schemas in the general population and schemas particular to specific scholarly communities all sponsor some objects over others. Some research objects, which I call ‘model cases’, are studied repeatedly and shape our understanding of more general ideas in disproportionate ways. I discuss how an analysis of such patterns in collective knowledge production matter with a view to a discussion about collective, as well as individual methodology.

Author bio:

Monika Krause is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics.

She is the author of Model Cases: Canonical Research Objects in the Social Sciences. (University of Chicago Press 2021), “On Sociological Reflexivity”, Sociological Theory (2021) and “Comparative Research: Beyond linear-causal explanation”, in: Joe Deville, Michael Guggenheim and Zusanna Hrldckova (ed). Practising Comparison. Logics. Relations, Collaborations (Mattering Press 2016).