CfP: Disagreement in Science (Special Issue of Synthese)
Guest editors:
Maria Baghramian (University College Dublin)
Finnur Dellsén (Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences)
We invite submissions of original papers for a special issue of Synthese on the topic “Disagreement in Science”.
Recent
epistemology has seen an explosion of interest in disagreement and
other related questions in social epistemology. While much progress has
been made on abstract and general epistemological issues relating to
disagreement, there has been surprisingly little discussion of how, if
at all, these lessons can be applied to disagreement within science in
particular. Furthermore, several aspects of the topic go beyond merely
applying lessons from analytic epistemology. For example, scientific
disagreement is unlike many ordinary cases of disagreement in that there
is often little reason to think that the disagreement is due to a
simple mistake by one of the parties of the type often appealed to in
the epistemology of disagreement literature. Rather, if there is
disagreement among two or more groups of scientists, it is most commonly
grounded in a more fundamental difference in their methods, background
assumptions, or scientific outlooks.
The
special issue will focus on philosophical questions raised by
disagreement within science or particular scientific disciplines.
Appropriate topics for contributions include (but are not limited to):
• How,
if at all, should scientists reevaluate their theories and models upon
realizing that their scientific peers have a contrary opinion? How
should scientific disagreements be resolved?
• Is
there such a thing as “peer disagreement” in science – i.e.
disagreement between equally well informed and equally competent
scientists – or is this too much of an idealization from actual
scientific practice to tell us anything worthwhile about scientific
controversies?
• What
sort of things do scientists disagree about – only matter of facts, or
also conceptual issues and the proper values used in scientific
practice?
• Does
persistent scientific disagreement support or lend credence to
relativism about scientific truths, or about scientific theory
evaluation?
• Is
scientific disagreement a desirable feature of scientific communities,
or should scientists strive to build consensus on important topics?
• What,
if anything, can the public learn from facts about disagreement (or its
opposite, consensus), e.g. on topics such as medical research and
climate models?
We welcome submissions that approach these
questions in variety of ways, including formal approaches and case
studies of scientific disagreements within particular disciplines.
Deadline for submissions: October 15th, 2018.
Submission
instructions: Contributions must be in English, original and not under
review elsewhere. Each submission should include a separate title page
containing the contact details for the author(s), an abstract (150-250
words) and a list of 4–6 keywords. All papers will be subject to
double-anonymous peer-review. Manuscripts should be submitted online
through the Synthese Editorial Manager (https://www.editorialmanager.