Crossing the Divides:Exploring Boundaries & Overlaps between Sociology & Philosophy in Science & Bioethics
Crossing the Divides:Exploring Boundaries & Overlaps between
Sociology & Philosophy in Science & Bioethics
Brunel
University, London
May 13th
– 14th 2013
This
workshop explores the potential productive overlaps between the disciplines of
Philosophy and Sociology. With a focus on two disputed domains, relations
between the Philosophy of Science and the Sociology of Science and interactions
between Bioethics and Sociological approaches to Ethics, we aim at developing
conceptual tools to reflect the fruitful interactions between these
disciplines.
Sociology
and Philosophy of Science have over the past 40 years lived through a somewhat
uneasy relationship. While both areas have often explored topics of similar
nature, cross-disciplinary conversations have either been conducted in a
confrontational manner or not at all. In similar vein, these tensions are
also a feature of relations between the fields of Bioethics and Sociology.
Recent developments in natural sciences such as nanoscience or synthetic
biology are opening up new avenues to study complex issues and to make sense of
them and enhance our understanding. Philosophy and Sociology of Science and Bioethics
can provide conceptual tools, methods of analysis and critical perspectives to
these analyses. Traditionally however these fields have been standing apart and
have only recently started to interact more strongly. As these scientific
fields are by nature increasingly interdisciplinary, a similar challenge can be
given to philosophy and sociology of science: Can we identify joint problems
and conceptual tools to reflect the new scientific developments in the fields
of the biological sciences?
Both
philosophy and sociology have a core set of intellectual traditions, background
assumptions and methods, and our aim here is to make these explicit and to
question to what degree these do and should make a difference to ‘crossing the
divides’. Indeed, holding these cross-disciplinary conversations is crucial if
we want to avoid one discipline rediscovering the wheels of others. We
also hope that such conversations will enable participants to identify the
strengths of each discipline so that particular scientific or ethical problems
are investigated in a more co-ordinated and synergistic manner with the
disciplinary contributions building on each others’ insights.
To this
end, we feel that a workshop is needed where Philosophers and Sociologists of
Science and Philosophers and Sociologists of Bioethics can share experiences
and discuss how the disciplines can or should (or should not) work together.
These discussions could address:
-
sociological and philosophical considerations on interdisciplinarity applied to
our own disciplines
-
sociological analyses of identity and boundary constructions between
disciplines
-
practical lessons from our own collaborations.
Reflexive
insights should help philosophy and sociology of science in identifying
opportunities a closer collaboration can afford, but may also open up
potentially uneasy but important questions about what the boundaries between
the disciplines really should be, if after all they both investigate similar
issues using similar empirical and theoretical methods.
By
taking this approach to our own disciplines we can then work on what the
current and future challenges in science and bioethics are that can best be
tackled by taking a combined philosophical and sociological approach, and how
or whether such a combined approach really is better than both disciplines
working in isolation.
Contributions
to this workshop might for example reflect on:
- Sociological and/or philosophical perspectives on
interdisciplinarity applied to philosophy and sociology of science and
bioethics.
- Reflections from the history of philosophy and/or sociology
on the relationship between sociology and philosophy of science.
- Reflections on the demarcation between sociological and
philosophical approaches to science and bioethics.
- Reflections from adjacent interdisciplinary collaborations
/ fields of study such as History and Philosophy of Science and possible
lessons learned from these.
- Reports of current work within philosophy or sociology of
science and bioethics which cross the boundaries between philosophy and
sociology.
We
believe this is the first workshop to bring together researchers from
Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Bioethics, and Sociology of Science and
Sociology of Bioethics. We look forward to a series of stimulating
debates within and between these areas on the value of attempting to ‘cross the
divide’.
This
Workshop is funded by the Wellcome Trust Biomedical Ethics Strategic Award
supporting LABTEC (London and Brighton Translational Ethics Centre).The AMIE
strand of LABTEC focuses on methodological and epistemological issues in
interdisciplinary and empirical ethics providing opportunities within the
LABTEC programme for reflection on the purposes of, and approaches to, studying
ethics and, beyond the programme, for fostering networks and building national
interdisciplinary ethics capacity through meetings with colleagues from UK and
international centres. Two broad and overlapping themes have run through AMIE
meetings to date: 1) the possibilities of, and challenges facing, a genuinely
interdisciplinary ethics, especially one that takes both empirical and normative
concerns seriously; 2) the potential contribution of sociology to the study of
ethics.
Enquiries
to: Hauke Riesch at crossingthedivides@gmail.com
Please
submit abstracts of no more than 500 words by 11th Jan 2013