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The Philosophy of the Science of Team Science: Disciplines, Peers, and SciTSeers J. Britt Holbrook Assistant Director Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity Research Assistant Professor, Philosophy University of North Texas britt.holbrook@unt.edu June 26, 2013 SciTS 2013 Conference
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The Philosophy of the Science of Team Science: Disciplines, Peers, and SciTSeers J. Britt Holbrook Assistant Director Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity Research Assistant Professor, Philosophy University of North Texas britt.holbrook@unt.edu June 26, 2013 SciTS 2013 Conference Evanston, IL
If SciTS were a discipline … • What would it mean for SciTS to be a discipline? • Answers to this question can go beyond the question of conceptual integration. • A philosophy of SciTS is also a history of SciTS. • Whether we want SciTS to become a discipline is above all a political issue.
Which Came First, the Discipline or the Peer? • Disciplines produce and define peers • Peers define and produce disciplines • What is a discipline? • What is a peer?
Disciplining SciTS • SciTS is currently being organized as if it were a discipline. • Presentations at the SciTS conference are judged by peers … as if peers exist. • But to what rules, to what standards, do our ostensible peers appeal? • How can we navigate the different islands of expertise that constitute SciTS?
The archipelago • Jasanoff (2010) appeals to the notion of an ‘archipelago’ in discussing STS. • Lyotard (1988, 2009) also refers to the ‘archipelago’ in discussing Kant. • For both Jasanoff and Lyotard, the ‘archipelago’ is symbolic … as if. • Both emphasize the archipelago is not merely – or primarily – a collection of islands.
The archipelago • The archipelago is (also, but also mainly) the sea that surrounds the islands. • The archipelago is the condition for the possibility of exchange between islands. • The archipelago allows us to pass between and among its islands. • How to navigate these passages is always a matter of reflective judgment.
Integration • Do we want – and do we need – a single conceptual framework for SciTS?
Navigation • Can SciTS be guided by the idea of navigating passages between territories?
SciTSeers • ‘Integration’ means more than mere relation. • Do we want or need the level of organization marked by ‘integration’? • Even well-established disciplines are not theoretically integrated. • Although it seems that collaboration requires communication, I’m not • convinced that collaboration requires integration (theoretical or otherwise).
Bibliography Holbrook, J. Britt(2013). “What is interdisciplinary communication? Reflections on the very idea of disciplinary integration.” Synthese, 190 (11): 1865-1879. DOI: 10.1007/s11229-012-0179-7. Jasanoff, Sheila (2010). “A field of its own: the emergence of science and technology studies,” in The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity, Robert Frodeman, Julie Thompson Klein, Carl Mitcham, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 191-205. Lyotard, Jean-François (1988). The Differend: Phrases in Dispute. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Lyotard, Jean-François (2009). Enthusiasm: the Kantian Critique of History. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.