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This book investigates how collaborative scientific practice yields scientific knowledge. At a time when most of today's scientific knowledge is created in research groups, the author reconsiders the social character of science to address the question of whether collaboratively created knowledge should be considered as collective achievement, and if so, in which sense. Combining philosophical analysis with qualitative empirical inquiry, this book provides a comparative case study of mono- and interdisciplinary research groups, offering insight into the day-to-day practice of scientists. The book includes field observations and interviews with scientists to present an empirically-grounded perspective on much-debated questions concerning research groups' division of labor, relations of epistemic dependence and trust.
List of contents
1. Introduction.- 2. Research Groups.- 3. Method.- 4. The Planetary Science Group.- 5. The molecular Biology Laboratory.- 6. Division of Labour.- 7. Epistemic Dependence.- 8. Epistemic Trust.- 9. Collaboration and collective knowledge.- 10. Concluding remarks.
About the author
Susann Wagenknecht is an interdisciplinary researcher at the intersection of philosophy of science, social epistemology, and qualitative empirical methods. She received her PhD from Aarhus University, Denmark, in 2014. Since then, she has published on epistemic trust and dependence in
Episteme
and
Social Epistemology
; and co-edited together with Hanne Andersen and Nancy J. Nersessian the volume
Empirical Philosophy of Science
(Springer, 2015).
Summary
This book investigates how collaborative scientific practice yields scientific knowledge. At a time when most of today’s scientific knowledge is created in research groups, the author reconsiders the social character of science to address the question of whether collaboratively created knowledge should be considered as collective achievement, and if so, in which sense. Combining philosophical analysis with qualitative empirical inquiry, this book provides a comparative case study of mono- and interdisciplinary research groups, offering insight into the day-to-day practice of scientists. The book includes field observations and interviews with scientists to present an empirically-grounded perspective on much-debated questions concerning research groups’ division of labor, relations of epistemic dependence and trust.
Additional text
“Susann Wagenknecht has written an important book that uses empirical methods for testing and refining philosophical theories about the nature and collaborative creation of scientific knowledge. …I believe this is the first book that makes a serious attempt to study these philosophical topics with an empirical methodology. The book delivers important insights and is recommended reading for both philosophers and social scientists interested in epistemic collaboration and creation of scientific knowledge.” (Raul Hakli, Metascience, July, 2018)
Report
"Susann Wagenknecht has written an important book that uses empirical methods for testing and refining philosophical theories about the nature and collaborative creation of scientific knowledge. ...I believe this is the first book that makes a serious attempt to study these philosophical topics with an empirical methodology. The book delivers important insights and is recommended reading for both philosophers and social scientists interested in epistemic collaboration and creation of scientific knowledge." (Raul Hakli, Metascience, July, 2018)
