Jettisoning the Value-Free Ideal: Why do it and where does it leave us?
First, I will provide an overview of the arguments for getting rid of the value-free ideal for science. But more interesting is what comes next. This raises questions regarding both alternative ideals (what should constrain reasoning practices in science?) and the social location of science (what role does science play in society and what role should it play?). I will describe some advantages to particular replacement ideals, and address the question of how we should be thinking about science in society.
ToPHSS Lectures are part of the project “Topics in the Philosophy of the Human and Social Sciences”, funded by the Humanities Initiative. The project aims to cross boundaries between disciplines of the humanities and social sciences concerned with ‘the human’, that is with human beings, humanity, society, culture, history, and more. It focuses on methodological and ontological issues, in particular on those concerned with contested categories of the humanities and social sciences, and of those primarily on the categories of human, individual and person. This term the first focus is on the contested divide between nature and culture.