At the beginning of August 2016, I received word from Greg Feist that Sofia Liberman had died. I was taken aback having recently corresponded with Professor Liberman about the online publication of her article (coauthored with Roberto López Olmedo). Professor Liberman’s work came to my attention through her association with Greg, Mike Gorman and scholars studying the psychology of science. We offer our sincere condolences to Sofia Liberman’s family, friends and colleagues. With gratitude and great respect for her intellectual legacy, we share Sofia Liberman’s scholarship with you in this issue of Social Epistemology.
Since the advent of publishing six issues a year, we adopted the practice of printing the journal triannually; thus, combining two issues for each print edition. The result makes for a panoply of fascinating topics and arguments. Still, we invite our readers to focus on the first four articles in this edition—articles addressing topics in the psychology of science, edited by Mike Gorman and Greg Feist—as a discrete, but linked, part of the whole. These articles signal the Social Epistemology’s wish to renew ties with the psychology of science community, ties established since at least the publication of William Shadish and Steve Fuller’s edited book The Social Psychology of Science (Guilford Press) in 1993.
Beginning by reflexively tracing the trajectory of his own research Mike Gorman, and Nora Kashani, ethnographically and archivally examine the work of A. Jean Ayres. Ayers, known for inventing Sensory Integration (SI) theory, sought to identify and treat children having difficulty interpreting sensation from the body and incorporating those sensations into academic and motor learning. To gain a more comprehensive account of the development and reception of SI, Gorman and Kashani integrated a cognitive historical analysis—a sub species historiae approach—of Ayers’ research with interactions and interviews with current practitioners—an in vivo approach. Through Gorman and Kashani’s method, we map Ayers’ ability to build a network of independent students and clients leading both to the wide acceptance and later fragmentation of SI.
We want scientific research that positively transforms an area of inquiry. Yet, how do we know when we achieve such changes and, so, may determine in advance the means by which we can achieve further transformations? Barrett Anderson and Greg Feist investigate the funding of what became, after 2002, impactful articles in psychology. While assessing impact relies, in part, on citation counts, Anderson and Feist argue for “generativity” as a new index. Generative work leads to the growth of a new branch on the “tree of knowledge”. Using the tree of knowledge as a metaphorical touchstone, we can trace and measure generative work to gain a fuller sense of which factors, such as funding, policy makers might consider in encouraging transformative research.
Sofia Liberman and Roberto López Olmedo question the meaning of coauthorship for scientists. Specifically, given the contentiousness—often found in the sciences—surrounding the assignation of primary authorship of articles and the priority of discovery, what might a better understanding of the social psychology of coauthorship yield? Liberman and López Olmedo find that, for example, fields emphasizing theoretical, in contrast to, experimental practices consider different semantic relations, such as “common interest” or “active participation”, associated with coauthroship. More generally, since scientists do not hold universal values regarding collaboration, differing group dynamics and reward structures affect how one approaches and decides coauthorship. We need more research, Liberman and López Olmedo claim, to further understand scientific collaboration in order, perhaps, to encourage more, and more fruitful, collaborations across fields and disciplines.
Complex, or “wicked”, problems require the resources of multiple disciplines. Moreover, addressing such problems calls for “T-shaped” practitioners—students educated to possess, and professionals possessing, both a singular expertise—the vertical part of the “T”—and the breadth expert knowledge—the horizontal part of the “T”. On examining the origin and development of the concept of the “T-shaped” practitioner, Conley et al. share case studies involving teaching students at James Madison University and the University of Virginia learning to make the connections that underwrite “T-shaped” expertise. Conley et al. analyze the students use of concept maps to illustrate connections, and possible trading zones, among types of knowledge.
Are certain scientists uniquely positioned—given their youth or age, their insider or outsider disciplinary status to bring about scientific change? Do joint commitments to particular beliefs—and, so, an obligation to act in accord with, and not contrarily to, those beliefs—hinder one’s ability to think differently and pose potential alternative solutions? Looking at these issues, Line Andersen describes Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken’s solution to Four Color Problem—“any map can be colored with only four colors so that no two adjacent countries have the same color.” From of this case, and other examples, Andersen suggests that a scientist’s outsider status may enable scientific change.
We generally, and often blithely, assume our knowledge is fallible. What can we learn if we take fallibility rather more seriously? Stephen Kemp argues for “transformational fallibilism.” In order to improve our understanding should we question, and be willing to revise or reconstruct, any aspect in our network of understanding? How should we extend our Popperian attitude, and what we learn accordingly, to knowledge claim and forms of inquiry in other fields? Kemp advocates that we not allow our easy agreement on knowledge’s fallibility to make us passive regarding accepted knowledge claims. Rather, coming to grips with the “impermanence” of knowledge sharpens and maintains our working sense of fallible knowledge.
Derek Anderson introduces the idea of “conceptual competence injustice”. Such an injustice arises when “a member of a marginalized group is unjustly regarded as lacking conceptual or linguistic competence as a consequence of structural oppression”. Anderson details three conditions one might find in a graduate philosophy classroom. For example, a student judges a member of a marginalized group, who makes a conceptual claim, and accords their claim less credibility than it actually has. That judgment leads to a subsequent assessment regarding the marginalized person’s lower degree of competence—than they in fact have—with a relevant word or concept. By depicting conceptual competence injustice, Anderson gives us important matters to consider in deriving a more complete accounting of Miranda Fricker’s forms of epistemic injustice.
William Lynch gauges Steve Fuller’s views in support of intelligent design theory. Lynch challenges Fuller’s psychological assumptions, and corresponding questions as to what motivates human beings to do science in the first place. In creating and pursuing the means and ends of science do humans—seen as the image and likeness of God—seek to render nature intelligible and thereby know the mind of God? If we take God out of the equation—as does Darwin’s theory—how do we understand the pursuit of science in both historical and future terms? Still, as Lynch explains, Fuller desires a broader normative landscape in which human beings might rewardingly follow unachieved, unconventional or forgotten, paths to science that could yield epistemic benefits. Lynch concludes that the pursuit of parascience likely leads both to opportunism and dangerous forms of doubt in traditional science.
Exchanges on many of the articles that appear in this issue of Social Epistemology—and in recent past issues—can be found on the Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective: https://social-epistemology.com/. Please join us. We realise knowledge together.