Interaction: a case for ontological pluralism

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on the author's work in social epistemology and on comparative studies of sciences of human behavior to draw attention to the importance of interaction. Drawing further on recent and contemporary research in biology, she argues that interaction ought to be considered a distinct ontological category, not reducible to properties of its participants.

KEYWORDS:

• Pluralism
• interaction
• individualism
• social epistemology
• social behavior
• E.F. Keller

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Helen E. Longino is a philosopher of science, author of Science as Social Knowledge, The Fate of Knowledge, and Studying Human Behavior, co-editor of Scientific Pluralism (with Stephen Kellert and C.K Waters) and of Feminism and Science (with Evelyn Fox Keller), and author of many articles in philosophy of science. She is currently C.I. Lewis Professor in Philosophy at Stanford University.

Notes

1 I am neither a metaphysician nor an ontologist. My thinking here draws on my studies of scientific inquiry and reasoning.

2 Indeed, these are the worries raised in the great poem of Parmenides, whose interpretation continues to be a subject of debate. See Palmer (2016).