Evidential pluralism outside the comfort zone of philosophy
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Evidential pluralism outside the comfort zone of philosophy
- 1. Evidential pluralism outside the comfort zone of philosophy Federica Russo Philosophy | Humanities | Amsterdam russofederica.wordpress.com | @federicarusso
- 2. Overview The comfort zone A (collaborative) example: EBM+ Phil Sci engaging in outside its comfort zone 2
- 4. A comfort zone is a place where you don’t have to worry about deeper motivations for or (un)intended consequences of your work 4
- 5. Philosophy of Science The sciences The politics 5
- 8. Causality and evidence C causes E Red meat consumption causes cancer Breathing glyphosate causes cancer Statins lower cholesterol Exercising reduces cardiovascular disease … How do we know that? What makes a causal claim true /versus/ What evidence supports a causal claim 8
- 9. Evidential pluralism To establish a causal claim we need multiple sources of evidence: That C makes a difference to E Correlations, counterfactuals, … That C produces E Mechanisms, processes, … 9
- 10. OUT OF THE COMFORT ZONE? 10
- 11. Engaged in scientific practice Integration of philosophical theorising in real, concrete situations IARC on assessment of carcinogenicity NICE on preparation of guidelines for public health ZINL on regulation of health care … and decision-making 11
- 12. Engaged in science communication 12
- 13. Engaged in science communication Don’t EAT THAT STUFF! 13
- 14. Engaged in teaching What is a good philosophical paper? What is a valid philosophical question / topic? What is an appropriate philosophical approach? 14
- 15. NO COMFORT ZONE? To sum up and conclude 15
- 16. The scientist, the philosopher, the ethicist, the policy-maker, …. … and the polis 16
Notes de l'éditeur
- Genesis / motivation of the paper (which does exist as yet!) >> paper not even half backed, trying to put together the ingredients Reflect upon value and use of recent philosophy of science debates on scientific evidence Partly due to pressure of funding bodies to have ‘impact’, partly as personal need to locate my own work in the philosophy of science panorama (with respect to *aims* of philosophy of science) Partly due to reflections after severe budget cuts in the humanities at the UvA (>> what is, if any, the intrinsic value of humanities) While reflecting, it became increasingly clear to me that ‘evidential pluralism’ is but an example of how (whether) philosophical reflections should get outside their comfort zone So, while I restrict the discussion to evidential pluralism here, this is by no means a suggestion that other topics are less relevant or important
- So the plan: What is the comfort zone An issue non just for philosophy of science, or philosophy more generally. Sociology of science and STS, and even the sciences, have their own comfort zones. Try to characterise the comfort zone not by the topics, but by the level of engagement with other neighbouring disciplines, problems, etc. A (collaborative) example EBM+ on evidential pluralism A consortium of scholars interested and involved in the practice of medicine. Currently: AHRC project ‘Evaluating Evidence in Medicine’ Sketch briefly what evidential pluralism is and how the topic moved from a more comfortable zone to less comfortable ones Examples of how phil sci (and in this case evidential pluralism / causality) can get out of the comfort zone and engage in at different levels. I will sketch 3 Scientific practice Science communication Teaching Admittedly, the talk is Programmatic rather than systematic: I try to lay down some of the ways in which philosophy (the humanities!) can reclaim their intrinsic relevance for science and society without being trapped into ‘impact’ or ‘usefulness’ rhetoric. Descriptive more than normative: I present (briefly!) current philosophical work that engages with science (in many ways). But this is by no means the only way. Also, the way in which I (and colleagues) got out the comfort zone has been long and non-linear Formulating the ‘right’ questions takes time; answers them takes time; What I try to point at has important implications for philosophical methodology (as it will become clear in the course of the talk).
- A tentative characterisation of the comfort zone It has to do with boundaries rather than topics I conjecture that philosophy of science, as well as history of science, or sociology of science, and even political science have their own comfort zones. And even the sciences. The borders may be closer to or farther away from your centre of interest. Your topic might be a very theoretical issue in philosophy of physics, but at some point it may become relevant to the way scientist at CERN plan an experiment Or: you could be dealing with a very applied dilemma in bioethics and at some point need to step back and address the meta-ethical question behind Examples abound, in philosophy, and in the sciences, and in other fields As you move to the borders, boundaries are blurred, need to wedge into others’ topics / interests / questions This is anticipating a view on philosophical methodology that I discuss towards the end of the talk But this is not an argument to the effect that ‘if it is not useful / exploitable it shouldn’t be researched’. And it is not to license either the attitude ‘let me do my thing, leave me alone’
- Positioning philosophy of science with respect to 2 parameters 1)The sciences Which sciences (physics, biology, social science, medicine) One comfort zone has traditionally been philosophy of physics, with more marginalised areas taking time to establish themselves as legitimate sub-fields within philosophy of science. E.g.: philosophy of biology, philosophy of medicine, philosophy of social science When sciences (contemporary vs history of science) Whether and how to do history of science in philosophy of science; Whether and how to look at *practices* rather than theories A ‘mainstream’ analytic tradition in philosophy of science has paid more attention to ‘theories’ rather than ‘scientific practices’, which would therefore include considerations about technology, or sociological factors / aspects Here there is a vast literature, but suffice to mention the need of philosophy of science to start a new society (Philosophy of Science in Practice), which is more inclusive (in terms of technology, sociology, etc) than mainstream philosophy of science 2)The politics Discussion about political dimension of science has been a prerogative of sociology of science / STS, at least traditionally Here too there are ‘comfort zones’ Sismondo 2008 reconstructs the debates in sociology of science as follows. There is a high and low church in sociology of science: the first has a low level of engagement with the politics, while the second is more actively involved. So even sociology of science can be in a ‘privileged’ comfort zone, without dirtying its hands with the messy process of science. (Sismondo pleas for a third an ‘engaged’ approach: theoretical concerns are combined with more participatory approaches in science and technology.) But Engagement with politics may be very different, see Brown 2015. In STS approaches ‘politics’ may mean very different things. So just to plead for more involvement in / attention to the political dimension of science is not very illuminating. Even engagement with the scientific practice may mean different things (see PSP), so this too needs more discussion
- Why stress collaborative: not just my thing! It’s about what a *community* can achieve (philosophically, scientifically, …)
- I’m trying to conceptualise the broader frame of reference within which this project works Admittedly, an example from philosophy of science (and more specifically philosophy of medicine) but others are possible. In presenting places where this collaboration becomes relevant (thus, outside its own comfort zone), I will also highlight other comfort zones. To be highlighted The consortium and projects are collaborative Expertise, perspectives Distributed cognition as a model knowledge production (!) It became an ‘engaged’ programme, but it wasn’t intended as such at the very beginning
- Here sketch the way the philosophical debate has framed questions about causality, i.e. in terms of truth of causal claims. One shift consists in looking at the *evidence* that support said claims, rather than their truth. This doesn’t mean that questions about truth are dismissed, rather they are reconceptualised (but I will not discuss in the talk, I leave it to Q&A). If needed, background of this shift: see Illari and Russo 2014
- Present evidential pluralism. An epistemological thesis. Surely, metaphysical implications (but here these are orthogonal to the argument). Instead: the epistemological thesis has, arguably, direct bearing on methods for causal assessment and for decision making. Highlight: The collaboration grew (Russo & Williamson >> Clarke, Gillies, Illari, Russo, Williamson >> AHRC project Evaluating Evidence in Medicine) Consequently, the project also grew in terms of interests, perspectives, case studies, etc Some perspectives are more historically oriented (e.g. Gillies), others more practically oriented (see e.g. Kelly, former director of NICE, UK; Straif, current head of IARC monographs )
- Now sketch possible ways in which ebm+-related topics may travel outside the comfort zone of philosophy (of science) The easiest (and most obvious) one is more integration of history of science and sociology of science. But I don’t discuss it prominently here. Rather: intuition is that the other types of ‘engagement in’ (see later) also depend on how philosophy of science is able to integrate these other perspectives. Differently put: I doubt that philosophy of science can really engage in scientific practice, science communication, or teaching, unless it is already open to other inputs, coming from history, sociology, STS, etc.
- It has been a long process to make contact, exchange ideas, and collaborate with scientists, and with scientists that are also involved in decision-making processes at different levels. Surely, decision-making processes are not all the same, some of these processes are more ‘international’ while others more ‘national’. But this is where we managed to establish contact (not all at the same level, though) - IARC produces assessment of carcinogenicity of substances; it has a theoretical framework called ‘Preamble’; evidential pluralism is implicitly there and we try to have it implemented more explicitly and thoroughly NICE produces guidelines for public health; here again, a lot of evidential pluralism at stake; we are producing a ‘methodology manual’ that hopefully will be useful to other organisations, similar to NICE ZINL regulates health care reimbursement in the Netherlands, again, a lot of evidential pluralism at stake; currently trying to set up collaboration and dialogue, to understand whether the way we set up the questions about evidence (and the answers!) will be useful to them.
- Late Oct 2015: IARC issues a monograph on the carcinogenicity of read and processed meat. recall major issues / results: sufficient evidence in human beings for the carcinogenicity of the consumption of processed meat limited evidence in human beings for the carcinogenicity of the consumption of red meat. In the background: first page of the article from The Lancet Oncology. Clearly not a science communication article. But sc comm article largely picked info from this one. Explosion of debate. Lots of misunderstanding.
- Science communication in both academic and public context. Large part of the controversy lies in lack of clarity / precision / philosophical conceptualisation. Some issues where philosophy of science can help better express these types of results: What is the difference between an ‘epidemiological fact’ and an ‘individual risk’? Relatedly, if epidemiology establishes such a fact, what does this mean for my own individual choices? This an issue that philosophy of causality has been dealing with: the generic vs single case (type vs token, population vs individual level). So here is a place where that discussion becomes relevant – outside its comfort zone of mere theoretical reflection. How much of that stuff we eat today? And how much of that stuff did we use to eat? Can we make a proper assessment of the carcinogenic role of, say, red meat in abstraction of these questions? This is also a question about the role of social factors (e.g. lifestyle) for disease causation Here questions about the conceptualization of disease (and especially the tendency of over-biologising) loom large Of course the red meat case is not the only one, see e.g.: obesity and fast food hypothesis, exposure to asbestos of non-asbestos workers
- How do we train our students? Causality and evidence again a good example. A long tradition in philosophy of causality (but also elsewhere): the ‘counterexample factory’. Author X proposes approach / theory Y and the point is to test the approach / theory against counterexamples. Invariably, all philosophical theories of causality have been shown to suffer from some decisive, knock out counterexamples. BUT: is this the way we should train our students to formulate their questions, elaborate on their views, and respond to the existing literature? This clearly goes far beyond the philosophy of causality. Illari and Russo 2014 discuss at length how to formulate / select problems, elaborate views, use examples / counterexamples to *foster* dialogue and solving problems. What looms large here are epistemic standards, normative considerations see e.g. H. Douglas, and discussed by Schliesser in joint work with M. Lefevere and R. de Lange. A literature that had the sciences as target, but we should transpose these discussions to philosophy too.
- Just limit the discussion to philosophy. The comfort zone is a very recent artefact of the detachment of philosophy from its subject matters: knowledge, the good life, … Ask the question again: what is this comfort zone? The comfort zones of philosophy (of science) and of science collapse into one place, which *is* also located in a political dimension, the dimension of the polis. [Admittedly this point requires more elaboration] This is not to say that *everything* is political or the object of politics. On this, see again Brown 2015. The implications for philosophical methodology are considerable. We need to ask again what is a philosophical question. On the nature of philosophical questions, see e.g. Floridi 2013. Philosophical questions are open, timely, in need of constant (re)conceptualisation. And I think it is no accident that this is the nature of scientific questions. In turn, scientific questions have been asked, even at the time of ancient Greece [and apologies for the very Euro-centric perspective] not only to understand the world (physical, biological, social), but also to intervene on it, to manage it. And this is how science *and* philosophy have been part of the polis. This is the dimension that I would like to regain. Other perspectives to examine / consider: epistemic responsibility / standard in phil community. Arguments exist for science, but not so much for philosophy.