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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.

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Contents

Acknowledgments v

1 Introduction 3

1.1 A social epistemology of research groups . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

1.2 Empirical insight for philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

1.3 Scientists as reflective practitioners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

1.4 Chapter overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

2 Research groups 19

2.1 The empirical phenomenon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

2.2 Communities and research groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

2.3 Interdisciplinary research groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

2.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

3 Method 35

3.1 Engaging empirical insight in philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

3.2 A qualitative case study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

vii

3.3 Interviewing scientists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

3.4 Structuring empirical insights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

3.5 A short note on writing empirical philosophy . . . . . . . . . . 60

4 The planetary science group 63

4.1 Tuesday morning meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

4.2 Group characterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

4.3 Individual interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

4.3.1 Adam: ´I could work alone´ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

4.3.2 Laura: ´You have to be a knowledge base in your own´ 80

5 The molecular biology laboratory 85

5.1 Wednesday mornings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

5.2 Group characterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

5.3 Interview voices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

5.3.1 Johan: ´I´m the memory´ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

5.3.2 Martin: ´The template was not there´ . . . . . . . . . . 102

6 Division of labor 107

6.1 Philosophical perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

6.2 Complementary collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

6.3 Parallel collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

6.4 Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

6.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

7 Epistemic dependence 133

7.1 Theoretical Groundwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

7.1.1 Belief-belief relations and beyond . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

7.1.2 First- and second-order reasons . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

7.2 Epistemic asymmetries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

7.3 Opaque and translucent dependence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

7.3.1 Opaque dependence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

7.3.2 Translucent dependence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

7.3.3 The gray zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

7.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

8 Epistemic trust 163

8.1 Theoretical groundwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

8.2 The tentative character of epistemic trust . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

8.3 Building trust through dialoging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

8.4 Resorting to impersonal trust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

8.5 Minimizing trust in co-authorship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

8.6 By comparison: the molecular biology lab . . . . . . . . . . . 188

8.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

9 Collaboration and collective knowledge 195

9.1 Approaches to collective knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

9.2 Non-summative belief and joint commitment . . . . . . . . . . 198

9.3 Irreducibly collective justification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

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9.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

10 Concluding remarks 221

Notes 227

Bibliography

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