Jalloh, Mahmoud (2024) Bridgman and the Normative Independence of Science: An Individual Physicist in the Shadow of the Bomb. [Preprint]
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Abstract
Physicist Percy Bridgman has been taken by Heather Douglas to be an exemplar defender of an untenable value-free ideal for science. This picture is complicated by a detailed study of Bridgman's philosophical views of the relation between science and society. The normative autonomy of science, a version of the value-free ideal, is defended. This restriction on the provenance of permissible values in science is given a basis in Bridgman's broader philosophical commitments, most importantly, his view that science is primarily an individual commitment to a set of epistemic norms and values. Considerations of external moral or social values are not, on this view, intrinsic to scientific practice, though they have a broader pragmatic significance. What Bridgman takes as the proper relation between science and society is shown through analysis of his many writings on the topic and consideration of his rarely remarked upon involvement in the most problematic example of "Big Science" of his day: the atomic bomb. A reevaluation of Bridgman's views provides a unique characterization of what is at stake in the values in science debate: the normative autonomy of science.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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| Keywords: | Bridgman, value-free ideal, atomic bomb, Manhattan Project, science and society, scientific freedom | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Operationalism/Instrumentalism General Issues > Science and Society General Issues > Social Epistemology of Science General Issues > Values In Science |
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| Depositing User: | Mahmoud Jalloh | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 16 Mar 2024 03:22 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 16 Mar 2024 03:22 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 23202 | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Operationalism/Instrumentalism General Issues > Science and Society General Issues > Social Epistemology of Science General Issues > Values In Science |
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| Date: | 2024 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/23202 |
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