Barr, Kelli (2025) The Material Theory of Values in Science. [Preprint]
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Abstract
How are we to understand situations where science fails on its own terms? Scientists have blamed perverse incentives for systematic epistemic failures like non-replicability and publication bias, but the exact relationship remains an open question. Let’s assume they are right to blame the (social) system. This paper presents a novel framework for understanding how features of the social organization of science are implicated in collective epistemic failures: the material theory of values in science (MTV). This project is inspired by and follows in the tradition of feminist philosophers of science who have called attention to the need for explanations of systemic, specifically antifeminist, biases in science and for embodied models of scientists as epistemic agents. In the first part, I discuss the replication crisis as involving a particular type of collective action problem: a no-win standoff. The next part introduces the MTV and the explanation it supplies for this phenomenon. In the third section, the MTV is compared to several alternative explanatory strategies, including from the contemporary literature values in science and social epistemology, specifically agent-based computational models. I argue for why my approach is preferable and describe an important revision it entails for the general Mertonian sociological picture invoked in discussions of incentives in science. By way of conclusion, I summarize the philosophical task of the MTV, which is to take seriously the sociological and material conditions constituting scientists’ epistemic agency.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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| Additional Information: | In Isabel G. Gamero, Amadeusz Just & Jasmin Trächtler (eds.), Feminist Philosophy — Language, Knowledge, And Politics. Contributions of the Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. Band / Vol. XXXI. pp. 34-44. 2025. | ||||||
| Keywords: | values in science, social epistemology of science, social ontology, replication crisis | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Social Epistemology of Science General Issues > Values In Science |
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| Depositing User: | Dr. Kelli Barr | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 05 Apr 2026 12:30 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 05 Apr 2026 12:30 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 28903 | ||||||
| Official URL: | https://symposium.alws.at/#/article/3a40d859-ce9a-... | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Social Epistemology of Science General Issues > Values In Science |
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| Date: | 2025 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/28903 |
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