2020
Expertise and democracy: what can we learn from the corona virus crisis?
How does the current crisis shed light on questions regarding the relationship between science, policy and democracy? Professor Cathrine Holst gives the 2020 CPS Annual Lecture.
Time and place: Oct. 29, 2020 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Zoom
There are competing views about what characterizes the role of experts and expert knowledge in contemporary democracies. Where some see a ‘rise of the unelected’ and an increasing role of experts and professionals in policy-making and democratic decision-making, others see ‘the death of expertise’ and post-truth politics.
We also see strikingly opposing assessments of what the role of science and expertise in democracies ought to be. Where some regard more political power to experts as facilitating a more enlightened and evidence-informed public policies, others fear an ‘expertocracy’ in fundamental tension with democratic norms and that produces poor and biased decisions.
The lecture will zoom in on how the corona virus crisis sheds light on key questions regarding the actual – and the proper – relationship between science, policy and democracy.
The focus of the lecture will be on disentangling some apparent puzzles. For instance, how it can be that trust in science and expertise seemingly has achieved a boost during corona times despite a large amount of publicly exposed expert disagreement and immense levels of uncertainty.
Professor Cathrine Holst works in political sociology and democracy research, with a particular focus on the role of knowledge and expertise in policy and politics. Foto: UiO
Based on corona experiences, the lecture will also address the need to reform the institutions we have installed to bridge science and policy.
About Cathrine Holst
Professor Cathrine Holst works at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at
the University of Oslo (UiO). She is also Research Professor at the ARENA Centre for European Studies. In addition, Holst is connected to the Centre for Research on Gender Equality (CORE) and the Institute for Social Research.
Cathrine Holst's main fields of academic interest are political sociology and democracy research, social and political theory, the role of knowledge and expertise in policy and politics, EU, European integration and the Nordic model, gender policy, feminist theory and gender studies.
From fall 2020, Holst will lead a research group at the Centre for Advanced Studies at the Norwegian Academy of Arts and Letters, with a project entitled What is a good policy? Political morality, feasibility and democracy together with Jakob Elster, associate professor at the Norwegian Centre of Human Rights, UiO.
The processing of verb-object metaphors: a test between competing theories of comprehension
Talk at MultiLing
Time and place: Jan. 21, 2020 10:15 AM–11:15 AM, Henrik Wergelands Hus, Rom 421
Camilo Rodriguez Ronderos (PhD Fellow at the Humboldt University of Berlin) will give a talk at MultiLing on the topic of metaphor comprehension, reporting the results from two eye-tracking visual world studies.
Abstract
Are metaphors processed as category statements or as indirect comparisons? The current work addresses this fundamental question of metaphor comprehension by investigating how metaphors that appear in object positions of German transitive verbs are processed differentially as a function of verb tense. Results of two Eye-Tracking Visual World study are discussed in light of competing psycholinguistic and pragmatic theories.
2019
How can we put knowledge to use?
'Research is an investment in our future’ according to the European Research Council. 'That’s only true if you know what to do with the research', says Professor Nancy Cartwright, who will give the first CPS annual lecture on 2. December.
Time and place: Dec. 2, 2019 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes Hus (Arne Næss Auditorium)
She studies how to use research to build better social policies - ones that are more fair and more reliable - and how to deliberate about them.
Professor Cartwright is one of the world's leading philosophers of science. A central aspect of her research concerns connections between objectivity, evidence and how use science to effect change.
In one of her current projects she investigates how to use social science to build better social policies and to attack specific social challenges.
She applies her philosophical approach to a broad spectrum of cases: she uses philosophy to investigate how to use scientific knowledge in areas of child welfare, HIV policies, mental health, health economies, occupational health, and climate change.
- What knowledge do we need?
- How should we use it?
- What role should values play?
- How to use our knowledge in public deliberation?
These are some of the questions Professor Cartwright addresses.
Her annual lecture entitled “Evidence and the Demands of Rigor” is specifically concerned with the demands for rigor when scientific knowledge is used in society. What makes some facts good evidence for a given hypothesis? Why does rigor matter?
Abstract
The world is full of facts. What singles out some as evidence – good, scientific evidence – for a given hypothesis and others not, as something that speaks for the hypothesis, however loudly? Where rigor matters – as it should across the natural, social and human sciences and the policies they can inform – I urge the argument theory of evidence. This theory makes two demands. First, the hypothesis itself must be clearly and explicitly stated. This might seem beneath mention in scientific contexts, but it is too often ignored. Second, the additional premises that it would take for the putative evidence to clinch the hypothesis should be explicit. Exactly what these are matters since the degree of support the evidence provides is no stronger than their joint probability. This too is often ignored. I will illustrate first with a physics example then in detail with what is now taken to be gold standard in rigor for evidencing causal claims in the human sciences, randomized controlled trial (RCTs). Here all too often in both serious science and policy contexts, rigor gives out, and way too soon.
About the Speaker:
Nancy Cartwright is Professor of Philosophy at Durham University and a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She is co-director of the Centre for Humanities Engaging Science and Society (CHESS) and a project leader at The Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS).
In the first half of her career at Stanford University Prof. Cartwright specialised in the philosophy of the natural sciences, especially physics; in the second half, at the London School of Economics and now Durham and UCSD, she has specialised in philosophy and methodology of the social sciences with special attention to economics. Her current research focuses on objectivity and evidence, especially for evidence-based policy (supported by an ERC advanced grant “Knowledge for Use”)
Nancy Cartwright is a Fellow of the British Academy and a member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the German Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina) and a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. She is past President of the Philosophy of Science Association and the American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division).
How can there be extra-mathematical explanations
Talk by Sorin Bangu (University of Bergen)
Time and place: Nov. 6, 2019 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, GM652
The paper proposes a strategy to reconstruct the typical examples of what is currently called ‘extra-mathematical’ explanations, or mathematical explanations of physical phenomena. These reconstructions show that they all fit a common model, in which the role of mathematics is explicatory. Isolating this role may help re-focusing the current debate on the more specific question as to whether this explicatory role is (as I suggest here) also an explanatory one.
PhiLabo: Why science needs philosophy and vice versa
Talk by Lucie Laplane (CNRS, Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Paris)
Time and place: Oct. 23, 2019 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, GM 452
ABSTRACT:
Science was formerly an integral part of philosophy, but these two broad disciplines have gradually grown apart and are now typically viewed as completely different endeavors. In this talk, I will argue in favor of a renaissance in the integration of science and philosophy.
First, I will argue that philosophy can fruitfully contribute to science. This argument is the output of a collaborative work with a group of scientists and philosophers, recently published in a generalist scientific journal (Laplane, Mantovani et al., PNAS 2019). We used three examples of significant philosophical contributions to current biology to illustrate that “science needs philosophy,” and discussed way to facilitate cooperation between these two disciplines.
Second, I will argue that conversely, experimental biology can fruitfully contribute to philosophy. Present-day philosophers often perceive experimental biology as completely different from, and even antagonistic to philosophy, as much as scientists perceive philosophy as completely different from, and antagonistic to, science. Drawing on concrete personal examples of introducing experimental work in my practice of philosophy of stem cell and cancer, I will show how getting involved with experimentation can help philosophy to fruitfully contribute to science.
(PhiLabo = Philosophy in Laboratory)
Dr Lucie Laplane is a philosopher of science working at the interface of philosophy and cancer biology. She has published the book "Cancer Stem Cells: Philosophy and Therapies" at Harvard University Press and many philosophy papers engaging with topics within biology and medicine.
Talk by Richard Holton: Self-deception and the moral self
Richard Holton is coming to Oslo from Cambridge University.
Time and place: Sep. 4, 2019 2:30 PM–4:30 PM, GM452
Abstract:
Much recent empricial work on moral motivation suggests that some of it comes from self-signalling: people want to prove to themselves that they are moral. Whether or not this undermines the moral value of their actions is a moot point that will not be evaluated here. What will be evaluated is the extent to which this kind of moral self-signalling involves self-deception. On the basis of various emprical studies I argue that self-deception cannot in general be understood as action that is guided by a pre-existing bias; it requires a greater responsiveness to the topic about which the agent is decided. Plausibly this is true of moral self-signalling too.
Talk co-organized by the Oslo Mind Group and the Thought and Sense Project.
Talk by Agustín Rayo at ConceptLab
Agustín Rayo will hold a talk on the philosophical issues regarding the fragmentation of the mind. The talk is organized by ConceptLab (IFIKK).
Time and place: Aug. 27, 2019 10:15 AM–12:00 PM, GM 652, University of Oslo
Agustín Rayo works in the intersection of philosophy of logic and philosophy of language. His talk will be concerned with philosophical issues regarding the fragmentation of the mind.