Abstract
Epistemic trust among scientists is inevitable. There are two questions about this: (1) What is the content of this trust, what do scientists trust each other for? (2) Is such trust epistemically justified? I argue that if we assume a traditional answer to (1), namely that scientists trust each other to be reliable informants, then the answer to question (2) is negative, certainly for the biomedical and social sciences. This motivates a different construal of trust among scientists and therefore a different answer to (1): scientists trust each other to only testify to claims that are backed by evidence gathered in accordance with prevailing methodological standards. On this answer, trust among scientists is epistemically justified.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 11-20 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A |
Volume | 93 |
Early online date | 2 Mar 2022 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jun 2022 |
Funding
Research for the paper was supported by a Vidi grant ( 276-20-024 ) from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and by a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation . The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of NWO or the Templeton World Charity Foundation.
Funders | Funder number |
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Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek | |
Templeton World Charity Foundation |