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cognitive/epistemic value

📖 Definitions

"My aim here is not, however, to illuminate theory choice specifically or to distribute the cognitive virtues to their appropriate normative contexts. It is instead to cast doubt on the very idea of a cognitive value or virtue, where we mean by that a quality of theories, models, or hypotheses that can serve independently of context as a universally applicable criterion of epistemic worth." (Longino 1996, 42)

"To say that these are values or virtues is to say that they are properties that theories can have or can have to a greater or lesser degree. In practice, no theory can possess all of these properties to the maximum, since some of them are in a certain amount of tension with each other, particularly accuracy and breadth of scope. Thus, an optimum theory exhibits some balance of these desiderata. These traditional virtues could be thought of as explicating what "best" means in inference to the best explanation." (Longino 1996, 44)

"the cognitive virtues, that is, the standards that regulate discursive interactions in a scientific community" (Longino 1996, 54)

"Epistemic values play a twofold role in science. They express requirements of significance and confirmation. Significance requirements are influential on the choice of problems and the pursuit of theories in epistemic research, confirmation requirements contribute to assessing the bearing of evidence on theory." (Carrier 2013, 2550)

💡 Examples

  • Longino contrasts traditional and feminist epistemic values: "An exemplar of a traditional set [of theoretical virtues] comprises such items as accuracy or empirical adequacy, internal and external consistency, simplicity, breadth of scope, and fruitfulness. An alternative list contains empirical adequacy, novelty, ontological heterogeneity, mutuality of interaction, applicability to human needs, and diffusion of power." (Longino 1996, 50-51)
  • "For instance, one way of capturing data is to simply itemize the phenomena observed, an alternative option is to ascend to observational generalizations, a third possibility is to subsume such generalizations under higher-level theoretical principles. Each of these modes exhibits characteristic virtues and liabilities. Cataloguing observations renders the facts with high accuracy and certainty, while summarizing them by observational generalizations avoids the unwieldiness of the first approach and yields a more parsimonious account. Invoking theoretical principles provides a more unified and coherent picture of an entire realm of experience but suffers in general from a reduction in accuracy. Typically, descending from the principles to the concrete phenomena demands adjustments by adding more specific hypotheses or introducing correction factors" (Carrier 2013, 2550)

🔗 Relations

📚 References

  • Carrier, Martin. 2013. “Values and Objectivity in Science: Value-Ladenness, Pluralism and the Epistemic Attitude.” Science & Education 22 (10): 2547–68. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-012-9481-5.
  • Longino, Helen E. 1996. “Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Values in Science: Rethinking the Dichotomy.” In Feminism, Science, and the Philosophy of Science, edited by Lynn Hankinson Nelson and Jack Nelson. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1742-2_3.
    - Carrier, Martin. “Values and Objectivity in Science: Value-Ladenness, Pluralism and the Epistemic Attitude.” Science & Education 22, no. 10 (2013): 2547–68. https: doi.org/10.1007/s11191-012-9481-5. 
    Longino, Helen E. “Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Values in Science: Rethinking the Dichotomy.” In Feminism, Science, and the Philosophy of Science, edited by Lynn Hankinson Nelson and Jack Nelson. Springer, 1996. https:doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1742-2_3.