Object lessons: towards an epistemology of technoscience

Abstract

Discussions of technoscience are bringing to light that scientific journals feature very different knowledge claims. At one end of the spectrum, there is the scientific claim that a hypothesis needs to be reevaluated in light of new evidence. At the other end of the spectrum, there is the technoscientific claim that some new measure of control has been achieved in a laboratory. The latter claim has not received sufficient attention as of yet. In what sense is the achievement of control genuine knowledge in its own right; how is this knowledge acquired; and publicly validated? Notions of tacit or embodied knowledge, of knowledge by acquaintance, of engineering or thing knowledge, and reconstructions of ability or skill take us only part of the way towards answering such questions. The epistemology of technoscience needs to account for the acquisition and demonstration of a public knowledge of control that does not consist in the holding of propositions, even though it is usually communicated in writing: Technoscientific knowledge is, firstly, objective and public insofar as it is exhibited and documented. Secondly, it presupposes a specific context of technology and expertise. Thirdly, it is communicable, even where the achieved capability itself is not. Knowledge of control entails, fourthly, a knowledge of causal relationships, and it sediments itself, fifthly, as a habit of action in the sense proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce

Philosophy of Technology after the Empirical Turn

“…This is a notoriously diffi cult question for philosophy. At any rate, we won't get very far if we interpret this knowledge as an agreement between mind and world -not least because mind and world cannot be distinguished in a clockwork, a computer simulation, a genetically modifi ed lab mouse or the demonstration of a causal mechanism (Nordmann 2006(Nordmann , 2012b. 6 From the point of view of the philosophy of technology it is easy to appreciate Dewey's and Hacking's surprise at a spectator theory of knowledge and its artifi cial conception of the basic epistemological or metaphysical problem.…”

Philosophy of Big Data: Expanding the Human-Data Relation with Big Data Science Services

“…One approach employs technoscience to distinguish between 'traditional science' and big data science [26]. Another finds that reasoning occurs differently in the conduct of traditional science and technoscience, and that this could be helpful in knowledge production [27].…”

Reflections on science and technoscience

“…The research is not just to scientiae zudia, São Paulo, v. 10, special issue, p. 2012 produce technological innovations. Sometimes it aims to gain the fundamental theoretical knowledge that research aiming immediately for practical innovations might depend on; sometimes to create instruments (themselves technological innovations) that will enable knowledge to be gained in new areas; and sometimes -according to Nordmann, 2012, characteristically of technoscientific research -to demonstrate that a particular effect can be produced by appropriate manipulation of objects and instruments. Although the science and technology can be thought of separately, the technology occupies a place of high salience in the conduct of the research.…”

“…Echeverría, 2003, where a more complex analysis can be found). I am unsure, however, about the proposal being explored by other contributors to this Special Issue that the ontology of technoscientific objects is distinctive (Bensuade-Vincent et al 2011;Nordmann, 2012).…”

“…Nordmann, 2012), a problem that (in turn) required attention to the nature of theories and how confirmation should be understood, and it has spawned countless proposed solutions. In much of mainstream philosophy of science, the theories discussed have been considered to be universal in scope, typically involving some terms with no application to observable phenomena and mathematical in character.…”