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Science as it could have beenAugust 31st - September 5th 2009. Les Treilles – International Conference supported by « Les Treilles » Foundation
Supervisor: Léna Soler
Organization: Léna Soler and the group PratiScienS
Detailed presentation (pdf, in French) available here. The program is available following this link.
The conference will focus on a crucial issue that contemporary science studies have often neglected: the issue of contingency within science. Its aim is to investigate the following question: can certain aspects of the scientific practices belonging to our history of science – most of all those who enjoy the status of established facts or reliable accomplishments – be detached from the accidental details of this particular history and be granted the status of inevitable and, under some conditions, necessary elements of any possible science? Following Ian Hacking, those who are inclined to give a positive answer can be called “inevitabilists” and their opponents “contingentists”.
The “practical turn” that took place in the 80ies within the field of the science studies has fostered a renewed interest in the local, context-dependent and contingent aspects of science. This tendency has manifested itself through a numbers of scattered declarations that can be found especially in constructivists’ writings. It also has, albeit more rarely, taken up the form of full-blown theses purporting to hold for specific episodes of the history of science. Yet, there have been few attempts to give a systematic philosophical account of the problem of contingency in its generality.
The philosophical investigations on the issue of contingency/inevitability within science are still, overall, at their initial stage. The question has not been yet isolated as an important, well identified and autonomous problem. In most cases, it surfaces as a sort of epiphenomenon in the discussions about scientific realism (when the two issues are not simply conflated). Indeed, the debate on scientific realism monopolizes the attention, thus leaving little room for the analysis of the problems intrinsically related the contingency issue.
This is to be regretted, for the two issues, in spite of their mutual relations, are distinct and, moreover, the contingentism/inevitabilism debate turns out to be of great epistemological significance. By taking into consideration this debate in itself, and by sharply distinguishing it from the one about realism, it becomes possible to enrich the space of the viable philosophical views about science. In particular, there are types of contingentism that allow to develop some conceptions of science, which, while giving up a strong correspondence realism, do not compel us to sacrifice the objectivity, the rationality and the progressive character of science.
The aim of the conference is both to progress collectively towards the conceptualization of this issue and the unfolding of its implications, and to explicitly formulate and assess the arguments that can be given in favor or against the two positions.
The group PratiScienS, which organizes the event, has chosen the issue of contingency within science as the subject of its activity during the year 2008/2009. The seminar that will be held at the Treilles in 2009 is conceived as the final stage of this year of research.
Catherine Allamel-Raffin (Strasbourg, France); Mieke Boon (Twente, Pays-Bas); Michel Bitbol (Paris, France) ; Hasok Chang (Londres, Angleterre) ; Harry Collins (Cardiff, UK) ; Catherine Dufour (Nancy, France); Jean-Luc Gangloff (Strasbourg, France) ; Ronald Giere (Minnesota, USA); Yves Gingras (Montréal, Canada) ; Ian Hacking (Toronto, Canada); Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond (Nice, France); Andrew Pickering (Exeter, UK); Claude Rosental (Paris, France) ; Joseph Rouse (Wesleyan College, USA); Jean-Michel Salanskis (Paris, France) ; Léna Soler (Nancy, France) ; Mauricio Suarez (Madrid, Espagne) ; Eran Tal (Toronto, Canada) ; Emiliano Trizio (Nancy, France) ; Frédéric Wieber (Nancy, France)