Rogier De LangheGhent University | UGhent · Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences
Rogier De Langhe
PhD
About
31
Publications
8,159
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
431
Citations
Introduction
Additional affiliations
November 2011 - December 2013
Publications
Publications (31)
Paradigms and revolutions are popular concepts in science studies and beyond, yet their meaning is notoriously vague and their existence is widely disputed. Drawing on recent developments in agent-based modeling and scientometric data this paper offers a precise conceptualization of paradigms and their dynamics, as well as a number of hypotheses th...
Current theories of the division of cognitive labor are confined to the ``context of justification'', assuming exogenous theories. But new theories are made from the same labor that is used for developing existing theories, and if none of this labor is ever allocated to create new alternatives, then scientific progress is impossible. A unified mode...
Kuhn wanted to install a new research agenda in philosophy of science. I argue that the tools are now available to better articulate his paradigm and let it guide philosophical research instead of itself remaining the object of philosophical debate.
Does science progress toward some goal or merely away from primitive beginnings? Two agent-based models are built to explain how possibly both kinds of progressive scientific change can result from the interactions of individuals exploring an epistemic landscape. These models are shown to result in qualitatively different predictions about what the...
Early in his work Kuhn identifies a tension in science between conservativeness and innovation in theory development; that is, scientists face uncertainty in choosing between the exploitation of an existing theory or the creation of a new one. Kuhn suggests that theory choice should be based on heuristics involving common scientific virtues; howeve...
This paper uses a notion of generality common in econometrics to analyze the debate in population biology on the three-way tradeoff in model building between generality, realism and precision. Taking a cue from John Stuart Mill's views on economics, I hypothesize that the disagreement about the existence of tradeoffs in model building originates fr...
Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions is interpreted as the specification of an agent-based model. Kuhn described scientists as autonomous agents and an emergent pattern of evolving paradigms. The missing link in his account is then a mechanism by which this pattern selforganizes from the interactions of autonomous scientists without centraliz...
This article addresses the question how philosophy should be evaluated in a research-grant funding environment. It offers a new conception of philosophy that is inclusive and builds on familiar elements of professional, philosophical practice. Philosophy systematically questions the questions we ask, the concepts we use, and the values we hold. Its...
Philosophical theories of scientific progress are typically disconnected from citation data because a citation to a paper does not necessarily justify the content of the cited paper. Citation data can however be used to test whether scientific contributions coevolve and as such discriminate indirectly between the two main theories of scientific pro...
A widely held assumption in cognitive science is that the Bayesian framework should be chosen for discovering and assessing explanations of cognitive phenomena whose production involves uncertainty. However, it is controversial that the Bayesian framework enjoys special epistemic virtues over available underconsidered alternatives for representing...
Academic and corporate research departments alike face a crucial dilemma: to exploit known frameworks or to explore new ones; to specialize or to innovate? Here I show that these two conflicting epistemic desiderata are sufficient to explain pluralistic ignorance and its boom-and-bust-like dynamics, exemplified in the collapse of the efficient mark...
Modellers of biological, ecological, and environmental systems cannot take for granted the maxim 'simple means general means good'. We argue here that viewing simple models as the main way to achieve generality may be an obstacle to the progress of ecological research. We show how complex models can be both desirable and general, and how simple and...
Introduction to the special issue of Topoi I edited on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Thomas Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions"
http://link.springer.com/journal/11245/32/1/page/1
In a situation of peer disagreement, peers are usually assumed to share the same evidence. However they might not share the same evidence for the epistemic system used to process the evidence. This synchronic complication of the peer disagreement debate suggested by Goldman (In Feldman R, Warfield T (eds) (2010) Disagreement. Oxford University Pres...
According to Thomas Kuhn (1962/1970), science is characterized by two levels, one within and one between paradigms. The problem of Kuhnian rationality concerns the choice between paradigms, for which no rational basis appears to exist because this choice is inevitably circular to some extent. This is the main reason why Kuhn's view is perceived to...
In my research I have been concerned with the existence of multiple models of the same phenomenon. A common explanation for this multiplicity is that different models serve different virtues. As such, the multiplicity disappears once the virtues that are required for a given purpose are made explicit (the consensual view); the existence of multiple...
Some heterodox economists, most notably Tony Lawson, have come under suspicion of not being true pluralists, but 'strategic pluralists': their advocacy of pluralism is thought to be merely instrumental to a hidden monist agenda. This paper does not aim to judge the accused but rather to assess the accusations; the focus is on clarifying the notion...
We present a model of the distribution of labour in science. Such models tend to rely on the mechanism of the invisible hand
(e.g. Hull 1988, Goldman & Shaked 1991 and Kitcher 1990). Our analysis starts from the necessity of standards in distributed
processes and the possibility of multiple standards in science. Invisible hand models turn out to ha...
Economics is a typical resource for social epistemology and the division of labour is a common theme for economics. As such it should come as no surprise that the present paper turns to economics to formulate a view on the dynamics of scientific communities, with precursors such as Kitcher (1990), Goldman and Shaked (1991) and Hull (1988). But alth...
We present a model of the distribution of labour in science. Such models tend to rely on the mechanism of the invisible hand (e.g. Hull 1988, Goldman & Shaked 1991 and Kitcher 1990). Our analysis starts from the necessity of standards in distributed processes and the possibility of multiple standards in science. Invisible hand models turn out to ha...
The starting point of this paper is the question of how to explain mainstream economics' great level of acceptance in the face of its poor empirical track record. An explanation is provided in terms of a combination of unification and, most importantly, inference to the best explanation. This paper asks whether the appeal of mainstream economics to...
This paper argues that models for the study of comp lex, multi-faceted phenomena such as the Cuban Missile Crisis cannot simultaneously maximize expla natory desiderata such as generality and precision. As a consequence, explanatory desiderata need to be trad ed off against each other. It is the existence of these tradeoffs, together with the fact...
If the most perplexing thing in the world is a lack of theory, the second most perplexing must be an abundance of it. This contribution clarifies the notion of pluralism by introducing an often neglected but crucial distinction between different levels at which pluralism can be situated. It intends to provide a framework for scholars dealing with t...
In social science (and beyond of course), disagreem ent and debate are ubiquitous. Within IR there was for example the interparadigm debate and, more recently, the controversy between positivists and c ritical realists. Scholars commonly feel they need to take stance in these discussions, but often lack underst anding of the exact nature of the dis...
One of the main problems scientists -physicists and political scientists alike- face, is the problem o f the plurality of explanations. Graham Allison's cla ssic study of the Cuban Missile Crisis is an excell ent example of problem-focused research and an intriguing insta nce of this problem in International Relations Theo ry. He leaves us with thr...
Questions
Questions (3)
This is a general question about the relation between philosophy of science and social studies of science. Having worked for a while on the boundary between both fields, my impression is that hardly any connection exists between them. The usual explanation I get from scholars in both fields is that social studies of science are concerned with describing what science is (descriptive) and philosophy of science is concerned with why science works (normative).
Now my question is, hasn't this organic divide between both fields become obsolete as a result of recent trends in the evaluation of scientific research? Philosophers of science might claim to be conducting the "normative" study of science, but paradoxicaly it is the work in "descriptive" disciplines such as scientometrics that is today driving research policies worldwide. It seems that the normative discussions that matter today are being carried out no longer by philosophers in philosophy of science journals, but by statisticians in the methodological sections of their papers.
My impression is that philosophers tend to react to this in a patronizing way, uttering their general scepticism about the quality and relevance of scientometric data. But isn't that too easy, given that this data is de facto informing research policies worldwide? Shouldn't philosophers of science at least try to claim some of that ground? Because maybe, just maybe, policymakers are right in ignoring philosophers. I mean, would you trust doctors' normative advice about your health if you know those doctors are ignoring the largest available body of data about their field of expertise?
"Oh, but the statistical data about science is not relevant," I often hear. I'm afraid this kind of statement says more about the relevance of current philosophy of science than it says about scientometric data. I mean, why couldn't philosophers of science find a way to make that data relevant now that it's there anyway?
A reason why science is successful might lie not just with the truth of its statements or the methods used by its agents, but also with the evolution of its structure. If institutional economists like Douglass North can use the evolution of the structure of the economy to explain economic growth, why couldn't philosophers use the evolution of the structure of science to explain scientific progress? With the digitization of scientific research a generation of philosophers of science -for the first time ever!- can study the evolution of the structure of science and philosophize about its connection to scientific progress. It might be that there's no such connection, but how would we ever know this for sure without philosophers of science trying to operationalize existing theories of scientific progress? (for an example of this approach, see my paper "A comparison of two models of scientific progress")
So again my question: is it the case that this divide between the normative and descriptive study of science exists to this day, and isn't it time it came to an end? All opinions as well as pointers to relevant communities working on the edge of both disciplines would be much appreciated.
I am a Kuhn scholar and I regularly publish on topics relating to his "new image of science". For some time now I have been searching for pictures of him, but I always run into the same few ones online. Any help will be much appreciated!
Research policies in many different countries seem to follow similar trends, such as increased emphasis on bibliometric evaluation. I'm trying to find out where these trends originate and how they change.
