Samuli Reijula

University of Helsinki | HY · Department of Philosophy, History and Art Studies

Human behavior is not always independent of the ways in which humans are scientifically classified. That there are looping effects of human kinds has been used as an argument for the methodological separation of the natural and the human sciences and to justify social constructionist claims. We suggest that these arguments rely on false presupposit...

This article argues that nudges can often be turned into self-nudges: empowering interventions that enable people to design and structure their own decision environments—that is, to act as citizen choice architects. Self-nudging applies insights from behavioral science in a way that is practicable and cost-effective but that sidesteps concerns abou...

Ian Hacking (born in 1936, Vancouver, British Columbia) is most well-known for his work in the philosophy of the natural and social sciences, but his contributions to philosophy are broad, spanning many areas and traditions. In his detailed case studies of the development of probabilistic and statistical reasoning, Hacking pioneered the naturalisti...

Real kinds, both natural and social categories, are characterized by rich inductive potential. They have relatively stable sets of conceptually independent projectable properties. Somewhat surprisingly, even some purely social categories (e.g., ethnicity, gender, political orientation) show such multiple projectability. The article explores the ori...

According to the diversity-beats-ability theorem, groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers. We argue that the model introduced by Lu Hong and Scott Page is inadequate for exploring the trade-off between diversity and ability. This is because the model employs an impoverished implementation of the probl...

Interdisciplinarity is strongly promoted in science policy across the world. It is seen as a necessary condition for providing practical solutions to many pressing complex problems for which no single disciplinary approach is adequate alone. In this paper we model multi- and interdisciplinary research as an instance of collective problem-solving. O...

We argue that the appraisal of models in social epistemology requires conceiving of them as argumentative devices, taking into account the argumentative context and adopting a family-of-models perspective. We draw up such an account and show how it makes it easier to see the value and limits of the use of models in social epistemology. To illustrat...

According to the diversity-beats-ability theorem, groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers. We argue that the model introduced by Lu Hong and Scott Page (2004; see also Grim et al. 2019) is inadequate for exploring the trade-off between diversity and ability. This is because the model employs an impove...

We argue that the appraisal of models in social epistemology requires conceiving of them as argumentative devices, taking into account the argumentative context and adopting a family-of-models perspective. We draw up such an account and show how it makes it easier to see the value and limits of the use of models in social epistemology. To illustrat...

We argue that the appraisal of models in social epistemology requires conceiving of them as argumentative devices, taking into account the argumentative context and adopting a family-of-models perspective. We draw up such an account and show how it makes it easier to see the value and limits of the use of models in social epistemology. To illustrat...

We review prominent modeling approaches in social epistemology aimed at understanding the functioning of epistemic communities. We provide a philosophy-of-science perspective on the use and interpretation of such simple models, and highlight the need for better integration with relevant findings from other research fields studying collective proble...

This article argues that nudges can often be turned into self-nudges: empowering interventions that enable people to design and structure their own decision environments—that is, to act as citizen choice architects. Self-nudging applies insights from behavioral science in a way that is practicable and cost-effective but that sidesteps concerns abou...

The dual problems of how an idealized model can represent and provide information about its target have become a central topic of in the philosophy of science. We argue that several current views are misguided in assuming that the epistemology of modeling and simulation must build on a philosophical theory of the representation relation (e.g. isomo...

We review prominent modeling approaches in social epistemology aimed at understanding the functioning of epistemic communities. We provide a philosophy-of-science perspective on the use and interpretation of such simple models, and highlight the need for better integration with relevant findings from other research fields studying collective proble...

It has recently been argued that successful evidence-based policy should rely on two kinds of evidence: statistical and mechanistic. The former is held to be evidence that a policy brings about the desired outcome, and the latter concerns how it does so. Although agreeing with the spirit of this proposal, we argue that the underlying conception of...

It has recently been argued that successful evidence-based policy should rely on two kinds of evidence: statistical and mechanistic. The former is held to be evidence that a policy brings about the desired outcome, and the latter concerns how it does so. Although agreeing with the spirit of this proposal, we argue that the underlying conception of...

Rational analysis is an influential but contested account of how probabilistic modeling can be used to construct non mechanistic but self-standing explanatory models of the mind. In this paper, I disentangle and assess several possible explanatory contributions which could be attributed to rational analysis. Although existing models suffer from evi...

In many daily life situations, people face decisions involving a trade-off between exploring new options and exploiting known ones. In these situations, observing the decisions of others can influence people’s decisions. Whereas social information often helps making better decisions, research has suggested that under certain conditions it can be de...

Nudge and boost are two competing approaches to applying the psychology of reasoning and decision making to improve policy. Whereas nudges rely on manipulation of choice architecture to steer people towards better choices, the objective of boosts is to develop good decision-making competences. Proponents of both approaches claim capacity to enhance...

In many daily life situations, people face decisions involving a trade-off between exploring new options and exploiting known ones. In these situations, observing the decisions of others can influence people’s decisions. Whereas social information often helps making better decisions, research has suggested that under certain conditions it can be de...

Nudge and boost are two competing approaches to applying the psychology of reasoning and decision making to improve policy. Whereas nudges rely on manipulation of choice architecture to steer people towards better choices, the objective of boosts is to develop good decision-making competences. Proponents of both approaches claim capacity to enhance...

When should a scientific community be cognitively diverse? This article presents a model for studying how the heterogeneity of learning heuristics used by scientist agents affects the epistemic efficiency of a scientific community. By extending the epistemic landscapes modeling approach introduced by Weisberg and Muldoon, the article casts light on...

Rational analysis is an influential but contested account of how probabilistic modeling can be used to construct non-mechanistic but self-standing explanatory models of the mind. In this paper, I disentangle and assess several possible explanatory contributions which could be attributed to rational analysis. Although existing models suffer from evi...

Theories of natural kinds can be seen to face a twofold task: First, they should provide an ontological account of what kinds of (fundamental) things there are, what exists. The second task is an epistemological one, accounting for the inductive reliability of acceptable scientific concepts. In this chapter I examine whether concepts and categories...

Recently, the use of the notion of addiction has expanded to new behaviors. This has raised also critical discussion about the added value of the concept that covers so many different substances and activities. Many of the debates surrounding the notion of addiction stem from different views concerning what kind of a thing addiction fundamentally i...

Nudge and boost are two competing approaches to applying the psychology of reasoning and decision making to improve policy. Proponents of both the approaches claim capacity to enhance social welfare through better individual decisions. We question the validity of this claim. First, individual rationality is neither sufficient nor necessary for impr...

I argue that examining the explanatory power of the hypothesis of extended cognition (HEC) offers a fruitful approach to the problem of cognitive system demarcation. Although in the discussions on HEC it has become common to refer to considerations of explanatory power as a means for assessing the plausibility of the extended cognition approach, to...

In this article, I develop an account of the use of intentional predicates in cognitive neuroscience explanations. As pointed out by Maxwell Bennett and Peter Hacker, intentional language abounds in neuroscience theories. According to Bennett and Hacker, the subpersonal use of intentional predicates results in conceptual confusion. I argue against...

Evolution is often characterized as a tinkerer creating efficient but messy solutions. We analyze the nature of the problems that arise when trying to explain and understand cognitive phenomena created by this haphazard design process. We present a theory of explanation and understanding and apply it to a case problem-solutions generated by genetic...

In this article we focus on the concept of concept in conceptual change. We argue that (1) theories of higher learning must often employ two different notions of concept that should not be conflated: psychological and scientific concepts. The usages for these two notions are partly distinct and thus straightforward identification between them is un...

Recently in the philosophy of psychology it has been suggested that several putative phenomena such as emotions, memory, or concepts are not genuine natural kinds and should therefore be eliminated from the vocabulary of scientific psychology. In this paper I examine the perhaps most well known case of scientific eliminativism, Edouard Machery’s co...

This master s thesis deals with human scientific classifications and the philosophical frameworks that have been used to describe them. The main objective of the study is to argue contrary to some recent suggestions that these human kinds cannot be fruitfully described with conceptual tools taken from the tradition of natural kinds. Medical classif...