New Directions in the Philosophy of Science

A SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY
OF RESEARCH GROUPS
Susann Wagenknecht
New Directions in the Philosophy of Science

Series Editor
Steven French
Department of Philosophy
University of Leeds
Leeds
UK
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 Susann Wagenknecht

A Social
Epistemology of
Research Groups
Collaboration in Scientific Practice
Susann Wagenknecht
University of Siegen
Siegen
Germany

New Directions in the Philosophy of Science

ISBN 978-1-137-52409-6 ISBN 978-1-137-52410-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-52410-2

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 Acknowledgments

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Hanne Andersen and

Matthias Korn. I also would like to thank Erika Mansnerus, Mads God-
diksen, Brian Hepburn, Sara Green, Kristina Rolin, Nancy J. Nersessian,
Lisa M. Osbeck, Hauke Riesch, Peter Sandøe, Stig Andur Pedersen,
Matthias Heymann, Henrik Kragh Sørensen, Claire Neesham and many,
many others whom I have met since I began writing my dissertation at
the Centre for Science Studies, Aarhus University, in 2010. Without their
interest, comments, and encouragement this book would not have been
possible. Very special thanks, though, are due to the scientists who allowed
me to observe their work and were willing to share with me their personal
perspectives upon science. I deeply appreciate the effort they dedicated to
this research.
I am indebted to Cambridge University Press for the permission to
provide an expanded version of a previously published article in Chap. 7.
Wagenknecht, Susann (2014): Opaque and translucent epistemic
dependence in collaborative scientific practice. Episteme 11(4), pp. 475–
492.
I am also indebted to Taylor & Francis (www.tandfonline.com) for
the permission to provide an expanded version of a previously published
article in Chap. 8.

v
vi Acknowledgments

Wagenknecht, Susann (2015): Facing the incompleteness of epistemic

trust: Managing dependence in scientific practice. Social Epistemology
29(2), pp. 160–184. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02691728.
2013.794872.

Indianapolis, IN, USA Susann Wagenknecht

October 2015
 Contents

1 Introduction 1
1.1 An Epistemology of Research Groups 3
1.2 Empirical Insights for Philosophy 5
1.3 Scientists as Reflective Practitioners 7
1.4 Chapter Overview 11
References 14

2 Research Groups 19
2.1 The Phenomenon 20
2.2 Individualism or Collectivism? 24
2.3 Excourse: Interdisciplinary Research Groups 27
2.4 Conclusion 30
References 30

3 Method 35
3.1 Engaging Empirical Insights in Philosophy 36
3.2 A Qualitative Case Study 41
3.3 Interviewing Scientists 46
3.4 Structuring Empirical Insights 49

vii
viii Contents

3.5 A Short Note on Writing Empirical

Philosophy 52
References 53

4 The Planetary Science Group 59

4.1 Tuesday Morning Meetings 60
4.2 Group Characterization 63
4.3 Individual Interviews 67
4.3.1 Adam: ‘I could work alone’ 67
4.3.2 Laura: ‘You have to be a knowledge
base on your own’ 70

5 The Molecular Biology Laboratory 75

5.1 Wednesday Mornings 76
5.2 Group Characterization 78
5.3 Interview Voices 84
5.3.1 Johan: ‘I’m the memory’ 84
5.3.2 Martin: ‘The template was not there’ 86
References 89

6 Division of Labor 91
6.1 Philosophical Perspectives 92
6.2 Complementary Collaboration 96
6.3 Parallel Collaboration 100
6.4 Comparison 104
6.5 Conclusion 105
References 107

7 Epistemic Dependence 109

7.1 Theoretical Groundwork 111
7.1.1 Belief–Belief Relations and Beyond 112
7.1.2 First and Second-Order Reasons 114
7.2 Epistemic Asymmetries 116
 Contents ix

7.3 Opaque and Translucent Dependence 118

7.3.1 Opaque Dependence 119
7.3.2 Translucent Dependence 121
7.3.3 The Gray Zone 124
7.4 Conclusion 128
References 129

8 Epistemic Trust 131

8.1 Theoretical Groundwork 132
8.2 The Tentative Character of Epistemic Trust 136
8.3 Building Trust through Dialoging 140
8.4 Resorting to Impersonal Trust 143
8.5 Minimizing Trust in Co-authorship 145
8.6 By Comparison: The Molecular Biology Lab 147
8.7 Conclusion 150
References 151

9 Collaboration and Collective Knowledge 153

9.1 Approaches to Collective Knowledge 154
9.2 Non-summative Belief and Joint
Commitment 155
9.3 Irreducibly Collective Justification 162
9.4 Conclusion 169
References 170

10 Concluding Remarks 173

References 177

Author Index 179

Subject Index 185

 1
Introduction

Today’s natural science has become a highly collaborative endeavor. To

create scientific knowledge, scientists with specialized expertise observe
systematically, analyze data and interpret combined experimental evi-
dence to formulate a scientific knowledge claim. In so doing, most
scientists depend deeply and immediately on their peers. Experiments
have typically become too time-consuming and resource-intensive to be
carried out by any one single scientist. Only in research groups can
scientists accumulate the necessary expertise, labor, financial means and
physical infrastructure to carry out cutting-edge research. For this reason,
this book analyzes the collaborative creation of scientific knowledge in
research groups, thereby addressing two questions that are continuously
troubling philosophy: What is scientific knowledge—is it genuinely col-
lective? And how can it be created, particularly under the conditions of
actual experimental scientific practice?
When answering these questions, I seek to add two factors—one the-
matic, one methodological—to reflections upon collaborative knowledge
creation. Thematically, I examine research groups. This examination pro-
ceeds “from within” research groups, studying the collaborative practices

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1

S. Wagenknecht, A Social Epistemology of Research Groups,
New Directions in the Philosophy of Science,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-52410-2_1
2 1 Introduction

that constitute such groups and inquiring of research group members

about their experiences with research group collaboration. Methodologi-
cally, I probe a way in which first-hand empirical insight, gained through
qualitative methods, can inform philosophical reflections. My method-
ological approach reflects the difficulty that comes with my thematic
focus. When collaborative scientific practice in research groups is the
object of philosophical inquiry, then philosophers cannot solely rely upon
intuition and imagination.
Drawing upon comprehensive empirical insight, I investigate different
configurations of the within-group division of labor and the forms of
epistemic dependence that they entail. I study how practicing scientists
deal with epistemic dependence, how they come to trust one another, and
how they individually relate to the scientific knowledge claim that they
collaboratively create. To do this, the book is based on a comparative case
study, drawing upon observations and interviews that have been carried
out in two research groups, a small interdisciplinary group in planetary
research and a larger molecular biology laboratory. The book is, hence,
also about interdisciplinarity and the question of how interdisciplinary
research collaboration compares to mono-disciplinary collaboration.
Based on these investigations, I argue for an inter-individual account
of research group collaboration—an account that recognizes the role of
individual knowing for scientific practice, but acknowledges the collective
character of some of the scientific knowledge that research groups create
collaboratively. With this account, I seek to make a contribution to
two specialized fields of philosophical inquiry: social epistemology and
philosophy of science. In particular, the book contributes to a “philosophy
of science in practice” (Ankeny, Chang, Boumans, & Boon, 2011; Soler,
Zwart, Lynch, & Israel-Jost, 2014).
For a philosopher to inquire about “science in practice” means to
inquire about the practices in which scientific norms are interpreted,
scientific methods applied and scientific knowledge made. It means to
inquire about knowledge in-the-making, knowledge as it is created in
processes of collaboration under contingent material, cognitive and social
conditions (Rouse, 2002). This requires philosophers to give up “mini-
mizing and externalizing the social dimensions of scientific knowledge”
(Rouse, 1996, p. 168). It also requires empirical insight into how science
 1.1 An Epistemology of Research Groups 3

is actually practiced. There are several ways to acquire such insight, one
of which I exemplify when I mobilize first-hand qualitative data for
philosophical reflection.

1.1 An Epistemology of Research Groups

In this book I study research groups, a thematic focus that is plain and
novel at the same time. A philosophy of research groups is only now
emerging, although both philosophy of science and social epistemology
have long been interested in the “social” character of science. But although
most philosophers would agree that scientific knowledge creation involves
“social” aspects, precisely in what sense science should be understood as
“social” remains the subject of debate. So far, philosophy of science has
focused on the role of peer communities, a focus for which research groups
have been, at best, of peripheral interest. Social epistemology, in turn, is
only beginning to develop pronounced interest in the domain of science.1
But while research groups are a relatively novel object of inquiry for
social epistemologists and philosophers of science, they have been the
undisputed norm in natural science for many decades. To find practicing
scientists discussing research groups passionately and remarking upon
their novelty, one has to go back to the mid-twentieth century when the
prospect of large-scale technocratic research coalitions, later to be chris-
tened “Big Science,”2 sparked debate. Against those who were concerned
by this prospect, David Green published a letter in the journal Science

1
As a field of philosophical inquiry, social epistemology is, as much of the philosophy of science
is, rooted in the tradition of analytic philosophy. To inquire about the “social epistemology” of
science means to inquire about the possibilities of well-founded belief and the (scientific) knowledge
that scientists, individually and collectively, possess. Social epistemology, as a branch of general
epistemology, is a relatively young field of philosophical inquiry. The programmatic beginnings
of social epistemology as a field can be traced to the work of Fuller (1988), Longino (1990),
Goldman (1999) and, for example, (Schmitt, 1994). Some social epistemologists have begun to
engage with comprehensive, empirically detailed case studies (see, e.g., Bergin, 2002; Rehg & Staley,
2008; Staley, 2007). Despite the field’s interest in the social dimensions of knowledge, however,
philosophers in the field of social epistemology typically do not refer to social-scientific studies of
science or social-scientific empirical methods.
2
The expression “Big Science” was coined by Weinberg (1961).
4 1 Introduction

in 1954. In this letter, Green, at the time a leading biochemist, defends

research groups as “one of the most powerful instruments yet devised for
conducting experimental research” (Green, 1954, p. 445). As he argues,
research groups bundle the increasingly specialized expertise of individual
scientists and focus it on a selected set of research questions, questions that
are too laborious and too daunting for any individual scientist to pursue
without the support of committed group members. In sharing success and
failure among group members, Green points out, research groups act as
an “insurance” against the epistemic risks of experimental science. Yet,
Green admits, so little is known about the ways in which research groups
work and adapt to the contingencies of scientific practice that such group
themselves remain “an experiment in human relationships” (Green, 1954,
p. 445).
Over recent years, philosophy has slowly become more and more
interested in research groups, triggered largely by the widespread reception
of John Hardwig’s (1985, 1991) work on research groups and the appli-
cation of Margaret Gilbert’s (1989, 2004) notion of collective belief to
research collaboration (as, e.g., in Cheon, 2014; de Ridder, 2014; Wray,
2001). I will consider Gilbert’s notion of collective belief, but particularly
Hardwig’s work which has been a major source of inspiration for me.
Hardwig argues that contemporary natural science fundamentally relies
upon trust and that “[…] the alternative to trust is, often, ignorance”
(Hardwig, 1991, p. 707):

In most disciplines, those who do not trust cannot know; those who do not
trust cannot have the best evidence for their beliefs. In an important sense,
then, trust is often epistemologically even more basic than empirical data
or logical arguments: the data and the argument are available only through
trust. (Hardwig, 1991, p. 693f.)

Trust becomes an obligatory element of experimental progress, Hard-

wig explains, when experiments are too labor-intensive to be carried out
by one scientist, too costly to be repeated without serious doubts, or too
complex to require just one field of expertise. Importantly, Hardwig points
out that the relevance of trust does not concern merely the formulation
of scientific knowledge claims, but plays out in their justification as
 1.2 Empirical Insights for Philosophy 5

well, since the logical and evidential justification for those claims is
too comprehensive to be understood in deep detail by a single scientist
(Hardwig, 1991, p. 696). When he first formulated these claims, Hardwig
was bluntly challenging the ideal of the autonomous, individual knower
that was (and in many respects, still is) underlying epistemology (cf.
Fricker, 2006b). Against this ideal, Hardwig’s work calls for a new way
of thinking about knowledge and scientific knowledge, a philosophical
angle that is broader than an individualist focus:

Œ: : : we need an epistemological analysis of research teams, for knowledge

of many things is possible only through teamwork. Knowing, then, is often
not a privileged psychological state. If it is a privileged state at all, it is
a privileged social state. So, we need an epistemological analysis of the
social structure that makes the members of some teams knowers while the
members of other teams are not. (Hardwig, 1991, p. 697)

In which sense knowing could be exactly understood as such a ‘social

state’ and features a genuinely collective character needs to be discussed.
In any case, philosophical analysis of social structures and their role
in scientific knowledge creation cannot be an armchair undertaking
only—the experiences, intuitions, norms and limitations that shape the
ways in which professional scientists create knowledge are too domain-
specific.

1.2 Empirical Insights for Philosophy

In this book I seek to establish a way in which such philosophical study
can be grounded in empirical insight, for example, through first-hand data
gained via qualitative empirical research methods, such as observation and
interviewing in a comparative case study of two research groups. The rea-
son for collecting first-hand data is the conceptual contribution that a dia-
log between philosophical abstraction and empirical description can yield.
As research in the social epistemology of group collaboration has begun
to show, empirical insight helps to contextualize and differentiate analytic
concepts. An example of conceptual contextualization can be found in
6 1 Introduction

Kent Staley’s application of the concept “group belief ” to large-scale

collaborations in high energy physics (Staley, 2007). Another example is
the account of interdisciplinary teams that Hanne Andersen and I have
proposed and that emphasizes the diversity of constellations in which sci-
entists can interact (Andersen & Wagenknecht, 2013). Contextualization
and differentiation will often limit the abstract scope of philosophical
concepts. But while abstraction is certainly one of the strengths that
philosophical concepts possess, concepts cannot unfold their reflective
force if they elude actual practice.
The philosophical concern for science as it is actually practiced, or,
more broadly, knowledge as it actually can be acquired by human beings,
is not new and reaches back at least to William v. O. Quine. His essay
on “naturalized epistemology” (1969) has inspired many philosophers
of science to “naturalize” their way of studying science as an object of
philosophical interest.3 Quine envisions a form of philosophical inquiry
that is continuous with natural science, ascribing philosophical claims
with the status of empirical hypotheses and treating them as revisable in
the light of empirically gained insight. In a strict interpretation, Quine’s
program of a naturalized philosophy rules out the attempt to give an a
priori (or at least largely non-empirical) justification for knowledge in
general, and the progress of scientific knowledge creation in particular
(Giere, 1988, p. 11).
Over the last decades, however, the term “naturalized” took on a
broader meaning. Especially with the reception of Thomas Kuhn’s work,
a much more loosely defined conception of naturalized philosophy has
spread (Giere, 1985). Naturalized philosophers want to analyze science “as
it really is,” not as one may rationally reconstruct it (see, e.g., Callebaut,
1993, p. 72; also Bechtel, 2008; Nelson, 1990). This motivation has led
a range of philosophers to draw upon knowledge from other disciplines,
such as psychology and the cognitive sciences (e.g., Giere, 1988; Goldman,
1986) as well as history (e.g. Nersessian, 1984; Nickles, 1995), and it has
also supported the development of an (integrated) history and philosophy
of science (HPS).

3
For a thorough epistemological analysis of Quine’s position see Haack (2009, ch. 6).
 1.3 Scientists as Reflective Practitioners 7

This book builds upon naturalist traditions, but it also departs from the
way in which a majority of philosophers of science and epistemologists
formulate naturalized accounts of science and (scientific) knowledge
creation. While it is common for naturalized philosophy to rely upon
interpretations of empirical data provided by research outside philosophy,
that is, research in natural sciences, this book presents first-hand empirical
data, gathered by qualitative, social-scientific methods. The research pro-
cess that underlies this book, hence, has little to do with the methods that
the natural sciences pursue. It is rather an open-ended, iterative process
of interpretation—“hermeneutic” rather than “naturalized” (Schickore,
2011).
Although the crossroads between the methods of the philosophy of
science and history have been explored eagerly, combinations of philo-
sophical inquiry and social-scientific methods have been far less popular—
a rift between philosophy of science and social studies of science that
reaches back to the “Science Wars” (Wagenknecht, Nersessian, & Ander-
sen, 2015). Nonetheless, philosophers of science have begun to make
use of social-scientific methods. So-called “experimental philosophers”
are using quantitative methods such as standardized interviews to learn
about the frequency of people’s intuitions (Griffiths & Stotz, 2008; Knobe
& Nichols, 2008; Machery & O’Neill, 2014). Other philosophers have
pioneered qualitative empirical inquiries within philosophy of science
(Calvert & Fujimura, 2011; Kastenhofer, 2013; Riesch, 2010; Toon, 2012).
Leonelli (2007, 2010), for example, has studied scientific practice in
the life sciences with the help of ethnographic methods. Nersessian
and collaborators (2003, 2006, 2010, 2011, 2015) have made use of
a mix of qualitative methods to explore laboratory collaboration and
scientific modeling in fields such as bio-informatics. It is this strand of
philosophical inquiry—an inquiry into scientific practice grounded in
first-hand empirical data—that I seek to continue in this book.

1.3 Scientists as Reflective Practitioners

In a most fundamental sense, this book is about scientists, about how
they collaborate with one another, and how they come to rely upon
their collaborators. This book is also about observations of scientists and
8 1 Introduction

interviews with them, bringing out what they think about their work, how
they think it should be done, and how they reflect upon the experiences of
the collaboration that they have been involved in. In this book I approach
scientists as reflective practitioners, who have something to say about
their work when interviewed. They are able to offer accounts of scientific
knowledge creation that reflect their education and their experiences. One
premise of this book, a premise concerning its empirical method, is that
philosophers should take these “native” expert accounts seriously, even
though they may lack the terminology, the subtlety and the argumentative
structure of philosophical reasoning.
As reflective practitioners, scientists continuously reflect upon their
work and measure it against the standards of scientific practice. To
practice experimental science involves manual activity as much as it
involves cognitive activity. Scientists reason; reasoning is part of their
work. Therefore, I conceive of scientists as cognizant actors—actors who
form beliefs in the light of what they know, observe and infer. These beliefs
concern the epistemic significance of experimental results, but they also
concern, for example, the trustworthiness of collaborators who produced
these experimental results.
Addressing scientists as subjects who form beliefs and reflectively seek
to justify them, I analyze empirical insights in terms of knowledge as
justified belief, the predominant albeit not uncontested paradigm in epis-
temology (Haack, 2009; Ichikawa & Steup, 2013). Within this paradigm,
knowledge is understood as attributable to an epistemic subject or a
“cognizer” (cf. Longino, 2002, p. 77ff.).4 Conventionally, the paradigm
of an epistemic subject is the individual human being, a paradigm which
allows us to conceive of knowledge as individually held justified belief.
Though a widespread notion in epistemology, the understanding of
knowledge as individually held belief has been criticized by social and
feminist epistemologists (see, e.g., Bechtel, 2008; Gilbert, 2004; Nelson,
1990), and I reflect upon some of their critiques in Chap. 9.

4
An alternative to knowledge as justified true belief is reliabilism, which understands knowledge
as reliable belief (Goldman, 2011). Note that a reliabilist position remains within the paradigm of
knowledge as belief. For a more fundamental critique of knowledge as belief see, e.g., Vendler (1972),
Craig (1990), Welbourne (2001), and Kusch (2002).
 1.3 Scientists as Reflective Practitioners 9

What it takes to justify a belief as knowledge is a fundamental epis-

temological question to which different strands of epistemology have
given different answers. For example, the long-standing debate between
foundationalism and coherentism discusses what it means for beliefs to be
warranted with regard to their logical structure and their logical relation
to other sets of belief (see, e.g., Haack, 2009). Virtue epistemologists, in
turn, focus on the epistemic agent and argue that the warrant of his or
her beliefs is tied to the possession of virtuous faculties or the exercise
of virtuous traits (e.g., Greco, 2001; Zagzebski, 1996). Contextualism,
in turn, suggests that the warrant of beliefs is dependent upon the
mobilization of particular standards of justification (e.g., S. Cohen, 1986;
Pritchard, 2000; Rysiew, 2016), and parts of feminist and social episte-
mology argue that these standards are community-borne (e.g., Longino,
1990; Nelson, 1990). The argument that justification refers to context-
dependent standards will become important in later parts of the book
when I explore how far collaborators’ scientific trustworthiness can justify
belief but is not equivalent to the evidence needed to justify a scientific
knowledge claim (see Chaps. 7 and 9).
Proceeding from a notion of knowledge as justified belief, I am able
to build upon previous epistemological analyses. Some of the issues
this book addresses—relations of dependence and trust—have been dis-
cussed instructively by social epistemologists in terms of individually
held knowledge and its exchange through testimony. It is important to
note, however, that while the notion of knowledge as justified belief is
predominant in epistemology, it is not widely shared in philosophy of
science. Echoing Popper’s “third-world knowledge” (1972), philosophy
of science commonly endorses a notion of (scientific) knowledge as
discursive content, that is, as an inter-individually accessible body of
well-corroborated scientific claims in a given peer community. “In this
usage, knowledge is what piles up in books and journals in the form
of verbal or two-, three-, or four-dimensional representations” (Longino,
2002, p. 82, 83). I do not attempt to tackle this divide between different
strands of philosophy. Rather, I proceed from the understanding that
scientific knowledge (i.e., the kind of knowledge philosophers of science
are typically talking about) is the result of collaborative efforts to integrate
individual knowing (see, e.g., Andersen & Wagenknecht, 2013).
10 1 Introduction

Another concept that will appear throughout the book is expertise.

Scientific expertise is what senior scientists are supposed to have acquired
throughout their professional maturation and what enables them to
practice science without immediate guidance (but not without help,
collaboration or the feedback of their peers). I understand expertise as an
individual attribute, comprising his or her declarable and tacit knowledge
and skills. Even as an individual attribute, however, expertise necessarily
relates to social aspects beyond that individual. What counts as expertise
is constituted through the practices of a community of acknowledged
experts, and the acquisition of full-blown expertise requires individuals
to immerse themselves in the practices of an expert community. Only in
this manner will individuals acquire the expertise necessary to contribute
to the practices of a given expert community (Collins, 2013; Collins &
Evans, 2007).
Conceiving of scientists as reflective practitioners means to conceive
of them as actors whose expertise comprises both knowledge-that and
knowledge-how, both declarable as well as tacit, that is, inarticulate
resources. While scientific research creates scientific knowledge-that,
the performance of experimental scientific method relies crucially on
knowledge-how. And while reflection requires articulation, practices
have a corporeal component that may resist articulation—for practicing
scientists themselves, and in parts also for observing philosophers
(Goddiksen, 2014; Polanyi, 1962; Soler, 2011). For practicing scientists,
experimental practice may remain epistemically “opaque” in the sense that
it may be impossible to provide an exhaustive description of experimental
activity and complete justification of experimental. As Soler (2011) points
out, much of this epistemic opacity is due to the fact that scientific
practice requires skill or incorporated knowledge-how.5

5
The notion of knowledge-how, and particularly its relation to the notion of knowledge-that,
i.e., propositional knowledge, is debated. Arguably, not all knowledge-how can be reduced to
knowledge-that (Fantl, 2012; Ryle, 1971). This seems to be the case even in scientific practice where
knowledge-how serves the aim of producing scientific knowledge-that. More important, however,
is the relation between knowledge-how and articulation. Both knowledge-that and knowledge-how
can be imagined to remain unarticulated in a given context. But insofar as knowledge-how pertains
to incorporated knowledge, it stands to reason that it poses a particular challenge for exhaustive
 1.4 Chapter Overview 11

Since incorporated skill is an element of scientific expertise, the latter

itself becomes difficult to articulate. That, in turn, makes scientific
expertise difficult to learn and difficult to observe in others. Expertise
must be learned through immersion in practice. For junior experimental
scientists, nothing is more valuable than lab time shared with senior
scientists. And shared lab time is equally important as an opportunity to
gauge the expertise of peers. In fact, being able to determine the expertise
of peers is part of scientific expertise.
Yet, what is the role of scientific expertise for research collaboration? As
this book will show, expertise is one important criterion in determining
the trustworthiness of collaborators, that is, the scientific quality of their
research contribution (cf. Hardwig, 1985). The question whether or not
to trust a research colleague is closely tied to the question to which degree
that colleague possesses the relevant scientific expertise in a given domain.
To determine colleagues’ expertise is complicated by the fact that scientific
expertise is limited in two respects. First, it is accumulated over long
periods of time. Second, it can be more or less comprehensive, though
rarely do scientists possess senior expertise in more than one specialized
domain of scientific inquiry. Scientific expertise is tied to seniority and
disciplinary background, rendering interdisciplinary collaboration, and
collaboration between senior and junior scientists, particularly fragile. I
will investigate how fragilities of this kind are dealt with in collaborative
practice and examine how the confines of individual expertise are mended
through research collaboration.

1.4 Chapter Overview

Chapter 2 introduces the reader to research groups, the phenomenon
which this book seeks to investigate. For philosophers and social epis-
temologists of science, research groups are interesting insofar as group

articulation. For this reason, it is questionable whether we should consider knowledge-how to be

“knowledge” in the sense of justified true belief. “Skill” or Polanyi’s term of “inarticulate intelligence”
may be a more apt vocabulary (Polanyi, 1962, p. 71).
12 1 Introduction

members’ interactions immediately concern the collaborative making

of scientific knowledge. So far, social epistemologists have approached
research groups either from an individualist or collectivist perspective,
and I provide reasons for endorsing the first perspective, commenting
upon the latter only at the end of the book. Moreover, in elaborating the
gradual differences between mono- and interdisciplinary research groups,
I prepare for the comparative case study that latter chapters unfold.
Chapter 3 addresses questions of method, describing the way in which
I rely upon first-hand qualitative empirical data. The use of such data
in the context of philosophical theorizing raises a number of meta-
methodological and procedural questions. To address these questions,
I reflect on the interplay of empirical data and philosophical concepts
by mobilizing the notion of dialog between the concrete and abstract. I
also provide a detailed description of the case study, the methods of data
collection and the process of data analysis that underlie this book. Finally,
I consider the challenge of presenting a qualitative empirical case study
within an analytic philosophical discourse.
Chapters 4 and 5, then, introduce the reader in greater detail to the
two research groups investigated—the planetary science group and the
molecular biology laboratory. Throughout this book, I will also refer
to these two research groups as group1 and group2, respectively. While
the planetary science group is a smaller interdisciplinary research team,
the molecular biology laboratory is a relatively large mono-disciplinary
team. Both groups have developed a distinct modus operandi, and the
differences that the comparison of these two groups will bring out inform
my philosophical reflections.
Chapter 6 focuses on the division of labor in research groups, that is,
the division of cognitive labor, but also the manual labor of experimental
practice and the “social” labor that it takes for group members to interact. I
examine how research is divided in the two groups studied, distinguishing
two forms of division of labor, and I discuss how far these forms align
with notions of division of labor put forward in the existing philosophical
literature.
Chapter 7 offers a perspective on epistemic dependence that is
grounded in theoretical discussion and field observation at the same
time. Since instances of epistemic dependence are multifarious in
 1.4 Chapter Overview 13

scientific practice, I propose to distinguish between two different forms of

epistemic dependence—opaque and translucent. A scientist is opaquely
dependent upon a colleague’s labor if he or she does not possess the
expertise necessary to carry out independently, and to assess profoundly,
the piece of scientific labor his or her colleague is contributing. If the
scientist does possess the necessary expertise, then his or her dependence
is translucent. Many dependence relations, however, are neither entirely
opaque nor translucent. I discuss why this is the case, and show how
we can make sense of the gray zone between opaque and translucent
epistemic dependence.
Chapter 8 sheds light on the issue of epistemic trust between col-
laborating scientists. Only on the basis of such trust can collaborating
scientists enter relations of epistemic dependence. But while trust per-
vades scientific practice, scientists do not trust blindly and completely.
Rather, as I illustrate with empirical data, they continuously fine tune
their attitudes of trust towards collaborators through dialoging practices,
eliciting explanations and probing understanding. Moreover, scientists
supplement personal trust with impersonal trust and seek to reduce the
personal trust relations that are necessary through hierarchical modes of
collaboration.
Chapter 9 analyzes how far collaboratively created scientific knowl-
edge can be characterized as collective knowledge. For this analysis, the
chapter discusses two existing socio-epistemological approaches to group
belief and collective knowledge. While the first of these approaches
seeks to “collectivize” the belief component of knowledge as justified
(true) belief, the second approach seeks to collectivize the justification
component of knowledge and argues that scientific justification is often
too complex to be possessed by any one individual scientist. In this
chapter, I will reject the first approach and endorse the second, thus
providing a concept of collective scientific knowledge that accounts well
for the collaborative practices I have observed in my comparative case
study.
Finally, Chap. 10 concludes the book, summarizes the arguments and
offers some closing remarks.
14 1 Introduction

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 2
Research Groups

Since in this book I am attempting to provide a social epistemology of

research group collaboration, this chapter introduces research groups both
as an empirical phenomenon and as an object of philosophical analysis.
To do so, let me begin by saying what I mean by “research group.” I
use the term to refer to teams of closely collaborating scientists. Such
teams are relatively stable and often embedded in the formal structures
of research organizations, such as universities. Yet, group membership
cannot always be clearly defined; nor is it stable. Also, research groups are
by no means the only form of collectivity that research collaboration may
rely upon. There are informal networks, academic friendships, authorship
coalitions—and there are peer communities, the communities of scientific
fields and disciplines.
In fact, notions of community have so far been the dominant analytic
“lens” through which the collaborative character of much of scien-
tific practice has been conceived of in philosophy of science. While
notions of community have long had a strong foothold in philosophy
of science, notions that attend to micro-structures of collaboration have

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 19

S. Wagenknecht, A Social Epistemology of Research Groups,
New Directions in the Philosophy of Science,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-52410-2_2
20 2 Research Groups

not received much attention—an issue for which the interdisciplinary

dynamics between philosophy of science and social studies of science can
account. At the time when philosophy and history of science were open
to incorporating influences from sociology, social studies of science were
generally dominated by macro-sociological approaches (see, e.g., Merton,
1965; Zuckerman, 1967). As social studies of science later began to
focus on micro-structures of scientific collaboration (Knorr-Cetina, 1981;
Latour & Woolgar, 1979), the Science Wars and deep divides concerning
the ways in which “the social” is seen to relate to “the epistemic” prevented
the reception of sociological influences in the philosophical discourse (cf.
Wagenknecht et al., 2015, p. 5).
I will make a modest attempt to help mend this shortfall in interdisci-
plinary connect. For this reason, Sect. 2.1 characterizes the research group
as a phenomenon of scientific collaboration by drawing extensively upon
social-scientific research. Section 2.2, then, considers research groups as
objects of philosophical analysis, introducing two analytic approaches to
them and the scientific knowledge that they create. While the collectivist
approach holds that such knowledge is to be analyzed as irreducibly col-
lective, the individualist approach maintains that collaboratively created
knowledge can be understood in terms of individually held knowledge. In
this book, I base my investigations upon the individualist approach, and
I will provide three reasons for doing so. Section 2.3 offers a concise ori-
entation regarding philosophical accounts of interdisciplinarity, situating
my concern for interdisciplinary research groups in ongoing discussions
in philosophy of science.

2.1 The Phenomenon

Research groups are a historically contingent expression of the fact that
what we simply call “research” is an involved effort that takes effect
through multiple forms of collaboration (Katz & Martin, 1997; Maien-
schein, 1993). While social epistemologists and philosophers of science
have only just begun to show interest in the structures of collaboration
other than specialist communities, social scientists have long studied
research groups as a diverse, multifaceted empirical phenomenon. For this
 2.1 The Phenomenon 21

reason, this section draws on the work of social scientists to characterize

research groups as a distinct, but utterly varied, empirical phenomenon of
scientific collaboration.
The significance of scientific collaboration for contemporary science
plays out in numbers. As collaborative authorship is arguably a robust
measure for close research collaboration (Beaver & Rosen, 1978; Clarke,
1964; Meadows & O’Connor, 1971), bibliometric studies suggest that
close collaboration has become the preferred way of conducting research
in many fields. The last century witnessed a continuous increase in co-
authored papers in almost every scientific discipline, and especially in
experimental natural science multi-authored papers dominate by far.1
Scholars have also found that research collaboration is co-related with
individual productivity and visibility (Beaver & Rosen, 1979b; Lee &
Bozeman, 2005; Zuckerman, 1967).
Research groups are a crucial element of scientific collaboration, as
Edward Hackett observes: “Research groups are an elemental form of sci-
entific collaboration and knowledge production” (Hackett, 2005, p. 788).
Scientific collaboration can take many forms but “small batch production”
in research groups has become typical for the way scientific knowledge is
created at Western universities at least since the mid-twentieth century
(Hagstrom, 1974a, p. 757). In a similar vein, Henry Etzkowitz calls small
and medium-sized research groups of “moderate scale” the distinctive
feature of science at American universities as it has emerged in the last
century (Etzkowitz, 1992, p. 28).
Usually, a university-based research group has between three and thirty
members. In terms of their academic personnel, most research groups
would consist of at least one senior scientist, commonly in a tenured
position, who assumes group leader responsibilities, a number of students
and post-doctoral fellows as well as further senior scientists. Additionally,
technicians and administrative staff may support the research group. The

1
Scientometric studies have produced a large body of data testifying to the increase in multi-
authored publications (Balog, 1979/1980; Beaver & Rosen, 1978, 1979a,b; Braun, Gomez, Mendez,
& Schubert, 1992; Cronin, 2005; Cronin, Shaw, & Barre, 2004; Meadows, 1974; Meadows &
O’Connor, 1971; Moody, 2004; Wagner & Leydesdorff, 2005). For an overview of the literature
see Subramanyam (1983) and Katz and Martin (1997). Note that the number of colleagues thanked
in acknowledgments has also increased (Cronin, 2005; Cronin et al., 2004).
22 2 Research Groups

size of research groups can change quickly when funding runs out or
new research opportunities open up (Etzkowitz, 1992, p. 36). Yet, for a
group to function, it should be small enough so that its members can
develop ongoing face-to-face relationships. A group is too small when
it cannot ensure enough varied interaction among group members. A
group is too large when its members’ activities cannot be “kept on track,”
when their activities cannot be sufficiently coordinated, especially when
junior scientists cannot be sufficiently supervised and trained and when
they may produce significant results that senior group members miss out
on(Etzkowitz, 1992, p. 38). The less routine the work, the smaller a group
has to be to ensure an accurate exchange of information among its various
members (Hagstrom, 1974a, p. 756).
Research groups can be coordinated in different ways. A great variety
of factors shape research group leadership, such as the degree of interdis-
ciplinarity involved, work ethos and employment culture, but also group
leaders’ professional experience, their academic biography and personality.
While some groups centralize leadership, other groups will distribute its
responsibilities among its members (Cohen, Kruse, & Anbar, 1982). A
crucial responsibility of group leadership is to manage the scientific focus
of group members’ research activities. Here, group leaders focus on an
ambivalent choice, as Hackett observes: “tighter focus may intensify com-
petition, while looser focus may dissipate energy and relinquish fruitful
synergies” (Hackett, 2005, p. 818). While some competition among group
members may increase their initiative, too much competition constrains
collaboration among group members and may prove detrimental to the
group’s research performance.2 Furthermore, group leadership needs to
balance continuity in research focus against “the continual, incremental
freshening of a group’s membership and capabilities that expands the
boundaries of its sphere of inquiry” (Hackett, 2005, p. 794), continuously
adapting to the ways in which scientific fields evolve.
Research group members, as Hackett observes, typically “work face-to-
face, sharing work space, materials, technologies, objectives, hypotheses

2
For competition among members of a research group see Edge and Mulkay (1976); Hagstrom
(1974b), and for the complicated mediation between collaboration and competition in research
groups see Traweek (1988, p. 88); Poulsen (2001).
 2.1 The Phenomenon 23

and, to a significant degree, a professional reputation and fate” (Hackett,

2005, p. 788). Shared resource access, as the historian Jane Maienschein
notes, is a major motivation for an individual scientist to enter a research
collaboration in the first place, as they are “eligible for resources that
individual researchers could not obtain” (Maienschein, 1993, p. 167). The
sharing of resources helps increase both the efficiency of scientific labor
and the credibility of research outcome. Increasing efficiency may “simply
be a matter of needing more hands doing the same kind of work, or
it may involve bringing together specialists who provide different types
of expertise” (Maienschein, 1993, p. 167). To bundle specialist expertise
through collaboration can have a positive impact on the credibility of a
scientific knowledge claim: “collaborations among different individuals
may produce greater credibility because each brings to the project his or
her own credentials and acceptability in a different research community”
(Maienschein, 1993, p. 167). For research groups, it can be a challenge to
keep these cognitive, technical, social and financial resources “in stock”
despite the constant fluctuation of group members.
Beyond resource sharing, research groups also facilitate hands-on
learning. Face-to-face collaboration helps group members to acquire the
tacit skills that are an important element of scientific expertise, helping
junior scientists mature professionally—a responsibility that particularly
research groups in academic contexts attend to. In fact, for university
research groups, the interaction between senior and junior scientists will
often be one of the collaborative relations that determine the way in
which a group divides labor among its members.
The collaborative relations within a research group can be multifarious,
and a number of typologies have been suggested to describe them.
Drawing on scientometric studies, Subramanyam (1983), for example,
lists teacher–pupil collaborations, collaborations among colleagues,
supervisor–assistant collaborations and researcher–consultant collabo-
rations. Toomela (2007) distinguishes “dialogical collaboration” and
“unidirectional collaboration.” While the first designates a truly collective
research effort, the latter is ultimately an individual enterprise where only
one person determines the direction of research. This person hires in other
“helping hands” and “basically absorbs knowledge provided by others”
(Toomela, 2007, p. 202). For philosophy and epistemology of science,
24 2 Research Groups

Thagard (1997) suggests a typology that consists of “employer/employee,”

“teacher/apprentice,” “peer-similar” and “peer-different.” A mono-
disciplinary collaboration takes place among peers with a similar, largely
overlapping expertise, while an interdisciplinary collaboration involves
scientific peers with utterly different fields of expertise (see also Sect. 2.3).
Such typologies, however, say little about the collaborative practice by
which individual efforts are entwined. In fact, the task of later chapters
(such as, e.g., Chaps. 6, 7, and 8) in this book will be to investigate how
different types of relation frame dependence and facilitate the trust that
it takes for group members to rely upon one another.

2.2 Individualism or Collectivism?

There is a growing body of epistemological analyses of research groups in
social epistemology and philosophy of science. Among epistemological
accounts of research group collaboration, Kristina Rolin discerns “two
approaches to understanding the epistemic structure of scientific collab-
oration,” an approach that I will call “collectivist,” and an approach that
I will call “individualist” (Rolin, 2014, p. 74). The collectivist approach
argues that collective belief or acceptance are necessary for research groups
to create, and have, scientific knowledge—in fact, the scientific knowledge
produced by a research group is, according to the collectivist approach,
an irreducibly collective group belief or acceptance (see, e.g., Andersen,
2010; Bouvier, 2004; Cheon, 2014; Rolin, 2010; Wray, 2002, 2006). The
individualist approach, in contrast, suggests that this need not be the case,
arguing that the kind of scientific knowledge that research groups produce
can be analyzed in terms of individually held testimonial knowledge (see,
e.g., Andersen & Wagenknecht, 2013; Fagan, 2011; Frost-Arnold, 2014;
Hardwig, 1991). As Rolin observes, the two approaches can be seen “as
two parallel models for understanding the special nature of scientific
knowledge produced in collaborations” (Rolin, 2014, p. 74).
Rolin’s distinction concerns the status of scientific knowledge: Should
scientific knowledge, collaboratively produced by research groups, be
analyzed as an irreducibly collective group view; or, rather, in terms
of (testimonial) knowledge that can be attributed to single individuals?
 2.2 Individualism or Collectivism? 25

This distinction is analytically important, and it reflects the debate

that animates social epistemology’s ongoing interest in research group
collaboration. What I suggest in this book, however, is a way to navigate
past a rigid individualist/collectivist divide and add more nuance to
Rolin’s distinction. In the course of this book, I formulate an inter-
individual notion of group collaboration that combines elements of
both the individualist and collectivist approach. As I will elaborate in
Chap. 9, such a combination is possible because the distinction that
Rolin offers primarily concerns collaboratively created scientific knowl-
edge, casting such knowledge as group belief, acceptance or view. It
does not concern the justification of scientific knowledge. While I will
argue that the justification of a proposition as scientific knowledge
can be irreducibly collective, this proposition need not be believed in
irreducibly collective ways—an argument that, in fact, will be based on
my analysis of inter-individual dependence and trust among collaborating
scientists.
So, before arguing for the collective status of scientific justification in
Chap. 9, I will pursue an individualist approach to scientific knowledge
creation in research groups, examining (testimonial) exchanges between
individual scientists on the basis of dependence and trust. I do so because
I believe the individualist approach to be better suited to an empirically
informed analysis of research group collaboration for three reasons.
First, the analysis that I unfold in the chapters to come relies upon
first-hand empirical data (see following Chap. 3). An important part of
my data collection consists of my interviews with individual scientists,
through which I have gathered the perspectives of scientists as reflective
practitioners that justify their actions and their beliefs to themselves and
others. Since my methodological approach, hence, foregrounds individual
reflection, an epistemological approach that reflects this emphasis seems
apt. Moreover, the collected interview data testify to the highly indi-
vidualist ethos that the scientists I encountered maintained. In addition
to interviews, I also conducted ethnographic fieldwork. At no point
throughout my field work did I encounter a situation that resembled
one of those examples that Margaret Gilbert uses to illustrate what she
calls “collective belief ” (Gilbert, 1987), the concept which inspired the
collectivist approach to research group collaboration (see also Chap. 9).
26 2 Research Groups

Second, the individualist approach appears more parsimonious and

fine-grained, remaining open to the diversity of research group collabo-
ration. The individualist approach presupposes less than the collectivist
approach. It presupposes the existence of inter-individual relations of
trust, dependence and testimony, but makes do without group belief
or group acceptance. This is advantageous because such inter-individual
relations are “smaller” building blocks. A perspective that “zooms” in on
inter-individual relations is a more fine-grained perspective that main-
tains a greater openness to the question of how scientific knowledge
is ultimately created and justified. Various constellations of trust and
dependence are conceivable. Even if scientific knowledge would be, in
one instance or another, aptly analyzed as group belief or acceptance, even
then it stands to reason that group collaboration in science is embedded in
relations of trust and dependence—that distrust and independence inspire
a group of scientists to accept jointly a group view seems a rather odd
assumption to make.
Third, the individualist approach is better suited to cope with the
ephemeral character of research group collaboration, accommodating dif-
ficulties in determining membership. As mentioned in Sect. 2.1, research
groups are continuously changing. Many feature a constant turnover in
members, and often membership can only be loosely defined. Moreover,
research collaboration is not confined to group boundaries and singular
authorship alliances often stretch across different research groups. In
scientific practice, research groups are rather “fluid” (Andersen, 2010,
p. 262). They are also “porous” in that they do not “contain” the creation
of scientific knowledge. To create scientific knowledge, scientists do not
rely on fellow team members only. They also rely upon far-reaching
personal networks and their wider peer communities. For this reason, the
collectivist approach may unduly reify research groups as self-sufficient
epistemic actors—within and beyond research groups—which constitute
scientific collaboration on the group level.
All of these three reasons have, in part, to do with the pragmatics
of an empirically informed investigation. For such an investigation to
be conceptually constructive, its analytic focus needs to tie in with the
empirical data gathered. The collectivist approach formulates a rather
specific hypothesis: research groups create and have scientific knowledge
 2.3 Excourse: Interdisciplinary Research Groups 27

qua group belief or group acceptance. As I will elaborate in Chap. 9,

this hypothesis rests upon a notion (group belief ) which is hard to
match with empirical observations. That makes it difficult to support
this hypothesis empirically, to falsify it or to modify it. The individualist
approach, however, formulates a hypothesis that is better suited to an
empirically informed investigation that formulates a broad hypothesis:
the scientific knowledge that research groups create can be analyzed in
terms of dependence and trust, and thus be reduced to individually held
knowledge. This hypothesis crucially relies upon concepts (dependence,
trust) that are not entirely disconnected from quotidian language, that
can be assumed to be observable to some degree both by practitioners
and ethnographic observers of collaborative scientific practice, and for
which the field of social epistemology offers a broad range of nuanced
formulations—a rich vocabulary to choose from and work with, to probe
and develop.
But the collective approach raises an important question that an analy-
sis proceeding from the individualist approach must eventually confront:
where does research group collaboration set the limits of individual
knowing? That is, what can individual collaborators know? This ques-
tion is particularly palpable in the context of interdisciplinary research.
Therefore, in this book, I examine both interdisciplinary and mono-
disciplinary research group collaboration. To situate my examination of
interdisciplinary research in the philosophical discourse, the next section
provides a concise overview of the discussions of interdisciplinarity that
philosophy of science has had.

2.3 Excourse: Interdisciplinary Research

Groups
As observed above, research groups can vary distinctively, an important
variable being the breadth and diversity of expertise that group members
possess or seek to acquire. In mono-disciplinary research groups, all
members possess or seek to acquire roughly the same kind of expertise.
In interdisciplinary research groups, this is not the case. Since this
book builds upon a comparative case study involving a mono- and an
28 2 Research Groups

interdisciplinary research group, a preparatory comment on philosophical

accounts of interdisciplinary collaboration is appropriate here.
The term “interdisciplinarity” characterizes research across disciplinary
boundaries, a multifaceted phenomenon that defies any straightforward
definition.3 Interdisciplinary endeavors differ substantially in their intel-
lectual scope and cohesion, scale, organizational constitution, internal
structure, purpose, results and stability over time. Furthermore, inter-
disciplinarity describes the character of collaborative scientific practice
as well as the discourse, the scientific content, that such collaboration
may produce—a conceptual split reflected in the approaches to interdis-
ciplinarity that philosophers of science and social epistemologists have
formulated.
Generally, one can discern two different angles from which interdis-
ciplinarity is studied: as discursive integration of scientific research or as
collaboration between scientists from diverging disciplinary backgrounds.
The dominant approach is to investigate interdisciplinarity as discursive
integration, analyzing the syntactic and semantic relations between theo-
ries, concepts, models and evidence which stem from different branches
of the scientific discourse (Bechtel, 1986; Darden & Maull, 1977; Mäki,
2009; Mitchell, Daston, Gigerenzer, Sesardic, & Sloep, 1997; Wylie,
1999). A second approach is to investigate interdisciplinarity as a col-
laboration between scientists, studying the ways in which they cooperate
across differences in disciplinary backgrounds so as to integrate individual
contributions into a piece of interdisciplinary research (Andersen &
Wagenknecht, 2013; Mattila, 2005; Osbeck & Nersessian, 2010; Paletz
& Schunn, 2010; Rossini & Porter, 1979). This is the approach that in
this book I seek to contribute to.
Both approaches make frequent reference to Kuhn’s work, translat-
ing his argument about incommensurable scientific paradigms into the
hypothesis that there are significant socio-cognitive gaps between sci-
entific disciplines—gaps that can, or cannot, be “bridged.” Thus, the
notion of “interdisciplinary integration” that would bridge cognitive

3
For an overview see Frodeman, Klein, Mitcham, and Holbrook (2010); Huutoniemi, Klein, Bruun,
and Hukkinen (2010); Klein (1996, 2010); Weingart and Stehr (2000).
 2.3 Excourse: Interdisciplinary Research Groups 29

differences, or the rejection of this notion, underlies many philosoph-

ical accounts of interdisciplinarity (though this is seldom explicated)
(Gillespie & Birmbaum, 1980; Holbrook, 2013; Mansilla, 2006; Petrie,
1976).
Concerns for the challenges of interdisciplinary integration should not
lead, however, to an over-emphasis on the difference between mono- and
interdisciplinary modes of research. Instead of being a fundamental differ-
ence in kind, the difference between mono- and interdisciplinary research
can be conceived of as a difference in degree, a conception that forms the
premise for the comparative approach taken here. Two arguments can
support such gradual conception of the difference between mono- and
interdisciplinary research. On the one hand, the fact that interdisciplinary
research is possible and new fields emerge at the intersection of established
disciplines should lead us to consider whether the relation of disciplines
and sub-disciplines is one of neighboring resemblance rather than exotic
difference (Campbell, 1969). On the other hand, there is good reason
to believe that disciplines and sub-disciplines are, in themselves, much
more fragmented than any talk about interdisciplinarity as gap-bridging
usually would suggest. In fact, as Abbott (2001) has shown for the case
of sociology, paradigmatic gaps can be constitutive to the very backbone
of a discipline’s identity. In a similar vein, MacIntyre has argued that
a scientific tradition is constituted by “a conflict of interpretations of
that tradition” (MacIntyre, 1980, p. 62). And philosopher of science
Joseph Rouse has argued that philosophy’s “standard view” on scientific
communities either overstates consensus or formulates it too vaguely
(Rouse, 1996, p. 168).
When mono- and interdisciplinary research collaboration are seen as
different, but not fundamentally so, a comparison between them can yield
insightful results. Therefore, in this book I also provide a comparative case
study between a mono- and an interdisciplinary research group. I will
probe the assumption that scientists in both mono- and interdisciplinary
research groups grapple with similar issues of collaboration, such as issues
of trust and dependence. To study ways in which these issues play out dif-
ferently in different types of research groups, which is my assumption, can
help formulate a more comprehensive account of collaborative scientific
practice than a study in mono- or interdisciplinary groups alone.
30 2 Research Groups

2.4 Conclusion
In contemporary natural science, scientific knowledge is created col-
laboratively in research groups. Therefore, any attempt to understand
comprehensively the social dimension of scientific knowledge creation has
to account for the epistemic role of research groups. While philosophy has
long focused on notions of community to account for epistemologically
significant matters of social structure, more recent research in philosophy
and social epistemology of science has begun to analyze research groups,
choosing either a collectivist or an individualist approach. I pursue an
individualist approach to research group collaboration, a decision reso-
nant with the book’s empirical grounding in qualitative data obtained
from observation and individual interviewing. Furthermore, I pursue a
comparative angle, investigating the differences and similarities of mono-
and interdisciplinary group collaboration. The following Chap. 3 will
detail the empirical method and the comparative case study that underlie
this book.

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 3
Method

In this chapter, I will explain how I combine philosophical theorizing

with first-hand empirical insights that I have gained through the use of
qualitative empirical methods. When I decided to make extensive use
of these methods, I decided to move out of philosophy’s comfort zone.
Understandably, for philosophers this move raises a number of questions.
How can empirical observations be related to philosophy’s conceptual
considerations? Can they be related at all? How can philosophical the-
orizing be combined with qualitative methods? What do I mean when I
speak about qualitative methods, and what is the investigator’s role in the
process of inquiry that such methods entail?
This chapter answers these questions regarding the study that underlies
this book. In Sect. 3.1, I provide meta-methodological considerations
about the manner in which I combine philosophical theorizing and
empirical insights. Thereafter, I describe the details of my empirical
case study (Sect. 3.2), my methods of data collection (Sect. 3.3) and
my data analysis (Sect. 3.4). At the end of this chapter, I reflect upon
the challenge of presenting a qualitative empirical case study within an
analytic philosophical discourse (Sect. 3.5).

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 35

S. Wagenknecht, A Social Epistemology of Research Groups,
New Directions in the Philosophy of Science,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-52410-2_3
36 3 Method

3.1 Engaging Empirical Insights in Philosophy

Before elaborating on the details of the empirical method that I have cho-
sen to make use of, I want to consider in a meta-methodological way the
manner in which I combine philosophical reflection with the empirical
insights gained via social-scientific, qualitative methods. Although few
philosophers mobilize such methods for their work, the use of empirical
insight for philosophical reflection has been extensively discussed in the
context of an integrated history and philosophy of science (HPS)—a
discussion to which I return here because it helps articulate how the
normative and the descriptive, the particular and the abstract, can be
fruitfully interwoven for an empirically grounded social epistemology of
scientific practice.
“But shouldn’t philosophy be normative?” is a question I frequently
encountered when I presented the project of this book to broader philo-
sophical audiences who were unfamiliar with the use of empirical meth-
ods. The assertion that philosophical work should be normative often
implies the suggestion that it should not be too descriptive, voicing the
concern that descriptive care for “time-bound particulars” is not easily
reconciled with philosophy’s interest in “timeless truths” and norma-
tive standards (Caneva, 2011, p. 51). As philosopher of science William
Wimsatt sees it, “[w]ithout normative force, studies of methodology,
however interesting, would translate as a catalogue of fortuitous and
mysterious particular accidents, with no method at all” (Wimsatt, 2007,
p. 26). And yes, indeed, philosophical analyses of scientific practice need
to be normative when they address questions of scientific knowledge,
characterizing some beliefs as “knowledge” and others not, deeming some
propositions “scientifically justified” and others not.
But not all philosophical analysis needs to be outright prescriptive,
deriving precise and ultimate claims about how science should be con-
ducted and scientific knowledge should be created. Rather, philosophical
accounts of scientific practice can be normative in that they account for
the limitations of actual scientific practice and reconstruct the normative
judgment inherent in that practice, a judgment reflected in the experience
of practicing scientists. For philosophy to be normative in this sense
 3.1 Engaging Empirical Insights in Philosophy 37

is an undertaking that complements outright prescriptive accounts in

worthwhile ways.
In this book, I refrain from making outright prescriptive judgments
about “good,” “bad” or particularly “efficient” science. Rather, I trace sci-
entists’ vernacular notions of normativity which are embedded in personal
experience and individual perspective. I do not offer philosophical advice
on how to improve the creation of scientific knowledge, and I fall short
of prescriptively outlining which conditions lead most efficiently to the
most secure knowledge and why. Instead, I seek to achieve something
much more modest. Guided by an interest in epistemological concepts,
I provide first-hand insight into what scientific collaboration actually
looks like, how practicing scientists go about collaborating, and how
they assess its epistemic challenges. I discuss how these empirical insights
resonate, complement and help to modify or challenge existing accounts
of collaborative knowledge creation in philosophy of science and social
epistemology.
How empirical insight can relate to philosophy of science is a question
that has been discussed many times regarding the integration of HPS,
which has been problematized by a range of scholars and deemed impos-
sible by some. For example, Pitt (2001) argues that anybody who seeks to
combine historical case studies and philosophical abstraction is caught in
a dilemma: if one takes philosophy as point of departure and picks a case
study to elaborate on philosophical claims, “[…] then it is not clear that
the philosophical claims have been supported, because it could be argued
that the historical data was manipulated to fit the point.” But if one takes
historical data as a point of departure, “[…] it is not clear where to go from
there—for it is unreasonable to generalize from one case or even two or
three” (Pitt, 2001, p. 373). Nonetheless, scholars do integrate historical
case studies and philosophical reflections, and it has been suggested that
Pitt’s dilemma can be avoided.
The dilemma of either generalizing too much or too little is avoidable,
Richard Burian holds, arguing that the historian-philosopher must nei-
ther be “philosophically innocent” nor must he or she “proceed to grand
conclusions by induction from absurdly small samples” (Burian, 2001,
p. 388). Burian agrees with Pitt that approaches which work from first,
38 3 Method

philosophical principles and then draw on historical data for deductive

inference or mere illustration are not helpful. Therefore, he advises the
historian-philosopher to work his or her way up from the study of par-
ticular scientific practices to context-dependent, “limited generalizations”
(Burian, 2001, p. 399). Such inductive case studies, Burian argues, can
yield well-established claims of “regional” scope which are fallible but valid
(Burian, 2001, p. 400).
While sympathetic to an inductive approach, Hasok Chang has more
recently voiced the opinion that it is not rigorous enough. Instead, he
argues, “[…] we need […] to see if we can get beyond an inductive
view of the history-philosophy relation, which takes history as particular
and philosophy as general” (Chang, 2011, p. 110). He proposes that
we should conceive of this relation as that between “the concrete and
the abstract,” two components intricately interwoven with one another.
Without each other, they are meaningless. Any description of analytic
depth will necessarily contain both the concrete and the abstract. “This
necessity should not be resisted or avoided, but actively embraced as a
great intellectual opportunity” (Chang, 2011, p. 111). In this perspective,
the task of a philosopher-historian is to “extract abstract insights” (Chang,
2011, p. 110) from the detailed study of historical episodes and show
their “cogency” and applicability: “successful application functions as
confirmation, but without the presumption of universality in what is
confirmed” (Chang, 2011, p. 111). Put differently, concepts show their
philosophical value in the ways in which they can be transferred and, I
would like to add, lend themselves to fruitful modification, variation and
refinement in different, “concrete” contexts.1
The rejection of both a naive inductive as well as a deductive view of
the relation between history and philosophy is not new and has been
elaborated by other historically minded philosophers in similar ways
before. As Jutta Schickore argues, the integration of historical insight and
philosophical conceptualization implies a complicated movement back
and forth in the course of which empirical insight and conceptual framing

1
Compare with reflection in qualitative social scientific method as in George and Bennett (2005)
and Gerring (2007).
 3.1 Engaging Empirical Insights in Philosophy 39

constitute one another in a sequence of hermeneutic iterations, eventually

leading to a saturated understanding (Schickore, 2009, p. 102). Similarly,
Nancy J. Nersessian calls case-study-based reasoning in philosophy of
science a “bootstrap procedure” (Nersessian, 1991, p. 683) which, as
Paul Thagard puts it, comes to a close when a “reflective equilibrium”
is reached (Thagard, 1988, p. 119). On such accounts, historians do not
provide “facts” on the basis of which philosophers could draw inductive
conclusions in any straightforward way. Nor should historical insights be
regarded as “evidence” against which philosophical hypotheses have to be
tested (Giere, 2011, p. 64).
My work takes inspiration in the approaches that Chang, Nersessian,
Schickore and others have outlined for the integration of historical and
philosophical work. I use philosophical concepts to guide my empirical
inquiry and interpret empirical data, using empirical insight to reflect on
existing conceptual approaches in philosophy of science and social episte-
mology. I do not seek to “confront” empirical insight with philosophical
concepts, but rather to explore the resonances and dissonances between
them in a cyclic, dialogical back and forth movement(see also Mansnerus
& Wagenknecht, 2015).
My work aims to mediate between the established conceptual
(“abstract“) discourse in philosophy and empirical (“concrete“) insights
gained through qualitative observation and interviewing. Yet, already
before philosophical concepts are reflected against empirical insight,
the abstract and the concrete are incorporated into one another in
complex ways. Any concrete experiential insight gains shape and, more
importantly, meaning only when it is molded into concepts. These
concepts need not be philosophical concepts; they can be vernacular
notions. To combine empirical insight with philosophical reflection
means to add another conceptual layer, another sense in which the
concrete relates to the abstract.
In creating a dialog between abstract and concrete, I try to refrain
from quickly subsuming empirical insight under philosophical concepts,
avoiding the fitting of the one unduly to the other—an ideal that is
difficult to achieve given the imbalance between philosophical concepts
and first-hand empirical insights that any attempt to mediate between
them faces. Existing philosophical concepts are rooted in an established
40 3 Method

discourse; and they have their adherents and defendants. In contrast,

empirical insights are voiced, tentatively, at first only by the researcher
who gathers them. Therefore, any empirically grounded philosophy is
challenged to find ways to build empirical insight up, consolidate it
and retain a sensitivity to its character while engaging with abstract
philosophical thought.
In the result of such a dialogical process of inquiry, philosophical
concepts can be further differentiated, contextualized and modified.
Accordingly, this book offers a conceptual distinction between differ-
ent forms of epistemic dependence (Chap. 7), provides a contextualized
account of epistemic trust (Chap. 8) and discusses how a more practice-
minded understanding of the collective character of scientific knowledge
can be developed, a philosophical understanding that accounts for the
socio-epistemic entanglements which underlie the formulation of natural
scientific knowledge by a group of researchers (Chap. 9).
As will become clear in Chaps. 7, 8 and 9, the manner in which
I bring together empirical insight and philosophical concepts varies.
When I analyze epistemic dependence in Chap. 7, I search for empirical
observations that correlate with an established philosophical concept, and
on the basis of these observations, I suggest a way to differentiate the
concept further. In contrast to epistemic dependence, the notion of trust
is much more rooted in the vernacular. Every scientist, it seems, has
rich experiences with trust, breaches of trust and the problem of gauging
another person’s trustworthiness. In my interviews, scientists were able to
provide comprehensive reflections upon trust. For this reason, my work
in Chap. 8 has been to present scientists’ quotidian reflections upon trust
and provide an account of it that reflects their experiences. My approach
in Chap. 9 is different, since the philosophical concepts there are rather
abstract, and particularly the concept of joint commitment has little
traction with the forms of research collaboration I studied. Therefore,
drawing on Melinda Fagan’s work (2011), I try to assess the applicability
and the analytic value of these concepts in a more indirect way.
In the remainder of this chapter, I describe how I access “concrete” sci-
entific practice through a comparative case study, relying on ethnographic
observation (Sect. 3.2) and interviewing (Sect. 3.3). I regard interviewing
as a means of gathering empirical insight in which the dialog between
 3.2 A Qualitative Case Study 41

the philosophically abstract and the experientially concrete is, in parts,

enacted in an actual dialog between philosopher-interviewer and scientist-
interviewee. In Sect. 3.4, I explain how my data analysis intertwined
philosophical concepts and the qualitative data I gathered. Finally, in
Sect. 3.5, I reflect upon the challenge of conveying a dialog between
abstract and concrete to the reader.

3.2 A Qualitative Case Study

To study the collaborative scientific practice of research groups, I have
adopted qualitative social-scientific methods for my empirical study,
building upon the experiences with such methods that other philoso-
phers of science have made in recent years (Calvert & Fujimura, 2011;
Kastenhofer, 2013; Leonelli, 2007, 2010; Nersessian, 2006; Nersessian,
Kurz-Milcke, Newstetter, & Davies, 2003; Osbeck & Nersessian, 2010;
Osbeck, Nersessian, Malone, & Newstetter, 2011; Riesch, 2010; Toon,
2012).2 Qualitative methods approach the empirical not as something
that is to be measured and expressed in quantifiable variables. Instead,
qualitative methods are geared towards a hermeneutic understanding
of the empirical object of study, approaching this object in real world
contexts of practice. In so doing, qualitative methods are committed to
creating detailed, highly context-sensitive empirical data and value depth,
rather than empirical range. To this end, qualitative methods crucially
involve the researcher’s hermeneutic effort, relying upon him or her as a
highly sensitive “instrument” of data generation (Osbeck & Nersessian,
2015).
I used qualitative methods to study research group collaboration as
experienced by scientists in scientific practice, that is, through their
situated, practice-bound sense-making efforts, seeking to understand their
reasoning and reconstruct the epistemic rationale of collaborative scien-
tific practice. In order to gain access to scientific practice and scientists’

2
For general references on qualitative research methods as developed in the social sciences see Strauss
and Corbin (1990) and Denzin and Lincoln (1994).
42 3 Method

experiences with it, I employed qualitative methods such as observation

and interviewing, methods that create an immediate encounter with
practicing scientists and which enabled me to gain rich, multi-faceted
insights.
As qualitative methods of inquiry prioritize context-sensitivity and
hermeneutic depth over range, I have confined my study to two cases.
I investigated two academic research groups at Danish universities,
the planetary science group and the molecular biology laboratory (see
Table 3.1). When I call these two research groups my “cases,” I understand
a case as a local context for data generation (cf. Flyvbjerg, 2007; Gerring,
2007; Platt, 2007; Stake, 2000). For philosophy of science, Burian
specifies case studies as being “[…] concerned with scientific work carried
out during a limited time period and [which] are usually restricted
to a specified set of scientists, institutions, laboratories, disciplines, or
traditions” (Burian, 2001, p. 384). In this sense, case studies enable
the investigator to confine meaningfully data collection to a fragment
of what is empirically observable. Qualitative data that involve actors’
experiences, however, are not confined to the local and temporal context
of a case study. When interviewed about issues such as inter-individual
dependence and the role of trust in scientific practice, interviewees refer
to experiences that have been accumulated through their professional
careers and beyond.
Although much of philosophy of science seems to have a preference
for “characteristic,” paradigmatic cases (as, e.g., in Wimsatt, 2007, p. 28),
my case selection has not been guided by such preference. I do not claim
that the two groups that I study are particularly characteristic, nor do I
claim that they are particularly important. I chose these groups for two
reasons. First of all, both groups were welcoming and enthusiastic about
my research project. (This was not the case for all research groups that I
contacted.) Second, the two groups complemented one another in some
of their characteristics—one being small, the other being relatively large;
one comprising a high ratio of senior researchers, the other comprising
a high ratio of junior researchers; one being interdisciplinary, the other
mono-disciplinary (see Table 3.1). This choice enabled me to adopt a
comparative perspective and to transcend analytically the configuration
of the conditions of one case and provide impetus for philosophical
 3.2 A Qualitative Case Study 43

reflection that differentiates between the conditions of, for example,

mono- and interdisciplinary research (see also Sect. 2.3).
Selecting a case and going out into the field is more easily said than
done. You have to identify and email “gatekeepers.” In these first emails,
you will try to convey your professional integrity, your trustworthiness
and your sincere intentions. When you then come to meet your contacts,
feelings of curiosity and uneasiness will accompany you. What will they
make of you, a “philosopher”? Will they allow you to observe them?
I was surprised and relieved to find that I was granted access rather
quickly. Research groups opened their doors at my request, and they were
welcoming, polite but also slightly puzzled about my undertaking. They
did, however, believe that the functioning of their research group was
indeed worth empirical investigation.
I established contact with the first of the two groups, the planetary
science group, in early summer 2010. Shortly thereafter, in early autumn,
I established contact with the second group, the molecular biology
laboratory. In both cases, first contact was made by email, after which
I went to have a conversation with the group’s spokesperson or leader,
who enthusiastically introduced me to the group’s research. I, in turn,
explained to them that my research interest was to investigate “how
scientists collaborate in groups.” After these introductory conversations, I
began to observe the groups’ weekly meetings. In a first phase of fieldwork
I prioritized the planetary science group (group1), and in a second phase I
prioritized the molecular biology laboratory (group2). I will describe both
research groups in detail in Chaps. 4, 5 and 6.
My field observations can be divided into two different phases. In
the beginning, I observed weekly meetings. Later I focused my attention
more particularly on single group members. The participation in weekly
meetings allowed me to familiarize myself slowly with the group. In these
meetings both administrative and research issues were discussed. In both
groups, I observed approximately 15 meetings. Leaving interruptions of
my fieldwork aside, my observations of each group stretched, roughly,
over the course of a year. Although my philosophical interest in the socio-
epistemic dynamics of collaborative scientific practice was set right from
the start, I began my fieldwork with a broad curiosity for everything
that concerned the groups’ functioning and was brought up by group
44 3 Method

members, including, for example, administrative issues and aspects of

science policy. During my fieldwork, I also learned about the content of
their research. I read articles that group members had co-authored and
handbooks about the basics of their area of interest.
When I had familiarized myself with the group sufficiently, I started
“shadowing” single group members individually. Shadowing is an ethno-
graphic technique for following single persons through their daily life
(Czarniawska, 2007). For one or more working days, I spent my time
with individual group members in their office, left with them to go to
the lab, went with them to short administrative meetings, chatted in the
elevator and had lunch with them. I took as many notes as possible. This
was often exhausting, but together with my observations of their meetings
shadowing proved a good preparation for the subsequent interviews. With
three exceptions, I shadowed all interviewees before I interviewed them
(see Table 3.1).
During the groups’ weekly meetings I behaved passively and took notes
silently. I was, as the leader of the molecular biology laboratory liked

Table 3.1 The two groups studied

Planetary science group Molecular biology laboratory
(group1) (group2)
Interdisciplinary Mono-disciplinary
Informal, stretching across Formal, coextensive with
organizational units sub-departmental unit
Egalitarian with a “spokesperson” Hierarchical with clear leadership,
dedicated to research coordination including about six subgroups
Six core members, among them five About 35 group members in total
senior scientists and a post-doctoral
researcher, more peripheral members
High ratio of senior scientists High ratio of non-tenured junior
scientists
Observed circa 15 weekly group Observed circa 15 meetings over the
meetings over the course of a year course of a year, with interruptions,
and observed three subgroup
meetings
Shadowed six group members for one Shadowed one group member for
day respectively two and a half days, another one
for two days
Interviewed six group members Interviewed four group members
 3.2 A Qualitative Case Study 45

to describe me, a “fly on the wall.” Yet when I began to shadow single
group members my role changed. While observing their lab work or
joining lunch breaks with the scientists studied, I had many extended,
informal conversations about their research groups and their collaborative
networks, about the place that their research groups claim for themselves
within the university organization, and national and international peer
communities. When scientists revealed their curiosity about philosophy
of science, I explained what they seemed to be interested in. I avoided
philosophical jargon in the same way that they avoided biochemical or
geological terms when explaining their work to me. I did not pretend to
share their educational background and their research interests. Despite
my physical presence in the scientists’ labs, meeting rooms and canteens,
and given that I had received no academic training in natural science, I
remained an outside visitor. The professional slack between us helped to
establish myself as a trustworthy outsider, opening a space for conversa-
tions about scientific practice that took a few steps back, “abstracting”
from the “concrete” everyday of research practice and speaking about the
socio-epistemic challenges of collaborative research.
Philosophers of science have found different ways in which to relate
to the scientists whose work and whose manner of working they are
interested in studying. At one end of the spectrum, there are philosophers
whose research interests substantially overlap with those of the scien-
tists observed and interviewed. Borrowing a term which Hasok Chang
has coined, one could call these philosophical studies “complementary
science” (Chang, 2004, p. 238ff.). Reflecting upon her participant obser-
vation, Sabina Leonelli describes herself as being “[…] closely allied with
the scientific goals pursued by the scientists I was studying” (Leonelli,
2007, p. 88). In fact, she calls herself a collaborator rather than observer
(Leonelli, 2007, p. 89). Moving closer to the other end of the spec-
trum, there are philosophers whose research interests are dissimilar to
the scientific interests of the researchers studied, for example, Nancy
Nersessian’s work on scientific cognition. The research questions guiding
her are largely disconnected from the questions pursued by the researchers
studied. This does not imply that her work would be of no concern to
practicing scientists. Nersessian has reasons to believe that her cognitive
studies can contribute to academic training (Nersessian, 1995, p. 211).
46 3 Method

A dissimilarity of interests between philosopher-investigator and sci-

entists studied is characteristic of studies aimed at an understanding of
collaborative practice. Maj-Britt Poulsen’s study (2001) of how scholars
in biomedicine balance competition and collaboration is of no particular
biomedical interest. Similarly, the philosophical interests that I pursue
in this book have little to do with the research in the two groups that
I studied. I am interested in how natural scientists come to collaborate, a
question that may fascinate scientists and relate directly to their work but
is not the focus of their research.

3.3 Interviewing Scientists

I conducted six interviews with members of the planetary science group
and four interviews with members of the molecular biology laboratory.
In the planetary science group, I interviewed all core group members
that were willing to participate, that is, four senior scientists and a
post-doctoral researcher. To learn more about the perspective of junior
scientists, I additionally interviewed a PhD student. Except for the
post-doctoral researcher, all interviewees were male. In the molecular
biology laboratory, however, it was impossible for me to interview all
or most group members. Therefore, I chose to interview at least one
researcher from each level of hierarchy and to include at least one female
perspective, eventually conducting four interviews with a male PhD
student, another male, a former PhD student who had just obtained
his degree, a female associate professor who in the group’s hierarchy
formed part of the mid-level, and the group leader. All interviews lasted
between 40 and 90 minutes and took place in interviewees’ offices or,
if available, the group’s dedicated meeting room. Only the two PhD
students from the molecular biology laboratory were interviewed in a
university canteen.
To prepare for interviewing, I conducted two pilot interviews outside
the two selected research groups and which provided a testing ground
for my questions. When I later had familiarized myself with the selected
research groups through extended observation, I began to interview group
members. The shift from observing to interviewing was significant, since
 3.3 Interviewing Scientists 47

it implied a shift from a rather passive role in which I could keep my

observations to myself to a role in which I structured the exchange
between myself and the scientists more openly.
My approach can be described as “theory-generating expert interview-
ing” (Bogner & Menz, 2009, p. 47f.). Nevertheless, I do not perceive
of my interviewing as the kind of expert interviewing that is geared
towards particularly informed, exclusive or elite perspectives on scientific
practice (as, for example, suggested by Zuckerman, 1972). Instead, I
approached every interviewee as being “expert” in his or her individual
daily professional practice, notwithstanding age or reputation. I employed
a semi-structured question format for the interviews (Fontana & Frey,
2000, p. 653). Each time I used an interview guide with about 15
questions on it, which, over time, I slightly but not substantially adapted.
Sometimes I asked the questions I had prepared literally; other times I
reformulated them ad hoc so that they would not interrupt the conver-
sational flow. Often, I would change their order by skipping questions
that were brought up by interviewees themselves or that did not apply.
When, for example, a PhD student told me that he had not yet written a
journal article, I would not ask him about collaborative writing processes.
My role in interviewing was moderately directive, allowing for detailed
descriptions and digressions but guiding interviewees toward certain
topics and questions. As I had observed most interviewees at their work
beforehand, we could relate to specific persons, incidents or articles in our
interview in order to illuminate more general points.
Interviewing is a method of data generation with an in-built verbal
bias, privileging explicit reflection. On the one hand, the inexplicable
and tacit can be difficult to access in interviews; on the other hand,
the expectation to explicate themselves and the conversational dynamics
between interviewer and interviewee may result in over-verbalizing and
creating interview artifacts and ad hoc interpretations that tell more
about the interview than about its subject. In my work, I have addressed
these challenges by conducting multiple interviews, bringing each distinct
individual perspective to the fore, and combining interview data with data
gathered through observation.
From my experience, I conceive of interviewing as a dialog, a situated
co-construction between interviewer and interviewee (King & Horrocks,
48 3 Method

2010, p. 134), a discursive activity that forces individuals to face the

“otherness” of their interlocutor in a process of dialectical negotiation.
As Schostak points out:

The interview […] is a place where views may clash, deceive, seduce,
enchant. It is as much about seeing a world—mine, yours, ours, theirs—as
about hearing accounts, opinions, arguments, reasons, declarations: words
with views into different worlds. (Schostak, 2006, p. 1)

At the same time, for both interviewed scientist and interviewing

philosopher, the interview is a compressed confrontation with their own
work: for the scientist, because she is asked about her work; for the
interviewer, because it is a test of the fruitfulness of her research question.
Interviewing mobilizes intellectual resources of both interviewee and
interviewer. Both have their own knowledge about the phenomenon in
question, be it previously gained theoretical knowledge or practical expe-
rience, and both kinds of knowledge are necessary to establish an interview
relationship between them. Hence, interviewing can be understood as
mediation between different stocks of knowledge and experience. While
the philosopher-interviewer draws on his or her conceptual discourses,
the interviewed scientists will be asked to mobilize their professional
experience in answering them. Interviews are thus a space where theory
and experience, the abstract and concrete, meet through actual dialog.
The concept of co-construction enables one to make sense of the funda-
mental asymmetries involved in interviewing: the interview is jointly, but
asymmetrically, co-constructed.3 Any understanding of what an interview
actually is should take into account the fact that interview data originate
from a particular context. Interviews are unusual situations. They are
not part of everyday life, but interrupt daily routines and thus offer a

3
Yet, in contrast to, e.g., Hasu and Miettinen (2006) and Ellis and Berger (2003), my dialogical
approach carries no “interventionist” motivation. The concept of co-construction should not lead
the reader to believe that I have transcended the form of traditional interviewing—I certainly
have not. I have restrained myself to asking questions, elaborating on these questions and offering
reformulations. In single instances I have explained in simple terms how some philosophers would
think about the issue in question. I have not, however, confronted interviewees with an elaborate
description of my tentative, theoretically informed perspective.
 3.4 Structuring Empirical Insights 49

niche for reflections that otherwise might not occur. Both interviewer and
interviewee contribute to the interview, but they do so in very different
ways. Neither during nor after the interview can interview partners be
equal peers. Both of them are observers. During the interview, they
observe one another and interpret facial expression, gesture, tone of voice,
and implicit and explicit messages. But whereas the interviewer-analyst is
primarily listening during the actual interview, the interviewee remains
silent during the analysis process. The interpretation that is pivotal for a
philosophical study is the one made by the interviewing philosopher, and
in the end he or she comes to represent the co-constructed interview.4
Interviewing has been a pleasant experience. Most of my questions
were met with goodwill. The challenge for interviewing with philo-
sophical intentions lies, however, before the actual occasion. Preparing
good questions is a time-consuming task. Useful questions have to be
both meaningful to the interviewee and meaningful with regard to the
philosophical issues at hand. In my experience, asking practicing scientists
to take up philosophical theorizing does not yield results of the quality
desired. Interviewing is a co-construction, but its grounds have to be
carefully prepared by the investigator.

3.4 Structuring Empirical Insights

The qualitative data that I gathered through field observation and inter-
viewing had to be processed—sorted, stored, carefully transcribed, ana-
lyzed, interpreted. This section describes how I handled the gathered data
in the process of my analysis that enabled me to interpret observation and
interview data as empirical insights. On the one hand, my data analysis
needed to reflect my philosophical interests; on the other hand, I felt that
I needed to do justice to the depth and abundance of the empirical data
that I was able to gather. Therefore, I have chosen to code large parts of

4
The issue of representation has been dealt with comprehensively in anthropology, see, e.g., Denzin
(1994, p. 503). Interviewing philosophers represent the people who are participating in their study
and they should deal with this burden carefully, see Fine, Weis, Weseen, and Wong (2000).
50 3 Method

my data, that is, some of the field notes that I took during group meetings
and shadowing phases, and all interview transcripts.
Coding is a method of analysis that treats empirical data as text and
involves an analysis process in the course of which the data text is
segmented and reorganized. Being a term adapted from grounded theory,
‘codes’ are “[…] conceptual labels placed on discrete happenings, events,
and other instances of phenomena” (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, p. 61; see
also Alexa & Zuell, 2000, p. 306). To code means to index text passages
with descriptive or analytic categories that relate, if vaguely at first, to the
research interest. Indexing text passages allows the researcher to familiarize
him or herself with small data fragments. By breaking up a body of
text into manageable segments, describing those segments, unfolding the
information they convey, comparing and relating them, the researcher
reorganizes the data with regard to the research focus and is able to
interpret them as a response to the research questions (cf. Coffey &
Atkinson, 1996).
The formulation of codes can be guided by the intention to describe
data from the bottom-up, that is, with the conceptual resources inherent
in them, or by the intention to relate them to theory, that is, to the
repertoire of abstract concepts offered by the discourse in which a piece of
research is to be embedded. An example of a strongly theory-guided code
in my analysis would be “testimony.” Labeling different text passages with
this code, however, did not help me substantially in organizing my data
material, because the label “testimony” did not correspond very well with
the data that I had. I realized that the acts of informational exchange that I
was looking for were embedded in socio-epistemic relationships that were
better described as “dependence relations.” Therefore, I started to code
for “dependence” instead. This led me to distinguish two different forms
of epistemic dependence (see Chap. 7). An example of a code that was, at
least in the beginning, rather unconnected to my theoretical framework
would be “frustration.” While shadowing a PhD student, frustration
was a recurrent theme in his conversations with me. Clearly, this was
related to the high pressure to succeed, his anxiety about failure and his
understanding that he had been given a high-risk project as his dissertation
topic. His frustration, however, was also related to his work conditions. He
perceived his research group to be only a “little interactive,” a perception
 3.4 Structuring Empirical Insights 51

in sharp contrast to my observation that led me to reflect on my biases

as an observer and to reconsider the interplay between deliberation and
delegation (see Chaps. 5 and 6).
For my coding process, I did not formulate a template of codes prior
to the analyzing stage. When I had transcribed the data gained from
observing or interviewing (which forced me to go through my audio
records at a painstakingly slow pace), I began applying ad hoc codes
to semantic units in the text which seemed relevant to my research
interest. I have used both rather descriptive codes, which did not appear
to be theoretically relevant at first glance, and more interpretive, theory-
inspired codes to label and organize text passages (cf. Strauss, 1987, p. 33f.;
King & Horrocks, 2010, p. 153). At certain stages, I put existing codes into
a systematized order. This helped me to envision new, complementary
codes to match the existing ones. In between coding cycles, I went
back to the data in their raw, unprocessed form. Such repeated phases
of unstructured immersion ensured that I did not lose touch with the
original data. After I had skimmed through scribbled field notes again,
and relistened to the original audio files, I wrote encompassing case
descriptions and composed characterizations of single interviews. In part,
these descriptions form the basis of the portrayal of selected interviewees
in Chaps. 4 and 5.
From coding and less structured immersion phases, I proceeded to the
formulation of broader, more general categories which I call “themes.”
Thematic analysis is a generic technique of analysis in qualitative research
(Attride-Stirling, 2001; Boyatzis, 1998; Charmaz, 2000).5 Themes ideally
resonate both with the investigator’s interest and with the concerns of
the people studied as expressed in the gathered data. In general, a theme
“[…] captures something important about the data in relation to the
research question, and represents some level of patterned response or
meaning within the data set” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 82). Whereas
codes pertain to the micro-level of analysis, the focus on themes enables
the analyst to draw a bigger picture. From iterative cycles of coding that

5
For a critique of thematic analysis, questioning the representational status of themes, see Gomm
(2004, p. 196).
52 3 Method

were paralleled by my study of the literature from social epistemology

and philosophy of science, two codes, “trust” and “epistemic dependence,”
emerged as broader themes in my analysis. These themes later became the
basis for the discussions outlined in Chaps. 7, 8 and 9.
I understand the analysis that I have conducted as moderately theory-
directed “editing” (Crabtree & Miller, 1992, p. 18), a form of qualitative
analysis that is little formalized and has allowed me to flexibly follow
various interpretive trails that connect empirical insights with philo-
sophical concepts. Iterations of sequential, often theory-guided, coding
helped me to mediate between philosophical interests and the existing
abstract conceptual repertoire on the one hand, and the concrete empirical
observations that I made in the fieldwork and interviews on the other
hand.

3.5 A Short Note on Writing Empirical

Philosophy
There is no philosophical genre yet which encompasses empirical studies
in the social epistemology of science, and I could not resort to an estab-
lished scheme into which I could have molded my writing. In working
upon this book, I therefore have had to solve challenges concerning
not just its content, its method and argument, but also concerning the
narration of content.
To write as an empirically immersed philosopher means to be con-
stantly caught between two spheres, between the abstract and the con-
crete, between abstract concepts and the locally observable, between the
technical and the quotidian. It means to focus on empirically observable
phenomena on the one hand, and to follow the trails of philosophical
thought on the other, thereby exploring each of their subtleties and
making visible how one bears upon the other.
Writing qualitative empirical research comes with a commitment to
detailed observation, but also with the responsibility to guard the interests
of the people studied. When presenting my empirical data, I have decided
to refrain from describing research details that could compromise the
anonymity of the scientists that have participated in the study. To this end,
 References 53

I have modified descriptions and interview quotations where necessary.

Furthermore, all persons that are mentioned in the empirical material
have been given pseudonyms. My choice to refer to the scientists studied
by their first name reflects the rather informal workplace culture in
Denmark.
When writing about empirical research for an audience of philosophers,
you have to find a way to meet, if not entirely adopt, the expectations
of style in philosophy. Social epistemology and philosophy of science
are dominated by analytic approaches, and one of analytic philosophy’s
prime achievements is that its language is abstract and elegant, often
slick and clean. Philosophy tends to speak with a rather authoritative
voice. However, the gradual exploration of empirical phenomena with
the help of qualitative methods, however, gives a more mixed, tentative
picture that is gradually corroborated. Furthermore, qualitative empirical
studies engage the investigator as a social, corporeal individual and as
an instrument (Osbeck & Nersessian, 2015). Therefore, reflections on
the role of the investigator and his or her embodied interactions with
the field are essential. This reflective style is not easily reconciled with
the impersonal, often bold, style of writing which is state of the art in
philosophy of science and epistemology.
As the reader will notice, I have found a slightly different balance
between philosophy’s analytic style and the style of qualitative research
in each chapter, placing emphasis sometimes more on the concrete,
sometimes more on the abstract.

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 4
The Planetary Science Group

The strength of our group is that we’re experts in particular fields and
all come together with our own expertise and we try not to step on
each others’ toes.
Adam, interview, group1

The first group that I have studied empirically through observation and
interviewing is the planetary science group, which is a small but long-
standing interdisciplinary collaboration among senior researchers and
their graduate and post-graduate students. The group examines extra-
terrestrial surface processes and combines expertise from geology, physics,
chemistry and microbiology. Having searched for interdisciplinary col-
laborations at Danish universities online, I contacted the group in 2010
and soon began to observe their weekly meetings on Tuesday mornings.
Later I shadowed individual group members, following them through
their professional days. When I had familiarized myself with the group, I
set out to interview the five scientists that formed the group’s core at the
time of my investigation.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 59

S. Wagenknecht, A Social Epistemology of Research Groups,
New Directions in the Philosophy of Science,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-52410-2_4
60 4 The Planetary Science Group

This chapter portrays the planetary science group and illustrates at the
same time how I familiarized myself with it, providing examples of the
empirical data I obtained. Section 4.1 describes the group meetings where
my observations began. As it turned out, these are crucial for the group’s
functioning and continually interweave individual research interests into
a collaborative experimental practice. Section 4.2 abstracts from my
situated observations and describes the group more systematically. Finally,
Sect. 4.3 draws on two of the interviews I conducted to provide a more
nuanced portrayal of the group from the personal perspective of its
group members. The interviews are not only deeply personal accounts
of sentiment and experience—they also touch upon a range of issues that
are crucial to discussions of scientific practice in social epistemology. The
interviews, thus, provide a first glimpse of what it means to wrestle with
epistemological problems, problems of epistemic dependence and trust in
professional practice.
This chapter, as well as the following Chap. 5, provides the background
against which the data that I refer to in empirically informed arguments in
later parts of the book gain significance. With its main focus on qualitative
empirical data and the way in which I have gathered them, these two
chapters may be an unusual read for many philosophers. Regarding
content, but also regarding tone and style, these chapters do not abide by
the conventions of writing that dominate analytic philosophy of science
and social epistemology. Once I have laid out the empirical foundations
upon which my reasoning rests, however, later parts of the book return to
a way of writing closer to the conventions of analytic philosophy.

4.1 Tuesday Morning Meetings

Not only did I start my empirical observations in weekly group meetings,
it also became clear to me over time that the effective functioning of the
planetary research group hinges upon these meetings. To provide a vivid
impression of these meetings and how they proceed, but also to show the
kind of empirical data that I gathered at the beginning of my field work,
I will present fragments of edited field notes in this section. These edited
notes are based on handwritten notes which I took while in the meeting
 4.1 Tuesday Morning Meetings 61

and which I later rewrote so as to make them accessible to people other

than myself.
Despite my editing, however, these field notes remain fragments,
their nature reflecting the challenge that anyone faces who empiri-
cally observes ongoing research practice—the difficulty of understanding
observed events as elements of a complex scientific undertaking, which
unfolds on a trajectory reaching back to the past and extending into the
future, which integrates past experimental results, setbacks, previously
gained expertise and collective research traditions with visions of exper-
imental results to be gained, visions of experimental success and future
research. Given this difficulty, my field notes cannot attempt to provide
an instructive, comprehensive description of what a research group is and
does, and they are far from being consolidated enough to contribute to
a philosophical account of scientific group collaboration. These notes are
no more than the humble beginnings of empirical work.
What you read in the following are edited and shortened field notes
from one particular group meeting at the beginning of 2011. As in all
meetings in the planetary science group, this particular meeting was
organized and chaired by Laurits, the group’s geologist and spokesperson.
Apart from Laurits, three graduate students, the group’s technician and
three senior scientists, among them two physicists and one chemist, were
present at this meeting:

Shortly before nine Laurits opens the door to a small meeting room. He
leaves his keys in the lock and takes a seat. Laurits always takes the seat
right next to the door; he is in fact the only person that always sits in the
same chair. He has brought with him a pile of documents, which he spreads
out in front of him. […]
Shortly after nine two senior physicists, Adam and Rasmus, the group’s
technician and three doctoral students arrive. One of them, Lucas, is
attending the meeting for the first time. He has just started his four-year
dissertation project in microbiology. His supervisor, Victor, cannot attend
the meeting, because he has conflicting teaching duties. Another of his PhD
students, however, is present today and she now introduces the new PhD to
the group. They all shake hands. Christoffer, the group’s chemist, arrives.
Since there is no seat at the table left, he chooses an armchair in the corner
of the room.
62 4 The Planetary Science Group

The first point on Laurits’s agenda deals with a “shaking device” that he
wants to have installed within a bigger instrument. Nikolaj, the technician,
has apparently contacted a number of companies to find out where they
could buy such a device and how much they would have to spend on it.
Shaking tables that move horizontally are commercially available. Nikolaj
would have to modify these so that vertical moves are also possible. Laurits
thinks that such a modification would be a good solution, whereas Adam
disagrees. He questions the resilience of horizontally shaking devices with
regard to vertical movements. Adam is in charge of the instrument and
his opinion is crucial. Therefore, they do not settle the issue for the time
being. Nikolaj is asked to develop a different idea for building a shaking
device in cooperation with the companies from whom they might purchase
the device. On this occasion, Laurits also asks Nikolaj about the price of a
cooling plate that they have agreed to order. […]
Laurits asks Christoffer about the results of an experiment that he has
finished recently. They aren’t good, but Rasmus insists that some time
ago they produced reasonable results with a very similar experiment: “It
was little, but significant.” Christoffer agrees, Adam doesn’t. They try to
remember the exact details of the experimental set-up they used in the
earlier experiments. “Anyway,” says Adam, “we could put it on the list.”
By suggesting to ‘put it on the list,’ Adam proposes to repeat the original
experiment. They all agree that it would be worthwhile to perform this kind
of experiment in a number of variations, again at a later date. And Rasmus
mentions in this context that he just ordered some more experimental
materials for another experiment that they planned to carry out soon as
well.
During the remaining time they talk about a potpourri of minor issues
that are mostly brought up by Laurits. An application has to be finished.
Why not include a colleague from another department with whom they
used to cooperate? Instruments have to be built; tests have to be run. How
are the lab students doing? The Xrd-detector in the chemistry department
has been seriously damaged during the rebuilding and will thus not be
available for some time. They can, however, use an instrument in another
department. Their homepage has to be revised and a PhD defense has to
be organized. Maybe one of the censors could deliver a talk? “And,” Laurits
checks with a quick look at today’s agenda what still needs to be discussed,
“there is this project meeting in Norway. Someone should go there.” “Yeah,”
Adam replies, “someone should go there. I’ve looked into the program.
 4.2 Group Characterization 63

I think Victor should go there. He is the biologist.” Laurits has printed

out the workshop program and hands it around. Laura has a quick look
at it: “Oh, yes, I know these people. It’s really biology.” After studying the
printout Christoffer says: “But Adam, you are on the program.” “Yeah, but
if Victor goes I wouldn’t go. And I think it would be better if he went.”
“So,” Laurits resumes, “we should ask him about that. I will write him an
email.” After a while he adds: “That’s it for today.”
When the meeting comes to an official close, people have a casual chat.
The new PhD student, Lucas, is the center of the group’s attention. He is
asked to explain his project. Laurits wants to know how he is financed and
where he graduated. When the conversation is about to fizzle out, Lucas
turns to Adam: “I guess you are the guy that is responsible for the big
instruments.” “Yeah, if you have time we can go down and I’ll show you
around.” “Oh yes, sure. I have time now.”

When Lucas and Adam descend to the basement where the group’s
large simulation facility is installed, I join them. I know that in the
meantime Laurits will return to his office and write up today’s minutes.
At the bottom, he will list open to-dos, on which he will follow up at the
beginning of next week’s meeting.

4.2 Group Characterization

The planetary science group can be characterized as an informal inter-
disciplinary collaboration, driven by the good work relations that a
handful of senior scientists have established with one another over many
years. All group members study abiotic and/or biological processes on
extraterrestrial surfaces, and all of them have an interest in combining the
methods, concepts, literature and theoretical backgrounds from geology,
physics, chemistry and microbiology. Group members perceive their
collaboration as a success, and the group’s research is published in high-
ranking international journals.
Since the group was founded about 10 years ago, there have been
but few changes in the group’s core, that is, among those who regularly
participate in weekly group meetings. At the time of my observations, the
group consisted of five senior scientists and their students, doctoral fellows
64 4 The Planetary Science Group

and post-docs who are working on a topic closely related to research

on planetary surfaces. Usually, there are about two junior scientists
involved in the group’s activities. Of the five senior scientists two, Adam
and Rasmus, are physicists. The three others come from microbiology
(Victor), chemistry (Christoffer) and geology (Laurits). All of them are
hired on tenure by their respective disciplinary department and have
departmental teaching duties. All of them also have their own laboratory.
In administrative terms, they are not bound to the planetary science
group. And, in fact, for most of them the research that they conduct in
collaboration with other members of the group is just one, if an important,
aspect of their scientific work.
When the group’s core gathers during weekly meetings, group members
ask each other about the ongoing research and recent results, adapting the
length and level of detail according to the listener’s interest and his or her
understanding of the topic at hand. Often, a topic would not be of interest
to all participants. Nevertheless, group members usually do not conduct
parallel conversations until the very end of the meeting. The regular face-
to-face contact that weekly meetings facilitate is important because the
coordination of the group’s research does not follow any formal rules or
plans in any narrow sense. Rather, “it is one question leading to another”
as Laurits puts it (Laurits, interview, group1), and the group’s mode of
collaboration has to be understood as an open-ended deliberative process
for whose continuous and iterative character the group’s weekly meetings
are vital.
The group’s core is embedded in a wider network of collaborators
most of whom are located at different universities. The wider net-
work surrounding the group is amorphous and has unclear boundaries.
For example, the minutes of weekly meetings are emailed to about 40
researchers at other universities in the country and abroad. The group also
has cooperative relationships with other research groups in their field. And
even more importantly, each senior core group member has accumulated
his own personal contacts during his professional career. These contacts
can be, and in fact are, drawn upon for research group matters, although
they may be related to research interests outside the group’s focus.
The planetary science group is informal insofar as it does not constitute
an administrative unit within the university structure. It exists alongside
 4.2 Group Characterization 65

university hierarchies but is not part of them. The university administra-

tion acknowledges the planetary science group as an independent group
and allows it to keep an independent budget for research-related expenses.
The group also disposes of two dedicated laboratories that complement
the laboratory facilities to which each senior group member has access
through his respective department.
The smaller of the two laboratories consists of two adjacent rooms
opposite Laurits’s office where abiotic material samples are stored and
smaller instruments installed, among which are a high-temperature oven
and a self-constructed device called the “tumbler.” Below a casting chip-
board, the device consists of an old washing machine motor that spins a
wheel onto which shoe boxes can be mounted. Filled with sand samples
or similar materials, the tumbling shoe boxes simulate surface erosion
processes. Additionally, the group disposes of a much larger laboratory
space in the basement below the physics department.
In addition, the group has a large laboratory space in the basement
below the physics department where their central experimental
facilities, simulation tunnels, are installed. The simulation tunnels
are large submarine-like high-tech containers inside which planetary
atmospheres—their temperature, their chemical composition, their
winds—can be simulated. The tunnels have been designed and
constructed by the group. At the time of my study, Laura, a post-doc
and former doctoral student of the group, spends her time calibrating the
newer, larger simulation tunnel and is learning how to handle simulation
experiments under the supervision of Adam, one of the group’s physicists,
who is responsible for their maintenance and operation in collaboration
with Nikolaj, a crucially involved technician who works part-time for the
group.
The group has a decentralized structure, cultivating an egalitarian
group ethos and allowing group members to collaborate in changing
coalitions inter pares. There is neither a discernible hierarchy nor scientific
competition among the senior core members of the group, as each of them
has their own specific field of expertise. Accordingly, the group functions
without a leader in any conventional sense and has a spokesperson instead,
a role which Laurits has been fulfilling during recent years.
66 4 The Planetary Science Group

Laurits represents the groups—both internally, with respect to uni-

versity matters, and externally, with respect to outside contacts that are
not mediated through personal acquaintance. In addition to scheduling
and chairing their weekly group meetings, Laurits manages the group’s
research budget, coordinates joint funding applications and conference
attendance. His administrative tasks leave him with less time for research.
Therefore, in contrast to other group members, he is forced to dedicate
his research time almost exclusively to planetary surface matters. To be
closer to other group members and the group’s large basement laboratory,
Laurits has long given up his office in the geology department and
taken office space in the physics department. But although he carries
out a number of administrative functions and is crucial to the group’s
internal communication, he does not claim leadership with respect to
research. He has neither overall responsibility nor overall control or
detailed oversight.
Lastly, to conclude my characterization of the planetary science group
here, let me mention that there are varying accounts of the group’s
beginnings. Both Laurits and Adam, one of the group’s physicists, have
been involved in the planetary science group since it came into being
about 10 years ago—and both of them describe differently its beginnings
and the reasons for why it was formed in the first place. In my interview
with him, Laurits foregrounds the role of his personal, geological interest
in the research that the group carries out on extraterrestrial surface
processes. He describes how he happened to discover a soil, a material that
can be found in a place that is about a two-hour’s drive from the university.
As it turned out, this soil has unusual qualities and can be employed as
an analog for the kind of soils that, according to hypothesis, cover some
planetary surfaces.
Adam, in contrast, attributes the group’s foundation to a side interest
that a former physicist at the university had in the transport of small
particles by wind. To pursue this interest, this physicist constructed a
wind tunnel, a predecessor of the simulation tunnels that the group
was operating at the time of my observation. According to Adam, the
experimental potential of this first wind tunnel attracted the attention of
colleagues from different disciplines. Successful publications and funding
applications were written, and soon the cluster of collaborative activities
 4.3 Individual Interviews 67

that emerged around the wind tunnel morphed into a research group.
Since the wind tunnel facility and the experiments conducted with
it became more and more complex, Adam joined the group to take
responsibility for the day-to-day operation and the technical development
of the facility.
What the divergence in accounts of the group’s foundation shows is
how different group members approach the group and their interdisci-
plinary collaboration with other group members from the point of view
of their personal, disciplinary research interests. Despite this difference in
perspective, however, the planetary science group succeeds time and again
in interweaving individual research interests in a shared experimental
practice.

4.3 Individual Interviews

I conducted six individual interviews with members of the planetary
science group that were regularly present at group meetings during my
time in the field. To give a comprehensive impression of these interviews,
I present two of them in greater detail, offering a selective overview that
is organized to show my interview material in as much breadth and
variety as possible while highlighting aspects relating to my philosophical
interest. (Emphasis in interview quotes is always added by me.) What
these interviews convey are individual perspectives, offering the personal
experiences and opinions of practicing scientists. I will indicate which
reactions and thoughts their utterances have triggered in me and which
foreshadow the themes of epistemological significance that I will elaborate
upon in later chapters.

4.3.1 Adam: ‘I could work alone’

The conversation I had with Adam, a physicist, was one of my longest

interviews in the group. In contrast to the other interviewees, he is a native
English speaker and the interview quickly unfolded in a calm, but steady,
flow.
68 4 The Planetary Science Group

In Adam’s view, the simulation facility in the basement below the

physics department is crucial to the group and its research. Adam has
contributed substantially to the design and construction of their two latest
simulation tunnels. As it is his job to run this facility and assist others in
conducting simulation experiments, he is co-authoring a large number of
journal articles, contributing information about the experimental set-up
and adding to the interpretation of experimental data and the conclusion
of several papers. For this reason, he describes himself in the interview as
a “focal point” for other group members, a contact person for questions
regarding their simulation method. His responsibility for a complex
experimental facility means that his role could be perceived as mere
technical support. Therefore, he goes to some length to emphasize the
fact that he pursues his “own research”:

Originally I was I guess employed to run the [simulation facility] which

is – could in principle just be like a technical position where you
run a facility which is why I for many years had a technical type of
employment. However, I do my own research. I always have, from the
start I always did my own experiments. So, I have like at least two
roles.

It is important for Adam to underline his intellectual autonomy as

a researcher with a particular field of expertise. In this context, he
emphasizes that he, like other core group members, pursues his individual
research interests within the group and “on the side,” collaborating with
international colleagues outside the group. In that regard, he explains,
the planetary science group is “a kind of unusual collaboration,” as
group members “[s]ometimes […] do experiments essentially alone, and
sometimes it becomes very collaborative.”
The group members’ collaborative efforts, as Adam sees it, are not
driven by shared research interests: “[B]asically we have different interests
in [planets]. Like - life on [planets], that’s one question, but that isn’t the
central issue that I deal with. A lot of what I think that I do is – I would call
comparative planetology.” Adam goes even so far as to say that he pursues
his individual research interest “essentially on his own” and “together with
students.” His research interest as such, he explains, does not tie him to
 4.3 Individual Interviews 69

the group. “But it ties me to the [simulation facility],” he adds. Asked

whether he could, in the long run, do his research without the planetary
science group, he replies:

I could work alone down in the [simulation facility] in the lab doing my
physics things and still collaborate internationally with people. That would
work, but I think we would miss out on a lot of, we would miss out on a lot
of research and there are a lot of new avenues that have started up purely
because we are a bunch of experts all talking together.

Like Laurits, Adam underlines the important role that regular meetings
play and how they provide a forum for discussing recent findings, deciding
on the next experimental steps and agreeing on the outline of the
argument which is to constitute their next jointly authored paper. These
meetings also provide an opportunity to discuss different viewpoints
so that group members understand each other’s distinct disciplinary
perspectives and can explain to one another how they would interpret
the measurements that they have obtained. The back and forth between
explaining and understanding is an interactive process that has the func-
tion of bringing “[…] all up to speed, [so that] we’re all sort of knowing
the same sort of thing.” Such a common understanding forms the basis
of collaborative experimentation.
To underline the role of such a common understanding, let me refer to
an episode in the interview where Adam describes an incident of severe
disagreement with a collaborator outside the group’s core. While it is
usually not a problem to agree on a jointly authored paper, a couple of
years ago members of the planetary science group were in disagreement
with an outside collaborator, who refused to accept the conclusion which
the group had reached on the basis of various measurements, some of
which he had taken. As a consequence, he asked to “take his name off the
paper” and the remaining authors had to find a colleague with a matching
field of expertise who could step in. “[I]t’s sad when that happens,” Adam
tells me, “but it’s kind of rare. It doesn’t happen a lot—not to us anyway.
And it doesn’t happen in-house.” This is because “[…] if we disagree with
the conclusions of it, then we would – we do some more measurements
until we, we’re sure.”
70 4 The Planetary Science Group

The group offers its members the opportunity to engage collaboratively

in an “ongoing research line,” as Adam formulates it. There is a continuous
discourse among group members and a continuous trail of collaborative
experimentation, even though not all core group members are necessarily
involved at one point in time. The biologists, Adam points out, have
a different experimental rhythm, one of the reasons being that it takes
them much longer than anyone else to prepare their organic samples.
Still, their frequent and regular face-to-face contact allows them to “[…]
perform ongoing research in a way that you can’t do with [an outside] long
range collaboration.” With outside collaborators, Adam usually works on
“well-formulated projects” that are likely to carry a short-time reward in
the form of a joint publication. Inside the group, “[w]e could just try
something a little bit crazy and see what happens.” Like Laurits, Adam
describes the collaborative practice within their group as a process in
which one question leads to another: “[W]e think this, but we’re not sure,
I mean it could be this or this and how do we show which one of these it
is? And then you start talking about experiments.”

4.3.2 Laura: ‘You have to be a knowledge base on

your own’

At the time of my interview, Laura is in a transition phase. She has just

obtained her PhD in physics for a dissertation on planetary science that
was supervised by Adam and Rasmus, and now she is about to be hired
as a post-doctoral researcher. Laura is trained to operate the facility on
her own, but it will take at least another year until she will work without
Adam’s immediate help. Her reflexive awareness impresses me and I am
delighted by the clear and determined formulations she finds for her
experiences in an interdisciplinary research environment.
Laura emphasizes that the planetary science group has been very
valuable for her. The group offers “a center of focus for [your] studies”
and is a reliable source of both financial and administrative support as
well as expert advice from scholars in related fields: “so, I know that I from
these people can get different views on the same things and I get a lot of
 4.3 Individual Interviews 71

help, at least that’s what I’ve used all of it for.” Help from scholars with
a different area of expertise is essential, she underlines, because planetary
science as a research field necessarily involves a scientific perspective that
spans across the many narrow specialized niches covered by individual
scientists. Therefore, two particular kinds of knowledge are to be acquired
in interdisciplinary research. On the one hand, Laura, contrary to Laurits,
points out that group members learn from each other about each other’s
fields, particularly with respect to aspects specifically relevant to particular
experiments such as, for example, the choice of materials and instruments.
This knowledge is highly context dependent. On the other hand, group
members learn “what [they] can use each other for,” that is, to gain an
understanding about “the field of expertise [they] each have.”
Laura has been involved in interdisciplinary science not only at the
planetary science group, but also as a participant in a larger international
research project. Planetary science is an interdisciplinary field and charac-
terized, as she tells me, by “[…] the fact that the areas of interest are very
separate.” Although they “overlap” in their common interest in planetary
surfaces as an empirical phenomenon, scholars in the field and members of
the planetary science group in particular “[…] don’t do the same things,
we haven’t been trained to do the same things, we haven’t been taught
to think in the same ways and that can actually be quite a hindrance
sometimes.” As an example, she tells me about the difficulties faced by
scientists from the international research project in which she participated
when they talked about atmospheric particles:

[…] One of the things I found problematic, for example in the [interna-
tional project], we had of course both geologists, physicists, atmospheric
chemists, just talking about for example particles in the atmosphere, getting,
just getting around the fact of what, what do we call the different particles.
Are they sand? Are they dust? Is it silicates? I think we spent three months
coming up with a definition of what size particles are what, because it
turned out that everybody had their own system of size determination of
particles. […] So sands and grains and dust was defined in three or four
different ways, just within the about 50 or 100 scientists that were on [the
international project].
72 4 The Planetary Science Group

Interestingly, Laura has made these observations not within the plane-
tary science group but in an international project whose participants had
not worked closely together before. This, along with other remarks that
she made, suggests that the planetary science group has successfully gone
through a phase of interdisciplinary familiarizing. All group members have
developed a common “general understanding” of planetary surfaces and
this understanding must have been established, Laura tells me, before she
joined the group more than four years ago. Yet, when I ask her whether the
group shares not only a common understanding but also a joint vision, it is
one of the few moments where she hesitates and then answers that “[…]
there is definitely a shared vision of wanting to understand [planets],”
an “overall sense of direction,” but that she cannot specify this sense any
further:

[…] every person in the [planets] group probably has their own, will have
their own interest in [planets] in some respect—ahm, whether you can say
that there is a more narrow perspective for the […] group combined, I don’t,
off the top of my head, I don’t really know.

To explain her experience of group collaboration, Laura repeatedly

refers to a particular term—“knowledge base”—which has its roots in
information technology. There, a knowledge base designates a repository
which provides a means for the accumulation of information on a
particular topic such as an operating system. Typically, online knowledge
bases contain frequently asked questions (FAQs) and tutorials. Users
consult a knowledge base as a manual that, unlike ordinary instructions,
is tailored to the problems and issues they are likely to encounter. Thus,
when Laura brings up the term “knowledge base” she implies a relational
understanding of knowledge possession and expertise, emphasizing that
in group collaboration knowledge is called upon dialogically—those who
possess knowledge provide in reaction to the questions and the knowledge
needs that their collaborators express.
Interestingly, Laura refers to the term “knowledge base” both in relation
to research groups and in relation to individual scientists. When she,
for example, compares the planetary science group with another, larger
research group in the field, she explains that “[…] the more people you
 4.3 Individual Interviews 73

have, the better opportunity you have of having a group that has a wider
knowledge base.” At a different point in the interview, however, she also
mentions that the core employees of a group, as in fact any senior scientist,
can be described as a knowledge base in themselves. As she explains to
me, as a post-doctoral researcher, you are “[…] seen as a knowledge base
in yourself,” that is, “[y]ou have your own area, start developing the area
where you become the expert.” As she is becoming a post-doc herself, she
sees herself confronted with the challenge of developing and consolidating
the kind of expertise she has to have autonomously— in herself —in order
to respond to the knowledge needs of her interdisciplinary collaborators.
To conclude this chapter, let me point out that the concerns for
professional autonomy in the interviews I have led with Laura and Adam
are present in the interviews with other members of the planetary science
group as well. Like other group members, Laura and Adam seek to
build and retain a distinct disciplinary identity alongside interdisciplinary
collaboration, thereby cultivating a sense of autonomy in the midst of
thoroughgoing collaborative dependence. The next chapter begins to
elucidate how these concerns play out in a molecular biology laboratory,
a mono-disciplinary research group.
 5
The Molecular Biology Laboratory

They all came to my lab, because they sort of respect what we do and
what we can do for them.
Johan, group leader, interview, group2

Drawing on professional contacts that my supervisor happened to have,

I began extending my fieldwork to a second research group—a research
laboratory in the field of molecular biology that differs from the plan-
etary science group in its mono-disciplinary orientation, its hierarchical
structure and its size. The molecular biology laboratory is led by Johan,
an internationally accomplished expert in the field; and it comprises
about 35 people, most of whom are graduate students and post-graduate
researchers who have spent only a couple of years in the group, col-
laborating with fellow group members, broadening their knowledge of
experimental techniques and trying to make a name for themselves with
high-ranking publications. Many of them see the laboratory, and the
research collaboration it facilitates, as a springboard to an academic career.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 75

S. Wagenknecht, A Social Epistemology of Research Groups,
New Directions in the Philosophy of Science,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-52410-2_5
76 5 The Molecular Biology Laboratory

To introduce the molecular biology laboratory, Sect. 5.1 describes the

group’s weekly meetings where my empirical investigations, again, began.
Section 5.2 provides a comprehensive characterization of the molecular
biology laboratory and the collaborative scientific practice it facilitates.
Section 5.3, finally, presents two of the interviews I have conducted with
group members to offer a more nuanced view of the group from individual
perspectives.

5.1 Wednesday Mornings

The group as a whole gathers each Wednesday morning for the so-
called “lab meeting.” As with the planetary science group, I started my
empirical observations by attending these weekly meetings. Witnessing
these meetings on a regular basis, I quickly became aware that they follow
a rather rigid structure.
The first part of their weekly meetings deals with organizational and
technical information. Johan, the group leader, brings up important
funding and research deadlines, announcing conferences, workshops,
lectures and relaying news on administrative matters. Next, he would turn
to “lab matters” and have technicians inform everyone about the purchase
of supplies and equipment, and remind them about security guidelines
and cleaning duties. Thereafter, group members, usually post-docs, report
instrument breakdowns or software problems. The second part of their
meetings is dedicated to the discussion of experimental problems and
research results. When I started observing their meetings, Johan had
just introduced a new routine. Given that he has less and less time for
individual supervision, for each meeting Johan now schedules three or
four of his students and post-docs to present their current work with a
short slide show, reporting on preliminary findings and their plans for the
next couple of weeks.
The following field notes were taken during one such lab meeting, the
second meeting after the summer break during which many lab members
were absent.
 5.1 Wednesday Mornings 77

The meeting room is slowly filling, around 20 people present, less than usual
during semester times. People appreciate the opportunity to chat before the
meeting starts. Some of them haven’t seen each other for a while, because
they were on holiday or have been visiting other laboratories. I overhear a
PhD student asking another: “Hey, what about the results you had? I’d like
to know.”
Shortly after nine o’clock, Johan appears, takes his seat, welcomes every-
body, and without much ado begins talking about a funding proposal he is
busy writing and for which he will need input from various group members
during the coming days. Then, in his rather abrupt manner, he announces
“lab matters” and quickly walks through a range of topics. He mentions two
new PhD students who will join their lab and a visitor who will arrive in late
autumn. Then he talks about their plan to move offices and lab space to an
adjacent building. The moving date is approaching. Johan says it is essential
that they “keep the coziness we have here, but to be at the same time closer to
the rest of the department.” He goes on to talk about a planned outdoor trip,
the yearly lab excursion in early October. He takes a look at the handwritten
notes he has jotted on the sheet of paper lying in front of him on the table.
The next point on his agenda concerns their lab equipment. There is a
problem with repairing an important instrument. Repairing this broken
instrument “has been a nightmare.” Other instruments that could serve as
a substitute have been moved around the lab building in the course of the
ongoing reconstruction process, so they are difficult to access. “In urgent
cases we can use the one in biophysics,” Johan says, “but currently we’re
using that one more than they are.” Then they talk about other instruments,
and discuss which ones they might want to purchase in the near future.
When it is time for individual research presentations, it turns out that it
is unclear whose turn it is to present today. Since no one has prepared a slide
show, and no one is volunteering to improvise ad hoc, Johan turns to a newly
started post-doctoral researcher. It’s only her first week in the laboratory, and
she reports that she has started working on a protein together with a PhD
student, trying to purify the protein and separate it from other compounds.
Unfortunately, the concentration of a substance in a dilution they use for
purification was too high, “so that we couldn’t observe any activity.” Johan
comments on this encouragingly: “We should definitely have an eye on
this.” Then he begins questioning a student who has just returned from a
lab at an American university. It turns out, the student reports, that specific
78 5 The Molecular Biology Laboratory

experiments that they have been trying to conduct in Johan’s lab earlier this
year (alas, unsuccessfully) had “worked over there.” They shortly discuss
possible differences in the experimental set-up. Johan closes this episode
with an optimistic remark, then asks: “Any other research summaries?” No.
But suddenly a spontaneous conversation among four people in the room
arises, involving the discussion of recent positive results that one of them
has been able to obtain in purifying a protein. As usual, I observe, their
discussion is a back and forth between a person whose experimental results
are discussed and her commentators whose questions typically follow a
distinctive pattern, trying to establish whether particular experimental
options have been tried and with what success.
Finally Johan, as always, asks: “Anything else?” They quickly talk about
planned trips to synchrotrons, experimental facilities in which the structure
of purified proteins can be tested. The booking of autumn time slots for a
beamline in a particular synchrotron is opening soon. Who is going there in
person? Who else should go, and whose samples can they take with them?
Then the meeting is over, and a half a dozen students are waiting to get hold
of Johan.

These field notes, as cursory as they are, are a first illustration of the
character of the molecular biology laboratory as a research group, its
hierarchical structure, the trial-and-error character of its research, research
that is highly specialized and focused on a handful of experimental
techniques.

5.2 Group Characterization

The molecular biology laboratory is a mono-disciplinary research group,
integrated into university structures as part of a section dedicated to
structural biology in the department of molecular biology. The molecular
biology laboratory comprises about 35 people whose work is dedicated to
revealing the structure of a set of proteins which perform specific functions
in bacterial, animal or human cells. The research that the laboratory
carries out is laborious and resource-intensive, and it comes with a high
risk of experimental failure and progresses through trial and error—
challenges that the group tackles with concerted collaborative effort,
 5.2 Group Characterization 79

grounded in a clear hierarchy among its members. In this respect, the

laboratory resonates well with existing research on collaborative scientific
practice in the field of molecular biology and the life sciences more
generally, strands of research I will refer to below.
The group is organized hierarchically, which mirrors the levels of
professional seniority that are present within the laboratory. Holding a full
professorship, Johan presides over the lab. One tenured associate professor,
three senior researchers with non-tenured positions and six to nine post-
doctoral fellows constitute a medium level of hierarchy. The laboratory
also comprises about 20 graduate students and undergraduate students.
At doctoral student level and below, the laboratory features an equal
gender balance, but fewer women are in evidence at the post-doctoral
level and above. Three technicians take care of the laboratory and another
three employees assist Johan in administrative tasks such as budgeting and
internal communication. Johan also functions as managing director of a
research center that comprises his own group as well as other research
groups.
Given the importance of group leadership, the molecular biology
laboratory is referred to by its members as “Johan’s group” or “Johan’s lab.”
As the group leader, Johan sets the scientific agenda. He formulates the
research directions for his lab for the next couple of years and oversees the
organization of financial, material, social and “human” resources in the
lab. He acquires funding and hires people; he schedules and chairs group
meetings. The purchase of new laboratory infrastructure and the use of
experimental techniques have to be approved by him. He coordinates the
group’s research activity, publishing strategy and dissemination activity.
Post-docs are, within a certain framework, free to choose their research
subject. PhD students, however, pick a predefined project or are assigned
one. Moreover, Johan is a gatekeeper for the group. Managing outside
contacts, he ultimately decides with whom in the field his laboratory is
competing and with whom it is collaborating.
Since much of Johan’s time is accounted for by research management
and administrative tasks, he has been forced to set limits to his “open door”
policy. During the week that I interviewed him he announced at the lab
meeting that if group members needed to speak with him it would be
best if they only came to his office in the afternoons, and that if they felt
80 5 The Molecular Biology Laboratory

they needed a longer conversation, they should book time via the online
calendar system.
Johan himself does not perform laboratory work anymore. Over the
last decade, his laboratory has grown constantly and he has gradually
withdrawn himself from the work bench. With respect to the day-to-day
supervision of undergraduates and graduate students in the laboratory, he
delegates substantial parts of his supervisory role to the more experienced
post-docs and senior researchers in his group, who are overseeing groups
of three to four graduate students and undergraduates. These subgroups
collaborate closely on a cluster of related, that is, structurally similar,
proteins. Each subgroup holds a meeting once a week, often with Johan
present, to take stock of their experimental progress and coordinate their
efforts for the coming days.
As a group leader, Johan likes to emphasize the common theme around
which all members of the laboratory work, namely the structural determi-
nation of a family of complex proteins that perform specific cell functions.
Yet, there is no one shared research object. Typically, every group member
pursues his or her distinct, individual project, which usually consists of
an attempt to determine the molecular structure of a particular protein
by crystallographic methods. From the molecular structure, then, conclu-
sions may be drawn concerning the protein’s molecular functions.
In general, all proteins are subjected to the same biochemical proce-
dures. First, cells containing the protein are selected or manufactured and
vast cell colonies are grown. Then, in various steps, the protein is isolated.
This isolation process is called “purification.” When a sufficiently large
and pure sample of the protein is obtained, it is subjected to conditions
that ideally induce its crystallization. In crystallized form, the protein can
be analyzed with the help of laser beams in a high tech facility called a
synchrotron. Some group members travel to synchrotrons all over Europe,
up to three or four times a year. In synchrotrons, laser light will be directed
at the crystal. When hitting the crystal, the light is scattered in different
directions. If one can detect patterns in the way the crystal diffracts the
laser light, one can model the structure of the protein.
Unfortunately, although all the proteins studied in Johan’s lab belong
to one family and thus resemble each other in both their structure
and function, different proteins are very particular in their biochemical
 5.2 Group Characterization 81

features. The dilution that works for one protein may or may not work
for another. Thus, the purification and crystallization of proteins is to a
large extent a time-consuming (and often frustrating) process of trial and
error. Knorr-Cetina hence describes the dominant experimental approach
in molecular biology as “blind variation” (Knorr-Cetina, 1999, p. 79ff.).
Every minuscule step in the purification of a protein can be performed
with a number of different chemicals, at different temperatures, at dif-
ferent times and with varying speed and length. A thorough literature
review can give ideas, but will hardly provide the researcher with a
successful “recipe” right away. Personal experience and informal access to
the practical experience of other group members is vital. The questions
are: What would be worth trying? What worked for others and is likely
to work in the case at hand? The scientific insights generated by research
in this area must, to a large degree, be described as knowledge concerning
the technical manipulation of biological objects such as cells, cell parts
and single molecular structures (Leonelli, 2009).
All scientists in the laboratory have an education in molecular biology
or pursue a degree in this field. This implies that most group members
have either roughly the same experimental skills and expertise or seek
to acquire them. Yet, the fact that the molecular biology laboratory
is a mono-disciplinary team should not veil the diversity of academic
biographies. All scientists working in this group can be regarded as molec-
ular biologists, but there is variation in expertise. Some PhD students
have a background in programs other than molecular biology, such as
medicinal chemistry or even theoretical chemistry, and some of them
have chosen to take courses in neighboring fields such as bioinformatics.
The variation in expertise continues at higher levels of seniority, although
differences in individual specialization tend to be more subtle here.
Post-doctoral researchers may, for example, specialize in proteins with a
particular molecular function that have to be cultivated in particular cell
environments.
It is essential for members of the laboratory to learn from one another,
acquiring tacit knowledge while working side by side at the bench in
the laboratory space they share. More than half of the group members
are students and PhD students who, under the immediate supervision
of a post-doctoral fellow, carry out large fractions of the experimental
82 5 The Molecular Biology Laboratory

labor. Not only students but all lab members have a permanent interest in
acquiring and improving the skill to master new experimental techniques.
Technological innovation in the field of molecular biology moves fast, so
that experienced as well as young researchers face the challenge of keeping
up with the state of the art in experimental techniques. Students start by
learning generic experimental routines; later on they proceed to complex,
highly technology-vested procedures.
Only through learning-by-doing in the laboratory can junior scientists
achieve the professional autonomy of an experienced researcher. To
achieve and maintain this autonomy is the learning goal of all group
members. Yet, laboratory practice is necessarily collaborative as it is
practically impossible for any one person to handle all experimental
procedures required in the pursuit of a specific project alone. These
procedures are extremely time-consuming and knowledge-intensive. For
the laboratory to run smoothly, group members need to help each other
with the planning, set-up and monitoring of their experiments, thereby
offering advice and counsel to one another.
But while scientific practice in the laboratory is highly collaborative,
it also features competition, both among group members as well as
between the group as a whole and other research groups elsewhere. First,
it is not unusual for several groups in one research community to work
on the same protein independently. The crystallographic determination
of protein structures is often perceived as a “race” in which scientists
compete with one another. While the discovery of a new protein structure
allows for a publication in the highest ranking journals, the confirmation
of a discovered structure receives substantially less attention. Therefore,
information about ongoing research given on university websites is often
outdated or intentionally vague. Research meetings are confidential and
unpublished information or material samples are only exchanged within
the laboratory or with collaborating groups whose research is complemen-
tary, not competing.1

1
For an empirical study on the balance between collaboration and competition in the Danish life
sciences see Poulsen (2001).
 5.2 Group Characterization 83

Second, there is a palpable element of competitiveness in relations

among fellow group members, particularly among junior scientists. The
ratio of junior and senior researchers suggests clearly that only some, not
all, junior scientists will be able to stay within academia. Consequently,
PhD students try to distinguish themselves with high-ranking publica-
tions. Journal articles have a high chance of being published in a high-
ranking journal if they report a hitherto undiscovered protein structure, a
finding that is usually the result of many months, if not years of research.
Since graduate funding is limited to a fixed period of time—either three,
four or five years, depending on previous qualification—junior careers are
a risky business.
In his study on research groups within the life sciences, Edward Hackett
has singled out the management of epistemic risks as a particular challenge
for groups and group leaders. The pursuit of “risky” research projects
is associated with reputation and fame. Investments in promising, but
highly uncertain, research tracks are appreciated. Therefore, “[…] it is
risky not to take risks” (Hackett, 2005, p. 805). Research groups can be a
way to address the risky character of experimental research. Collaborative
research practice allows group members to engage in more than one
research endeavor at once, thereby balancing the risk of failure.
Given the highly collaborative, yet competitive, character of scientific
practice in the life sciences, sociologist Ulrike Felt and collaborators
observe “the tensions emerging from the requests of being simultaneously
individually excellent and part of a collective” (Felt, Sigl, & Wöhrer,
2010, p. 4). Their study shows how young scientists are “carving out a
‘self ”’ from the collaborative relations they engage in when they create
a professional profile (Felt et al., 2010, p. 17). From a sociological
perspective, thus, Felt and collaborators raise issues that reach into the core
of my philosophical interest, namely issues of dependence and autonomy,
and they argue that the collaborative character of life science research poses
a challenge for scientists who need to establish independent careers—an
argument that, as we will see, underlies my interviews with members of
the molecular biology laboratory.
84 5 The Molecular Biology Laboratory

5.3 Interview Voices

In the following, I present two of the four interviews that I have conducted
with members of the molecular biology laboratory. As in the previous
chapter, this presentation is intended to provide a selective overview of my
interview data—and to convey, exemplarily, the individual perspectives
that different group members have developed on group collaboration.

5.3.1 Johan: ‘I’m the memory’

Johan has been group leader for many years, a period during which he
has accomplished significant scientific success and during which his lab
has significantly grown in terms of lab members, research volume and
in terms of the breadth of experimental techniques that lab members
apply in their research. Given this development, Johan describes himself as
retaining his “own sort of deep expert knowledge” within crystallography,
a set of experimental techniques that has remained at the center of the lab’s
research activity over the years; yet he acknowledges that the members of
his lab “[…] do a lot that I’m sort of less expert knowledgeable about,
but where for example the technicians, and most of the post-docs also,
are very knowledgeable.”
When asked about his leadership and the kind of work relations he
entertains with group members, he describes his role as group leader in
terms of “mentorship,” trying “to convince them of the good ideas” and
“discourage them from what you see as a bad idea.” When I want to know
more about “bad” ideas, he explains:

Yeah, [a bad idea] could be something where cost–benefit is really not good,
where you end up spending a lot of time and effort on something that in
the end doesn’t answer the question you want. Or starting a project that
isn’t sort of ripe, I mean in the sense that we end up spending a lot of time
on things we are not experts on. […] These are the kind of discussions as
a group leader one needs to take. Also, in terms of for example which kind
of equipment we use, and will invest in, which kind of new methods we
use. I think it’s important from time to time that we try and do new things.
 5.3 Interview Voices 85

[…] but we can’t change our lab too much all the time. It has to have a
balance, like, between conservative stability and innovation.

To strategically balance conservative against innovative research deci-

sions is what Johan sees as a crucial challenge, an element of his leadership
that he elaborates upon at length:

[…] so once a new idea or opportunity pops up, yeah well then one would
think well who can actually incorporate that. Either as a new project or
into [an existing] project, and then talk to these, go down the hallway,
or set up a small meeting with three people. Should we do this […] and
normally they are interested. Other times, if no one really takes the ball
and says well that’s not really—sometimes, one needs to be a little more
insisting. Because I mean everyone wants to sort of get along and produce
something but sometimes you need to invest also in trying something new,
that’s an important role where sometimes one needs to be a bit more sort of
an authority, saying: we gotta do this, right. So, that, finding that balance
is important I think. At the same time being an authority, at the same time
allowing the independence.

In weighing the authority that comes with seniority against individ-

ual independence, Johan seeks to create a participatory “lab culture”
that acknowledges the collaborative efforts that the lab undertakes as a
group—it is good for group members to have “individual goals,” but, he
underlines, “[…] the important thing is to let them understand that they
can reach even higher goals by working as a team.”
A recurring motif in the interview with Johan is his emphasis on caring
for the students in his lab: “[…] younger researchers have, often have
bright new ideas, but they can also actually be quite conservative in the
sense that they, they want to be sure that things work.” Therefore, Johan
sees it as his task to help particularly junior group members manage risks
of experimental failure. High-risk projects are important, but “[…] if it
doesn’t work, you get absolutely nothing, […] then we have some back-up
projects and we make sure that people in the end leave with something”
and acquire an acceptable record of publication despite all experimental
odds. Group members should not “[…] feel that they worked all this
way, and then they are just being screwed in the end.” Throughout the
86 5 The Molecular Biology Laboratory

interview, Johan is eager to convey that he regards his laboratory as an

“educational institution”:

I see it as a very important thing that what I do is to set out people for careers
in the future. Not only should I publish good papers, but we should also
publish really—no, no, sorry [laughing] produce or send out really good
people. And you get to realize also among the more senior scientists, they
actually also rate each other like that: are they good people, those people
coming from those labs?

Since many people pass through the laboratory, coming from and
moving on to other research institutions, Johan tells me, “[…] you need
as a group leader to really have a good eye on to be sure that procedures
and the science is really maintaining its high level.” If done right, “[…]
you have this fluent mass of people with a lot of expertise that all the
time maintains in the lab.” Given the constant arrival of new and the
departure of old group members, Johan is, apart from lab technicians and
administrative staff, “[…] the only one really continuing all the time –
I’m the memory, so to say, of the laboratory.” Yet overseeing the group’s
research has become challenging because of its growth, a development that
forces Johan to delegate to others his day-to-day supervision and hands-
on laboratory work. In order to manage a laboratory of this size, Johan has
“[…] set it up more formally, that we have groups and these individual
project groups meet with me and others, and I really encourage them to
meet of course anyways, whether I’m there or not.”

5.3.2 Martin: ‘The template was not there’

At the time of my interview, Martin is halfway through a three-year PhD

program. He earned his master’s and bachelor’s degree abroad, in his native
country. There, he met Johan a couple of years ago when the latter was
giving a presentation at Martin’s former university. As Martin recalls it,
he went up to Johan after his talk, they chatted and stayed in contact.
First, Martin came for a week’s visit to the lab, then for a whole summer
and finally he was hired as a doctoral student. From early on, Martin
 5.3 Interview Voices 87

showed interest in a high risk project, the structural determination of an

“orphan” protein, an oddly shaped one at the periphery of the family of
proteins that Johan’s lab is studying. Comparably less is known about
such proteins, and to determine their molecular composition requires a
sequence of experimental steps, each of which is fraught with experimental
insecurities.
In fact, Johan gave the project to him—but not to him alone, as
Martin learned later. When he started his PhD, he found to his surprise
that a newly arrived post-doc, Nanna, would be working on the same
research task. As Martin and Nanna pursue the same goal, they are
closely collaborating. In the beginning, they had to find out how to
organize themselves in order to avoid “inefficiencies” and “not to double
[…] work” unnecessarily. This has been complicated by the fact that
Martin is supposed to work on his dissertation. In his view, Nanna’s
understanding of what it means to write a dissertation is different from
the understanding that Martin developed through the time he has spent
in Johan’s group. According to Martin, Nanna, having graduated at a
research laboratory in another country, regards a dissertation rather as a
collection of experiments in which a student is supervised, but essentially
works alone:

[…] she cares a lot about my PhD which is extremely nice and she is always
kind of telling me that this is, “put this in your thesis” and so forth. In her
mind, when she started, was the thing that in your PhD thesis should be
only and exclusively your results. But what I experience here is that if you
collaborate, of course you state who, that it’s someone else’s, but you can
make a, make a coherent story with results from other people. And for a
while that was unclear, that was trying to do something, everything that I
did should have a coherent kind of storyline. And it was difficult kind of
not to double, then, work. So, […] we had some inefficiencies, and yeah,
we had to figure out kind of on the job. There was not really, the template
was not really there.

After some time, however, Martin and Nanna were able to agree upon
a modus operandi, a routine of synchronized, parallel experimentation
that has proven to be most “efficient.” As Martin explains, he and Nanna
88 5 The Molecular Biology Laboratory

“[…] do simultaneous things and then if any of us have success, start from
there and then split again.” In this manner, they explore experimental
alternatives at each of the steps that it takes to purify a protein for
crystallization. If one of them has obtained good results with a particular
badge—e.g. a particular chemical dilution—at a particular experimental
step, they share the successful badge between themselves and, again, take
it from there and purse parallel experimental tracks. Their shared goal is to
determine the structure of their orphan protein as quickly as possible—as
Martin emphasizes, “you want to publish, you want to get to the end.” For
the amount of time that Martin has at his disposal, this is an ambitious
goal, and he relies not only on close collaboration with Nanna, but also
on intense supervision and substantial help:

In the Danish system […] you have only three years of PhD. I don’t think
you have time for actual whole projects, stumbling on every step, doing all
the steps and having problems at all these steps to learn the techniques –
and be able to publish. […] So, […] generally speaking, you never know all
the techniques. So, whatever you do, you learn some techniques.

Therefore, Martin adds, “you want to be in an environment where there

is a lot of techniques available, so whenever you have a particular problem,
you can ask people to kind of supervise you.” Because the group is large,
Johan is not “[…] supervising us in a standard way,” and Martin relies to a
large degree on Magnus, an advanced post-doc who is leading a subgroup
on orphan proteins and whose experience in the isolation of these proteins
is crucial for the work of both Martin and Nanna.
Many experimental steps require pragmatic decisions—e.g., about the
concentration of dilutions—for which no detailed explicit guidelines
exist, therefore particularly younger scientists rely upon lab members with
more experimental experience:

The question always is why do we use 50 molar, 100 molar, like you don’t
know if 78 would be better. You just don’t have the time to test every small
detail. You have to go with, just things that work and just copy that. And
then, on top of that, you put what you understand is happening, what you
know generally about science.
 References 89

In dealing with epistemic uncertainties such as these, “luck” and

instances in which a colleague “stumble[s] semi-accidentally” over a result
can be components of experimental success; but just as important are the
sheer labor force, mutual help and a well-functioning laboratory: “it’s
very difficult to compete as a new person, but if you are here [in the
laboratory] you can actually, if you are lucky, you can go straightforward
with the routine techniques that we have here and actually get an excellent
publication. It’s possible.”
Let me conclude this chapter by pointing out that, for the two
research groups I have studied and whose members I have interviewed,
collaboration is the sine qua non of experimental scientific practice. As
I hope to have illustrated with the interviews presented in this and the
preceding chapter, by and large research group members perceive collab-
oration, and the relations of inter-individual dependence that it entails,
neither as a threat to their intrinsic individual motivation nor to their
professional autonomy as an established or aspiring expert in a given field.
Rather, collaboration is a means of consolidating, developing and enacting
expertise and pursuing individual interests. As this chapter makes clear,
however, there is a basic difference in the pursuit of individual research
interests between the planetary science group and the molecular biology
laboratory. While members of the former seek to establish themselves
as relative experts with distinct fields of expertise, members of the latter
seek to learn from one another, incorporating in detail the experimental
experiences that other group members have made. Only in this way can
they pursue their individual research interests.

References
Felt, U., Sigl, L., & Wöhrer, V. (2010). Multiple ways of being together alone:
A comparative analysis of collective and individual dimensions of academic
research in two epistemic fields (Preprint). Department of Social Studies of
Science, University of Vienna. Retrieved from http://sciencestudies.univie.
ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/dep_sciencestudies/pdf_files/Preprints/Felt_
Sigl_Woehrer_Together_Alone_preprint_Apr2010.pdf
90 5 The Molecular Biology Laboratory

Hackett, E. (2005). Essential tensions: Identity, control, and risk in research.

Social Studies of Science, 35(5), 787–826.
Knorr-Cetina, K. (1999). Epistemic cultures: How the sciences make knowledge.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Leonelli, S. (2009). Understanding in biology: The impure nature of biological
knowledge. In H. W. de Regt, S. Leonelli, & K. Eigner (Eds.), Scientific
understanding: Philosophical perspectives (pp. 189–209). Pittsburgh: University
of Pittsburgh Press.
Poulsen, M.-B. J. (2001). Competition and cooperation: what rules in scientific
dynamics? Journal of Technology Management, 22(7/8), 782–793.
 6
Division of Labor

Research groups divide the kind of labor that it takes to create scientific
knowledge among their members—cognitive labor, but also the manual
labor of experimental practice and the social effort that it takes for
a group member to interact. But how do groups divide labor? And
hence, what does an epistemological approach to the division of labor
in groups need to take into account? To answer these two questions,
I begin by revisiting social epistemology’s existing discussion about the
division of labor in science, a discussion primarily focused on scientific
peer communities (Sect. 6.1). Thereafter, I examine the division of labor
in the two research groups I have studied, the planetary science group
(Sect. 6.2) and the molecular biology laboratory (Sect. 6.3), providing a
comparison in Sect. 6.4. Based on these two cases, I will argue in Sect. 6.5
that an account of the division of labor in research groups has to differ
from existing community-focused accounts in four crucial respects in
which there is a need to: (i) focus on within-group differences in expertise;
(ii) consider both processes of differentiation and convergence; (iii) shift
attention from competition to collaboration; and (iv) consider scientific
knowledge in-the-making long before formal peer reviewing takes effect.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 91

S. Wagenknecht, A Social Epistemology of Research Groups,
New Directions in the Philosophy of Science,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-52410-2_6
92 6 Division of Labor

6.1 Philosophical Perspectives

Philosophers of science and social epistemologists have long analyzed the
division of “epistemic,” that is, knowledge-creating, labor within scientific
communities. More recently, philosophers have also begun to examine
aspects of division of epistemic labor when they examine inter-individual
exchange and scientific collaboration within research groups, building
upon accounts of epistemic dependence or group belief and collective
knowledge. To continue this line of philosophical inquiry, group-focused
perspectives on the division of labor in science should be able to relate to
existing, predominantly community-focused perspectives. But not only
do group and community-focused perspectives apply a different “zoom”
when they choose to foreground either micro or macro-phenomena, they
also approach the division of epistemic labor with different conceptual
emphases.
When philosophers of science and social epistemologists consider the
division of labor for scientific communities, they are typically concerned
with the ways in which socio-cognitive diversity at the community
level serves efficiency, the elimination of unwarranted bias and epis-
temic risk-spreading (e.g., D’Agostino, 2009; de Langhe, 2010; Kitcher,
1993; Solomon, 2006). Philip Kitcher’s work has pioneered community-
concerned approaches to this division of labor, and I therefore present
his account in some more detail. Kitcher (1990, 1993) explores how a
scientific community fares best when forced to choose between competing
theories or methods. When two rival methods or theories are on the
table, which one should the community choose? Put differently, how can
a community minimize the risk of scientific failure? Kitcher proposes
the division of “cognitive” labor (Kitcher, 1993, p. 344) as a means to
balance the epistemic risks attached to the method or theory choices.
It is not reasonable for a community of scientists, he argues, to endorse
only those options which appear most promising, that is, those which can
be assigned the highest probability of yielding scientific success. Instead,
scientific communities perform best when they divide the labor such
that different research options are pursued in competition (Kitcher, 1993,
p. 347).
 6.1 Philosophical Perspectives 93

With the help of mathematically formalized models, Kitcher discusses

how such a division of labor can be achieved in a community of individual
scientists who have to choose between different methods or theories
to invest themselves in. If these scientists were purely “epistemically”
minded, that is, if they only weighed scientific knowledge gains against the
resources that the creation of such knowledge requires, then, so Kitcher
argues, no broad division of labor would be achieved and the epistemic
risks would be poorly distributed among community members. For
individual scientists that take only strictly epistemic criteria into account,
Kitcher holds, it is not rational to invest themselves in anything other than
the theory or method option that has the highest probability of scientific
success. Assuming that all members of the community would converge
in their judgment of success probabilities, no division of labor would
occur. This, however, is neither desirable from a community point of view
nor actually observable in scientific practice. Scientists in communities
do divide the pursuit of different theoretical or methodological routes
among themselves, and they do so, Kitcher argues, because at least some of
them take into account “non-epistemic” or “social” criteria when deciding
which theory or method to pursue. They will consider not only the
probability of scientific success, which the adoption of a particular method
implies, but also the credit they could receive in the case of success. While
little credit is to be gained by following the mainstream, much is to be
gained in a group of vanguard outsiders. Given different preferences in
balancing the risk of failure against gains in reputation, Kitcher argues,
individual and community rationality can be aligned (Kitcher, 1990).
In the context of this chapter, two aspects of Kitcher’s account of the
division of labor on a community basis merit further discussion—its
notion of community and the role of not strictly epistemic triggers of
division of labor. Kitcher’s notion of community does little to support
analyses of group collaboration. Kitcher realizes that individual scientists
belong to what he calls “fiefdoms” (laboratories) (Kitcher, 1990, p. 17),
but he does not pursue this thought. Rather, he characterizes scientific
communities as a set of individual scientists, whom he conceives of as
independent, competing and rational decision-takers. Furthermore, he
argues that the social arrangement of science as a credit-distributing
94 6 Division of Labor

institution, as one that addresses not just purely epistemic ambitions,

triggers a desirable division of labor. However, to foreground institutional
incentives easily obscures which other knowledge-concerned conditions
may entail division of labor in science.
In fact, a number of philosophers have argued that the division of
labor does not require non-epistemic values, credit and prestige, nor
the mechanisms through which they are realized, to take effect. Instead,
the uneven distribution of epistemic resources, such as experimental
infrastructure, skill and expertise within a scientific community, may
incite different scientists to pursue different, competing lines of research
(Giere, 1988, p. 213f.). Moreover, differences in scientific background
assumptions will lead individual scientists to assess the probability of
epistemic success attached to theory and method choices differently
(Goldman, 1999, p. 257). In addition, the epistemic values at play in
scientific practice are, according to D’Agostino, sufficiently diverse and
ambivalent so as to “[…] exhaust the differences that we require to support
diversity in exploratory behavior and, hence, to spread risk” (D’Agostino,
2005, p. 205).
However, while community-focused approaches to the division of
labor in science focus on individual decision-making, they tend not to
consider the inter-individual relations that may be the trigger or result
of the division of labor at the group level. The division of labor in
inter-individual relations is, instead, considered by some social episte-
mologists in the context of epistemic dependence between experts and
relative laypeople (as, e.g., in Hardwig, 1991; Ruloff, 2003). Christopher
Gauker, for example, defines the division of epistemic labor as “a social
arrangement in which people benefit from the expertise that others possess
regarding subjects of which they themselves do not possess an expert
understanding” (Gauker, 1991, p. 303). In a similar vein, Goldberg (2011)
phrases the division of epistemic labor as a net of dependence relations
among individuals within a scientific community. While I elaborate on
the issue of epistemic dependence in scientific practice in Chap. 7, let
me note for the time being that these dependence-focused approaches
concern themselves primarily with isolated acts of inter-individual change,
largely leaving aside the contexts of collaboration and the social texture in
which these acts can be embedded.
 6.1 Philosophical Perspectives 95

New motives for the study of the division of labor at the group level
and its epistemic relevance for scientific knowledge creation have recently
come from accounts of research group collaboration. Yet, this strand of
literature is not concerned with the division of epistemic labor per se
but rather foregrounds the question as to whether collaboratively created
scientific knowledge should be considered “collective knowledge” (see,
e.g., Andersen, 2010; de Ridder, 2014; Matthiesen, 2006; Rolin, 2010;
Wray, 2001). Much of this literature developed out of the concept of
a “joint,” that is, irreducibly collective “group belief,” which Margaret
Gilbert proposed (Gilbert, 1989) and which highlights the moral aspects
of group collaboration, for example, elaborating upon the webs of com-
mitments and dependencies that can bind group members to one another.
I will discuss this literature in more detail in Chap. 9.
Many group-focused perspectives upon research collaboration display
a growing interest in the nitty-gritty of group collaboration, an interest
that is often pursued by means of case study. Let me briefly provide
two examples to illustrate the bandwidth of the empirical phenomena
that this literature has sought to deal with so far. Hanne Andersen
develops her account of joint acceptance with reference to a histori-
cal case study on research on induced radioactivity that resulted from
clusters of interdisciplinary collaboration in the 1930s (Andersen, 2010).
In contrast, when Kent Staley and William Rehg study a case of con-
temporary high-energy physics, they study research collaboration on a
much larger scale, involving the institutionally coordinated efforts of
hundreds of scientists (Rehg & Staley, 2008). Both Andersen as well as
Rehg and Staley, however, are ultimately less interested in the division
of epistemic labor among collaborators than in characterizing the kind
of consensus that collaborating scientists reach when they co-author
publications.
Against the backdrop of this literature, in this chapter I empirically
examine different patterns of division of labor in the two research groups
I have studied. Investigating the nitty-gritty of group collaboration will
show how far the existing notion of a division of epistemic labor, a
notion that has by and large been elaborated in reference to scientific
communities, can help articulating aspects of a social epistemology of
research groups.
96 6 Division of Labor

6.2 Complementary Collaboration

The division of labor in the interdisciplinary planetary science group,
I argue, is best understood as complementary collaboration—an ongo-
ing, open-ended collaboration in the course of which group members
cooperate inter pares in order to complement their respective expertise
in the pursuit of a cluster of differentially shared research interests. In
the following, I will characterize the practices by which members of the
planetary science group collaborate and divide labor among themselves,
namely by shared planning and framing, deference and witnessing, and
iterative deliberation. All three of these practices enable group members
to draw on their mutually complementary expertise, weaving their distinct
individual research interests together.
Two types of experiments are central to joint activity in the planetary
science group: experiments with the simulation tunnels in the group’s
large basement laboratory, and so-called “tumbling experiments,” upon
which I will draw to illustrate the group’s division of labor. In tumbling
experiments, small samples of quartz sand or similar material are bottled
and mounted onto an experimental device that the group’s technician
built to Laurits’s specification. The device, powered by a washing machine
motor, spins bottled samples in circles to simulate erosion processes caused
by wind. It is a shared assumption among group members that processes
similar to the tumbling of grains take place on planetary surfaces and that
these processes change the geomorphology of planets.
To provide a vivid illustration of the experimental practices I have
observed in the group, I refer to parts of a particular experiment in the
following. The experiment in question addresses whether and to what
degree hydrogen peroxide is produced when tumbled quartz comes into
contact with water. The presence of hydrogen peroxide is of biological
interest because it is known to have toxic effects on cells, though it is
also known that some, supposedly “old,” micro-organisms have developed
mechanisms to cope with its presence. Moreover, hydrogen peroxide is a
rather unstable compound that can trigger various geochemical reactions.
The decision to conduct these experiments was taken more than
a year before they actually happened. It was also decided that these
measurements would form part of a dissertation project in microbiology,
 6.2 Complementary Collaboration 97

which would be supervised by Victor. The measurements have eventually

been delegated to Lucas, a newly started PhD student. With the help of
Christoffer’s chemical expertise, Lucas has been developing a protocol for
the measurements needed during the past few months.
It is a November morning and the group meets as usual in the same
small meeting room with the large round table. All core group members
are present today—Laurits, Adam, Christoffer, Rasmus, Victor with his
PhD student Lucas, and Nikolaj, the group’s dedicated technician. When
everyone is seated, Laurits reports that two glass flasks with quartz have
been heated up to 110 degrees and are now sterilized. Laurits goes quickly
through a number of other things (a student, an application, an invoice, a
computer system, a new instrument), but then abruptly comes back to the
two flasks: “What to do with them now? They have been cooling down.”
It had been agreed earlier that the flasks have to be closed, one of them
will be vacuum pumped and both will be tumbled for the same period
of time, so that Lucas will be able to perform his hydrogen peroxide
measurements on them. Adam and Nikolaj discuss briefly how actually to
pump the air out of one of the flasks. Then, the conversation suddenly turns
away from experimental details.
As Lucas has begun drafting an article about his envisioned measure-
ments during the last week, he mentions that they need to talk about
the focus that the article should have. The subsequent discussion becomes
contentious. While some group members prefer a focus on the physical
details of the experiment and the chemical mechanisms which can be
measured by Lucas, others argue that an article with the character of a report
would not “sell” and they propose to interpret measurements with regard to
geomorphological processes which might have taken place on early Earth.
Lucas’s findings could be used, they argue, for a “back-of-the-envelope”
calculation supporting the formulation of a rough quantitative hypothesis
about the production of oxygen on Earth. Phrasing the article in this
manner, they may be able to place it in a high-profile journal. Christoffer
argues enthusiastically for this option. Other group members, however,
are rather skeptical of these suggestions and doubt that there is sufficient
reliable background literature to support any hypothesis about the role of
hydrogen peroxide in oxygen production on early Earth. Finally, Victor
suggests to include considerations of the early Earth’s geomorphological
processes, albeit with the proviso that “the story might actually be more
complicated.” The meeting comes to a close.
98 6 Division of Labor

After the meeting, they all gather in the lab opposite Laurits’s office.
With Nikolaj’s advice, Lucas takes two quartz flasks cautiously out of an
oven. The flasks are still very hot, and they transport them down to the
basement laboratory where they plan to vacuum pump them. Adam and
Nikolaj prepare the vacuum pumping and explain the process to Nikolaj.
Christoffer is also present. They talk loosely. Christoffer wants to know:
“Why did we actually never tumble in water?” Adam agrees: “That would
be very interesting. We could do that at some point. We should put it on
the list.”
Then, the vacuum pump is switched on. You can see the flask vibrating
lightly. Lucas takes pictures. They discuss the best way to switch off the
pump and disconnect it from the flask. The latter task will be taken care
of by the glass-blower who has just come over from his workplace in the
chemistry department and is now preparing for the task. Adam slowly
switches off the pump while the glass-blower carefully seals the flask just
above the base of its neck. Then they disconnect the pump and Christoffer
labels the two flasks. Nikolaj measures them. Lucas tells me: “After so many
days of work I’m so happy that we finally have the samples ready.” (field
note, group meeting, group1)

This field note describes a phase of close collaboration in the planetary

science group in which the respective research interests and the expertise of
group members—biological, geochemical and physical—are tightly inte-
grated. However, the field note also exemplifies that, since the planetary
science group is interdisciplinary, it is often not obvious to group members
how experiments should be conducted and how experimental results
should be framed for publication. Therefore, group members are forced
to discuss the planning and framing of experiments that they jointly carry
out at their weekly meetings in great detail, and sometimes controversially.
Not only do they discuss possible experiments, their design and the
outcome of their respective disciplinary viewpoints, it is also important for
them to discuss the framework of interpretation, that is, from which per-
spective should they argue for the relevance of their experimental results.
The framing of conducted experiments concerns decisions about “which
story to sell.” For which geomorphological, geophysical or biochemical
phenomena are the tumbling experiments relevant? After all, what do
these experiments reveal? How would different scientific communities
 6.2 Complementary Collaboration 99

interpret them? What broader theoretical context is of primary concern

here? What journals should the authors target for submission? Which
narrative would be appropriate for such an article? To which phenomena
of general interest should a possible article relate? And taking these things
into account, which further measurements and calculations are needed,
and which experimental standards have to be met?
Right from the start of experimentation, planning discussions and
framing negotiations are important for the planetary science group to
define, assign and coordinate experimental work. Apparent differences in
expertise between group members force them to rely upon each other, to
step back and defer experimental work to their collaborators. Nonetheless,
group members take an active interest in each other’s work. Deferring
labor to a collaborator is seldom an act of indifferent outsourcing. Rather,
when group members have a shared interest in experimental results,
deference is often complemented by enthusiastic witnessing, particularly
in the group’s dedicated lab facilities. Group members appreciate the
opportunity to witness and share experimental experience even though,
for pragmatic reasons, only one or two group members will actually carry
out particular experimental steps.
Iterative deliberation accompanies all steps of joint experimentation
in the planetary science group. The interpretation of ultimate, interim
and envisioned results, as well as the question as to when results are
actually definite and publishable—all this is a matter of open-ended
discussion, in the course of which a common vision of joint experi-
mentation (and jointly authored publication) is continuously negotiated.
While single experiments or experimental steps are clearly endorsed with
varying enthusiasm by different group members, methods and results
should eventually be acceptable to all participating senior core group
members. This acceptance evolves gradually in joint discussion in the
course of which different group members at different points in time
offer both their critical objections and their arguments for developing the
experiment in question further. Here, a lack of agreement does not lead
to dissent but ultimately reinforces group members’ collaborative search
for experimental results whose reliability, validity and interpretation can
be accepted by all core group members. In fact, the planetary science
100 6 Division of Labor

group has established a continuous mode of collaboration in which one

experiment, whether successful or not, leads to another experiment in the
future.
Through shared, open-ended discussions, deference and witnessing,
the planetary science group has adopted a pattern of division of labor
that reflects the interdisciplinary character of its research. Senior group
members possess complementary expertise, and they do not aspire to
acquire the expertise that their colleagues possess—“we try not to step
on each others’ toes,” as one member told me (Adam, interview, group1).
Each senior member seeks to carve out his or her niche within the group’s
research in a way that fosters collaboration with other members but
allows the pursuit of distinct, individual research interests at the same
time, continuously balancing research collaboration with professional
individuation and interweaving individual research interests into a shared
experimental practice.

6.3 Parallel Collaboration

The division of labor in the molecular biology laboratory is hierarchi-
cally structured, which reflects, by and large, professional seniority—the
laboratory’s senior scientists, most prominently the lab leader, delegate
tasks to junior scientists and supervise them. To organize this supervision,
lab members are clustered into subgroups, each of which is dedicated to
the study of a set of similar proteins. These proteins are purified and
crystallized to ascertain their molecular structure. Because much of this
work is hands-on, time-consuming and labor-intensive, most research
in the molecular biology laboratory is carried out collaboratively. Even
though the crystallization of a protein is, as a project, typically assigned
to one or two individual lab members, many different hands are involved
in the experimental routines that are necessary to determine a protein’s
molecular structure.
For a more detailed discussion of the lab’s division of labor, let me
present the empirical material that I gathered while shadowing Alex, an
advanced PhD student. The following field note describes an interaction
between Alex and Sylvia, a less experienced PhD student. Both Alex
 6.3 Parallel Collaboration 101

and Sylvia belong to a subgroup supervised by Magnus, an experienced

post-doc. They each work on their “own” protein but collaborate closely
during day-to-day experimental labor, helping one another out, offering
advice and discussing experimental issues. Since the proteins studied
within one subgroup are selected so as to resemble one another strongly,
subgroup members often rely on the same, or very similar, protocols for
their experimental procedures. As we will see, this enables them to share
material resources, such as certain dilutions to wash their proteins, which
have to be carefully prepared from scratch and whose composition has to
be fine-tuned to individual proteins.

His schedule leaves Alex a little more than half an hour to help Sylvia with
her “lipidization,” a specific experimental step in the purification procedure.
She has performed the step before, but she cannot remember the details of
it. After a look at her protocol, Alex discovers a mistake in the protocol
which she has formulated on the basis of Magnus’s directions. But since
she uses the dilutions Alex had prepared earlier for his experiments, not her
own, it doesn’t matter. She is lucky.
As a student, Sylvia was educated in theoretical chemistry and she is
not yet familiar with a number of standard procedures required for the
purification of proteins. Alex and Sylvia talk repeatedly about Magnus’s
protocol and how exactly she needs to perform certain procedures listed
there—e.g., that the sample should always be kept on ice, Sylvia! But how
do you handle the things in between the lines that differ from lab to lab and
from person to person? Alex: “So you have to ask different people, but not
too many different people. I think Magnus and I are semi-consistent.”
Alex is telling Sylvia what to get and what to do: ice, buffer, defrost the
protein. He does some calculations for her to get the right dilutions in the
right amounts. They do a dry run of lipidization in which he is showing
Sylvia each step. When she performs them herself on her protein sample,
he corrects her. Suddenly something is going wrong. There are too many
bubbles in the dilution with her protein. Their movements become hasty
as they try to fix the problem. Alex is proposing a number of options to
correct the failure, but she will anyway, as Alex explains quickly, “(a) have
too little sample for a good crystallization, because she will be losing some of
her protein by removing these bubbles; or (b), if you get crystals, they will
not be reproducible, because you deviated from the protocol too much.”
102 6 Division of Labor

Sylvia looks distressed. They try to remove the bubbles. “Once you are off
the protocol, it’s really shaky,” Alex comments. (Alex, field note, group2)

As this field note shows, the division of labor in the molecular biology
laboratory is not only a means of efficiently achieving experimental goals.
It is also a means of hands-on learning. The purification of a selected
protein has been assigned to Sylvia not because she would possess the
necessary expertise to carry out the necessary experimental procedures—
rather, it has been delegated to her to provide an occasion for hands-on
learning. To purify “her” protein, Sylvia has to learn how to do it,
and to do so she relies on Magnus’s supervision as well as on Alex’s
help. Delegation, help and learning are key elements in the mode of
collaboration that the molecular biology laboratory has adopted, and I
will discuss each of them in the following.
Delegation is the primary means of coordinating research activity in
the laboratory. What underlies delegation is the authority of scientific
expertise, and therefore research tasks are typically delegated by senior
lab members, that is, a lab leader or a subgroup leader, to less senior
lab members. The lab leader, for example, assigns students to specific
research projects and delegates their day-to-day supervision to the post-
docs who take on the role of subgroup leaders, who coordinate the work
of the junior students. In so doing, it is their responsibility to hold up
scientific standards and guarantee the quality of all experimental steps
performed. They do that by being present at the lab bench and making
themselves available for consultation during most of the day. They also
do that by enforcing a protocol, from which supervised junior scientists
are not supposed to deviate without their consent. Yet, despite the
hierarchical structure that underlies it, delegation in the molecular biology
laboratory is typically phrased as suggestion or advice, and embedded in
a participatory work culture.
Besides delegation, the molecular biology laboratory features many
other instances of division of labor which neither involve a gradient in
expertise nor authority. Often, labor is split up between group members
in a benevolent tit for tat—group members help each other. Help is vital
for the functioning of the laboratory, because experimental procedures are
complex and stretch over long hours.
 6.3 Parallel Collaboration 103

To help a colleague means to offer resources not currently at his or her

disposal: physical strength (to help carry the nitrogen tank), a material
object (a share of a chemical dilution prepared for “private use“), expertise
(the know-how to run an experimental machine) or time (to look out
after an experiment over the weekend). In a well-rehearsed team, help
can be a quick fix in situations which have not been foreseen. When
instruments are malfunctioning, when experiments go awry and time
spent is mounting up, the willingness to help one another out is crucial.
Help is vital in situations where those who are in need of support are in
no position to delegate the task they are struggling with to someone else.
In contrast to hierarchical delegation, help is asked for, not ordered. Help
is based on solidarity, not on a hierarchy of expertise and authority.
Learning is another key element in the lab’s collaborative scientific
practice, and lab members often help one another to learn. In a field
where important knowledge consists in the embodied ability to manip-
ulate organic samples literally hands-on, teaching involves demonstrating
experimental procedures and overseeing and correcting their execution
in situ. As experimental practice in molecular biology is collaborative,
it is not just those who are taught, but also those who teach that profit
from the collective effort to learn. After all, it is better to rely on skilled
collaborators, and it is easy to trust a colleague’s skills if one has witnessed
how these skills have been acquired.
What promotes learning in the molecular biology laboratory is the fact
that all lab members work on projects, that is, proteins, that resemble
one another in crucial ways. Collectively, lab members pursue a series of
similar research interests. The seriality of their research enables them to
learn from one another and to help each other, which facilitates supervi-
sion. Furthermore, all lab members have, or intend to acquire, roughly
the same kind of expertise, which is, along with experimental techniques,
ever evolving. Learning, from the perspective of junior scientists, is a way
to overcome the hierarchy in expertise and authority that structures their
relations to other lab members. As they continue to learn, junior scientists
close the gap that separates them from the level of expertise that senior
group members possess.
An exception to this rationale of learning is, curiously, the lab leader.
Since he has not been working physically at the laboratory bench for the
104 6 Division of Labor

past few years, Johan has stopped learning to master new experimental
routines (although he continues to learn about them). Instead, he focuses
upon theoretical research perspectives and strategic management, an
important part of which is the assessment and distribution of risk, that
is, the possibility of experimental failure. This kind of specialization that
“[…] involves the differentiation of theoretical activities on the one hand,
and experimental activities on the other,” and is tied to within-group
hierarchy, has been called “vertical” specialization (Laudel, 2001, p. 764).

6.4 Comparison
At this point, it is instructive to compare the planetary science group and
the molecular biology laboratory. The two groups clearly show distinct
patterns in the division of labor among their members, a difference that
is shaped by their research, the demands of experimental practice and also
by the kind of expertise that different members bring to the group.
While the planetary science group is dominated by senior researchers
who cooperate in an egalitarian way, the molecular biology laboratory
features a distinct hierarchy between junior and senior scientists. While
the planetary science group endorses a loose, rather exploratory and
continuous mode of experimentation, the experiments carried out in the
molecular biology laboratory are established procedures which serve a
clear end. Therefore, planning and framing discussions, such as occurs
in the planetary science group, are not necessary for the molecular
biology laboratory, where the trajectory research activity is structured by
generic experimental procedures—the purification and crystallization of
proteins—in rather foreseeable ways.
While members of the molecular biology laboratory work on a series of
resembling, yet distinct, research goals, members of the planetary science
group pursue research goals that they, given their respective disciplinary
backgrounds, differentially share. Since large parts of the research carried
out in the planetary science group are perceived as a joint endeavor in
which all involved scientists have their stake, the planetary science group
displayed fewer instances of mutual support that might be described as
genuine help.
 6.5 Conclusion 105

What the differences between planetary science group and molecular

biology laboratory show is that the division of labor can strengthen
differentiation of expertise and professional individuation as well as it can,
by creating learning opportunities, foster the convergence of expertise.
In the planetary science group, the division of labor is organized so as
to account for the resources that members bring to the group, that is,
their expertise, their research interests, the infrastructure they have at
their disposal, but also the time and the sheer labor they are able to
put into a task. Members of the planetary science group specialize “hor-
izontally,” reflecting the differentiation between scientific disciplines and
sub-disciplines. In contrast, members of the molecular biology laboratory
often divide labor so as to account for the lack of expertise, that is, the need
to learn and practice. Here, the division of labor is not only a measure of
efficiency, but also a pedagogical means for helping all group members
to acquire, roughly, the same kind of expertise—a pursuit of convergence
that is, as we have seen, complemented by “vertical” specialization, which
in different research tasks is in line with the hierarchy that distinguishes
experienced senior scientists from less experienced junior scientists (cf.
Laudel, 2001).
These differences in the division of labor between the planetary science
group and the molecular biology laboratory carry over in reflections
upon epistemic dependence and trust that I will unfold in the following
Chaps. 7 and 8. As we will see, horizontal specialization entails different
forms of dependence and requires different strategies to build up trust
than a primarily vertical division of labor that seeks to create convergence
in expertise.

6.5 Conclusion
My empirical investigation of research groups shows that community-
focused approaches to the division of epistemic labor, such as Kitcher’s,
do not sit well with research group collaboration. Rather, distinct group-
focused approaches are needed because the division of labor at the group
level raises epistemological issues that community-focused approaches
typically sideline. To conclude this chapter, let me outline four episte-
mological aspects that group-focused approaches need to account for.
106 6 Division of Labor

First of all, my comparative study of research group collaboration

reinforces the argument that not only non-epistemic but also epistemic
factors trigger the division of epistemic labor. For the groups observed,
the prime trigger for the division of labor among group members is
the distribution of expertise, an uneven distribution that either stems
from the research group’s interdisciplinary composition or from the fact
that the group features a strong gradient in seniority. In the planetary
science group, division of labor capitalizes upon the uneven distribution
of expertise, along with the material research infrastructure, among group
members. In fact, the planetary science group exists as a group because it
makes an interdisciplinary pool of resources available that group members
otherwise, within mono-disciplinary research contexts, would not be able
to access. The division of labor in the molecular biology laboratory, in
contrast, takes into account the expertise that group members have, or
lack, a lack that is to be mended by dividing the labor so as to create
learning opportunities.
Second, the issue of learning draws attention to a peculiar aspect
in which group-concerned accounts have to diverge palpably from
community-concerned accounts of the division of labor. While
community-concerned approaches such as Kitcher’s tend to cast the
division of labor in the light of differentiation, the case of the molecular
biology laboratory particularly shows that the division of labor can be
a means of convergence through learning, and need not be a means of
differentiation.
Third, group-concerned approaches need to shift attention from com-
petition to collaboration. The division of labor in groups can, certainly,
involve elements of competition between group members. But as my
case comparative study illustrates, and as other literature has shown (e.g.,
Poulsen, 2001), research groups divide labor among their members by
way of collaboration—and it is their close collaboration, not competition,
that makes research groups a powerful instrument of scientific knowledge
creation. Through collaboration, research groups effectively combine the
resources that members can bring to the group, and the risk of scientific
failure is borne collectively. Like scientific communities, groups need to
spread the risk of failure, as well as the rewards of success, onto many
shoulders. In research groups, collaborating individual scientists typically
 References 107

engage themselves in several projects or experiments at once, and they

co-author many more publications than they would be able to publish
alone. What group collaboration, thus, takes into account is not only the
collective need to distribute epistemic risks, but the individual need to do
so as well.
Lastly, group-focused approaches to the division of labor concern
knowledge in-the-making, that is, knowledge claims that have not yet
passed formal peer review and cannot be taken for “established” knowl-
edge. Such knowledge in-the-making is difficult to rely upon. Therefore,
epistemic dependence emerges as a pressing issue in group collaboration,
an issue that community-concerned approaches, such as Kitcher’s, typ-
ically background. In Kitcher’s account, competing individual scientists
pursue alternative lines of research independently. Only when one line
of research leads to evident scientific success (or failure) do scientists
either disseminate their findings or abandon their line of work and refer
to others’ research. Epistemic dependence is not a predominant issue
here because the scientific community at large has the means, the peer-
review mechanisms and the critical mass to decide what counts as evident
scientific success, as “established” trustworthy knowledge, and what does
not. Research groups, however, do not possess these means; and since
the division of labor in groups is collaborative rather than competitive,
members have to rely on one another early on in the process of scientific
knowledge creation—an epistemic challenge upon which the following
chapters will shed more light.

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D’Agostino, F. (2009). From the organization to the division of cognitive labor.
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de Langhe, R. (2010). The division of labour in science: the tradeoff between
specialisation and diversity. Journal of Economic Methodology, 17 (1), 37–51.
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de Ridder, J. (2014). Epistemic dependence and collective scientific knowledge.

Synthese, 191(1), 37–53.
Gauker, C. (1991). Mental content and the division of epistemic labour. Aus-
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Giere, R. N. (1988). Explaining science: A cognitive approach. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Gilbert, M. (1989). On social facts. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Goldberg, S. C. (2011). The division of epistemic labor. Episteme, 8(1), 112–125.
Goldman, A. I. (1999). Knowledge in a social world. Oxford: Oxford University
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Hardwig, J. (1991). The role of trust in knowledge. The Journal of Philosophy,
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Kitcher, P. (1990). The division of cognitive labor. The Journal of Philosophy,
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Kitcher, P. (1993). The advancement of science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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161–175.
Poulsen, M.-B. J. (2001). Competition and cooperation: What rules in scientific
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 7
Epistemic Dependence

When scientific, knowledge-creating labor is divided among the members

of a research group, these members come to depend upon one another.
Evidence has to be gathered, arguments have to be formulated and col-
laborating scientists have to rely on one another for the bits and pieces of
experimental evidence, interpretation and argument that are eventually to
be integrated into a well-corroborated, publishable, scientific knowledge
claim. As scientists form beliefs about the quality of the evidence and
arguments, they crucially depend on the beliefs of their collaborators
who have carried out experiments and gathered experimental data or who
possess, for example, the necessary expertise to interpret the data and
formulate an argument. In this chapter, I analyze dependence of this kind
in terms of epistemic dependence.
Broadly conceived, epistemic dependence can be defined as a relation
between two beliefs, a relation where one belief draws its justification from
a second belief. This chapter, however, addresses epistemic dependence
more specifically as an inter-individual problem. I deal with the relation-
ship between beliefs that are held by different individuals, and that is
characterized by an asymmetry in intellectual authority—the dependent

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 109

S. Wagenknecht, A Social Epistemology of Research Groups,
New Directions in the Philosophy of Science,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-52410-2_7
110 7 Epistemic Dependence

individual relies upon somebody else because he or she has good reason
to believe this other person to be in an epistemically superior position.
Such a relation between individuals’ beliefs has to be mediated, either
through verbal communication or the exchange of material objects such as
data charts, written reports and material probes. When a belief is verbally
communicated from one individual to another by way of assertion, and
when, thus, epistemic dependence is a matter of reliance upon others’
say-so, then epistemic dependence is akin to reliance upon testimony.
Therefore, in this chapter I draw not only on epistemology’s accounts
of epistemic dependence but also, in parts, on accounts of testimony as a
source of justified belief and knowledge.
Examining inter-individual epistemic dependence as an issue of col-
laborative scientific practice, I analyze epistemic dependence as a relation
between one scientist’s believing and another scientist’s beliefs and/or, as
I will elaborate, the product of his or her labor. Three remarks are in
order here. First, when I speak of individual believing or individually held
beliefs, I imply that beliefs can qualify as knowledge if they are “well-
founded,” that is, justified, in terms of the standards that apply in the
context of scientific practice. What, hence, underlies my understanding
is a contextualist notion of knowledge as justified (true) belief.1 Second,
when I understand knowing as believing, I leave issues of tacit knowledge
largely aside. This is not to say that tacit knowledge would be peripheral
to scientific practice. Rather, knowledge that cannot be easily explicated
and communicated does not sit well with the epistemological approaches
discussed here. Third, when I focus on epistemic dependence in collabora-

1
It lies beyond the scope of this book to defend epistemic contextualism (Rysiew, 2016), but as will
become apparent in this chapter and in Chap. 9, a contextualist understanding of what it means to
justify a belief as knowledge allows us to accommodate the fact that second-order reasons may justify
a collaborating scientist’s individual knowing—but does not constitute the kind of justification that
it takes to formulate a scientific knowledge claim. Without such a contextualist understanding, one
would either have to deny individual scientists the possibility to know qua trust or to allow for
scientific knowledge to be justified upon the basis of testimony. Both options are unattractive. To
deny scientists to know qua trust overly limits their epistemic agency and casts collaborative scientific
practice as inferior guesswork. To allow for scientific knowledge to be justified in terms of testimony
does not resonate with the conventions of scientific method and scientific authorship.
 7.1 Theoretical Groundwork 111

tive scientific practice, I also sideline all those instances in which scientists
depend upon one another for other than epistemic purposes.2
Drawing on the empirical data I have gathered, I ground my analysis
of epistemic dependence on observations of actual scientific practice in
research groups. From a practice-minded point of view, philosophical
accounts of epistemic dependence need to take into consideration that
the relations of epistemic dependence between collaborating scientists can
vastly vary. No one size fits all. In order to get a grip on the configurations
of epistemic dependence in scientific practice, a subtle and differentiated
terminology is needed. As I will argue, crucial to configurations of epis-
temic dependence in collaborative scientific practice is whether, to what
extent and in which way the dependent person has the possibility to make
use of relevant scientific expertise. For this reason, I propose to distinguish
between translucent dependence (which is supported by the dependent
person’s experimental expertise) and opaque dependence (which is not).
As I will point out, this distinction does not exhaust the phenomenon
of epistemic dependence. Nevertheless, it provides two cornerstones in
relation to which a variety of instances of epistemic dependence can be
understood.
To unfold this distinction, the chapter proceeds as follows. Sect. 7.1
reviews some of the work on epistemic dependence that has been under-
taken by epistemologists so far. Section 7.2, then, harkens back to my
comparative case study and the division of labor in research groups,
which, as I argue, reinforces or creates the epistemic asymmetries in which
epistemic dependence is rooted. Thereafter, Sect. 7.3 elaborates on my
distinction between opaque and translucent epistemic dependence.

7.1 Theoretical Groundwork

To lay the theoretical groundwork for my distinction between opaque
and translucent dependence, in this section I approach epistemic depen-
dence from two different angles. First, I consider it from a bird’s-eye

2
For a broader, social-scientific account of dependence in science see Whitley (1984, p. 87ff.).
112 7 Epistemic Dependence

perspective, describing it as a relation between two collaborating scien-

tists. Then, building upon the work of Hardwig (1985, 1988, 1991), I
consider it from the perspective of the dependent scientist, analyzing
the reasons an epistemically dependent individual has for relying on
others.

7.1.1 Belief–Belief Relations and Beyond

Let me begin by considering epistemic dependence from a bird’s-eye

perspective. According to Robert Audi, epistemic dependence is “[…]
(roughly) the sort of relation that holds between one belief and another
(or between a belief and something else) when the former depends on the
latter either for its status of knowledge or for whatever justification it has”
(Audi, 1983, p. 119). For Audi, hence, the paradigm of epistemic depen-
dence is a belief–belief relation that concerns the epistemic justification
of one belief in relation to another. What Audi offers is an abstract view
on the architecture of beliefs and their justification, which may qualify
respective beliefs as knowledge. Whether or not these beliefs are held
by individuals, and how inter-individual relations of dependence may be
facilitated, is of little concern to Audi.
In contrast to Audi, I am interested in the relations between a scientist’s
justified belief and another scientist’s expertise, as manifest in his belief
and/or the products of his labor.3 When a scientist’s knowing, that is, her
believing-that and the reason for her believing to be justified, crucially
involves what her colleagues know or the efforts they have undertaken,
then we have a case of inter-individual epistemic dependence. Taking into
account the products of labor, I move beyond an exclusively cognitive,
internalist notion of epistemic dependence, like the one proposed by
Audi. In so doing, I seek to involve the material dimension of scientific
practice in epistemological reasoning because experimental evidence is, in

3
Goldberg (2011) shows that epistemic dependence extends beyond two-person relationships. In
fact, he argues, in the formulation of well-founded beliefs a person depends not only on eyewitnesses
and experts from whom he might adopt knowledge, but he also depends on his larger epistemic
community. This aspect is important, but for the purpose of investigating collaboration in scientific
groups, I limit my analysis to immediate person-to-person relationships.
 7.1 Theoretical Groundwork 113

fact, mostly conveyed in a material form—that is, as a photograph, a copy

of the laboratory notebook, a print, a frozen sample, a concrete model, a
diagram or a file.4
Let me explain with an example why I consider reliance upon “for-
eign” labor to be an instance of epistemic dependence, albeit not one
that is appropriately characterized as a belief–belief relation alone. An
experimental scientist A depends on her colleague B for a couple of
measurements. B may hand A a file with all the measurements made and
A may access the data in the absence of B. If these measurements show that
p, then A can form the belief that p when she sees those measurements or is
informed about them and she can justify her believing that p by reference
to those measurements. As these measurements possess a material quality
that make them physically accessible, that is, accessible not only through
measuring scientist B’s testimony of his believing, the dependent scientist
A may justify her believing in ways other than by direct reference to B’s
believing that p.
One may object that B’s role, here, is merely instrumental, that B is
acting as the prolonged arm of the measuring device. But taking scientific
measurements is a process requiring reflection and discriminatory judg-
ment (parts of which may remain tacit, cf. Soler 2011). When B passes his
measurements on, A must assume that B believes them to be good. If B
does not believe them to be good but passes them on anyway, he should
provide A with an explanation of their weaknesses. Nevertheless, it would
be short-sighted to characterize this instance of epistemic dependence as
a simple belief–belief relation. Note that the measuring colleague B may
interpret the measurements to show that not-p. It is, after all, possible
to imagine that B is good at handling a measuring device but bad at
interpreting his measurements. But under the condition that A, who has
not performed the measurements herself, possesses the required expertise
to interpret them, A can take them to indicate, and be justified in doing so,

4
Latour’s observation that scientific practice involves sequences of material “inscriptions” comes
to mind (Latour, 1999). The material dimension of science has been explored paradigmatically by
Rheinberger (1997), and philosophers have developed an increasing interest in the concrete artifacts
of scientific practice as well (Bechtel & Abrahamsen, 2012; Carusi, 2012; Knuuttila, 2011). For
the cognitive value of concrete artifacts more generally, see the literature on distributed cognition
(Hutchins, 1995, 2001; Nersessian et al., 2003).
114 7 Epistemic Dependence

as showing that p. As I argue, this remains a case of epistemic dependence

between two collaborating scientists as scientist A relies on her colleague
B to have performed the measurements accurately and to have reported
their results truthfully.
But why does it matter about emphasizing the material dimension of
scientific practice for an account of epistemic dependence? When A relies
upon the results of her colleague B’s labor, she need—even in cases of
epistemic dependence—not necessarily rely on his believing that p or that
not-p. She is in a position where she can make her own judgment as
to whether B’s epistemic labor is evidence of p or not. In making this
judgment, A has the possibility to make use of her own expertise. So,
given that A has the necessary expertise on the issue in question, she is
able to assess the evidential significance of B’s labor with some degree of
intellectual autonomy. This may help to contain A’s dependence upon B.
In Sect. 7.3, I will characterize instances of dependence such as this as
translucent epistemic dependence.

7.1.2 First and Second-Order Reasons

Next, let us see how such a practice-minded understanding of epistemic

dependence plays together with Hardwig’s (1985, 1988, 1991) account
of dependence relations, which is formulated explicitly with regard to
collaborative scientific knowledge creation. Hardwig reflects upon epis-
temic dependence from the perspective of the dependent scientist. The
question that frames his reflections is the question of how a person can
acquire “well-founded” beliefs—in my wording: justified beliefs—in the
absence of sufficient first-hand evidence. His answer to this question
is, in short, to argue that a person can acquire well-founded beliefs
by appealing to the intellectual authority of a second person. For him,
thus, epistemic dependence is a matter of reference to another person’s
intellectual authority, which, I would like to add, can reside in scientific
expertise but also in “first-hand,” eyewitness knowledge of experimental
procedures and their outcomes.
The point of departure for Hardwig’s argument is to introduce the
notion of “reason,” saying that to have a well-founded belief means to
 7.1 Theoretical Groundwork 115

have good reasons for holding this belief. A good reason for holding the
belief that p is to have sufficient observational and/or inferential evidence
that p obtains. I will also call evidence of this kind “immediate” evidence.
What, however, if an individual, for whom it would be important to know
whether or not p is the case, cannot have sufficient observational and/or
inferential evidence, neither for believing that p nor for believing that
not-p? Does that mean that this individual has no possibility whatsoever
of acquiring a well-founded belief as to p? No, Hardwig argues, and he
introduces what I call second-order reasons for having the belief that p.
Translating Hardwig’s argument into my terminology, first-order reasons
for p are reasons that spring from having observational and/or inferential
evidence for p. If first-order reasons cannot be had, then it is rational for an
individual A to rely upon another individual B affirming that p—provided
A has good reasons to believe that B has sufficient evidence for p (Hardwig,
1985, p. 336). Such good reasons to believe that p when B is saying so (or
the products of his labor are indicating it) are second-order reasons, which
are reasons concerning B’s intellectual authority, that is, his qualities as
an eyewitness, his honesty and expertise (Hardwig, 1985, p. 337, 339; see
also Hardwig, 1991, p. 700). As I will elaborate in Chap. 8, second-order
reasons concern the trustworthiness of B as a scientific collaborator.
Following Hardwig, I maintain that second-order reasons concerning
a collaborator’s scientific trustworthiness can justify a scientist’s belief
that p—even though second-order reasons provide neither inferential nor
observational support for the proposition that p. Note also that second-
order reasons do not directly concern the question as to whether or
not that p actually obtains. Second-order reasons concern somebody’s
trustworthiness, and as such they are not identical to reasons which would
justify the assumption that somebody’s testimony would always be reliable
(or, that his or her labor would always be error free).
Summarizing, Hardwig characterizes instances of epistemic depen-
dence as situations in which a dependent collaborator A, in her believing
that p, resorts to second-order reasons relating to the trustworthiness of
B (who, in turn, possesses immediate evidence for p). In the scenario of
epistemic dependence that Hardwig presents, the primary question for A
to answer is not whether p is right or wrong. Rather, the crucial question
for A is how she can reasonably rely on B. Is she warranted to rely upon
116 7 Epistemic Dependence

B’s intellectual authority in the question of p? If A possesses no expertise

as to p, A will have to establish B’s reliability as to the belief that p on
grounds other than the expertise at stake. In this case, A’s judgment to
adopt or reject p is not based on expertise as to p and the evidence for
p, which at least B is supposed to have, remains opaque to A (Hardwig,
1985, p. 341ff.).
My intention is to add more nuance to this picture. If the dependent
scientist A has some expertise on the issue in question, she may be in a
position to acquire some first-order reasons, too—only that these first-
order reasons may not suffice to justify A fully in believing that p in
accordance with scientific standards. Therefore, A’s first-order reasons
need to be supplemented with second-order reasons as to the intellectual
authority of her collaborator B. In a scenario where A, albeit ultimately
dependent on B, is able to make use of her own expertise, the character of
epistemic dependence is different from situations in which A fully relies
on B. In order to account for this difference, I suggest distinguishing
two forms of epistemic dependence in Sect. 7.3. Before I do that, I will
elaborate upon the empirical insights that have guided me in drawing this
distinction.

7.2 Epistemic Asymmetries

With Hardwig, we understand that epistemic dependence among collabo-
rating scientists arises from asymmetries in intellectual authority which are
rooted in the uneven distribution of knowledge-related resources and the
division of epistemic labor. As I have observed in previous chapters, col-
laborating scientists differ from one another with respect to the resources
they possess, such as expertise, access to experimental infrastructure as
well as the sheer labor that it takes to perform an experiment and the
time that it takes to witness an experimental procedure first hand. Taking
into account how these resources are distributed across individual group
members, research groups divide the labor among themselves.
The division of epistemic labor, in turn, creates new epistemic
asymmetries—allowing some group members (but not others) to
specialize in an experimental task or, for example, to allow some group
 7.2 Epistemic Asymmetries 117

members (but not others) to witness an experiment first hand. While,

thus, some group members are able to form justified beliefs based on
their “own” perceptual experience and/or inference, others are not able
to do so and are forced to rely upon the measurements taken and the
interpretations made by their colleagues. It is convenient to use “first
hand” and “second-hand knowing” to describe constellations such as
these (Fricker, 2006). A caveat, however, is due here. To speak of first-
hand knowing in the case of scientific practice should not mislead us
into thinking that scientific knowledge can be had by any individual in
completely self-reliant ways. Even knowledge which is related seemingly
immediately to observation is likely to be mediated by theory and theory-
based instrumentation. But it would be wrong to infer from this that
there are no epistemically significant differences between a scientist
observing an experiment and a fellow colleague relying upon his or
her observation.
Both the planetary science group and the molecular biology laboratory
show an uneven distribution in expertise that is partly reinforced, partly
mended, by the patterns of division of labor that both research groups
adopt. As elaborated in Chap. 5, all lab members of the molecular
biology laboratory have, or intend to acquire, roughly the same kind of
disciplinary expertise; and in many instances labor is divided so as to
create learning opportunities for junior members. There is a difference
in specialization, however, between the lab leader and all the other
researchers in the group. As the lab leader has not been working physically
in the lab a lot for the past few years, he is not expected to master
manually recently developed experimental routines. He instead focuses
on strategic management, and I have described this form of specialization
as “vertical” (cf. Laudel, 2001). “Horizontal” specialization, in contrast, is
characteristic of the planetary science group, an interdisciplinary research
group in which members generally do not aspire to acquire the expertise
which their colleagues possess. In relation to one another, group members
are experts on issues within the realm of their expertise and relative
laypeople for issues outside this realm. To collaborate with one another
across disciplinary boundaries, group members develop “interactional
expertise” (Collins & Evans 2007; cf. Gorman 2002), a form of expertise
I elaborate upon in Sect. 7.3 below.
118 7 Epistemic Dependence

What the comparative case study of a mono- and an interdisciplinary

research group vividly illustrates is that some epistemic asymmetries are
more fundamental than others. Differences in expertise that have been
accumulated throughout a scientific career can hardly be cleared out.
Some epistemic asymmetries, however, can be mitigated. Data measure-
ments that were taken in the absence of a collaborator can be repeated in
his or her presence. If there is time for it, the interpretation of the results
from an experiment already concluded can be discussed again with the
help of a team member who was occupied in other duties. Yet, time is
precious, materials expensive and sometimes attempts to cross-check each
others’ work within the team can be perceived as inappropriate skepticism.

7.3 Opaque and Translucent Dependence

To refine the vocabulary available for analyzing collaborative knowl-
edge creation from the point of social epistemology, I suggest making
a distinction between opaque and translucent epistemic dependence.5 A
scientist is opaquely dependent upon a colleague’s labor if she does not
possess the expertise necessary to carry out independently, and to assess
profoundly, the piece of scientific labor her colleague is contributing. I
suggest, however, that if the scientist does possess the necessary expertise,
then her dependence would not be opaque, but translucent. As we will
see, the distinction between opaque and translucent epistemic dependence
does not exhaust dependence relations in scientific practice. A range
of dependence relations are neither entirely opaque, nor translucent. I
will discuss why this is the case, and show how we can make sense of
these relations within my distinction of opaque and translucent epistemic
dependence.

5
The expression “epistemic opacity” has been used by philosophers of science in different contexts
before. Soler (2011) uses the expression to highlight the fact that tacit components of scientific
practice cannot be explicated and thus remain “opaque.” Lenhard (2006), in turn, uses “opacity”
as a synonym for the limited comprehensibility of mathematically complex simulation models, and
incomprehensibility is also what I denote by the expression.
 7.3 Opaque and Translucent Dependence 119

7.3.1 Opaque Dependence

What I designate as “opaque” epistemic dependence is the kind of

dependence that epistemologists usually talk about. It is the extreme
case of an epistemic dependence relation, the relation that Hardwig
describes and that can be formulated as a testimonial exchange: Speaker
B tells listener A that p, and A has no means to establish the truth that
p other than assuming that B is a competent and truthful testifier. A
has no way whatsoever to justify her believing that p without recourse
to B, because A lacks the expertise to acquire the justified belief that
p by means other than reliance upon B’s testimony. Nevertheless, she
can try to establish the reliability of B, and succeed in doing so to
varying degrees. The more A knows about B, his moral and professional
qualities, the better she can judge his qualities as a testifier that p without
possessing expertise pertaining to p herself. Thus, the dependent person
in opaque dependency relations should not be described as completely
naive, ignorant or undiscerning. She can have, as Hardwig pointed out,
very good second-order reasons to enter an opaque dependency relation.6
A lack of expertise cannot easily be mitigated. Expertise cannot be
simply learned from the book. The acquisition of scientific expertise is
a complex learning process that typically stretches over years. Therefore,
exemplary cases of opaque dependence can be found in both groups
studied. In the planetary science group, instances of opaque epistemic
dependence are particularly apparent because the group has an inter-
disciplinary profile. In this group, scientists with different disciplinary
backgrounds collaborate in an intricately interwoven manner. Every one
of them contributes to their collaboration with the particular combination
of epistemically relevant resources he or she possesses. The use of the
group’s simulation facility by members without physical expertise is a
good illustration of opaque epistemic dependence. When the biologist
runs an experiment in the group’s simulation facility, he or she relies
entirely upon Adam, the physicist who is responsible for this facility.

6
Strategies for establishing second-order reasons for the reliance upon a collaborator are analyzed in
Goldman (2001) and Sperber et al. (2010).
120 7 Epistemic Dependence

The biologist is not able to operate the simulation facility, so he or she

delivers a bacterial sample to the physicist who then places the sample
in the facility, runs the experiment and returns the sample afterward to
the biologist for further laboratory analysis. The physicist will also report
on the measurement of all experimental parameters, such as wind speed.
Another example of opaque dependence in the planetary science group
would be the reliance upon Moessbauer spectroscopy to determine the
iron components in geological samples. This is an example that Laurits,
the group’s geologist, brings up during our interview:

Q: Mhm. Do you think that the things you have in your papers, in principle
you could do them on your own? Or you could only do them with others?
Laurits: Ahm, if I think back I would say that, that ahm, in many of our
publications Moessbauer spectroscopy has been used as a useful method.
I started with that before Rasmus [physicist in group1] came here. With
the Moessbauer laboratory in Physics. And I started to publish things ahm
with one of the persons from there, so I knew or I never had, it hasn’t been
necessary for me to do Moessbauer spectroscopy myself. And it’s a field
where you need a lot of experience to be sure of what you interpret out of
the spectra you see. So, I would not be able to get the same interpretation
out of that if, if I didn’t have an expert like Rasmus. So that, this wouldn’t
be a good way doing publications, try to do this as an amateur yourself. So
you need to collaborate with people that know more about different fields.
And when it comes to sand transport, I would say that Oliver [geologist
associated to group1] has used all his life on that and he of course has a
basic knowledge there that I don’t have. So if we come to experience and
publications in that field, I would never do it without him. (Laurits, senior
geologist, group1)

Instances of opaque dependence relations come to the fore in the

molecular biology laboratory as well. There are two sources of epistemic
opacity here. The first source is a learning lag between less experienced and
more experienced group members, and the second source is specialization,
both in vertical and horizontal forms. Paradigmatic for within-group
relations in the molecular biology laboratory is the first source of opacity.
Opaque epistemic dependence typically characterizes students’ relation
to senior scientists. For PhD students it is key to rely on the hands-on
 7.3 Opaque and Translucent Dependence 121

expertise of junior group leaders for the purification and crystallization of

particular families of proteins. For example, Martin, a new PhD student,
depends crucially on a post-doc’s skills (Magnus) for the treatment of
proteins that are known to require particularly intricate purification
procedures. At the time of my interview with Martin, however, it was
clear that Magnus would be leaving the laboratory soon to start his own
group at a different university.

Q: Magnus is leaving, is that a problem?

Martin: I don’t know. Initially I was very anxious about that, but I feel that
we are getting to a point that within, because we have progress, basically, I
think that within two months let’s say we can do everything, like, because
after he gave us the basic experiences, then we have to just fiddle around
by ourselves. Also Magnus is very accessible by emails, skype and he clearly
wants to help us and he said that of course he wants to consult with us. If
we got further, then it’s not really, his experience stops to be that necessary.
(Martin, PhD student in molecular biology, group2)

Here, opacity has, or is imagined to have, a transient character. Time is

a crucial element in understanding these dependency relations. Because
of a lack of experience, junior researchers rely on senior ones, though the
former expect to gain the professional capacity they are lacking at some
point in the future. As students’ expertise grows, they develop greater
professional autonomy.

7.3.2 Translucent Dependence

Different configurations of epistemic dependence are possible. Many

instances of the latter in scientific practice are not opaque, and some of
these are what I refer to as “translucent,” which I characterize as instances
in which the dependent scientist does possess enough expertise to be able
to work independently, but he or she does not do so for pragmatic reasons.
My terminological choice may seem curious at first glance. It would
be obvious to choose the attribute “transparent” for forms of epistemic
dependence that are not opaque. However, there is no such thing as
“transparent epistemic dependence.” If all epistemic issues were com-
122 7 Epistemic Dependence

pletely transparent to a dependent scientist, then he or she would not be

epistemically dependent. To be more precise, let me return to Hardwig’s
terms. What is not transparent in cases of epistemic dependence (but
should be transparent in cases of epistemic independence) are the first-
order reasons for why the statement that p should be regarded as reliable.
However, as I will elaborate in the following, the intransparency of first-
order reasons can have different sources.
In the measuring example from Sect. 7.1, having sufficient evidence for
p means to fulfill two conditions. It means to possess the necessary exper-
tise to perform and understand the measuring procedure and actually
to perform the measurement or eye-witness them scrupulously. The first
condition posits an expertise requirement, and the second condition posits
both an expertise and information requirement. When these requirements
are not fulfilled, then we have a case of epistemic dependence.
While the expertise requirement may go without saying, the informa-
tion requirement might seem superfluous. Clearly, when A does not meet
the expertise requirement, then we have a case of opaque dependence.
But as I have argued above, without having performed the measurement
herself (or having overseen it closely), A cannot be entirely sure that
the measurement has been conducted skilfully and reported truthfully
by her colleague B. In experimental science, evidential contributions can
be entirely transparent only to those who have created or eye-witnessed
them because the creation of evidential contributions typically rests upon
complex experimental procedures, many of which may require tacit
knowledge (cf. Leonelli, 2010; Soler, 2011).
When A does possess the necessary expertise, but doesn’t have sufficient
information about how the contribution that p has actually been created,
then we have a case of translucent epistemic dependence. Translucent
dependence is a form of genuine epistemic dependence because the
evidence for the claim that p, which A is interested in endorsing, is not
entirely transparent to A. Translucent dependence is a form of epistemic
dependence in which the dependent scientist A engages for reasons not
related to her expertise in a relation of dependence with scientist B.
Instead, A relies on B for pragmatic reasons, often related to considerations
of time. But because A possesses expertise pertaining to the claim that
p, A can at least partially assess B’s claiming that p—and, if available, A
 7.3 Opaque and Translucent Dependence 123

can assess the experimental evidence that B provides for this claim. Also,
A is in a position to question B about the details of his claim that p,
so that B is forced to argue for his claim that p. Moreover, A has more
possibilities to assess B’s qualities as an experimenter in general. Therefore,
A’s dependence runs not as deep as in instances of opaque dependence.
Still, I want to emphasize the fact that translucent dependence is a relevant
and epistemically significant form of epistemic dependence in scientific
practice.
De Ridder has suggested a distinction between “cognitively necessary
epistemic dependence” and “practically necessary epistemic dependence”
(de Ridder, 2014, p. 46). This distinction is similar, albeit not identical, to
mine, and I will refrain from endorsing it for two reasons. First, laboratory
skills are a fundamental component of scientific expertise so that it is
fair to say that expertise clearly involves more than cognition. Thus,
an opaque epistemic dependence relation, rooted in an asymmetry in
expertise, may concern more than just cognitive asymmetries. Second,
the circumstances of “practically necessary” dependence have significant
cognitive consequences: if you cannot run an experiment yourself due to a
lack of time, infrastructure or labor, you cannot acquire first-hand reasons
concerning the experimental evidence produced. Therefore, I believe a
distinction between “cognitively necessary” and “practically necessary”
dependence to be potentially misleading.
What is more, I also believe it inadequate to rephrase the conceptual
distinction that I draw between opaque and translucent as “insurmount-
able” and “surmountable” epistemic dependence. Opaque dependence is
not insurmountable; it simply needs considerable time and effort to do
so. In addition, to label translucent dependence as surmountable may
imply that translucent epistemic dependence should be overcome. It is
not my intention, however, to make such a claim. Translucent epistemic
dependence is a valuable instrument in the efficient organization of
research collaboration—and as such it is not surmountable. It has to
be acknowledged that the creation of knowledge in scientific practice is
shaped, and rightly so, by the uneven distribution of various resources,
which are not restricted to scientific expertise. Clearly, experimental
expertise is important, but the experience required to, for example, set
124 7 Epistemic Dependence

up, maintain, and fund an experimental infrastructure is important, too,

though not every scientific expert does possess it.
A case in point for translucent epistemic dependence are the relations
that subgroup leaders entertain to PhD students. When Martin describes
this relation, he explains:

I don’t think there is a thing that Magnus [a subgroup leader] would do

worse than me, in the lab, nowadays. Just that he cannot do everything.
[…]
[…] Now Magnus is starting his own group and he will be moving out
until the end of the year. And he probably spent half or a year getting money,
writing applications, going to funding interviews. Of course, he was doing
a lot of different stuff as well. But the more kind of, the higher you go—
track record—and the more it’s about just getting financing. Because it’s so
costly. And then you have hands, you can think about this as your hands
that do your experiments, in a way. …
[…] so a lot of problems that we have, and we kind of solve them by
ourselves, is something [Magnus] would solve also or even quicker. It’s just
impossible for him to do everything. So, […] there are collaborations which
are because of the expertise and those are usually outside the group. But
within the group […] I think it’s mainly the work load. (Martin, PhD
student in molecular biology, group2)

Magnus depends on Martin and other doctoral students to establish

certain intermediate experimental results, but his dependence is translu-
cent, because he possesses the necessary expertise to understand fully all
experimental steps and, if need be, perform them himself. If he did not
possess the experimental expertise, his dependence would be opaque.

7.3.3 The Gray Zone

The distinction between opaque and translucent epistemic dependence

hinges upon this difference: having or not having expertise pertaining to
the piece of epistemic labor at stake. It should be noted, however, that this
is a gradual difference and that there is such a thing as “partial” expertise.
We hence have to speak of a large grey zone that lies between opaque
 7.3 Opaque and Translucent Dependence 125

and translucent epistemic dependence. In the following, I elaborate on

the question of what partial expertise can be and how it may play out in
relations of epistemic dependence.
At least two aspects, I believe, need to be added to the distinction
between opaque and translucent epistemic dependence. The first aspect
concerns the role of time and learning in the acquisition of expertise which
might result in it being partial. The second aspect concerns forms of
scientific expertise which have not been discussed so far and which may be
described as “partially enabling” and not fully fledged forms of expertise.
Regarding the first aspect, scientists gain expertise over time. This
is a capacity that is acquired gradually through immersion in specialist
communities and the learning processes that this immersion entails. Being
in the midst of this gradual learning process, students may come to possess
partial expertise. Through learning, the relationship of collaborating
scientists may change over time. This is particularly obvious for student–
post-doc relations in the molecular biology laboratory. The more expertise
the student acquires, the less he or she depends upon others for their
expertise. This requires us to consider the gray zone between opaque
and translucent epistemic dependence in which the dependent scientist A
possesses partial expertise relating to the piece of epistemic labor for which
she is depending on B. On the trajectory from novice to expert, students
pass through this gray zone, imagining their status as “half-baked” experts
to be only temporary.
While the gray zone may be a transient phenomenon from the per-
spective of an individual student, it should not be considered as passing
or unimportant. Not just students, but mature scientists as well will
find themselves in the gray zone of partial expertise. While having full-
fledged scientific expertise in one domain, they may have acquired some
experience in other fields. To be an expert in one field does not mean
one is an expert in a second field; nor does it mean one is a complete
layperson either. This leads me to the second aspect that I would like to
add to my discussion of the gray zone between opaque and translucent
epistemic dependence.
Until now I have solely considered one form of scientific expertise.
I have limited myself to the kind of expertise that distinguishes a fully
competent scientist in a given research field from someone who may
126 7 Epistemic Dependence

be considered knowledgeable, but not an expert. Following Collins and

Evans’ (2007), I call this form of expertise “contributory,” by which I
designate the kind of specialized scientific expertise that enables scientists
to engage themselves fully in the scientific practice of a given scientific
field—for example, to perform experiments, formulate arguments, write
articles, exchange views with colleagues, etc. Collins and Evans distinguish
this form of expertise from other forms which may be described as “par-
tially enabling,” such as “interactional” expertise. With the latter, Collins
and Evans describe the skill needed to master the language of a scientific
community, a proficiency clearly important for exchanging views with
colleagues but not sufficient for making substantial contributions to the
field (Collins & Evans, 2007, p. 28ff.; see also Goddiksen 2014; Gorman
2002). Contributory expertise entails interactional expertise but not vice
versa.
For my purpose, the concept of interactional expertise is useful insofar
as it sheds more light on the gray zone between opaque and translucent
dependence. One way for a mature scientist to have partial expertise is
to have interactional expertise on the question at stake (while having
contributory expertise in a field that is not of immediate concern).
For interdisciplinary research, some interactional expertise seems to be
indispensable. As Laura, post-doc in the planetary science group, describes
the issue:

Astrobiology is a really, really good example [of interdisciplinary research]

because it combines physics, geology, biology, chemistry, astronomy and
you need to know a little bit about everything. And of course you have
your little niche in this field, but even though you’re a chemist, you still
need to know something about everything else in order to be able to take
what you’re doing and put it into the broader perspective of astrobiology.
(Laura, post-doc in physics, group1)

Furthermore, interactional expertise can enable the scientist to transfer

parts of his or her contributory expertise to a different field, a field to
which his or her expertise does not originally apply. Collins and Evans
conceive of such transfers as “referred expertise” (Collins & Evans, 2007,
p. 64). The authors’ examples of the kind of judgments that referred
 7.3 Opaque and Translucent Dependence 127

expertise allows have a rather “managerial” character (Collins & Evans,

2007, p. 66). I will, however, give you an example of referred expertise
as it is mobilized for genuinely scientific judgment. In my interview
with Adam, I asked him how he judges the competence of potential
collaborators from different fields:

Q: OK, so what would be an example for a signal that tells you this person
is maybe not competent? Not competent enough?
Adam: Ah, if they are missing, if they are missing fundamental ahm lines of
argument, if they are confusing cause and effect for example, that would be
bad. And if they are vague on something which is really quite important—
and if and if I explain something, something that is quite basic, and they
still don’t, still don’t get it.
Q: But I can imagine that this works out nicely with another physicist, but
if you are talking to another let’s say biologist, can you then be so sure?…
Adam: Yeah, I think mainly the arguments are the same in that in that they
should be able to explain their thing to me in a way that I understand it. And
in the way they explain it, you can tell, normally, whether they understand
it themselves. (Adam, senior physicist, group1)

Despite the fact that Adam does not possess the same expertise as his
interlocutors, he can make an informed scientific judgment about them
and the things they have to say by means of referred expertise, mobilizing
professional experience gathered in the field he has been trained in. If he
was to rely on the things they have to say for his personal knowing, he
would thus not be dependent upon them in a completely opaque way.
What this discussion shows is that, as concepts, opaque and translucent
epistemic dependence provide useful handles on the diversity of depen-
dence relations in collaborative scientific practice. But as a dichotomous
distinction, they tell us only one half of the story. In practice, there is
a large gray zone between opacity and translucency. Within this gray
zone, there are clearly instances of more and less expertise. A third-year
student is not yet an expert, but will usually possess more expertise than a
first-year student. I will refrain, however, from speaking of a continuum
between epistemic opacity on the one hand and translucency, or even
epistemic transparency, on the other. A rationale for computing the
128 7 Epistemic Dependence

“opacity coefficient” of a given epistemic dependence relation is not to be

had. The issues of expertise that are entangled with epistemic dependence
are too intricate. With interactional and referred expertise I have pointed
out how dependence relations in the gray zone can be understood.

7.4 Conclusion
To conclude, let me summarize what forms of epistemic dependence are
observable in the two research groups I have studied. In the planetary
science group, members from different fields of expertise contribute
to the joint pursuit of research questions. For this reason, relations of
opaque epistemic dependence are frequent. Epistemic opacity can be
handled, because scientists in the group have come to know each other’s
professional qualities during a decade of close collaboration. Furthermore,
they have acquired interactional expertise that helps them to bridge their
own and foreign fields of expertise. Interactional and referred expertise
can render dependence relations less opaque.
The situation is clearly different in the molecular biology laboratory
with its comparatively high fluctuation rate. Here, relations of epistemic
dependence have a different character. Post-docs and senior scientists,
who delegate work to doctoral students and students, will usually be
epistemically dependent in a translucent form. Students, in turn, may be
opaquely dependent on more senior researchers, but since they perceive
themselves as experts-to-be, the epistemic opacity they are confronted
with may be regarded as transient. As they learn to master experimental
techniques more and more independently, they gain gradually more and
more expertise. Therefore, the epistemic dependence that students are
involved in is mostly a gray-zone dependence—not opaque anymore, but
not yet translucent either.
To conclude, I hope to have shown in this chapter how the distinction
between opaque and translucent epistemic dependence helps to charac-
terize the empirical variety of research group collaboration in scientific
practice, articulating thereby how, while epistemic dependence pervades
collaborative scientific practice, not all dependence runs equally deep.
 References 129

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 8
Epistemic Trust

Trust, in its vernacular meaning, is a blurred concept with many facets.

This being the case, it should be all the more important for philosophical
accounts to be selective about the aspects of trust that are to be studied and
the function that it is supposed to perform. It should also be important
to be domain-specific. After all, what applies to interactions between
children or friends in non-professional everyday life need not apply to
the professional interaction between scientists who collaborate to create
scientific knowledge.
Can one know from trust? This question is particularly acute in the
context of scientific knowledge creation, in which strong emphasis is
placed on grounding knowledge in inferential and observational evidence
and where the imperative of “organized skepticism” is supposed to reign
(Merton, 1973 [1942]). Drawing upon John Hardwig’s work, I argue that
one can indeed ground knowledge on trust and that, in fact, scientists do
so in scientific practice (Hardwig, 1991, p. 697)—a position, however, as
we will see in Chap. 9, that leads me to distinguish between individual,
trust-based knowing and scientific knowledge.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 131

S. Wagenknecht, A Social Epistemology of Research Groups,
New Directions in the Philosophy of Science,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-52410-2_8
132 8 Epistemic Trust

In this chapter, I elaborate how epistemic trust enables epistemically

dependent scientists to acquire knowledge they otherwise would not be
able to have. After having introduced the notion in Sect. 8.1, I argue
that epistemic trust in scientific practice has a tentative character and
is accompanied by epistemic vigilance in Sect. 8.2. Thereafter, I elab-
orate the ways in which collaborating scientists address these issues in
Sects. 8.3, 8.4, and 8.5. As these sections are grounded in empirical data
about the planetary science group, Sect. 8.6 considers issues of epistemic
trust for the molecular biology laboratory.

8.1 Theoretical Groundwork

The question of what trust actually is has long interested analytic philoso-
phers of various fields. Moral philosopher Annette Baier suggests that trust
is a three-part relation, that is, a “relationship where A has entrusted B
with some of the care of C and where B has some discretionary powers in
caring for C” (Baier, 1986, p. 237). In caring for C, B is supposed to act
on behalf of A in contexts where A does not take care of C. As the care
for C rests in B’s hands, B is expected to endorse an attitude of dedicated
goodwill towards A. A, in turn, has to be confident about B’s goodwill
(Jones, 1996).
When epistemologists analyze trust, however, they are typically inter-
ested only in a particular element of such trust relations. They are
interested in A’s trusting B, her expectation of care towards B. For
epistemologists, trust attitudes are the problem; and the questions that
they concern themselves with are questions of whether A is warranted in
trusting B and what A can reasonably expect to gain from trusting B.
Yet not only do epistemologists tend to focus on trust attitudes, they also
focus specifically on epistemic trust, discussing its epistemic warrant and
its possible epistemic function.
What is epistemic trust? It is knowledge-concerned trust. Many epis-
temologists who consider epistemic trust hold it to be a knowledge-
facilitating attitude in that it can result, under certain conditions, in
knowledge that without epistemic trust could not be had. Epistemic
 8.1 Theoretical Groundwork 133

trust can enable A, who does the trusting, to acquire the knowledge
that p by relying upon a trusted person B (see, e.g., Fricker, 2002;
Goldberg, 2011; Hardwig, 1991; Kappel, 2014; McCraw, 2015). Precisely
under which conditions, A is warranted to place epistemic trust in B
is debated. It is, however, generally assumed that for an adult A to
place epistemic trust in a person B it is necessary for A to regard
B as being “epistemically well-placed” with respect to the belief in
question (McCraw, 2015), a condition I have described with reference
to Hardwig (1985, 1991) as B’s possession of intellectual authority in
Chap. 7.
Epistemic trust, too, can be construed as a three-part relation between
a trusting person A, a trusted person B and a something (C), the care
of which A entrusts B with. Here, C is the justification for the belief
that p, a justification for which A relies upon B. Note, however, that
B cares for C only indirectly. A’s justification for the belief that p need
not be B’s primary concern. Rather, what B is supposed to care about
is his intellectual authority concerning the observations, measurements,
arguments or advice he passes on to A. If B testifies that p to A, conveying
his testimony as a piece of (scientific) knowledge, then B should have
a justification for the belief that p that conforms with those (scientific)
standards of justification that apply. Yet, as I have elaborated in Chap. 7,
B’s justification will not be identical to A’s justification for that p—but B’s
justification will be “folded into” A’s justification because A relies upon
B’s intellectual authority.
While today’s debate about epistemic trust is, generally, benign to the
idea that trust can indeed result in justified believing, Hardwig began
to work upon trust at a time when epistemologists were rather skeptical
about its epistemic potential. This may explain why he construes trust in
strict analogy to evidence gained from observation, inference or memory.
Like such evidence, he argues, trust in a person B provides a “reason” for
A’s adopting the belief that p in reference to B’s maintaining that p. In
Chap. 7 I have characterized reasons of this kind as second-order reasons.
Since these reasons do not pertain to “immediate”—i.e., observational or
inferential—evidence for the belief that p, Hardwig characterizes trust as
“blind” (Hardwig, 1991, p. 693).
134 8 Epistemic Trust

However, that Hardwig calls trust blind must not lead to the con-
ception that trust attitudes were de-coupled from empirical evidence
concerning the trustworthiness of the person trusted. In fact, Hardwig
instructively distinguishes two facets of trustworthiness that enables us
to specify how and in which sense it can be empirically evidenced.
According to him, the trustworthiness of a person concerns both moral
and epistemic character. While moral character concerns dedication and
honesty, epistemic character concerns skillfulness and expertise (Hardwig,
1991, p. 700). A trustworthy person, hence, is one who is sincere and
makes as few mistakes as possible.
The belief (that p) whose justification is at stake in epistemic trust
relations can take many forms in collaborative scientific practice. As
elaborated in Chap. 7, it can be a belief based on a collaborator’s testimony,
asserting that “the measurement is x.” Or, it can be a belief based on
what a collaborator’s labor implicitly conveys. By, for example, making
a chemical compound available to a colleague, a scientist implies that this
compound has been prepared correctly. But a prerequisite to work with
these contributions is to form beliefs about collaborators’ contributions
and their trustworthiness.
Epistemic trust relations involve trust attitudes (A’s trusting B), the
epistemic status of which is debated among social epistemologists. Should
one conceive of attitudes of epistemic trust as beliefs and, if so, do the
standards of justification that apply to knowledge apply to them? Hardwig
seems to be inclined to argue that trust attitudes can, indeed, be “known”
when he argues that the trustworthiness of a collaborator is something
that a scientist can rationally rely upon (Hardwig, 1991, p. 699; see also,
e.g., Fricker, 2006, p. 232). Other authors have taken a different, if
not opposing, stance. In rejecting Hardwig’s account of trust, Klemens
Kappel, for example, characterizes trust as a non-inferential disposition,
a “feeling of confidence about someone or something” (Kappel, 2014,
p. 2017). Such a feeling cannot and need not be evidentially justified.
As a non-inferential disposition, thus, trust cannot be “known”; and
Kappel accordingly claims that collaborating scientists need not, in fact
cannot and “do not know, and are not justified in believing, that other
agents are trustworthy within their specialised domains” (Kappel, 2014,
 8.1 Theoretical Groundwork 135

p. 2017). Nevertheless, Kappel argues, when epistemic trust as a non-

inferential disposition “is discriminating and defeater-sensitive, it can
ground knowledge and justification” (Kappel, 2014, p. 2011). Integrative
accounts of trust have sought to overcome the divide that Kappel sees
between accounts of trust attitudes as justifiable beliefs or non-justifiable
feelings. Karen Frost-Arnold, for example, argues that trust involves cog-
nitive attitudes that can involve beliefs, though they are to be considered
broader than that (Frost-Arnold, 2014).
It matters what precisely trust attitudes are because that will tell us how
trust can and should be acquired. When epistemic trust requires A merely
to adopt a non-inferential disposition, then a trust can be warranted by
an a priori entitlement. Burge (1993) and Coady (1992), for example,
argue that trust in a person’s testimony can be justified a priori. When,
however, epistemic trust requires A to establish reasons for believing in the
trustworthiness of B, then A has to put considerable effort into warranting
an attitude of trust toward B, establishing reliable criteria for assessing
B’s trustworthiness (cf. Goldman, 1999; Kitcher, 1993; Origgi, 2004).
Again, some authors suggest ways to integrate both positions, combining
a priori entitlement and empirical warrant. Differentiating between facets
of trustworthiness, Kristina Rolin argues that, while scientists are expected
to establish an empirical warrant for the competence and skillfulness
of collaborators, “the moral character of the collaborator is to a large
extent taken for granted” (Rolin, 2014, p. 76; see also Andersen 2014;
Rolin 2015). Other authors have argued that, while trust may initially
rest upon an a priori entitlement, this entitlement becomes more and
more irrelevant the longer a relation of epistemic dependence lasts and
the trusting person A is able to collect evidence for the trustworthiness of
B (Adler, 1994; Fricker, 2002).
The ambivalent, divided portrait that epistemologists draw of trust and
its epistemic status leaves us to wonder how collaborating scientists deal
with epistemic trust in scientific practice, that is, under conditions in
which collaboration is a necessity. Do they trust by default? How much
care do they take to establish the trustworthiness of collaborators? How
much care do they feel they should take? These are the questions that my
empirical investigation addresses.
136 8 Epistemic Trust

8.2 The Tentative Character of Epistemic Trust

The interviews I conducted with scientists of the planetary science group
suggest that attitudes of trust towards scientific collaborators are akin to
hypothetical projections, assumptions that are in part evidenced but not
satisfyingly so. The interviews reinforce the notion that trust is inevitable
and ubiquitous in scientific practice, but remains, at the same time,
tentative and fragile. In fact, the interviews bring a sense of uneasiness
to the fore that seems to accompany trust towards collaborators. In
part, this sense of uneasiness might be an interview artifact, something
that is created through the interview, through the pressure the interview
creates to rationalize and verbalize a behavior that most of the time goes
without saying. Yet, given the way in which interviewees elaborate upon
this uneasiness and the ways in which it surfaces in research practice, it
stands to reason that there is, indeed, a sense in which epistemic trust is
never quite fully warranted in scientific practice. The interviews do not
lend support to the argument that epistemic trust among collaborating
scientists is based upon an a priori entitlement. Rather, they suggest that
it is a projection that is, over time, specified and adapted to the experiences
of collaboration. The following quote from an interview with Laurits, the
group’s geologist and spokesperson, illustrates this point:

Q: What do you look for if you work with someone? For example, if it’s a
new person. What do you look for to decide whether you really would like
to collaborate with that person or it’s maybe a bit risky?
Laurits: Ah, that’s something you find out when you start to collaborate.
You can never know it in advance. So, it comes out of the collaboration, I
would say. (Laurits, senior scientist, group1)

When the interview follows up on this statement, Laurits hints at

some of the criteria he draws upon when he decides whether to trust and
collaborate with a person in the first place:

Q: What would signal to you that this person is maybe not good to
collaborate with? What would be a signal of ahm…ah, maybe rather look
for someone else?
 8.2 The Tentative Character of Epistemic Trust 137

Laurits: That’s the same when you start up with a new student that you
want to have as a PhD student. You see what has the person done so far,
and then you start with the collaboration. And it develops from that. And
from that you get your opinion on the person. So, that you know if this is
someone you would like to, ah, to have as a collaborator in the group in the
future or not. (Laurits, senior scientist, group1)

As he sees it, “[o]ne way of getting to know people well is always if

you have them as students” (Laurits, senior scientist, group1). Student–
teacher relationships are ideally relationships of trust as well as control.
The teacher, at least in the initial stages of his or relationship, is able to
assess the quality of the student’s work and, in principle, need not make
him or herself dependent upon the student. After all, the ultimate proof
for the trustworthiness of a collaborator can only be obtained through
control, by witnessing or at least tracing all the inferential steps deemed
relevant to formulate a particular piece of scientific evidence. If, however,
the trusting person were in a position to do so, trust would not be
needed.
In the planetary science group, however, core members met relatively
late in their careers. There were no teacher–student relationships between
them, and so this way of trust-building was not available. In order to learn
whether to trust each other, they had to invest some trust to begin with. As
the interview with Victor, the planetary science group’s senior biologist,
suggests, trust can only be proven on the job:

Now [in the group] I can have access to the [major experimental facility] and
there is no way that I can run the [major experimental facility]. So, I would
need Adam or Nikolaj or both to join to work with me on that, and for that
of course I have to trust their expertise. So, if he tells me that the wind speed
is ten meters a second, then—because he measures it—I have to believe that.
Otherwise if, if I would doubt that, I could not collaborate with him. And
that’s a general problem or a challenge in that astrobiology field, because
you need to collaborate with people from a different discipline. And ah well
you know from your own research that you have, you have been through
many years of training and I would be, yeah, of course I can question your
expertise, but if you if we want to work together, I have to consider you
138 8 Epistemic Trust

as an expert in your field. Otherwise it’s not worthwhile. If I question the

other person’s expertise every time we did an experiment, we would never
get started with an experiment. Of course, I can be disappointed and find
out that he is maybe not the right person to team up with, but that’s ah, the
only way you can find out is by giving it a try. (Victor, senior biologist, group1)

Note that Victor focuses on expertise, trying to establish what exactly he

can trust his collaborators for—gauging, in other words, the realm of their
epistemic trustworthiness. Victor fine-tunes his expectations concerning
collaborators’ epistemic trustworthiness in the process of collaboration.
He projects refined expectations of trustworthiness into the future while
assessing past experiences (or, at least, hoping to be able to do so at a later
point). After referee reports about a jointly authored paper are filed, after
peers corroborate results independently or after having acquired more
expertise, Victor explains, he may be able to asses whether or not it was
right to trust. Trust, here, is built in iterative cycles in the course of which
expectations of trustworthiness are met or disappointed and subsequently
refined.
The difficulty of formulating adequate trust expectations is particularly
prevalent in the domain of scientific collaboration. For scientists, as
Adam, one of the group’s physicists, points out, particular requirements
apply in trust relations:

Q: […] When you work together with others who have a different expertise
than you have, ahm to what extent do you at all try to check what they are
doing? Find out whether what they are saying is actually …
Adam: No, we believe them, trust them.
Q: You just take it?
Adam: But then again, well, you don’t as a scientist, you shouldn’t. You
should, you should—you should ask a question, you know, I don’t under-
stand this, explain this to me. And then they’ll explain it and then if that
sounds logical and reasonable, then you’ll accept it obviously. But if it
sounds really crazy and weird to you, then you don’t accept it. And this is
why sometimes you get into long discussion type arguments […]. (Adam,
senior scientist, group1)
 8.2 The Tentative Character of Epistemic Trust 139

Adam has, as this interview fragment shows, developed strategies to

probe the trustworthiness of collaborators, an aspect that I elaborate upon
below. For the time being, let me note that the interviewees’ perspective
upon trust foregrounds their willingness to engage in epistemic trust,
despite their awareness of the limited warrant that their trust attitudes
have. All the scientists I interviewed are very aware of the fact that
there is always risk attached to trust—the risk of being let down, either
by dishonesty, incompetence or negligence. After all, even honest and
competent collaborators can make mistakes without realizing their error.
Even the trustworthiness of familiar collaborators is not a fact that could
be established beyond reasonable doubt. Trustworthiness is a disposition,
and how this disposition plays out given the contingency and difficulty
of scientific practice, can never be established fully by a person that is
epistemically dependent.
Since sufficient evidence for the trustworthiness of a collaborator
cannot be established at the point of time when the trusting is done, trust
always involves periods of uneasiness. And while epistemic trust does not
seem to be something for which a satisfying warrant could be established
experientially, it does not appear to be warranted by an a priori entitlement
either. Rather, the trustworthiness of collaborators is assumed much in
the same way as a promising hypothesis is assumed, only to be gradually
corroborated.
This way of thinking about epistemic trust concurs well with the
approach that Dan Sperber and collaborators (Sperber et al., 2010) have
taken. In their approach, trust expectations are often provisional and the
trustworthiness of others is not necessarily something one believes in
or feels deeply about. Accordingly, knowledge that p, that one may or
may not base upon others’ trustworthiness, is accepted cautiously and
with what Sperber and collaborators call “epistemic vigilance,” a form
of skepticism that does not eclipse trust but accompanies it: “Vigilance
(unlike distrust) is not the opposite of trust; it is the opposite of blind
trust” (Sperber et al., 2010, p. 363). Without vigilance, so their argument
goes, epistemic trust would not be possible—it would lead people astray
too many times.
140 8 Epistemic Trust

There are various ways for scientists to address the fact that the
trustworthiness of collaborators can never be completely evidenced while
maintaining a vigilant yet cooperative attitude toward their collaborators.
As I will argue, scientists can fine-tune expectations of trust towards
collaborators, they can resort to impersonal trust or find ways to reduce
the trust relations necessary through hierarchical co-authorship. Referring
to fragments of the interviews I have conducted, I will elaborate on these
strategies in the following sections. In doing so, I build upon the work
of epistemologists such as Sperber and collaborators (2010) and Alvin
Goldman (2001) who have discussed a number of ways in which epistemic
trustworthiness can be empirically established. I refer to their work in the
following whenever appropriate and show how it applies to collaboration
in scientific practice.

8.3 Building Trust through Dialoging

With “dialoging” I seek to describe conversational practices that probe col-
laborators’ abilities to explain and understand in order to fine-tune trust
expectations and establish the realm of expertise for which a collaborator
can be trusted. Such dialoging pervades collaborations of scientists among
which differences of expertise, either due to interdisciplinarity or seniority,
are palpable. When experimental processes, findings or interpretations
seem dubious or incomprehensible, a scientist should ask questions—and
when asked a question, he or she should provide an answer. Explaining
and understanding, here, have to be conceived from a first-person/second-
person relation; they are anchored in the exchange between me and you
(Chang, 2011; Scriven, 1962).
In asking questions and having them explained, and in explaining
questions and having them understood, scientists can evaluate each others’
trustworthiness. In the conducted interviews, the theme of explain-
ing/understanding is repeatedly brought up in the context of trust by
different interviewees, yet most comprehensively by Adam. In the inter-
view with him, the theme of explaining/understanding is interestingly
referred to from two different angles. First, Adam talks about having a
scientific question explained in discussions with other group members
 8.3 Building Trust through Dialoging 141

from different disciplines in order to “get the gist.” Second, and a little
later, he speaks about explaining a question himself to find out whether
potential collaborators qualify as trustworthy enough:

Adam: [: : :] I guess from, just from a conversation, I guess, you can tell
whether somebody is technically competent by the way they talk about, ah
you know, talk about things.
Q: OK, so what would be an example for a signal that tells you this person
is maybe not competent? Not competent enough?
Adam: Ah, if they are missing if they are missing fundamental lines of
argument, if they are confusing cause and effect for example, that would be
bad. And if they are vague on something which is really quite important,
and if, and if I explain something, something that is quite basic, and they
still don’t, still don’t get it. (Adam, senior scientist, group1)

By talking to other scientists, Adam seeks to picture what the other

person knows. But in addition to that, he gets an impression of whether
or not the person he is talking to responds properly to his questions and
his priorities, that is, whether this person picks up on “what is really quite
important.” I will call this ability “explanatory responsiveness.”
With the notion of explanatory responsiveness I denote the willingness
and the skill to tailor an explanation to an interlocutor’s epistemic needs.
Being explanatorily responsive means to possess a professional sensitivity
for me–you dialoging, which provides an explanation that can be under-
stood within the context of the epistemic background that the person
receiving an explanation possesses. Explanatory responsiveness combines
cognitive abilities and moral commitment, that is, like trustworthiness it
has an epistemic and a moral facet. If a speaker is explanatorily responsive,
she will commit herself to the listener’s informational needs. She will tell
her listener something that “makes sense.” To do so, the speaker is required
to have some knowledge about the capacity for understanding that the
addressed person possesses.
Sperber et al. (2010) offer a noteworthy complement to my observa-
tions on understanding and explaining that helps to shed further light on
the role of explanatory responsiveness in fostering trust. Their argument
can be summarized as follows. What someone says is interpreted in light
142 8 Epistemic Trust

of his trustworthiness. If a hearer believes a speaker to be trustworthy

right from the outset, she will tend to interpret his utterances in a way
that make them acceptable to her, that is, in a way that creates coherence
between his utterance and her prior beliefs. If the hearer does not hold
any prior attitude of strong trust towards the speaker, her interpretation
may not be guided by the wish to interpret what is said in an acceptable
way. Rather, she interprets what is said in a way so as to emphasize its
relevance to the communication between her and the speaker. Sperber
et al. show that relevance-guided interpretation need not coincide with
acceptability-guided interpretation—in fact, there might be a trade-off
between the maximization of relevance and interpretative charity (Sperber
et al., 2010, p. 368). Now, if the speaker shows explanatory responsiveness
and addresses the listener’s informational needs in the above-mentioned
sense, such a trade-off is unlikely to arise and acceptance along with
mutual understanding is alleviated. Mutual understanding, in turn, helps
consolidate trust relations.
One might assume that it is difficult to provide explanations for scien-
tists with different disciplinary backgrounds. But in Adam’s experience,
interdisciplinary dialoging is possible across disciplinary boundaries:

Q: […] I mean, if someone from another discipline tells you something,

it necessarily sounds a bit weird, because this is a different field, they have
different standards maybe and they …
Adam: Yeah, maybe, but but still we are normally talking about a very
specific situation, a very specific thing like how do you get from this mineral
to that mineral or how does this physical process work and there then
although we come, we have different expertise, we have to come with an
argument that is rational and logical and makes sense. (Adam, senior scientist,
group1)

Because he is familiar with the subject matter, Adam is able to mea-

sure explanations against certain generalized expectations concerning the
argumentative structure of the explanation offered (cf. Goldman, 2001,
p. 93f.): does the explanation offered sound “rational and logical”? Formal
reasoning is a strategy for epistemic vigilance (cf. Sperber et al., 2010,
p. 376ff.), viable even when detailed, disciplinary expertise is lacking.
 8.4 Resorting to Impersonal Trust 143

Formal reasoning is particularly effective because it can contribute both

to second and first-order reasons, both helping to establish the trust-
worthiness of the speaker and the reliability of the content that the
speaker conveys. Note, however, that formal reasoning alone provides
only insufficient first-order reasons to justify a scientist in believing what
his or her collaborator conveys if experimental results are at stake. In
experimental scientific practice, formal reasoning cannot do away with
epistemic dependence and trust.

8.4 Resorting to Impersonal Trust

Up to this point, I have focused on personal epistemic trust, that is,
on trust relations between two individuals. However, a lack in personal
trust can be compensated with impersonal trust, which concerns relations
between a trusting person on the one hand and an “impersonal” entity,
that is, a social structure, on the other (Shapiro, 1987). Impersonal
epistemic trust, hence, enables an epistemically dependent person A to
justify her belief that p with reference to the trustworthiness of a social
structure.
What makes a social structure trustworthy are, for example, “a support-
ing social-control framework or procedural norms, organizational forms,
and social-control specialists, which institutionalize distrust” (Shapiro,
1987, p. 635). An example of institutionalized distrust in scientific knowl-
edge creation is the formalized peer-reviewing of scientific publications,
which constitute a scientist’s track record and are a measure of reputation.
Peer review has been discussed in the context of epistemic trust and
dependence before. Goldman (2001), for example, describes reliance upon
peer-reviewing as a deference of judgment from a layperson, who is in no
position to judge the quality of the publication in question, to an expert,
who is in a better position to do so. (Yet, note that the peer-reviewing
expert still faces what I have described in Chap. 7 as translucent epistemic
dependence.) Despite social epistemology’s concern for peer-reviewing,
the distinction between personal and impersonal forms of epistemic trust
has so far received only peripheral attention, a notable exception being
Rolin (2002) who points out that Hardwig’s account of trust is oblivious
144 8 Epistemic Trust

to the role communities play in establishing trustworthiness (see also

Goldberg, 2010).
Impersonal trust in the peer-reviewing process can compensate for
a lack of personal trust in the authors of a publication. Victor, senior
biologist in the planetary science group, elaborates upon this possibil-
ity when talking about this reliance on Rasmus, one of the group’s
physicists:

Q: […] Why do you think you can accept Rasmus’s expertise? What is your,
I mean you must have some criteria for …
Victor: I consider him an expert in that field.
Q: Umm. What makes him an expert?
Victor: Yeah, the fact that he has published in the field, that he has, well,
he is recognized among colleagues. That’s my validation criteria.
Q: That’s the reputation part. Does it play also a role that you, you work
together with Rasmus in this group? Is this …
Victor: Yeah, of course I have confidence that he is a good person to …that
I can rely on.
Q: So, it would make a difference for you if it’s someone from within the
group or someone you barely know that has also a good reputation?
Victor: No, not necessarily.
Q: Ok, ok.
Victor: And then the other thing is, you know when you, one thing is the
work that you do here, but as soon as you submit a paper for publication,
you get a review on that and if—people are usually quite picky. In particular,
when it comes to multidisciplinary studies. So, ah if, if, you will get
criticized if things don’t stand. (Victor, senior scientist, group1)

In this interview fragment, Victor refers to impersonal trust in peer-

reviewing mechanisms twice, regarding Rasmus’s past track record (which
establishes him as an expert) and regarding future feedback that Victor
will receive about the quality of Rasmus’s work (after having submitted a
co-authored paper to a peer-reviewing publication venue).
Reliance upon peer-reviewing is one example of impersonal trust;
trust in organizational membership is another. When I asked Laura, a
physics post-doc in the planetary science group, about the choice of co-
 8.5 Minimizing Trust in Co-authorship 145

authors for a paper reporting on experiments conducted during a larger

interdisciplinary project, she replied, not without a whiff of irony:

If they have been associated with such a thing as a [prestigious international

project], then—I could say that that actually gives you some sort of stamp
saying OK, these people are not stupid, they know what they are talking
about. ’Cause otherwise you don’t get to do [project with renowned research
organization]. That’s only the best of the best. Or at least some of the good
people. So you know the people associated with the [project] will be people
who know what they are talking about. (Laura, post-doc, group1)

What underlies Laura’s answer is the understanding that prestigious

organizations function as gatekeepers and that organizational membership
can be taken to indicate professional skill. Here again, (relative) laypeople,
for example, junior scientists such as Laura, defer judgment to experts
within the organization who are assumed to be in a better position to
judge the trustworthiness of potential collaborators when admitting them
into the organization.

8.5 Minimizing Trust in Co-authorship

Having elaborated on ways to increase personal epistemic trust and
to complement it with impersonal trust, I will now discuss ways in
which the need for epistemic trust can be minimized. In research group
collaboration, epistemic trust can be minimized by reducing the number
of trust relations that a collaboration involves. As I have observed, this can
be achieved through adopting hierarchical co-authorship, making a “first
author” the center of group collaboration.
In research groups that implement a hierarchy between first author and
contributing authors, the number of relevant trust relations is significantly
smaller than in groups where every member is accountable to everyone
else. When first authors take the lead in collaborative co-authoring
practices, what matters are the trust relations between first author and
contributing authors. The first author will have to trust the contributing
authors for the contributions they make; and contributing authors will
146 8 Epistemic Trust

trust the first author for his or her judgment of others’ contributions and
the way in which he or she integrates them into a coherent whole.
As interview data suggests, hierarchical co-authorship is the form of
authorship that members of the planetary science group typically engage
in. One or two first authors, “usually the driving force in the experiments”
(Adam, senior scientist, group1), are accountable for creating a publishable
text that is acceptable to all co-authors. Under their supervision, the
paper to be written is split up into sections for which responsibility
is distributed among co-authors. Each co-author is assigned particular
sections, sub-sections or single important paragraphs. A co-author then
either writes pieces of text him or herself or provides the first author with
the information necessary to compose the respective section:

[S]omebody writes the main part and then also comes with some ideas how
the rest should look like and then he will send it to the different co-authors
and they add and criticize and make adjustments, additions and so on. So,
it’s a collective type of work, but there is one person who has to come up
with the major input. (Victor, senior scientist, group1)

As a first author you start by typing up what you know and what you want
in there and when you get to parts where you don’t know, where you’re
unsure, you don’t know how to conclude this, then you send what you have
to other people and say: Hey, we’d like to talk something about this or that,
and you ask them questions to this problem. So what do you think? Do you
have an opinion on this? What should we write, what should we say? What
do you think? Ahm, and they’ll come with suggestions, and you’ll use that.
(Laura, post-doc, group1)

Normally scientific papers are, can be split up quite easily into—in that
you have ah you describe the experiment, so that’s a section or different
sections with a different experimental techniques. And then the results,
there are different results from the different, different techniques. (Adam,
senior scientist, group1)

When Victor calls co-authoring a “collective type of work,” he stresses

the involvement of authors beyond the contribution that they, individu-
ally, are able to make. Note that Adam and Laura, in contrast, emphasize
 8.6 By Comparison: The Molecular Biology Lab 147

the “modularity” of jointly authored publications, describing how one or

two first authors solicit material from contributing authors who engage
with the paper at large to a rather limited degree. When I ask Adam
about cross-section commentaries, he replies that such commentaries can
be “tricky” and he usually does not invite them.
A recurrent theme in interviewees’ reflections upon the role of first
authors was the necessity to “make things fit” when integrating different
contributions—a first author is the “person responsible for making sure
that everything fits together” (Laura, post-doc, group1). First authors
include additional contributions that “can be shown to be consistent” with
the core of their experimental data (Rasmus, senior scientists, group1). When
during the writing process “something inconsistent comes up” (Victor,
senior scientist, group1), it is the first author’s responsibility to clear such
inconsistencies. Put differently, first authorship comes with the task of
checking for coherence across individual contributions.
Coherence-checking, as Sperber and collaborators (2010) point out, is
a way to exert epistemic vigilance; it is similar to formal reasoning and is
a strategy available to epistemically dependent scientists to complement
and bolster epistemic trust. The fact that a contribution is coherent with
other contributions of a jointly authored paper does not in itself provide
sufficient reason to justify it epistemically. Coherence alone is generally
not considered to provide sufficient first-order reasons for the justification
of a belief (Haack, 2009, p. 66; see also Angere 2008; Haack 2004;
Meijs 2005). But the fact that a contribution is coherent with other
contributions reflects positively upon the contributor and increases his
or her trustworthiness.

8.6 By Comparison: The Molecular

Biology Lab
Members of the molecular biology laboratory address issues of epistemic
trust in ways similar to members of the planetary science group. In the
lab, too, trust is inevitable for group collaboration and lab members
fine-tune it through eliciting explanations and probing understanding,
as well as complementing personal with impersonal trust and relying on
hierarchical structures to reduce the trust relations that are necessary. Yet,
148 8 Epistemic Trust

given the laboratory’s mono-disciplinary character and the high ratio of

junior scientists among its members, lab members view issues of epistemic
trust differently in some respects.
Most notably, the molecular biology laboratory leverages its hierarchi-
cal structure to address trust issues, making the group leader and subgroup
leaders crucial knots in the group’s trust relations. Their trustworthiness,
and their ability to assess the trustworthiness of others, is crucial for
the group’s inner functioning and its recognition in the field. Usually,
the laboratory leader “is guaranteeing the level of the group” (Martin,
PhD student, group2), but since the laboratory has grown so big, it is de
facto the subgroup leaders who are overseeing group members’ research
activities. As elaborated in Chap. 7, subgroup leaders’ oversight features
elements of translucent epistemic dependence. Working side-by-side with
subgroup members at the lab bench, they are in a good position to fine-
tune their trust expectations to a person’s abilities and commitment. In
overseeing experimental practice, subgroup leaders and lab leaders enforce
procedures and quality standards that help to establish impersonal trust
in the laboratory, a resource that scientists outside the group draw upon
when hiring lab members they not personally acquainted with.
Because the molecular biology laboratory is a mono-disciplinary
research group, the realm of expertise of senior scientists, that is,
what exactly one can trust them for, is not in question. In contrast to
interdisciplinary collaboration, epistemic vigilance, here, focuses rather
on the incomplete expertise of junior scientists and the moral facets of
trustworthiness, such as honesty and the commitment to avoid errors of
negligence. Alex, an advanced PhD student, elaborates when I ask him
about trust:

Alex: I think [trustworthiness] is very important, I think that’s the most

important thing in the whole field. Because I mean at the end of the day you
have to convince other people that what you have done in your experiments
is right, it’s, you know, that the experiments have been done correctly and
so on, and there is no sloppiness in there and so on. I think this is really,
really important to me. And in general in the scientific field as well. The
trust issue is one of the things you work everyday on by trying to convince
 8.6 By Comparison: The Molecular Biology Lab 149

people of your you know ideas, of your logic, of how you do things, to really,
that they understand how you work and how you see things, so.
Q: But on the other hand, on the other hand, you said like some minutes
ago that you have this sort of paranoia, that you want to repeat things all
the time.
Alex: Yes, that’s true, it goes hand in hand a little bit, I mean the paranoia
comes from the point that you wanna make sure that maybe other people
are on the same page as you are as well and that you, that the science itself is
like trustful in itself right, you wanna ask this question and have this kind of,
build up this trust, also with a certain I would say good sense of paranoia. You
shouldn’t be you know too paranoid but you should, you should always try
to have a balance like between believing everything and follow it blindly and,
and having this kind of paranoia there, of also, sometimes just to see: can I
actually trust all the people?(Alex, PhD student, group2)

Not all members of the molecular biology laboratory have developed

such a pronounced skepticism. Martin, a less advanced PhD student,
told me that he generally trusts “unless I have a particular reason not to”
(Martin, PhD student, group2). Still, he holds, it is necessary to have a
vigilant attitude towards others—and particularly to oneself:

Even though of course it’s always, there is always some level of uncertainty
[…], and that’s both other people’s results and also a little bit on your results,
you always have to double-check yourself. But generally it is believed that
the person easiest to fool is yourself. So, as I see it, you should also doubt
your results. (Martin, PhD student, group2)

The uncertainty mentioned here has its source in the fact that experimen-
tal routines are complex and laborious. Mistakes are easily made. In fact,
Martin mentions that he “burnt” himself twice when he was relying on
experimental compounds that other group members had prepared, as it
turned out, wrongly. In both cases, he had to repeat the laboratory work
of several weeks.
In comparison to the planetary science group, epistemic trust in the
molecular biology laboratory reaches more pervasively into the fabric of
group relations. Because basic experimental procedures are often carried
out collaboratively, trust is needed early on in collaborative research
150 8 Epistemic Trust

processes—not first when individually made contributions are combined

in collaborative authorship. Yet, because the molecular biology laboratory
carries out mono-disciplinary research, epistemic trust mostly addresses
dependence that is “merely” translucent. This enables lab members to
mobilize their disciplinary expertise for epistemic vigilance.

8.7 Conclusion
Epistemic trust is a necessity when epistemic labor is divided. Scientists
have to trust their colleagues if they want to collaborate with them.
And as much as trust comes with the risk of being let down, so does
scientific collaboration put the trusting scientist in a position to probe
the trustworthiness of his or her collaborators. Scientists find various
ways to address the epistemic challenges associated with the necessity of
trusting in collaborative scientific practice. First of all, they seek to increase
trust and fine-tune their expectations of it toward collaborators through
dialoging practices, eliciting explanations and probing understanding.
Second, they supplement personal trust with impersonal trust. Third, they
reduce the personal trust relations necessary through hierarchical modes
of collaboration.
Nevertheless, epistemic trust in scientific practice remains tentative.
The assumption of a collaborator’s trustworthiness is a provisional
hypothesis that is to be consolidated in iterative cycles of ongoing
collaboration. In fact, my interview data support the notion that trust
among collaborating scientists is accompanied by epistemic vigilance. In
analogy to Chang’s “epistemic iteration” in experimental science (Chang,
2004), moments of socio-epistemic iteration are key to understanding
and managing the uncertainties of collaborative scientific practice. The
rationale that underlies this iteration is that if trust is misplaced, it will
show soon enough—in experimental failure, in inconsistent results, in
critical referee reports.
In the midst of scientific practice, whether or not to trust is not a ques-
tion that vexes collaborating scientists. Rather, for scientists, the pressing
question that they confront continuously is how to make a research
collaboration a scientific success—that is, how to meet the demands
 References 151

of scientific scrutiny, the scrutiny of collaborators, of peer-reviewing

referees, and of those communities for which the epistemic fruits of
this research collaboration are scientifically relevant. Against this back-
drop, a philosophically most interesting question is how collaborators’
individually held trust-based knowledge relates to collaboratively created
scientific knowledge. As I elaborate in Chap. 9, scientific knowledge poses
requirements that, in many instances of scientific practice, cannot be met
by any one individual scientists.

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 9
Collaboration and Collective Knowledge

For the two research groups studied, Chaps. 6, 7 and 8 have described
how research efforts are divided among group members, how such divi-
sion of labor creates relations of epistemic dependence and how such
dependence relations are facilitated by trust. It was shown that it takes
more than an individual effort to create scientific knowledge. Now, given
that knowledge creation in much of today’s natural sciences is the result
of collaborative effort, philosophers need to explore whether or not
scientific knowledge amounts to genuinely collective knowledge. And in
fact, during recent years, diverse accounts of collective knowledge have
been debated controversially (see, e.g., Andersen, 2010; Cheon, 2014; de
Ridder, 2014; Fagan, 2011; Gilbert, 2000; Miller, 2015; Rolin, 2010; Wray,
2001).
In this chapter, I will focus on two exemplary accounts of collective
knowledge (Sect. 9.1). I will discuss, on the grounds that previous chapters
have laid, how far they apply to the previously observed scientific practice
of collaborative knowledge creation (Sects. 9.2 and 9.3), a discussion on
the basis of which I will formulate my own account of collective scientific
knowledge.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 153

S. Wagenknecht, A Social Epistemology of Research Groups,
New Directions in the Philosophy of Science,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-52410-2_9
154 9 Collaboration and Collective Knowledge

9.1 Approaches to Collective Knowledge

At this point, it should be clear that both the planetary science group and
the molecular biology laboratory produce scientific knowledge collabo-
ratively. But does that imply that the scientific knowledge they create is
genuinely collective? Before I discuss this question, I want to mark the
conceptual territory that my discussion seeks to cover.
First, I will limit myself to the question of whether collaboratively cre-
ated scientific knowledge qualifies as “collective,” leaving aside other forms
of knowledge that research collaboration may produce. To distinguish
analytically scientific knowledge from non-scientific knowledge is not a
straightforward task, and it is not what I aim to do in this chapter. While
I will make some remarks on such a distinction in Sect. 9.3, I suggest that
we think of scientific knowledge in terms of the claims that collaborating
co-authors make in research publications. This is not a refined analytic
account of scientific knowledge, but it will help us to discuss the empirical
case at hand.
Second, I will limit myself to accounts of genuinely collective knowl-
edge, that is, knowledge that cannot be reduced to individual knowledge.
Collective knowledge that can be reduced to individual knowledge can
be, for example, shared, common knowledge that is held, in a more or
less identical way, by several individual knowers. I will leave such kinds of
collective knowledge aside and focus instead upon accounts of irreducibly
collective knowledge, as suggested by Gilbert (1989, 1994, 2000, 2013)
and de Ridder (2014). As Gilbert’s and de Ridder’s work exemplify two
complementary approaches to collective knowledge and have, particularly
in the case of Gilbert, been a major factor in the epistemological debate
on the subject, I will elaborate upon their work in more detail below.
The debate on collective knowledge is strongly rooted in Gilbert’s work.
Gilbert (1989) formulated the concept of “group belief,” a notion that
has spilled over from social ontology into general epistemology and the
social epistemology of science. Gilbert (2000) applied group belief to the
analysis of science, explicating a sense in which scientific knowledge is
genuinely collective and not attributable to individual scientists. When
applying Gilbert’s group belief to the analysis of scientific knowledge, the
 9.2 Non-summative Belief and Joint Commitment 155

latter has typically been conceived of as a kind of belief or similar doxastic

state such as an “accepted view” (e.g., in Andersen, 2010; Wray, 2001).
The conception of scientific knowledge as a kind of doxastic state refers
to the paradigm of knowledge as “justified (true) belief,” a paradigm that
underlies my reflections of collective knowledge.
When building upon Gilbert’s group belief, notions of collective
knowledge locate the collective quality of knowledge in its belief
component. They “collectivize” belief. In contrast, de Ridder’s (2014)
notion of collective scientific knowledge locates the collective quality of
knowledge in the justification that scientific knowledge requires. So, while
Gilbert holds that group belief cannot be reduced to individual believing,
de Ridder argues that the justification of collective scientific knowledge
cannot be reduced to the justification that individuals have. In focusing
either on the belief component or the component of justification, Gilbert
and de Ridder’s proposals are examples of complementary approaches to
collective knowledge. In the following sections, I will discuss whether,
and if so with what analytic benefit, Gilbert’s and de Ridder’s proposals
of collective knowledge apply to the observed cases of collaborative
knowledge creation.

9.2 Non-summative Belief and Joint

Commitment
Following Gilbert’s approach, collective knowledge is a form of group
belief, characterized as a “non-summative” belief held by a “plural sub-
ject” that is constituted through the “joint commitment” of individuals
(Gilbert, 1989, 1994, 2000, 2013). Let me elaborate on the conceptual ele-
ments of group belief one after another and provide a concise formulation
of the condition to which Gilbert’s group belief applies. My goal, here, is
to probe the extent to which Gilbert’s group belief applies and accounts for
the two cases of collaborative knowledge creation in the research groups
that I observed.
Gilbert’s group belief is based on the distinction between summative
and non-summative collective beliefs. A summative account holds that
156 9 Collaboration and Collective Knowledge

groups of individuals can have the belief that p insofar as all or most
of their individual members have the belief that p. In other words,
summative collective beliefs are reducible to individual beliefs. Non-
summative beliefs, in contrast, are irreducibly collective beliefs. For these
non-summative collective beliefs, Gilbert argues, it is neither a necessary
nor a sufficient condition that all or most (or, in fact, any) group members
individually hold the collective belief.
The observation that underlies Gilbert’s non-summative collective
belief is that there are cases in which individuals adopt beliefs only as a
group. She argues that it can be plausible (and, for that matter, warranted)
for two different groups with identical individual members to have
conflicting group beliefs. She presents the example of a library committee
and a food committee at a residential college which are identical in terms
of membership. She argues that it is plausible for the two committees to
differ in their group beliefs. All group members might individually have
the opinion that college food is too high in carbohydrate; yet, while the
food committee comes to adopt the group belief that college members are
consuming too much starch, the library committee as a group need not
hold this belief (Gilbert, 1989, p. 273; for an elaboration of this example
see Schmitt, 1994, p. 261). These examples suggest that what is decisive
for group belief are institutional constraints under which a group is forced
to act collectively.
According to Gilbert, for a group to hold the non-summative, irre-
ducibly collective belief that p, individual members must jointly express
their individual willingness to let a proposition p stand as the belief of
their collective—a condition that she describes as “joint commitment” of
all group members (Gilbert, 1994, p. 245; Gilbert, 2000, p. 40). A joint
commitment, then, constitutes a “plural subject” which holds the propo-
sition in question as a collective belief.1 Two or more individuals form a
plural subject holding a collective belief if, and only if, they are jointly
committed to holding this belief “as a body” (Gilbert, 1994, p. 244).

1
The concept of a belief-holding plural subject has been met with reservation by social epistemolo-
gists. Therefore, collective belief is rephrased as a form of “collective acceptance” of a proposition. It
is argued that to speak of collective acceptance does not necessitate a plural subject capable of holding
mental states (cf. Schmitt, 1994, p. 262; see also Giere 2007; Hakli 2007; Matthiesen 2006; Wray
2001).
 9.2 Non-summative Belief and Joint Commitment 157

What a non-summative group belief thus demands from group mem-

bers is not to adopt the group belief as individual belief, but to decide
jointly with all other group members to let a certain proposition stand
as the belief of their group. As members of a plural subject, individuals’
actions are constrained. Their joint commitment imposes mutual obli-
gations upon them. Once committed to others, individuals are entitled
to expect other jointly committed individuals not to undermine their
collective belief. Hence, a joint commitment prevents individual members
from rescinding collective beliefs, since unilateral resignation will be
negatively sanctioned by the collective (see, e.g., Gilbert, 1994, p. 238
or Gilbert, 2000, p. 44).
Drawing on the paradigm of knowledge as a form of belief, Gilbert’s
group belief can be reformulated as collective (scientific) knowledge, a line
of thought which, in fact, a number of social epistemologists have pursued
(Andersen, 2010; Bouvier, 2004, 2010; Rolin, 2010; Tollefsen, 2006). Let
me label this notion of collective knowledge the joint commitment account
(JC) and provide a concise formulation of the condition under which this
account applies:

According to the JC account, a necessary condition for collective knowledge

to obtain is that a group of individuals is jointly committed to allowing a
proposition to stand as the knowledge of their group.

The question that I will discuss in the remainder of this section is how
far, and with what analytic benefit, the JC account can be applied to
the observed cases of collaborative knowledge creation. This discussion
will be rather critical, and I will argue that to conceive of collaborative
knowledge creation on Gilbert’s terms creates a misleading image of
scientific practice.
Gilbert’s notion of group belief and its reformulation as collective
knowledge have done much to challenge epistemic individualism, reviving
social epistemology’s debate about the collective character of science. The
conceptual appeal of her group belief is the “slack” that this notion cuts
between individual and collective believing. Group beliefs, she argues,
need not be reducible to individual beliefs. This notion of group beliefs
seems to explain the socio-epistemic phenomena of scientific knowledge
158 9 Collaboration and Collective Knowledge

creation, such as an alleged conservatism in the adherence to scientific

paradigms (Gilbert, 2000; Rolin, 2008; Wray, 2001). However, as Fagan
(2011) critically points out, Gilbert’s notion of group belief does not
explain these phenomena particularly well. According to Fagan, accounts
based on Gilbert’s notion posit empirically unconfirmed explananda
and fail to “identify positive counterparts (or extensions) […] which
inferentially connect to features of collective belief stemming from joint
commitment” (Fagan, 2011, p. 263). Joint commitment, Fagan holds, is
an idle wheel (and what it seeks to explain, Fagan (2012) suggests, is better
done through a web of interpersonal commitment).
My discussion of the JC account and its applicability bears parallels to
Fagan’s critique. Like Fagan, I have considerable doubts as to whether the
JC account resonates with, let alone explains, empirical observations of
scientific practice. To explicate these doubts in the following, I first revisit
some of the—non-scientific—examples Gilbert proposes to illustrate
regarding the plausibility of joint commitment. These examples, I argue,
seem to suggest additional conditions for JC to obtain. Thereafter I spell
out in more detail what the JC account of collective knowledge implies
for collaborative scientific practice and discuss how far these implications
relate to the empirical data I gathered.
It is important to note that when Gilbert develops her notion of group
belief, she illustrates her conceptual discussion with a series of small, ad
hoc examples—most of which refer to everyday situations in which a small
number of people decide to endorse a statement or attitude jointly as a
group. One example, the food and library committee, has been mentioned
above. Other recurrent examples include a poetry discussion group which
arrives at a group interpretation (e.g., in Gilbert, 2013, p. 169) and the
spontaneous act of two people walking together (e.g., in Gilbert, 2013,
p. 24). The range of Gilbert’s examples suggests wide applicability. But in
many of the examples she uses, there is an immediate pressure to decide
and act on an issue as a group—while it is, at the same time, legitimate for
group members to entertain private thoughts that do not coincide with
the jointly accepted group view and that individual group members feel
no pressure to act upon. It seems therefore as if her examples tacitly imply
additional conditions necessary for JC to obtain. And it begs the question
as to whether these conditions are met in collaborative scientific practice.
 9.2 Non-summative Belief and Joint Commitment 159

Gilbert and other philosophers, however, have in fact applied the

notion of joint commitment to science. In the epistemological analysis
of science, Gilbert’s group belief, rephrased as collective knowledge, has
been ascribed to different kinds of collectives in science, to specialist
communities as well as to research groups. When Gilbert herself brings
her account of collective belief to bear on the explanation of scientific
change, she conceptualizes disciplinary peer communities as collectives
bound by joint commitment to a scientific paradigm: “[…] I shall assume
that, by and large, scientific communities do have scientific beliefs of
their own” (Gilbert 2000; for a modified account of community-borne
collective knowledge see Rolin 2008). According to Gilbert, the seemingly
sudden character of scientific change and its absence over long periods of
“conservative,” normal science cannot be explained in terms of individual
scientists. Rather, she suggests that members of a specialist community
should be understood as being jointly committed to a scientific paradigm.
This, she argues, explains the conservativeness of science, as individual
members would face negative sanctions if they unilaterally dissented from
the reigning paradigm. Moreover, it explains the sudden presence of rapid
scientific change because if joint commitment is violated, then it breaks
in its entirety. Peer communities, however, are not my focal interest.
In contrast to Gilbert, Wray (2007) argues that large peer communities
cannot hold collective knowledge because they are unable to strike a
joint commitment. According to Wray, only research groups, that is,
small groups of interdependent collaborators, can do so. Yet with this
argument, Wray posits an additional condition for JC to obtain—the
condition of “organic solidarity,” a feature of group members’ relations
with one another that reflects their state of mutual dependence, a state
caused by division of labor. While Wray does not go very far in clarifying
how organic solidarity should be linked to the collective possession of
knowledge, I will seek to explicate a link between mutual interdependence
and collective knowledge in the next section.
For my own discussion of whether the JC account of collective knowl-
edge applies to research groups and their collaborative scientific practice,
and particularly to the collaborative authoring of research publications,
I confine myself to my comparative case study. To support the JC account
of collective knowledge, I need to mobilize
160 9 Collaboration and Collective Knowledge

(i) observations of empirical phenomena that are well accounted for by

JC and/or
(ii) observations of empirical phenomena indicating that scientific prac-
tice complies with the implications of JC

Observations of the first type (i) should make it plausible that the
JC account explains, in fact, a phenomenon of empirically observable
practice. Observations of the second type (ii) should make it plausible that
the JC account is compliant with actual scientific practice, that it aligns
with the normative notions that are ingrained in scientific practice. Thus,
while (i) reflects a concern for the explanatory value of JC, (ii) reflects a
concern for its empirical applicability (see also Fagan, 2011).
Regarding (i), the data I have been able to gather do not testify to
empirical phenomena that would be particularly well explained through
JC. According to the JC account, a phenomenon that calls for joint
commitment as an explanation would be a collectively held belief that
need not be identical with those beliefs held individually by single
members of the collective in question. Such a phenomenon, if it is a
feature of scientific practice, should be especially observable in the case of
interdisciplinary research, that is, research where individual scientists with
different research backgrounds, perspectives and interests collaborate.
However, in my fieldwork and my interviewing, I have not found evidence
of such a phenomenon.
Instead, what the scientists I observed conveyed to me was an ethos of
individual judgment and conviction—if you are not personally convinced
of something, you should not commit yourself to it. Collaborative scientific
practices should mobilize, not sideline, individual judgment so as to
forestall the premature dissemination of badly corroborated knowledge
claims. As Laura, junior physicist in the planetary science group, observes
about collaborative authoring: “[As a contributing author] I might not be
able to refer exactly to the details, but I’ve checked it through and there
is nothing I am majorly unhappy about”—implying that if she or other
authors were unhappy about a piece of research, she should bring it up
with the first author who should “try to address their concerns and make
sure that the article is written in such a way that people agree” (Laura,
interview, group1).
 9.2 Non-summative Belief and Joint Commitment 161

If your scientific collaborators are not convinced of a research result,

you should try to convince them, explaining your reasoning and helping
them understand. As Laurits, senior geologist in the planetary science
group puts it: “you have to convince other people about the stuff you know
best” (Laurits, interview, group1). In their interviews, both Laurits and
Adam, one of the group’s physicists, describe an incident of disagreement
which led an outside collaborator to opt out of a paper. “[I]t’s sad when
that happens,” Adam says, “but it’s kind of rare. It doesn’t happen
a lot—not to us, anyway. And it doesn’t happen in-house.” Because
“[…] if we disagree with the conclusions of [collaborative experiments],
then we would—we do some more measurements until we, we’re sure”
(Adam, interview, group1). I have described this practice of collaboration
as “dialoging,” a practice that values “explanatory responsiveness,” in
Chap. 8.
Notwithstanding these dialoging practices, supporters of the JC
account may still apply the notion of joint commitment to the
collaborative creation of scientific knowledge if they declare individual
understanding and conviction to be irrelevant, or secondary, to scientific
practice. Supporters of the JC account could argue that while group
members may have individual understanding and conviction, they are
still bound by a non-summative group belief. But at least for the cases of
collaborative scientific practice I observed, such an interpretation appears
forced and the notion of joint commitment becomes, as Fagan puts it,
“otiose” (Fagan, 2011, p. 269).
Regarding (ii), the data I have been able to gather do not indicate that
scientific practice complies with implications of JC. According to the JC
account, an indication of joint commitment would be the willingness
of individual group members to endorse a view as their group view, a
willingness that would have to be expressed by all involved individuals
jointly. Another indication of joint commitment would be the negative
sanctioning of group members who break a joint commitment. My data,
however, do not lend support to any such things. In my fieldwork, I found
that the professional freedom of individual group members to pursue
their own interests and ideas plays a fundamental role in the functioning
of the two research groups observed (see Chaps. 4 and 5). Supporters
of the JC account might argue that jointly committed group members
have deeply internalized the constraints that their joint commitment
162 9 Collaboration and Collective Knowledge

places upon their professional performance. But that is not what the
joint commitment account, which emphasizes precisely the difference of
collective belief and individual believing, is saying. Supporters of the JC
account may furthermore point out that especially younger researchers
are usually confined in their professional freedom and embedded in
hierarchical relations. Yet Gilbert’s notion of joint commitment does
not capture hierarchical decision processes either. In hierarchical research
groups, where senior scientists lead junior scientists, it stands to reason
that the beliefs of senior scientists influence the individually held views
that the junior scientists are endorsing (or are supposed to endorse). This,
again, is not what a JC account is saying.
So despite the fruitful debate that Gilbert’s group belief and the JC
account of collective knowledge have spurred, their usefulness for an
epistemological analysis of collaborative knowledge creation in scientific
practice is not apparent. My empirical data provide no evidence suggest-
ing that the JC account resonates with collaborative scientific practice,
and that its application would generate explanatory benefits. Worse, in
Gilbert’s formulation, the JC account undercuts the practices of dialoging
and explanatory responsiveness, blackening the processes that underlie,
as my case study shows, the creation of scientific knowledge. As it fails
to account for these processes, Gilbert’s collective belief, rephrased as
collective scientific knowledge, risks promoting forms of collaborative
scientific knowledge creation that rely on intransparent and truncated
collective deliberation and judgment (as, e.g., in Beatty, 2006; see also
Beatty & Moore, 2010).
Given that the JC account of collective knowledge does not apply well
to the practices of research collaboration I have studied, I will turn to
the epistemic dependence (ED) account of collective knowledge in the
following section. As I will show, there is, in fact, a robust sense in which
the collaborative practices I have studied yield collective knowledge.

9.3 Irreducibly Collective Justification

When de Ridder (2014) formulates an account of collective scientific
knowledge, he locates the collective quality of such knowledge in its
justification. Scientific standards, he argues, demand a particularly
 9.3 Irreducibly Collective Justification 163

qualified justification, a kind which individual scientists cannot always

guarantee. If scientific justification for a piece of knowledge can only
be guaranteed by a team of scientists, then scientific knowledge is
collective—provided that the team in question consists of scientists
who are mutually dependent upon one another and whose mutual
dependence is cognitively necessary. Let me elaborate upon the details of
this account.
Scientific justification, according to de Ridder, is a particularly
demanding form of belief justification. The belief of a subject S has
scientific justification “[…] only if it is properly based on a properly
performed and objectively reliable process of scientific inquiry, the
purpose of which was to gather evidence for the truth of p, and
S understands this to be so” (de Ridder, 2014, p. 45). A scientific
justification thus understood comprises a procedural requirement (i.e.,
the belief has to be properly based on an adequate research process) and
a reflective requirement (i.e., S understands this to be so). While the
procedural requirement need not be fulfilled by S and could be fulfilled
by another epistemic subject, S has to fulfill the reflective requirement.
Both requirements are coupled to one another. For S to fulfill properly
the reflective requirement, S has to be capable of obtaining first-hand
information about the fulfillment of the procedural requirement. If S
would necessarily have to rely upon the testimony of others for the
information that the procedural requirement is fulfilled, de Ridder argues,
S does not meet the reflective requirement: “[…] in relying on testimony-
based justification, she [the subject] doesn’t really understand in a direct
way that the process of inquiry on which her belief is (ultimately) based
is properly performed and objectively reliable, and that the evidence it
produces indeed supports p [i.e., the belief whose scientific justification is
in question]” (de Ridder, 2014, p. 48).
Because research is a collaborative endeavor, in many cases only a group
of individual scientists is able to fulfill both procedural and reflective
requirement. Yet not all collaboratively created scientific knowledge, de
Ridder argues, is irreducibly collective. He confines irreducibly collective
knowledge to cases of mutual and “cognitively necessary epistemic depen-
dence” (de Ridder, 2014, p. 46). Epistemic dependence is cognitively
necessary when the dependent individual is limited in expertise and when
these limits are the motivation for engaging in a dependence relation. An
164 9 Collaboration and Collective Knowledge

individual that is cognitively dependent upon collaborators, de Ridder

continues, is not able to fulfill the reflective requirement of scientific
justification.
De Ridder distinguishes cognitively necessary epistemic dependence
from dependence that is merely “practically necessary” (de Ridder, 2014,
p. 46), a form of dependence that arises when scientists delegate parts of
the research process to others, not because they lack the expertise, but
because they lack the material resources to perform them. Sometimes,
de Ridder observes, “the evidence needed to substantiate a conclusion is
too much for any individual to collect and process. It is not that doing so
requires skills or expertise that no single individual has; it is purely a matter
of time” (de Ridder, 2014, p. 46). Yet in such cases, de Ridder argues,
individual scientists can access the evidence after it has been created, pro-
vided it is properly conserved. Given the necessary expertise, practically
necessary dependence does not hinder scientists in understanding how a
piece of research is properly based upon an adequate process of inquiry.
Hence, de Ridder argues, practically dependent scientists can fulfill the
reflective requirement and have scientific justification individually.
When scientific justification can only be had collectively, that is, when
collective scientific knowledge obtains, an individual can have collective
scientific knowledge “derivatively” (de Ridder, 2014, p. 48). Individuals,
de Ridder points out, can appropriate collective scientific knowledge
into their individual knowing on the basis of testimony. Testimonial
justification, however, falls short of scientific justification.
For the purpose of this chapter, let me label de Ridder’s notion of
collective scientific knowledge the epistemic dependence account (ED).
On the ED account, in de Ridder’s formulation, collective scientific
knowledge applies under the following condition:

According to the ED account, a necessary condition for collective scientific

knowledge to obtain is mutual, cognitively necessary epistemic dependence
among a group of individuals that allows only the group to satisfy the
requirements of scientific justification for a proposition p.

This condition for collective scientific knowledge can be translated into

the terminology that I introduced in Chap. 7. There, I developed the
 9.3 Irreducibly Collective Justification 165

notions of opaque and translucent epistemic dependence. While opaque

dependence is cognitively necessary, translucent dependence is not. I have
also developed notions of first and second-order reasons, a distinction
that can be linked to de Ridder’s argument as well. De Ridder argues that
for a subject to have scientific justification for p means to have sufficient
“non-testimonial evidence” (de Ridder, 2014, p. 48) to assume that p is
properly based on an adequate process of inquiry. Put differently, first-
order reasons can constitute a scientific justification as they pertain to
immediate, that is, non-testimonial, evidence for p. Second-order reasons,
in contrast, concern the trustworthiness of a speaker and justify reliance
upon a speaker’s testimony that p. Second-order reasons may be admissible
in the justification of individual knowing, but they cannot constitute
a scientific justification. Interpreting de Ridder’s ED account with this
terminology, we can reformulate the condition for collective scientific
knowledge as follows:

According to the ED* account, a necessary condition for collective scientific

knowledge to obtain is mutually opaque epistemic dependence among a
group of individuals that allows only the group to provide those first-order
reasons that the scientific justification for a proposition p requires.

For a discussion of whether the ED* account of collective knowledge

applies to research groups and their collaborative scientific practice, and
particularly to the collaborative authoring of research publications, I will
again confine myself to my comparative case study. To support the ED*
account of collective knowledge, I need to mobilize

(i) observations of empirical phenomena that are well accounted for by

ED* and/or
(ii) observations of empirical phenomena indicating that scientific prac-
tice complies with implications of ED*

Drawing on analyses in previous chapters, I argue that the ED*

account explains, in fact, an empirically observable phenomenon. It
explains the predominance of collaborative authorship, itself a reflection
of the division of labor in research groups. Group members collaborate
166 9 Collaboration and Collective Knowledge

with one another on a day-to-day basis, and I have characterized their

collaborative relationships as help, delegation and deference, and I have
argued that these relationships give rise to epistemic dependence, some of
it opaque epistemic dependence. Yet, ED* implies that in the absence of
mutually opaque epistemic dependence, collaboratively created scientific
knowledge is not collective—an implication that I will take issue with in
the remainder of this section.
The ED* account follows de Ridder’s ED account in limiting collective
knowledge to cases of mutually opaque (or, as de Ridder phrases it,
“cognitively necessary”) epistemic dependence. De Ridder maintains that:

For cases where teamwork is a practical necessity, it could be argued that

once the evidence is all collected, properly stored, and made accessible,
individuals can have it non-testimonially. (de Ridder, 2014, p. 47)

I want to highlight two issues with this argument, one analytic and one
concerning its relevance for the analysis of scientific practice. First, even
when teamwork is a mere “practical necessity” and evidence is “made
accessible,” an individual scientist cannot have scientific justification
entirely non-testimonially. In contrast to de Ridder, I maintain that even
for a scientist with the necessary expertise, mere access to stored evidence
is not sufficient to be certain enough about the way in which a piece
of evidence is based on experimental inquiry. If a scientist has not eye-
witnessed the experiment, she cannot be sure that the experiment has been
performed correctly and its results reported truthfully. An unexpected
result may catch her eye and raise skepticism, but an expected yet inferior
result, accompanied by proper documentation, may not. Hence, if she has
not eye-witnessed the experiments, even the scientist with the necessary
expertise will have to rely upon the trustworthiness of her collaborator—
that is, in justifying her belief in the scientific quality of the evidence in
question, the scientist will have to rely upon second-order reasons. She
alone cannot provide a scientific justification based on the experimental
evidence provided by a collaborator. Therefore, contrary to de Ridder, I
argue that collective knowledge does apply here.
Second, even when evidence could be had non-testimonially, my empir-
ical observations suggest that, in actual practice, scientists often choose to
 9.3 Irreducibly Collective Justification 167

let their epistemic dependence stand. They do not, whenever possible,

eye-witness collaborators’ experiments or reproduce their experimental
results—time is too scarce, and experimental resources too expensive.
This holds particularly for the molecular biology laboratory where single
experimental steps can quickly cost several hundred, if not several thou-
sand, Euros. So even though the laboratory is a mono-disciplinary research
group where epistemic dependence is often translucent, scientists do not
necessarily seek to minimize dependence and reliance upon testimony.
When I asked Johan, the lab leader, whether he controls or checks
the scientists in his group, he replies: “I mean, as a mentor, right, you
do have an influence on people as a mentor.” In the interview, he also
finds it important to assure me that for the research in his lab he knows
exactly what the “criteria for good scientific conduct” are. He furthermore
mentions that he has a “thorough” understanding of the journal articles
that he co-authors as a lab leader and collaborator (Johan, interview,
group2). He does not claim, however, that he typically makes a point of
eye-witnessing or reproducing experimental procedures. And neither do
those lab members who allot more of their time to work at the lab bench.
When I ask Alex, who has just finished his dissertation, whether he repeats
experimental steps that a close collaborator of his performed, he answers:

I mean for sure one is controlling each other as well within a group. I think
that’s also important, because there is always and is always gonna be people
doing mistakes, if they are made just by chance or if it was really willing to
do the mistake, it’s always gonna happen, because there is so much pressure,
right. So, it’s important that you also internally have kind of a control
system. However, this is more I would say on a base like random control
and so on, yeah. And generally I mean it’s not a big issue I would say within
the group, because you know the experimental set-up, you follow them in
group meetings and so on, so you know what they’re doing. (Alex, interview,
group2)

Collaborators, as Alex sees it, do control one another. But they do not
do so all the time since, he continues, “you gonna easily figure out if
they’re constructing data” (Alex, interview, group2). Much more difficult
to detect than fraud and plain failure are experimental results that could
168 9 Collaboration and Collective Knowledge

have been better, for example, more precise or comprehensive, that maybe
could have yielded serendipitous insights—if experimental routines had
been handled with more skill, care or patience:

[…] at the end of the day you have to convince other people that what you
have done in your experiments is right, it’s – you know, that the experiments
have been done correctly and so on, and there is no sloppiness in there and
so on. (Alex, interview, group2)

Even adequately stored data need not show “sloppiness.” And even
scientists with the necessary expertise often choose to remain epistemically
dependent upon their collaborators, not fulfilling the reflective require-
ment of scientific justification.
A robust notion of collective scientific knowledge should reflect these
realities of scientific practice—the shortness of material resources and
time, the pervasiveness of dependence and trust. Collective scientific
knowledge should account for a broad range of de facto situations.
It should not put too much emphasis on the available, yet unrealized
possibility of epistemic independence. Therefore I suggest an account
of collective scientific dependence, ED**, that is not limited to opaque
epistemic dependence but encompasses cases of translucent epistemic
dependence as well:

According to the ED** account, a necessary condition for collective scien-

tific knowledge to obtain is mutual epistemic dependence among a group
of individuals that allows only the group to provide those first-order reasons
that the scientific justification for a proposition p requires.

One may object to the scope of the ED** account, arguing that
according to it most collaboratively created scientific knowledge should
be considered collective—a conclusion that many social epistemologists
are uneasy about. De Ridder, for example, anticipates the objection that
his ED account would “overgeneralize,” an objection he defends himself
against by emphasizing how limited the conditions for collective scientific
knowledge are if mutual cognitively necessary epistemic dependence is
required (de Ridder, 2014, p. 51).
 9.4 Conclusion 169

But why does a broad notion of collective scientific knowledge appear

objectionable? Because it challenges individualism, a stance with a strong
foothold in much of epistemology (as noted in, e.g., Fricker, 2006;
Grasswick, 2004; Kusch, 2002). Epistemological individualism focuses
on the individual as a primary epistemic subject. What is more, as a
value, individualism transports the ideal of epistemic self-reliance, that
is, the ideal of individual knowing that would not need to resort to the
testimony of others. De Ridder defends this ideal, not sweepingly but
discreetly, when he argues that scientists whose epistemic dependence is
practically necessary could be epistemically independent—that they are,
in fact, often not is an empirical insight about actual scientific practice
that he is either not aware of or deems irrelevant.
With ED** I propose an account that recognizes the outcome of much
of collaborative scientific practice as collective scientific knowledge, a
position that I suggest calling “inter-individualism.” While I provide
a sense in which collaboratively created scientific knowledge should
be considered collective, my approach foregrounds the individual epis-
temic efforts that scientists undertake in collaborative scientific practice,
highlighting the inter-individual exchanges that scientific collaboration
consists of.

9.4 Conclusion
In this chapter, I have considered the question as to whether, and in
which sense, collaboratively created scientific knowledge can be con-
sidered irreducibly collective. I have based my consideration upon the
empirical insights into the two research groups I have studied. On the
basis of these insights, I have argued that the joint commitment approach
to collective knowledge does not apply well to collaboratively created
scientific knowledge. Instead, I have suggested pursuing the epistemic
dependence approach to collective scientific knowledge. I have argued that
scientific knowledge is collective when mutual epistemic dependence pre-
vents individual scientists from providing a scientific justification for the
piece of knowledge in question. In formulating this notion of collective
scientific knowledge, I have built upon the work of de Ridder (2014).
170 9 Collaboration and Collective Knowledge

In contrast to de Ridder, however, I do not confine collective scientific

knowledge to cases of mutual epistemic dependence that are opaque. As a
consequence, the notion of collective scientific knowledge that I propose
(ED**) is a rather broad notion, applicable to much of collaboratively
created scientific knowledge—only such a notion, I believe, acknowledges
the collective dimension of actual scientific practice.

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 10
Concluding Remarks

In this book, I have sought to provide a comprehensive, empirically

grounded account of the collaborative creation of scientific knowledge in
research groups. I hope to have contributed to a detailed understanding
of the collective character of science, an understanding that reflects actual
scientific practice and the perspectives of practicing scientists.
In Chap. 2, I outlined what I meant by “research groups.” Having
outlined the subject of the book, I then described my methodological
approach to this subject in Chap. 3, reflecting on the role that qualitative
empirical data can play in philosophical theorizing and in detailing the
process of data collection and analysis upon which the empirical elements
build. In Chaps. 4 and 5, I portrayed the two research groups that I studied
empirically. In Chap. 6, I analyzed the ways in which these two groups
divided scientific labor among their group members, and I argued why
their division of labor is not well accounted for by existing community-
focused approaches.
This book’s most important conceptual contributions are in Chaps. 7, 8
and 9, where I explored how detailed qualitative data can contribute to
ongoing epistemological debates about dependence, trust and collective

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 173

S. Wagenknecht, A Social Epistemology of Research Groups,
New Directions in the Philosophy of Science,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-52410-2_10
174 10 Concluding Remarks

knowledge. In Chap. 7, I provided two analytic distinctions—between

first and second-order reasons, and between opaque and translucent epis-
temic dependence. First-order reasons are immediate, evidential reasons
to accept a proposition p. Second-order reasons, instead, concern the
trustworthiness of a speaker who testifies that p is the case. When a person
has only second-order reasons at her disposal, her epistemic dependence
upon the testifier is opaque. When she is in a position to acquire first-
order reasons, then her epistemic dependence is translucent. In Chap. 8, I
showed how epistemically dependent scientists gauge the trustworthiness
of collaborators, that is, by which strategies they acquire and corroborate
second-order reasons, and how they seek to minimize their reliance upon
such reasons. In Chap. 9, I argued that mutual epistemic dependence
allows only groups of scientists to provide a scientific justification for col-
laboratively formulated knowledge, rendering some scientific knowledge
irreducibly collective.
When writing this book, something, that I at first perceived as a
peculiar tension, was underpinning my reflections on research group
collaboration—the relation between an ethos of individual freedom and
collaborative commitment, between the pursuit of individual research
interests and the necessities of collaboration. I perceived this relation
as a tension because I looked upon it alternately through the lens of
epistemic individualism and the lens of its critique (as presented, e.g.,
in Fricker, 2006; Grasswick, 2004; Hardwig, 1985, 1991; Kusch, 2002;
Nelson, 1995).
Eventually, however, I came to see that collaborative scientific practice
intertwines the individual and the collective. Professional autonomy,
understood as the volitional autonomy to pursue individual research inter-
ests, often requires scientists to make themselves epistemically dependent
upon collaborators. For example, in my interview with Claire, senior
scientist in the molecular biology laboratory, she emphasizes that she feels
“very independent” in the sense that she “can do what she wants.” At the
same time, she describes herself as highly dependent upon collaborators in
daily laboratory practice (Claire, interview, group2). Adam, senior scientist
in the planetary science group, expresses a similar view when he underlines
that all of his fellow group members have different research interests,
but that they “[…] would miss out on a lot of research” if they worked
 10 Concluding Remarks 175

alone (Adam, interview, group1). For group members to collaborate and

depend upon one another, they need to make themselves, their labor and
their expertise available to one another—becoming a “knowledge base”
for fellow group members (Laura, interview, group1).
Which conclusions should epistemology draw from such observations?
Do they undermine epistemic individualism, or do they vindicate it?
Epistemic individualism, in its pure form, upholds the ideal of the
autonomous, self-sufficient, individual knower. Its critics maintain that
the ideal of individual epistemic self-sufficiency should not be realized,
arguing that “[i]f rational at all, she [the autonomous knower] would
not be ideal, but rather a paranoid sceptic about others’ intentions and
capacities” (Fricker, 2006, p. 243; cf. Foley, 1994). The inter-individual
account of research group collaboration that I have developed in this book
seeks to navigate past the ideal of the self-sufficient individual knower
while avoiding the devaluation of individual knowing. For, what would
science be without its competent, reflective practitioners? Do they not
deserve to be called genuine “knowers”? Don’t they have a responsibility to
“know what they are doing”? I think so. Yet at the same time, my account
of research group collaboration recognizes that the kind of scientific
knowledge that research groups produce collaboratively often cannot be
had by group members individually—not as scientific knowledge, that is,
justified first-hand according to scientific standards. However, when its
scientific justification cannot be had by any single scientist, scientific
knowledge is irreducibly collective knowledge.
The question as to which conclusions philosophy should draw from
empirical observations touches upon a more general issue: What is the role
that descriptive accuracy can have for philosophical theorizing, normative
efforts that typically aim at analyzing what “ought to be (done)”? After
all, what “is,” however accurately described, does not tell us what “ought
to be.” Still, descriptive accuracy is of value to philosophy, particularly
to social epistemology and philosophy of science, which seeks to assist
practicing scientists and help explicate what scientific practice actually is
and what it means to practice science well.
Epistemology’s core concern is for the acquisition of knowledge: How
can we know? On the one hand, this concern is tied to conceptual
176 10 Concluding Remarks

challenges in defining what “knowledge” is (or in defining different types

of knowledge and their respective characteristics). On the other hand, this
concern is tied to questions that require prescriptive answers: What should
we do to obtain knowledge? And, for the case of scientific knowledge,
what ought good science be like?
Addressing some of social epistemology’s conceptual challenges, I have
suggested ways to differentiate, contextualize and modify some of the
field’s existing terminology in, for example, Chaps. 7, 8 and 9. And while
I have refrained from formulating an outright prescriptive account of
scientific practice, I do think that the book contributes to the question
of what good science ought to be like, because any reasonable, practically
relevant, philosophical account of what scientific practice “ought to be”
requires a terminology appropriate to the subject matter—and it has
to rely upon an understanding of actual scientific practice which is
descriptively accurate and tailored to philosophical concerns.
How precisely prescriptive accounts relate to description is a difficult
issue. At this point, let it suffice for us to focus on the relation between
prescription and the description of capacity, a relation that can be phrased
as “ought implies can.” Whether or not ought does imply can is much
debated, particularly among ethicists (for an overview, see Vranas, 2007).
But it stands to reason that for the kind of “ought” that social epistemology
and philosophy of science are interested in, “ought implies can” should
hold true. If concerned with prescriptive questions, social epistemologists
and philosophers of science typically investigate how the creation or
acquisition of scientific knowledge can be ensured. For as this kind
of agency-concerned “ought to ensure” (as distinguished from “ought
to be”), Streumer (2003) shows, “ought” does indeed imply “can.” In
addition, more arguments have been made to support a relation between
prescription and description. For example, Schleidgen and collaborators
distinguish between abstract prescriptive principles and rules of practice
that convey a “practical ought,” arguing that such rules of practice need to
take into account the various constraints—cognitive, financial, etc.—that
human agents face in given situations (while abstract principles need not).
Empirical insight in such constraints, the authors hold, can “help adapting
basic principles to the capabilities of human agents” (Schleidgen, Jungert,
& Bauer, 2010, p. 67). Empirical insight, the authors continue, also
 References 177

help to evaluate whether practice is in accordance with prescriptive rules.

But for empirical insights to fulfill this function, descriptive accuracy is
necessary. Intuition, imagination or eclectic first-hand experience won’t
do here; comprehensive data about actual scientific practice are necessary.
Therefore, I have collected qualitative empirical data through partic-
ipant observation and interviewing. These data provide an account of
what scientists actually do in day-to-day collaborations, and what they
think they can and what they themselves believe they should do. The
methodological approach I have chosen is, I believe, a step in avoiding
prescriptive accounts of science that are too demanding, too idealized or
too “embellished” (Soler et al., 2014, p. 14) to gain traction with actual sci-
entific practice. It is also, I hope, a step toward avoiding an epistemology
that is stylized as “science of science” and adopts “a theoretical position
‘outside’ and ‘above’ scientific practices” (Rouse, 2002, p. 180). Instead,
I have sought to formulate an epistemology of science that acknowledges
the experience and the professional reflection of practicing scientists.

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178 10 Concluding Remarks

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 Author Index

A Bauer, R. H., 176, 178

Abbott, A., 29, 30 Beatty, J., 162, 170
Abrahamsen, A., 113, 129 Beaver, D. d., 21, 30
Adler, J. E., 135, 151 Bechtel, W., 6, 8, 14, 28, 31, 113, 129
Alexa, M., 50, 53 Bennett, A., 38, 55
Anbar, M., 22, 31 Berger, L., 48, 54
Andersen, H., 6, 7, 9, 14, 17, 20, 24, Bergin, L. A., 3, 14
26, 28, 30, 33, 95, 107, 135, 151, Birmbaum, P. H., 29, 31
153, 155, 157, 170 Bogner, A., 47, 53
Angere, S., 147, 151 Boon, M., 2, 14
Ankeny, R., 2, 14 Boumans, M., 2, 14
Atkinson, P., 50, 54 Bouvier, A., 24, 31, 157, 170
Attride-Stirling, J., 51, 53 Boyatzis, R. E., 51, 54
Audi, R., 112, 129 Bozeman, B., 21, 32
Braun, T., 21, 31
B Braun, V., 51, 54
Baier, A., 132, 151 Bruun, H., 28, 32
Balog, C., 21, 30 Burge, T., 135, 151
Barre, K. L., 21, 31 Burian, R. M., 37, 38, 42, 54

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 179

S. Wagenknecht, A Social Epistemology of Research Groups,
New Directions in the Philosophy of Science,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-52410-2
180 Author Index

C E
Callebaut, W., 6, 14 Edge, D., 22, 31
Calvert, J., 7, 14, 41, 54 Ellis, C., 48, 54
Campbell, D. T., 29, 31 Etzkowitz, H., 21, 22, 31
Caneva, K. L., 36, 54 Evans, R., 10, 14, 117, 126, 127, 129
Carusi, A., 113, 129
Chang, H., 2, 14, 38, 45, 54, 140, 150,
151 F
Charmaz, K., 51, 54 Fagan, M. B., 24, 31, 40, 55, 153, 158,
Cheon, H., 4, 14, 24, 31, 153, 170 160, 161, 170
Clarke, B. L., 21, 31 Fantl, J., 10, 14
Clarke, V., 51, 54 Felt, U., 83, 89
Clément, F., 119, 130, 139–142, 147, Fine, M., 49, 55
152 Flyvbjerg, B., 42, 55
Coady, C. A. J., 135, 151 Foley, R., 175, 177
Coffey, A., 50, 54 Fontana, A., 47, 55
Cohen, B. P., 22, 31 Frey, J. H., 47, 55
Cohen, S., 9, 14 Fricker, E., 5, 14, 117, 129, 133–135,
Collins, H., 10, 14, 117, 126, 127, 129 151, 169, 170, 174, 175, 177
Corbin, J., 41, 50, 57 Frodeman, R., 28, 31
Crabtree, B. F., 52, 54 Frost-Arnold, K., 24, 31, 135, 151
Craig, E., 8, 14 Fujimura, J. H., 7, 14, 41, 54
Cronin, B., 21, 31 Fuller, S., 3, 14
Czarniawska, B., 44, 54

G
D Gauker, C., 94, 108
D’Agostino, F., 92, 94, 107 George, A., 38, 55
Darden, L., 28, 31 Gerring, J., 38, 42, 55
Daston, L., 28, 33 Giere, R. N., 6, 14, 39, 55, 94, 108,
Davies, J., 7, 16, 41, 56, 113, 130 156, 170
de Langhe, R., 92, 107 Gigerenzer, G., 28, 33
de Ridder, J., 4, 14, 95, 107, 123, 129, Gilbert, M., 4, 8, 15, 25, 31, 95, 108,
153–155, 162–166, 168–170 153–159, 170, 171
Denzin, N. K., 41, 49, 54 Gillespie, D. F., 29, 31
 Author Index 181

Goddiksen, M., 10, 15, 126, 129 J

Goldberg, S. C., 94, 108, 112, 129, Jones, K., 132, 152
133, 144, 151 Jungert, M. C., 176, 178
Goldman, A. I., 3, 6, 8, 15, 94, 108,
119, 129, 135, 140, 142, 143, 151
Gomez, I., 21, 31 K
Gomm, R., 51, 55 Kappel, K., 133–135, 152
Gorman, M., 117, 126, 129 Kastenhofer, K., 7, 15, 41, 55
Grasswick, H. E., 169, 171, 174, 177 Katz, J. S., 20, 21, 32
Greco, J., 9, 15 King, N., 48, 51, 55
Green, D. E., 4, 15 Kitcher, P., 92, 93, 108, 135, 152
Griffiths, P., 7, 15 Klein, J. T., 28, 31, 32
Knobe, J., 7, 15
Knorr-Cetina, K., 20, 32, 81, 90
Knuuttila, T., 113, 129
H
Kruse, R. J., 22, 31
Haack, S., 6, 8, 9, 15, 147, 151, 152
Kurz-Milcke, E., 7, 16, 41, 56, 113, 130
Hackett, E., 21–23, 32, 83, 89
Kusch, M., 8, 15, 169, 171, 174, 177
Hagstrom, W., 21, 22, 32
Hakli, R., 156, 171
Hardwig, J., 4, 5, 11, 15, 24, 32, 94,
L
108, 112, 114–116, 129, 131, 133,
Latour, B., 20, 32, 113, 129
134, 152, 174, 177
Laudel, G., 104, 105, 108, 117, 130
Hasu, M., 48, 55
Lee, S., 21, 32
Heintz, C., 119, 130, 139–142, 147,
Lenhard, J., 118, 130
152
Leonelli, S., 7, 15, 16, 41, 45, 55, 81,
Holbrook, J. B., 28, 29, 31, 32
90, 122, 130
Horrocks, C., 48, 51, 55
Leydesdorff, L., 21, 34
Hukkinen, J., 28, 32
Lincoln, Y. S., 41, 54
Hutchins, E., 113, 129
Longino, H. E., 3, 8, 9, 16
Huutoniemi, K., 28, 32
Lynch, M., 2, 17, 177, 178

I M
Ichikawa, J. J., 8, 15 Machery, E., 7, 16
Israel-Jost, V., 2, 17, 177, 178 MacIntyre, A., 29, 32
182 Author Index

Maienschein, J., 20, 23, 32 O

Mäki, U., 28, 32 O’Connor, J. G., 21, 33
Malone, K. R., 7, 16, 41, 56 O’Neill, E., 7, 16
Mansilla, V. B., 29, 32 Origgi, G., 119, 130, 135, 139–142,
Mansnerus, E., 39, 56 147, 152
Martin, B. R., 20, 21, 32 Osbeck, L. M., 7, 16, 28, 33, 41, 53,
Mascaro, O., 119, 130, 139–142, 147, 56
152
Matthiesen, K., 95, 108, 156, 171
Mattila, E., 28, 32 P
Maull, N., 28, 31 Paletz, S. B. F., 28, 33
McCraw, B. W., 133, 152 Petrie, H. G., 29, 33
Meadows, A. J., 21, 32, 33 Pitt, J. C., 37, 56
Meijs, W., 147, 152 Platt, J., 42, 56
Mendez, A., 21, 31 Polanyi, M., 10, 11, 16
Menz, W., 47, 53 Popper, K. R., 9, 16
Mercier, H., 119, 130, 139–142, 147, Porter, A. L., 28, 33
152 Poulsen, M.-B. J., 22, 33, 46, 56, 82,
Merton, R. K., 20, 33, 131, 152 90, 106, 108
Miettinen, R., 48, 55 Pritchard, D., 9, 16
Miller, B., 153, 171
Miller, W. L., 52, 54
Mitcham, C., 28, 31 Q
Mitchell, S. D., 28, 33 Quine, W. V., 6, 17
Moody, J., 21, 33
Moore, A., 162, 170
Mulkay, M. J., 22, 31 R
Rehg, W., 3, 17, 95, 108
Rheinberger, H.-J., 113, 130
N Riesch, H., 7, 17, 41, 56
Nelson, L. H., 6, 8, 9, 16, 174, 177 Rolin, K., 24, 33, 95, 108, 135, 143,
Nersessian, N. J., 6, 7, 16, 17, 20, 152, 153, 157–159, 171
28, 33, 39, 41, 45, 53, 56, 113, Rosen, R., 21, 30
130 Rossini, F. A., 28, 33
Newstetter, W. C., 7, 16, 41, 56, 113, Rouse, J., 2, 17, 29, 33, 177
130 Ruloff, C. P., 94, 108
Nichols, S., 7, 15 Ryle, G., 10, 17
Nickles, T., 6, 16 Rysiew, P., 9, 17, 110, 130
 Author Index 183

S Toon, A., 7, 17, 41, 57

Schickore, J., 7, 17, 39, 56 Traweek, S., 22, 33
Schleidgen, S., 176, 178
Schmitt, F. F., 3, 17, 156, 171
Schostak, J., 48, 57 V
Schubert, A., 21, 31 Vendler, Z., 8, 17
Schunn, C. D., 28, 33 Vranas, P. B., 176, 178
Scriven, M., 140, 152
Sesardic, N., 28, 33
Shapiro, S., 143, 152 W
Shaw, D., 21, 31 Wagenknecht, S., 6, 7, 9, 14, 17, 20,
Sigl, L., 83, 89 24, 28, 30, 33, 39, 56
Sloep, P. B., 28, 33 Wagner, C. S., 21, 34
Soler, L., 2, 10, 17, 113, 118, 122, 130, Weinberg, A. M., 3, 18
177, 178 Weingart, P., 28, 34
Solomon, M., 92, 108 Weis, L., 49, 55
Sperber, D., 119, 130, 139–142, 147, Welbourne, M., 8, 18
152 Weseen, S., 49, 55
Stake, R. E., 42, 57 Whitley, R., 111, 130
Staley, K. W., 3, 6, 17, 95, 108 Wöhrer, V., 83, 89
Stehr, N., 28, 34 Wimsatt, W. C., 36, 42, 57
Steup, M., 8, 15 Wong, L., 49, 55
Stotz, K., 7, 15 Woolgar, S., 20, 32
Strauss, A., 41, 50, 51, 57 Wray, B. K., 4, 18, 24, 34, 95, 108,
Streumer, B., 176, 178 153, 155, 156, 158, 159, 171
Subramanyam, K., 21, 23, 33 Wylie, A., 28, 34

T Z
Thagard, P., 24, 33, 39, 57 Zuckerman, H., 20, 21, 34, 47, 57
Tollefsen, D., 157, 171 Zuell, C., 50, 53
Toomela, A., 23, 33 Zwart, S., 2, 17, 177, 178
 Subject Index

A communities, scientific, 19–20,

autonomy, individual, 5, 68, 73, 82, 23, 29, 30, 45, 82, 92–95, 98,
83, 89, 114, 121, 174, 175 105–107, 112, 125, 126, 144, 151,
158–159
see also research groups
B complementary collaboration, see
belief, 8–9, 36, 112–114, 137, 138, 142, collaboration
143, 147, 163, 166
collective, 4, 24–27, 155–162
group, 6, 95, 154–162 D
justified true, 8, 110 dependence, epistemic, 24–27, 29,
40, 42, 50, 52, 60, 83, 89, 94,
105, 107, 109–128, 132, 135,
C 137, 139, 143, 153, 163–170, 174
coding, 49–52 opaque, 111, 118–121, 124–128,
collaboration 165, 166, 168, 170
complementary, 96–100 translucent, 111, 118, 121–128, 148,
parallel, 87, 100–104 165–168
collective belief, see belief dialog, between abstract and concrete,
collective knowledge, 95, 153–170 39–41, 48

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 185

S. Wagenknecht, A Social Epistemology of Research Groups,
New Directions in the Philosophy of Science,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-52410-2
186 Subject Index

dialoging practices, 140–143, 150, H

161, 162 History and Philosophy of Science
disciplines, scientific, 4, 21, 42, 64, (HPS), 7, 20, 36–39
66, 67, 69, 73, 98, 104, 105,
117, 119, 137, 141, 142, 150, 159
see also interdisciplinary research;
I
mono-disciplinary research
interdisciplinary research, 6, 20, 22,
division of labor, 23, 91–107, 111, 116,
24, 27–29, 30, 42, 59, 63, 67,
117, 124, 153, 159
70–73, 95, 96, 98, 100, 106,
117–119, 126, 140, 142, 144, 148,
E 160
empirical methods, 3, 5–8, 30, interviews, 7, 8, 30, 39, 40, 42, 44,
35–53, 59–61, 76 45, 46–49, 51, 53, 59–60,
epistemic dependence, see dependence 67–73, 84–89
epistemic individualism, 5, 157, 169, see also planetary science group
174, 175 (group1); molecular biology
epistemic opacity, 118 laboratory (group2)
see also opaque and translucent
epistemic dependence
evidence, 4, 5, 28, 39, 107, 109, 112, J
114, 114–116, 121–123, 133–137, joint acceptance, 95
139, 140, 163–166 joint commitment, 40, 155–162,
expertise, 4, 9–11, 22–24, 27, 59, 169
65, 68, 69, 71–73, 81, 86, 89, justification, scientific, 4, 8, 25, 109,
94, 96, 97, 99, 102–106, 111, 112, 133, 147, 155, 162–170
118–128, 134, 137–138, 140, justified true belief, see belief
142, 144, 148, 150, 163–164,
166, 168
explanatory responsiveness, 141–142,
161, 162 M
molecular biology laboratory
(group2), 43, 44, 46,
F 75–89, 100–106, 117, 120–
first-order reasons, see reasons 121, 124, 125, 128, 147–150,
166–168, 174
mono-disciplinary research, 24, 30,
G 42, 75, 78, 81, 106, 118, 148,
group belief, see belief 150, 167
 Subject Index 187

N second-order, 114–116, 119, 133,

naturalized epistemology, 6–7 165, 166
research groups, 3, 19, 1–30, 83,
94–95, 105–107, 158–160, 165
O collectivist and individualist
opaque epistemic dependence, see approach, 24–27, 30
dependence see also planetary science
group (group1); molecular
P biology laboratory (group2);
parallel collaboration, see community
collaboration
Philosophy of Science in Practice, 2
planetary science group (group1), 43, S
44, 46, 59–73, 96–100, 104– second-order reasons, see reasons
106, 117, 119–120, 126–128, social sciences, 3, 7, 20, 36, 38, 41, 111
136–138, 140–147, 160–161, sociology, 29, 83
174, 175
plural subject, 155–157
practice, scientific, 2–3 T
testimony, 50, 110, 113, 119, 134, 135,
163–167, 169
Q
translucent epistemic dependence, see
qualitative empirical methods, see
dependence
empirical methods
trust, epistemic, 4, 24–27, 29, 40, 42,
52, 60, 103, 105, 131–151, 153,
R 168
reasons, 8, 41, 48, 110, 112, 122, 123, impersonal, 140, 143–145, 147,
133, 135, 142, 147, 149, 161 148, 150
first-order, 114–116, 122, 143, 147, trustworthiness, 8, 40, 43, 45, 107,
165, 168 115, 131–151, 165, 166