Essay

Essay

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The central idea of Kitcher’s book is the theory that in a democratic society, science should occupy a place to serve the purposes of citizens. He is of the idea that the inclusion of science in a society can open up discussions and investigation on normative issues and can offer resolution through democracy. It is insufficient to simply carry out the research and publish the results rather it must also evaluate public opinions regarding technical issues and the role of science in policy-making decisions.

Philosophers and scientists often declare that the goal of science is to provide us with a wholistic true and complete story but according to Kitcher the idea of the whole and complete truth is not coherent. The reason for this idea is the diversity in perception among an infinity of languages and boundaries that people adopt to develop their epistemic basis. For each of these backgrounds, infinite true statements about the cosmos are present which suggests that even if the idea of ‘whole truth’ is coherent, it is beyond human comprehension ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"OWgCpT8Q","properties":{"formattedCitation":"\\super 1\\nosupersub{}","plainCitation":"1","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":270,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/5OlhLovK/items/5YF8VCRI"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/5OlhLovK/items/5YF8VCRI"],"itemData":{"id":270,"type":"book","title":"Science in a democratic society","publisher":"Prometheus Books","publisher-place":"Amherst, N.Y","number-of-pages":"270","source":"Library of Congress ISBN","event-place":"Amherst, N.Y","ISBN":"978-1-61614-407-4","call-number":"Q175.5 .K524 2011","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Kitcher","given":"Philip"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2011"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} 1. The domain of science is central to finding ‘significant truth’ because according to well-established parts of physics, many parts of the universe are hitherto undiscovered and inaccessible.

There are two famous views about deciding the agenda of science. One is through a democratic process by allowing everyone to decide through vote while the other agenda is allowing everyone to decide through a vote. Kitcher’s idea is based on a lack of scientific objective guidance that can be used to determine broader agendas of research. He believes that the fundamental theme in deciding what science is important is dependent on human values and the best mechanism for its implementation is democracy ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"p5cV7OOG","properties":{"formattedCitation":"\\super 2\\nosupersub{}","plainCitation":"2","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":267,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/5OlhLovK/items/FIFT5DT5"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/5OlhLovK/items/FIFT5DT5"],"itemData":{"id":267,"type":"book","title":"Philosophy and Engineering: Exploring Boundaries, Expanding Connections","publisher":"Springer","number-of-pages":"273","source":"Google Books","abstract":"This volume, the result of an ongoing bridge building effort among engineers and humanists, addresses a variety of philosophical, ethical, and policy issues emanating from engineering and technology. Interwoven through its chapters are two themes, often held in tension with one another: “Exploring Boundaries” and “Expanding Connections.” “Expanding Connections” highlights contributions that look to philosophy for insight into some of the challenges engineers face in working with policy makers, lay designers, and other members of the public. It also speaks to reflections included in this volume on the connections between fact and value, reason and emotion, engineering practice and the social good, and, of course, between engineering and philosophy. “Exploring Boundaries” highlights contributions that focus on some type of demarcation. Public policy sets a boundary between what is regulated from what is not, academic disciplines delimit themselves by their subjects and methods of inquiry, and professions approach problems with unique goals and by using concepts and language in particular ways that create potential obstacles to collaboration with other fields. These and other forms of boundary setting are also addressed in this volume. Contributors explore these two themes in a variety of specific contexts, including engineering epistemology, engineers’ social responsibilities, engineering and public policy-making, engineering innovation, and the affective dimensions of engineering work. The book also includes analyses of social and ethical issues with emerging technologies such as 3-D printing and its use in medical applications, as well as social robots. Initial versions of the invited papers included in this book were first presented at the 2014 meeting of the Forum on Philosophy, Engineering, and Technology (fPET), held at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. The volume furthers fPET’s intent of extending and developing the philosophy of engineering as an academic field, and encouraging conversation, promoting a sense of shared enterprise, and building community among philosophers and engineers across a diversity of cultural backgrounds and approaches to inquiry.","ISBN":"978-3-319-45193-0","note":"Google-Books-ID: FSWcDQAAQBAJ","title-short":"Philosophy and Engineering","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Michelfelder","given":"Diane P."},{"family":"Newberry","given":"Byron"},{"family":"Zhu","given":"Qin"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",11,26]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} 2. He supported the idea with the concept of ‘well-ordered science’ which includes members from all the portions of society to decide how science and research would benefit.

I agree with Kitcher’s idea that a complete truth can not be found through science and also we can not trust a section of the society to decide all the scientific implications and their effects n a society. In the United States, we shall strive to develop that mentality and masses must be allowed to interact and communicate with researchers and scientists to secure shared concerns and determine future aspects of science in a democratic way.

Reference List/Endnotes

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Kitcher P. Science in a Democratic Society. Amherst, N.Y: Prometheus Books; 2011.

2. Michelfelder DP, Newberry B, Zhu Q. Philosophy and Engineering: Exploring Boundaries, Expanding Connections. Springer; 2016.