“Field” Philosophy and the Problem of Interactions Between Philosophers and Varied Social Groups

Svet­lana V. Shibarshi­na
Lobachevsky State Uni­ver­si­ty of Nizh­ni Nov­gorod

“Field” Phi­los­o­phy and the Prob­lem of Inter­ac­tions Between Philoso­phers and Var­ied Social Groups

Abstract. This study describes the basic approach­es to the field phi­los­o­phy devel­oped by the Amer­i­can philoso­phers Robert Frode­man and Adam Brig­gle, and eval­u­ates the role of Nan­cy Tuana’s “ethico-epis­te­mo­log­i­cal analy­sis” in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary projects. The author explores these con­cepts in the con­text of a debate about the pos­si­bil­i­ties of apply­ing philo­soph­i­cal knowl­edge in real day-to-day activ­i­ties. The paper eval­u­ates Frodeman’s call for going be-yond the lim­its of inter­nal philo­soph­i­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tions and active­ly inter­act­ing with sci­en­tists, engi­neers, deci­sion-mak­ers and oth­er social groups on the issues of sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy pol­i­cy, the envi­ron­ment, glob­al changes, etc. The prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence of Brig­gle, regard­ing par-tic­i­pa­tion in the “field” project on pub­lic exper­tise of hydraulic frac­tur­ing in Den­ton, Texas, is also described. The idea of Tua­na about inte­grat­ed ethico-epis­te­mo­log­i­cal stud­ies is con­sid­ered as con­cep­tu­al­ly close and in many ways clar­i­fy­ing the “field” phi­los­o­phy. The final part of the study is a crit­i­cal assess­ment and dis­cus­sion of the above approach­es.  

Key­words: applied phi­los­o­phy; field phi­los­o­phy; sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion; medi­a­tion; exper­tise; inter­dis­ci­pli­nar­i­ty; under­stand­ing; cou­pled eth­i­cal-sci­en­tif­ic research.

DOI: 10.5840/dspl20181112

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