February 18, 2026 @ 16h00 – 17h30 CET
In this first session, we welcomed Aja Watkins (University of Wisconsin-Madison) as our guest. The discussion began from her paper “The Adequacy of purposes for data: a paleoecological case study”(2024) which further elaborates the adequacy for purpose view in the context of data evaluation (Parker 2009; Parker & Bokulich 2021). Watkins analyses as a case study the role of paleoecological data in marine biology, specifically in relation coral reef conservation. Her goal is to rethink the relationship between data and research purposes, challenging the traditional assumption of a linear model of scientific progression according to distinguishable stages. Watkins argues that data are constructed with particular purposes in mind, whether short term or oriented toward broader societal aims. Hence she makes the distinction between more proximate and more ultimate purposes. At the same time, data availability and properties constrain the kind of research purposes scientists can pursue. The limited availability of paleodata in marine biology, together with its importance for conservation purposes, clearly illustrates this reciprocal relationship between data and research purposes.
Our discussion, however, focused primarily on a further argumentative move: Watkins’ critical engagement with the connection often drawn in the literature between the Value Free Ideal (VFI) and the differentiation of stages within scientific practice. She helpfully defines the VFI as the claim that (1) practices internal to science (2) should not (3) be influenced by (4) non-epistemic values. While many critics reject the VFI by arguing that internal scientific practices inevitably are influenced by non-epistemic values, others maintain that such practices should not be influenced in certain ways (as in the “values in science” debate), or not by the wrong kinds of values (as in feminist philosophy of science). Others (such as proponents of the aims approach) go as far as arguing that internal scientific practices should be influenced by non-epistemic values. Watkins’ original contribution is to reject premise (1). She challenges the very distinction between internal and external practices of research, arguing that, in fact, science does not happen in stages. This could be read as a pragmatist move, aligned with an iterative understanding of scientific: research purposes shape research, and research reshapes purposes, thereby blurring the boundary between epistemic and social spheres. But it could also be read as a feminist move, given the strong and longstanding emphasis on the relevance of the scientists’ social location qua scientists, and the resulting porosity between science and society.
Rejecting a strictly linear, stage-based model of science is not particularly controversial. Even within more traditional accounts, stage distinction can be considered only a heuristic resource to analyse the scientific process, and pragmatically, should be maintained insofar as it serves this very purpose. Watkins’s stronger claim, however, is that this discretization should be abandoned precisely when it is used to demarcate proper and improper ways for values to enter scientific practice, according to an internal (purely epistemic) vs external (social mission) division of research. Historically, the VFI was introduced in part to rescue the beneficial role of science in society, especially in response to the evident large-scale and devastating social impact of scientific research during the Second World War. Yet, the context of current scientific research–climate science in particular–has significantly changed.
This raises a further question: is this primarily a matter of how scientists perceive and narrate their own role, or does it have tangible consequences for science’s role in society? There is a strong intuition that the way scientific research is framed matters for societal goals. Climate science provides a striking example. Despite a broad epistemic consensus and high levels of reliability, there remains a significant gap in climate action. Climate science, indeed, can appear detached from everyday experiences of climate impacts, which in turn may fuel inaction. Engagement, integration, and coordination with relevant stakeholders could help in providing information that is not only credible, but also legitimate, meaningful, and usable for affected communities. If climate scientists understand their role as purely epistemic, this self-conception may influence the uptake of climate information, especially in contexts where evidential standards and risk assessments carry different normative weight and are constrained by specific historical conditions, such as in parts of the Global South. The gap between how science is narrated and how it operates in practice remains, and will continue to be, a central concern of philosophy of science.
Organisers: Sapna Kumar and Futura Venuto