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"Sturm, Thomas"
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The EU’s Fifth Freedom: Why and How to Develop the ‘Freedom of Knowledge
The goal of a fifth EU freedom – the ‘freedom of knowledge’ – emerged from working towards a unified European research area, expanding upon the four basic freedoms of the Single Market. This additional freedom is not yet guaranteed and so this task should be taken up anew. Here, I support this goal by explicating the meaning of the ‘fifth freedom’, then justifying its importance via four arguments concerning scientific progress, freedom of research, the economic and technological progress of societies, and the democratic ideals of the European project. To end the main article, I then argue that this freedom should be viewed as a right . In the supplementary material, I present problems that arise in the administration, funding, and organization of science within the EU to demonstrate that the fifth freedom is still a long way from being a reality. The evidence includes cases of national rules and practices that reduce or block the mobility of EU researchers and weaken collaboration and progress. For each type of problem, I present specific policy proposals for advancing the fifth freedom goal. The proposals are directed at academic administrations, funding agencies, and political actors at the regional, national, and European levels.
Journal Article
Characterization of dry-stack interlocking compressed earth blocks
Earth has been a traditional building material to construct houses in Africa. One of the most common techniques is the use of sun dried or kiln fired adobe bricks with mud mortar. Fired bricks are the main cause for deforestation in countries like Malawi. Although this technique is low-cost, the bricks vary largely in shape, strength and durability. This leads to weak houses which suffer considerable damage during floods and seismic events. One solution is the use of dry-stack masonry with stabilized interlocking compressed earth blocks (ICEB). This technology has the potential of substituting the current bricks by a more sustainable kind of block. This study was made in the context of the HiLoTec project, which focuses on houses in rural areas of developing countries. For this study, Malawi was chosen for a case study. This paper presents the experimental results of tests made with dry-stack ICEBs. Soil samples from Malawi were taken and studied. Since the experimental campaign could not be carried out in Malawi, a homogenization process of Portuguese soil was made to produce ICEBs at the University of Minho, Portugal. Then, the compression and tensile strength of the materials was determined via small cylinder samples. Subsequently, the compression and flexural strength of units were determined. Finally, tests to determine the compressive strength of both prisms and masonry wallets and to determine the initial shear strength of the dry interfaces were carried out. This work provides valuable data for low-cost eco-efficient housing.
Journal Article
How (far) can rationality be naturalized?
The paper shows why and how an empirical study of fast-and-frugal heuristics can provide norms of good reasoning, and thus how (and how far) rationality can be naturalized. We explain the heuristics that humans often rely on in solving problems, for example, choosing investment strategies or apartments, placing bets in sports, or making library searches. We then show that heuristics can lead to judgments that are as accurate as or even more accurate than strategies that use more information and computation, including optimization methods. A standard way to defend the use of heuristics is by reference to accuracy-effort trade-offs. We take a different route, emphasizing ecological rationality (the relationship between cognitive heuristics and environment), and argue that in uncertain environments, more information and computation are not always better (the \"less-can-be-more\" doctrine). The resulting naturalism about rationality is thus normative because it not only describes what heuristics people use, but also in which specific environments one should rely on a heuristic in order to make better inferences. While we desist from claiming that the scope of ecological rationality is unlimited, we think it is of wide practical use.
Journal Article
Scientific innovation
I offer an analysis of the concept of scientific innovation. When research is innovated, highly novel and useful elements of investigation begin to spread through a scientific community, resulting from a process which is neither due to blind chance nor to necessity, but to a minimal use of rationality. This, however, leads to tension between two claims: (1) scientific innovation can be explained rationally; (2) no existing account of rationality explains scientific innovation. There are good reasons to maintain (1) and (2), but it is difficult for both claims to be accepted simultaneously by a rational subject. In particular, I argue that neither standard nor bounded theories of rationality can deliver a satisfactory explanation of scientific innovations.
Ofrezco aquí un análisis del concepto de innovación científica. Cuando se innova en la investigación, los elementos de investigación altamente novedosos y útiles comienzan a extenderse a través de una comunidad científica como resultado de un proceso que no se debe ni al ciego azar ni a la necesidad, sino a un uso mínimo de la racionalidad. Esto, sin embargo, genera tensiones entre dos afirmaciones: (1) la innovación científica puede ser explicada racionalmente; (2) ninguna explicación existente de la racionalidad da cuenta de la innovación científica. Hay buenas razones para mantener (1) y (2), pero es difícil que ambas afirmaciones sean aceptadas simultáneamente por un sujeto racional. En particular, sostengo que ni la teoría estándar de la racionalidad ni la teoría de la racionalidad acotada pueden ofrecer una explicación satisfactoria de las innovaciones científicas.
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Guest editors’ introduction
Guest editors' introduction to \"Innovation in/through science\".
Journal Article
Guest editors’ introduction
Guest editors' introduction to \"Innovation in/through science\".
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What (Good) is Historical Epistemology? Editors' Introduction
We provide an overview of three ways in which the expression \"Historical epistemology\" (HE) is often understood: (1) HE as a study of the history of higher-order epistemic concepts such as objectivity, observation, experimentation, or probability; (2) HE as a study of the historical trajectories of the objects of research, such as the electron, DNA, or phlogiston; (3) HE as the long-term study of scientific developments. After laying out various ways in which these agendas touch on current debates within both epistemology and philosophy of science (e.g., skepticism, realism, rationality of scientific change), we conclude by highlighting three topics as especially worthy of further philosophical investigation. The first concerns the methods, aims and systematic ambitions of the history of epistemology. The second concerns the ways in versions of HE can be connected to versions of naturalized and social epistemologies. The third concerns the philosophy of history, and in particular the level of analysis at which a historical analysis should aim.
Journal Article
Historical Epistemology or History of Epistemology? The Case of the Relation Between Perception and Judgment
Issue Title: WHAT (GOOD) IS HISTORICAL EPISTEMOLOGY This essay aims to sharpen debates on the pros and cons of historical epistemology, which is now understood as a novel approach to the study of knowledge, by comparing it with the history of epistemology as traditionally pursued by philosophers. The many versions of both approaches are not always easily discernable. Yet, a reasoned comparison of certain versions can and should be made. In the first section of this article, I argue that the most interesting difference involves neither the subject matter nor goal, but the methods used by the two approaches. In the second section, I ask which of the two approaches or methods is more promising given that both historical epistemologists and historians of epistemology claim to contribute to epistemology simpliciter. Using traditional problems concerning the epistemic role of perception, I argue that the historical epistemologies of Wartofsky and Daston and Galison fail to show that studying practices of perception is philosophically significant. Standard methods from the history of epistemology are more promising, as I show by means of reconstructing arguments in a debate about the relation between perception and judgment in psychological research on the famous moon illusion.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
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