Liam Kofi Bright
Carnegie Mellon University, Philosophy, Graduate Student
The logical empiricists expressed a consistent attitude to racial categorisation in both the ethical and scientific spheres. Their attitude may be captured in the following slogan: human racial taxonomy is an empirically meaningful mode... more
The logical empiricists expressed a consistent attitude to racial categorisation in both the ethical and scientific spheres. Their attitude may be captured in the following slogan: human racial taxonomy is an empirically meaningful mode of classifying persons that we should refrain from deploying. I offer an interpretation of their position that would render coherent their remarks on race with positions they adopted on the scientific status of taxonomy in general, together with their potential moral or political motivations for adopting that position.
Research Interests: Philosophy of Biology, History and Philosophy of Biology, Philosophy of Social Science, Philosophy Of Race, Logical Positivism, and 9 moreLogical Empiricism, Rudolf Carnap, History and Philosophy of the Human Sciences, Logical empiricism (Moritz Schlick, Hans Reichenbach, Rudolf Carnap), History and Philosophy of race, History and Philosophy of Social Sciences, Otto Neurath, History of Philosophy of Science (Especially Pragmatism and Logical Empiricism), and Philosophy of Race and Racism
Philosophers of science debate the proper role of non-epistemic value judgements in scientific reasoning. Many modern authors oppose the value free ideal, claiming that we should not even try to get scientists to eliminate all such... more
Philosophers of science debate the proper role of non-epistemic value judgements in scientific reasoning. Many modern authors oppose the value free ideal, claiming that we should not even try to get scientists to eliminate all such non-epistemic value judgements from their reasoning. W. E. B. Du Bois, on the other hand, has a defence of the value free ideal in science that is rooted in a conception of the proper place of science in a democracy. In particular, Du Bois argues that the value free ideal must be upheld in order to, first, retain public trust in science and, second, ensure that those best placed to make use of scientifically acquired information are able to do so. This latter argument turns out to relate Du Bois' position on the value free ideal in science to his defence of epistemic democracy. In this essay I elaborate, motivate, and relate to the modern debate, Du Bois' under-appreciated defence of the value free ideal.
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Using a decision theoretic model of scientists' time allocation between potential research projects I explain the fact that on average women scientists publish less research papers than men scientists. If scientists are incentivised to... more
Using a decision theoretic model of scientists' time allocation between potential research projects I explain the fact that on average women scientists publish less research papers than men scientists. If scientists are incentivised to publish as many papers as possible, then it is necessary and sufficient for a productivity gap to arise that women scientists anticipate harsher treatment of their manuscripts than men scientists anticipate for their manuscripts. I present evidence that women do expect harsher treatment and that scientists' are incentivised to publish as many papers as possible, and discuss some epistemological consequences of this conjecture.
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Preferably scientific investigations would promote true rather than false beliefs. The phenomenon of fraud represents a standing challenge to this veritistic ideal. When scientists publish fraudulent results they knowingly enter... more
Preferably scientific investigations would promote true rather than false beliefs. The phenomenon of fraud represents a standing challenge to this veritistic ideal. When scientists publish fraudulent results they knowingly enter falsehoods into the information stream of science. Recognition of this challenge has prompted calls for scientists to more consciously adopt the veritistic ideal in their own work. In this paper I argue against such promotion of the veritistic ideal. It turns out that a sincere desire on the part of scientists to see the truth propagated may well promote more fraud rather than less.
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This research note is meant to introduce into philosophical discussion the preliminary results of an empirical study on the state of blacks in philosophy, which is a joint effort of the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on... more
This research note is meant to introduce into philosophical discussion the preliminary results of an empirical study on the state of blacks in philosophy, which is a joint effort of the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on the Status of Black Philosophers (APA CSBP) and the Society of Young Black Philosophers (SYBP). The study is intended to settle factual issues in furtherance of contributing to dialogues surrounding at least two philosophical questions: What, if anything, is the philosophical value of demographic diversity in professional philosophy? And what is philosophy? The empirical goals of the study are (1) to identify and enumerate U.S. blacks in philosophy, (2) to determine the distribution of blacks in philosophy across career stages, (3) to determine correlates to the success of blacks in philosophy at different career stages, and (4) to compare and contrast results internally and externally to explain any career stage gaps and determine any other disparities.