Objectivity in Science: New Perspectives from Science and Technology Studies

Flavia Padovani is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Drexel University, Philadelphia. Her research addresses issues in both history and philosophy of science (mainly in the early twentieth century) and general philosophy of science. She is author of articles in journals and collections, and has co-edited several volumes in HPS, including Collected Works of Charles François Sturm (Birkhäuser 2008), Pour comprendre le XIXe: histoire et philosophie des sciences à la fin du siècle (Olschki 2007), and Louis Rougier: vie et oeuvre d’un philosophe engagé, 2 vols. (Éditions Kimé 2006-2007).

Alan Richardson is Professor and Distinguished University Scholar in the Department of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia. A Past President of the International Society for the History of the Philosophy of Science (HOPOS), he works mainly on the history of philosophy of science in the twentieth century. He is author of Carnap’s Construction of the World (Cambridge UP, 1997) and has co-edited several volumes, including Origins of Logical Empiricism (U Minnesota P, 2003), Logical Empiricism in North America (U Minnesota P, 2007), and The Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism (Cambridge UP, 2010).

Jonathan Y. Tsou is Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Iowa State University. In 2008, he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in the Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science (CHSS); in 2008-2009, he was a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Postdoctoral Fellow in Science and Technology Studies in the Department of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia. He has a broad range of research interests in philosophy of science, including philosophy of psychiatry and history of twentieth century philosophy of science. His research has addressed topics such as natural kinds in psychiatry, the social feedback effects of human science classifications, a priori principles in science, and the nature of scientific change. His articles have appeared in journals such as Synthese, Philosophy of Science, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Perspectives on Science, and International Studies in the Philosophy of Science.