Public engagement and argumentation in science
Abstract
Public engagement is one of the fundamental pillars of the European programme for research and innovation Horizon 2020. The programme encourages engagement that not only fosters science education and dissemination, but also promotes two-way dialogues between scientists and the public at various stages of research. Establishing such dialogues between different groups of societal actors is seen as crucial in order to attain epistemic as well as social desiderata at the intersection between science and society. However, whether these dialogues can actually help attaining these desiderata is far from obvious. This paper discusses some of the costs, risks, and benefits of dialogical public engagement practices, and proposes a strategy to analyse these argumentative practices based on a three-tiered model of epistemic exchange. As a case study, we discuss the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy, arguably a result of suboptimal public engagement, and show how the proposed model can shed new light on the problem.
Citation
Ivani , S & Dutilh Novaes , C 2022 , ' Public engagement and argumentation in science ' , European Journal for Philosophy of Science , vol. 12 , no. 3 , 54 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-022-00480-y
Publication
European Journal for Philosophy of Science
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1879-4912Type
Journal article
Description
This research is generously supported by the European Research Council with grant ERC-2017-CoG 771074 for the project ‘The Social Epistemology of Argumentation’.Collections
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