International Workshop
Empirical Methods for a Social Epistemology of Interdisciplinary Research
28 July 2025, Munich
CHAIR OF PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH, AUGUSTENSTRASSE 4O, SEMINAR ROOM 3RD FLOOR
REGISTRATIONS: EMAIL OKSANA.BONDAR@TUM.DE
The workshop brings together members of the SoPP (https://griesemer.net/sopp-sociology-of-the-purpose-project/) and the PHIL_OS (www.opensciencestudies.eu) projects to discuss the use of empirical methods, and particularly qualitative social science methods, to foster philosophical investigation of interdisciplinary research practices. Anybody interested in such issues is welcome to join us by registering with Oksana Bondar (Oksana.bondar@tum.de). Registration is free thanks to the sponsorship of the European Research Council, but we regret that it does not include lunch (which will take place in a restaurant on the Augustenstrasse, details will be forwarded to registered attendees closer to the time).
SCHEDULE
12:00-13:30: Lunch (location tba)
13:30-14:00: Introduction – Investigating Scientific Change in Real Time. Sabina Leonelli, James Griesemer (online), Elihu Gerson (online)
14:00-15:30: Session 1: Investigating the PURPOSE project (SoPP), UC Davis – Chair: Sabina Leonelli
- Andrew Bollhagen: Decomposing the Purpose Project
- Shane Jinson (online): Lexical ‘pessimism’: Probing scientific problems, their origins, and their legacies in the language of publications
- Peter Hunt (online): Tracking and managing the scholarly outputs of a large (and expanding), interdisciplinary research group
- Kelli Barr: Making a more social epistemology – with illustrations from the Purpose Project
15:30-16:00: Coffee break
16:00-17:30: Session 2: Investigating Open Science practices (PHIL_OS), TUM – Chair: Kim Hajek
- Joyce Korateng-Acquah: “Rooted Methods: Ethnography and the Making of Agricultural Knowledge”
- Nathanael Sheehan: “Navigating Methodological Diversity: Guidelines for Using Mixed Methods in Open Research”
- Paola Castaño (online): “Orchestrating a Community of ‘Power Users’: Notes from an Online Ethnography of NASA’s Open Science Data Repository”
- Fotis Tsiroukis: “Protocollage: Reflections on a multi-sited ethnography of Greek Agricultural Plant Science”
17:30-18:30: Wrap-up discussion