Research

Overview

I have several interconnected research programs in philosophy of science, social epistemology, and philosophy of psychology. My work aims to improve our understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge, foster fruitful interactions between philosophy and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), and help make scientific research and its applications more epistemically and ethically sound. Below are details about my three main research programs:

  • Engaged Philosophy of Science: My primary line of research advocates for a more scientifically and socially engaged philosophy of science; as part of this work, I use both philosophical and empirical methods to identify barriers to broader engagement and strategies for overcoming them.
  • Interdisciplinary Expertise: This program of research leverages the concept of ‘interactional expertise’ to demonstrate the epistemic benefits of diverse perspectives, including via interdisciplinary engagement between philosophers of science and STEM researchers.
  • Philosophy of the Human Behavioral Sciences: I examine research in behavioral genetics and related fields, analyzing key concepts, methods, and assumptions to illuminate misleading claims.

Socially and Scientifically Engaged Philosophy of Science

Through my early work in the human behavioral sciences, I noticed significant missed opportunities for philosophers of science to impact scientific practice. I began to analyze the goals and approaches of philosophy of science, building a collaborative network of philosophers in the process. As many of us have argued, philosophy of science has the potential to be relevant to a broad range of audiences (e.g., scientists, policy makers, and lay publics), but that potential often remains unrealized.

  • To address this issue, I co-edited a special issue of Synthese with Carla Fehr, which includes papers by leading philosophers of science.
  • In Fehr and Plaisance (2010), we lay out the key facets of Socially Relevant Philosophy of Science (SEPOS) and demonstrate the social, scientific, and philosophical benefits of more engaged approaches.
  • This work also led to the formation of an international network of institutions and scholars dedicated to Socially Relevant Philosophy of/in Science and Engineering (SRPoiSE).
  • For a more in-depth analysis of Broadly Engaged Philosophy of Science, see Plaisance and Elliott (2021). 
  • I also have a chapter on Socially Engaged Philosophy of Science forthcoming in the Routledge Handbook of the History of Philosophy of Science.

In addition to my philosophical work on this topic, I have conducted empirical research to study the conditions for successful uptake of philosophy of science in scientific domains. This work has three main components:

  1. A citation analysis of philosophy of science publications in scientific journals (McLevey et al. 2018)
  2. A survey of philosophers of science regarding their interest in and experience with disseminating their work more broadly (Plaisance et al. 2019)
  3. Interviews with philosophers of science whose work has significantly impacted scientific practice (Plaisance et al. 2021)

I am continuing this work through a five-year SSHRC-funded research project, "Engaging Science with Philosophy: Best Practices for Fostering Effective Collaboration," which examines scientists' and engineers' attitudes towards and experiences with philosophy/philosophers of science.

Interactional Expertise

I have developed a theoretical framework to analyze the modes of engagement between philosophers of science and scientists, and between different disciplines more generally. My framework is based on the idea of ‘interactional expertise’ – a key concept from sociology of science that captures the ability to speak the language of a discipline without being able to engage in its practice. 

  • I published a critical analysis of the interactional expertise concept with a former student, Eric Kennedy (now Assistant Professor at York University). In Plaisance and Kennedy (2014), we argue that interactional expertise has been too narrowly operationalized, and that it ought to be viewed more broadly to include more diverse perspectives.
  • Interactional expertise also captures my own approach to engaging with scientists, and led me to identify promising avenues for increasing the uptake of philosophical work in scientific domains, as discussed in Plaisance (2020). 

Philosophy of the Human Behavioral Sciences

My early research (including my dissertation) focuses on human behavioral genetics. While many philosophers of science have examined concepts and inferences related to genetic explanations of behavior, they have largely overlooked behavioral geneticists' claims about environmental inferences on behavioral traits. In my dissertation, I analyze key concepts about the environment and demonstrate how conceptual equivocation leads to unjustified conclusions about the causes of human behavior. 

I expanded this work on human behavioral sciences through a collaboration with two other philosophers of biology: Thomas Reydon and Mehmet Elgin. 

  • In Plaisance, Reydon, and Elgin (2012), we carefully analyze debates about the massive modularity thesis (a key claim in evolutionary psychology that the human brain is composed of hundreds of independently evolved modules). Our work uncovered a fundamental problem with these debates: namely, key arguments from both psychologists and philosophers fail to capture the complexity of genotype-phenotype relationships. As we show, literature on the 'gene concept' in the philosophy of biology can improve understanding of these relationships.
  • Dr. Reydon and I also brought together philosophers, rhetoricians, biologists, and psychologists to advance the emerging interdisciplinary field of 'philosophy of behavioral biology'. This work is published as co-edited volume in the Boston Studies of the Philosophy of Science, Plaisance and Reydon (2012).

More recently, I collaborated with psychologist Alex Burt at Michigan State University to design a new methodology for combining research methods from human behavioral genetics and experimental psychology, an approach is informed by philosophical criticisms of the limitations of behavioral genetic methods.

  • To read about our novel study design and the philosophical work behind it, see Burt et al. (2019).
  • We have also published the first set of empirical results that utilize this design -- based on a growth mindset intervention -- in Burgoyne et al. (2020). Notably, this is the first ever randomized intervention with twins!

Links to Publications

Research Gate
Google Scholar
Phil Papers

Selected Research Grants

  • PI, SSHRC* Insight Grant, "Engaging Science with Philosophy: Best Practices for Fostering Effective Collaboration," 2020-25, $188,179 CAD.
  • Co-applicant & Waterloo PI, SSHRC Partnership Grant, "Experiential Learning Toolkits to Increase Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts (SSHA) Capacity for Research and Innovation in the Social Sector," 2024-30, $2,500,000. (PI: Sandra LaPointe)
  • Co-PI, SSHRC Insight Development Grant, “Inventory of Models and Practices in Community Focused and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences and Humanities Research,” 2021-24, $60,764. (PI: Sandra LaPointe)
  • Co-PI, Genetics and Human Agency Grant, "Understanding What ‘Could Be’: Heritability in a Randomized Twin Design," 2017-19, $425,000 USD. (PI: Alex Burt)
  • PI, SSHRC Insight Development Grant, "Increasing the Impact of Philosophy of Science in Scientific Domains," 2016-19, $59,302 CAD.
  • Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, University of Minnesota Graduate School, 2005-06 ($18,000 USD)

* SSHRC refers to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

 

For information about my Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) work, see my Teaching page