George Borg is a historian and philosopher of science and an instructor at the University of Pittsburgh. He works on philosophical and metahistorical issues of scientific change and the science-technology nexus.
What topic do you think is under explored in philosophy?
As a teacher who gets a lot of STEM students, I’ve often found that for them, technology is a defining characteristic of science. But the role of technology in science is under-explored in the philosophy of science. The latter tends to treat technology as merely a background condition for testing hypotheses. I think this tendency stems from the influence of empiricism, which reduces scientific instrumentation to an extension of the senses. But technology has far-reaching impacts on the dynamics of scientific progress that go beyond merely extending what we can observe. It affects not just what questions scientists can answer, but also what questions they ask. Technological change changes the kinds of background knowledge that can be brought to bear in research, and in so doing revolutionizes how new knowledge is acquired. This raises questions about the processes by which background knowledges are integrated into scientific work, and how those processes affect the warrant for scientific beliefs. Moreover, technology is a place where science and society meet, since a lot of scientific instrumentation depends to a significant extent on technological development outside science. This nexus influences the values that guide scientific research, and hence the directions that the latter takes.
The topic of scientific technology is related to the nature of scientific rationality. Philosophers of science have largely been interested in theoretical rationality, by which I mean the rationality of theory choice. But the importance of technology in science suggests that instrumental rationality, the adequation of means and ends, is also important for understanding how science works. This raises some fascinating questions: do the ends of scientists always determine the means they employ, or do the means determine the ends? And what does this tell us about the rationality of scientific change? I believe these topics are likely to have implications for debates on science policy and the nature of scientific change.
What are you working on right now?
As you might have guessed, I’m working on the above topics! I am currently researching a project in the history and philosophy of the historical natural sciences. This is a fascinating area of science, in which scientists have been remarkably successful in investigating the deep past. These sciences have played an essential role in supporting claims about anthropogenic climate change, the origins of life and the extinction of the dinosaurs, among others. With respect to instrumental rationality, I think these sciences provide examples in which technology served not only to answer questions posed by these sciences, but also to set the agenda for them. If correct, this hypothesis has implications for the nature, scope, limits and utility of the knowledge coming out of these sciences.
Somewhat of an outlier with respect to my main work in HPS, but related by the technological theme, is a project on the foundations of political economy. Automation is a buzzword in political and economic discourse these days, generally used in claims about supposedly profound and irreversible trends in the nature of work, or even the possibility of finding any! I’m pretty skeptical of this “automation discourse,” as Aaron Benanav has called it. Some of these claims draw support from political-economic theory, and my project uses concepts from the philosophy of science to explore exactly what such theory implies about the future of labor in a capitalist economy.
What is your favorite holiday and why?
Halloween. I think it is the most inherently revolutionary holiday. The Roman festival of the Saturnalia featured role reversals, in which masters supposedly waited on slaves. This represented a brief period of freedom interrupting the usual extremely hierarchical social relations of ancient Rome. Of the major holidays in the U.S., Halloween comes the closest to this by giving people license to publicly take on any persona they want. This creative freedom can even lead to conflict, for example when people choose to wear offensive costumes. Every other holiday I can think of tends to bear a stronger social imprint, and generally serves to reproduce existing social relations rather than overturn them (though I recognize that individuals appropriate holidays in all sorts of ways that can depart and even challenge social reproduction).
What’s your favorite quote?
I don’t know that I have a “favorite” quote, but one I’ve at least been thinking about recently is the first sentence of the rules setting up the International Workingmen’s Association, a.k.a. the First International, in 1867. It states that “the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves.” This strikes me as an interesting conception of freedom. In our society, the latter is often thought of as a property of individuals, say in the form of rights. I am free if no one interferes with my choices, or if I can express myself openly, or if I can associate with others, if I have access to essential social goods like education or health care, etc. These are all extremely important freedoms, of course, but what I find interesting about the self-emancipation conception is that it is (a) collective, (b) “operative” in that it is only realized in action, and (c) kind of circular (though not in a bad way, I think), in that in order to emancipate itself the working class must already be emancipated to some extent — for example, by being able to operate the economy without owners, managers, political elites or sundry “experts”. On this view, as long as the working class depends on others to reproduce or improve its conditions of existence — no matter how well intentioned those others might be — it is not free.
If you were an ice cream what flavor would you be?
I will use this question as a pretext to discuss my philosophy of dessert. We have a tendency to view food in productivist terms, as an input that’s supposed to maximize some output distinct from the act of eating itself: the cessation of hunger first and foremost, but also things like health, longevity or appearance. Productivism has been encouraged by the modern medicalization of diet — eat five servings of fruits of vegetables a day, consume food X because it has nutrient Y or is good for organ Z, if you have ailment or bad habit A compensate for it with food B, etc. Though this attitude can be applied to dessert as well, since it comes at the end of the meal it is inherently less subject to this ethic since the primary goals of eating have usually been achieved by that point. In my view, of all the courses, this gives it the greatest potential for liberation from productivism in order to focus on gastronomic qualities, such as the aesthetics of the dish. I make a point of eating perfectly useless desserts, like lemon sorbets (perhaps with a dash of liquor) or pastries.
This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form here to nominate yourself or a friend.
Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall is an editor at the Blog of the APA who currently teaches philosophy, religion, and education courses solely online for Montclair State University, Three Rivers Community College, and St. John’s University.
