Geplante Projekte

Epistemic Injustice in Science

Abstract

While there is an increasing body of literature on epistemic injustice, including monographs, handbooks, and anthologies, there are relatively few and dispersed studies on how epistemic injustice in its various forms influences the production of scientific knowledge. However, the findings of these studies complement each other and point to the need for a comprehensive examination of the diverse roles that different forms of epistemic injustice play in scientific practice. Building on a structured mapping of the state of research, the project aims to analyze (a) how (especially distributive) epistemic injustice affects scientific knowledge production, (b) how epistemic injustice has been strategically used by certain stakeholders as a tool in agnogenesis, and (c) how epistemic injustice is reproduced and reinforced in science.

Involved persons

Anna Leuschner

Manuela Fernandez Pinto

Christine Bratu

Term

Planned: 10/01/2026 – 09/01/2029

Applied for Funding (DFG Individual Research Grant)

 

Narratives in Public Debates on Climate Change

Abstract

This project analyzes how narratives in strategies opposing climate change measures have evolved and what effects this has. While earlier strategies were primarily based on denial and the active creation of ignorance (Oreskes & Conway 2010), more recent strategies acknowledge global warming but manipulate how people think about it (Lamb et al. 2020; Mann 2021). It is assumed that these new strategies not only shape people’s moral capacity for action, as Elabbar (2024) has shown, but also the institutional framework of science. Here, Proctor’s (2008) concept of the “passive construction of ignorance” and Elliott’s (2015) concept of “selective ignorance” provide useful analytical lenses. The hypothesis to be examined is that these recent strategies are driving research toward industry-friendly technological solutions, which are already becoming increasingly prominent—a development that appears particularly problematic in light of local and global social inequalities.

Involved persons

Anna Leuschner

Term

Since 10/31/2025

 

Financed by

Parts of the research were conducted during a research stay at the DFG Center for Advanced Studies SOCRATES at Leibniz University Hannover

 

References

Elabbar, Ahmad. 2024. Expertise, Moral Subversion, and Climate Deregulation. Synthese 203 (5), 147.

Elliott, Kevin C. 2015. “Selective Ignorance in Environmental Research.” In Routledge Handbook of Ignorance Studies, edited by Matthias Gross and Linsey McGoey, 165–173. Routledge.

Lamb, William F., Giulio Mattioli, Sebastian Levi, J. Timmons Roberts, Stuart Capstick, Felix Creutzig, Jan C. Minx, Finn Müller-Hansen, Trevor Culhane, and Julia K. Steinberger. 2020. Discourses of Climate Delay. Global Sustainability 3, e17, 1–5.

Mann, Michael. 2021. The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet. Public Affairs.

Oreskes, Naomi, and Erik Conway. 2010. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of

Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. Bloomsbury.

Proctor, Robert. 2008. “Agnotology: A Missing Term to Describe the Cultural Production of Ignorance (and Its Study).” In Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance, edited by Robert N. Proctor and Londa Schiebinger, 1–33. Stanford University Press.

Social Challenges in the Context of Large-Scale Climate Science

Abstract

The project addresses the social and epistemological challenges in large-scale climate science (LSCS), with a particular focus on epistemic injustice. Rooted in recent debates in the philosophy of science, the project combines analytical and empirical approaches to better understand how epistemic injustice manifests in the collaborative and interdisciplinary context of LSCS. It aims to generate results that are relevant not only for science but also for policy makers and NGOs. The project is structured in three parts.

Part 1 provides the conceptual and theoretical groundwork. Given that climate science is a globally relevant, interdisciplinary, and collaborative enterprise, we explore how it exhibits specific LSS characteristics and faces particular methodological and epistemic challenges (cf. Leuschner 2015a). These challenges are analyzed through the conceptual resources of the “Science and Values Debate,” particularly with respect to systemic “demarcation strategies” (Holman & Wilholt 2022), such as Longino’s Critical Contextual Empiricism, which conceives objectivity as a social achievement grounded in pluralism (Longino 2002; cf. also Leuschner 2015a). The IPCC (2024a, 2024b), for instance, has explicitly committed itself to such an ideal, yet recent studies have questioned to what extent it is realized in practice (e.g., Byskov & Hyams 2022; Caretta & Maharaj 2024; Csanadi 2023; Jebeile 2020).

Part 2 investigates this criticism empirically by examining how different forms of epistemic injustice—testimonial and hermeneutic injustice, participatory and epistemic trust injustice, and distributive injustice—impede knowledge production in climate science (Coady 2010; Fricker 2007; Grasswick 2017; Irzik & Kurtulmus 2024). Using qualitative, ethnographic methods, we will explore how these injustices are reflected in collaborative practices of knowledge generation with stakeholder participation across regions and institutions and to what extent insights from underrepresented groups and non-affluent regions remain undervalued (cf. Leuschner 2015b, Hangel & ChoGlueck 2023, Fritzsche, Hangel, Buyx 2025).

Part 3 integrates the empirical findings with the philosophical analysis to assess how epistemic and institutional mechanisms can be designed to strengthen inclusivity, transparency, and epistemic reliability in LSCS. The project contributes to theoretical debates on epistemic justice and to practical improvements in the organization of policy-relevant climate science.

Involved persons

Anna Leuschner

Nora Hangel

Term

Expected to start in 2027

 

Planned as a subproject within a planned DFG Research Unit

 

References

Byskov, M. F., & Hyams, K. (2022). Epistemic Injustice in Climate Adaptation. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 25 (4), 613–634.

Caretta, M. A., & Maharaj, S. (2024). Diversity in IPCC Author’s Composition Does Not Equate to Inclusion. Nature Climate Change 14 (10), 1013–1014.

Coady, D. (2010). Two Concepts of Epistemic Injustice. Episteme 7, 101–113.

Csanadi, A. (2023). The IPCC’s Lack of Geographically Diverse Expertise May Be Stymieing Climate Efforts. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford University Press.

Fritzsche, MC., Hangel, N., Buyx, A. M. (2025) Ethical Challenges in Biomarker Research and Precision Medicine – a Qualitative Study in Dermatology, BMC Med Ethics, 26:162, 1-23.

Grasswick, H. (2017). Epistemic Injustice in Science. In: J. Medina, G. Pohlhaus, and I. J. Kidd (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice. Routledge. 313–323.

Hangel, N. & C. ChoGlueck (2023). On the Pursuitworthiness of Qualitative Methods in Empirical Philosophy of Science. Stud. Hist. Philos. Sci. 98, 28-39. 

Holman, B. & T. Wilholt (2022). The New Demarcation Problem. Stud. Hist. Philos. Sci. 91, 211–220.

IPCC. (2024a). Structure of the IPCC.

IPCC. (2024b). IPCC Expert Meeting on Gender, Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity.

Irzik, G. & F. Kurtulmus (2024). Distributive Epistemic Justice in Science. BJPS 75 (2), 325–345.

Jebeile, J. (2020). Values and Objectivity in the IPCC. In M. Boumans & C. Mertens (eds.), Values in Science: The Case of Scientific Collaboration. Springer. 145–162.

Leuschner, A. (2015a). Uncertainties, Plurality, and Robustness in Climate Research and Modeling. On the Reliability of Climate Prognoses. J. Gen. Philo. Sci. 46, 367–381.

Leuschner, A. (2015b). Social Exclusion in Academia through Biases in Methodological Quality Evaluation: On the Situation of Women in Science and Philosophy. Stud. Hist. Philos. Sci. 54, 56–63.

Longino, H. (2002). The Fate of Knowledge. Princeton University Press.