Upcoming talk of the APSE lecture series,
delivered by Robin McKenna.
Title: Doing Your Own (Patient Activist) Research".
When/Where: June 20th, 3pm – 5pm in lecture hall 3A (NIG)
Abstract: The slogan "Do Your Own Research" is often adopted by those who are distrustful of recognized authorities and of expert consensus(es). Partly as a result, the extent to which individuals should do their own research has become a live debate within applied epistemology. This talk sets out to do two things. The first is to pinpoint the nature of this debate. It presumably isn't a debate about whether we should sometimes do our own research--we clearly should, at least some of the time. So what, exactly, is the debate about? The second is to argue that we, as applied epistemologists, need to be mindful of the potential value of research conducted by non-experts. We need to be particularly mindful of its potential value in fields that have a history of ignoring and excluding the perspectives of non-experts. I will suggest that patient activist groups are a particularly salient example of this, and discuss some of the ways in which research conducted by patient activist groups is valuable.
Applied Philosophy of Science and Epistomology Talk Series: A series of talks organized by APSE (Department of Philosophy). More information here: apse.univie.ac.at/news-events/apse-talks/