TY - CONF

T1 - The Benefit of the Doubt

AU - Ryberg, Marie L.

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - The relation between critique and scientific knowledge has become a perilous conundrum. The precarity of this relation is conspicuous in recent ‘post-truth’ dynamics, but also in STS where established critical approaches to scientific knowledge have been subject to devastating (self-)criticism (cf. Jasanoff & Sinnett 2017, Latour 2004, Sismondo 2017, Fuller 2017). This paper explores an aspect of critique often left unnoticed, namely that of doubt, asking whether it might provide a pathway for rethinking critique in and of scientific knowledge. Taking its point of departure in ethnographic fieldwork on efforts to integrate research in teaching at the University of Copenhagen, the paper examines students and researchers’ expressions of and ways of tackling doubt in processes of scientific inquiry and research. Discussing these expressions of doubt in the light of what has been termed the ‘positivity of doubt’ in American pragmatism and its recent developments in French pragmatism, the paper considers the implications of these doubtful moments for how we might cultivate new forms of critique in and of scientific knowledge today (Ogien 2014, Dewey 1910, Thévenot 2011). While acknowledging the dilemmas of the different rationalities guiding critique and disciplining in mass education and research, the paper argues for a renewed concern with doubt as a pathway for circumventing ready-made constructs and instead cultivating modes of critique sensitive to contingencies and unforeseen events. Living with ruptures, it suggests, might call on the ability to harvest the benefits of doubt.

AB - The relation between critique and scientific knowledge has become a perilous conundrum. The precarity of this relation is conspicuous in recent ‘post-truth’ dynamics, but also in STS where established critical approaches to scientific knowledge have been subject to devastating (self-)criticism (cf. Jasanoff & Sinnett 2017, Latour 2004, Sismondo 2017, Fuller 2017). This paper explores an aspect of critique often left unnoticed, namely that of doubt, asking whether it might provide a pathway for rethinking critique in and of scientific knowledge. Taking its point of departure in ethnographic fieldwork on efforts to integrate research in teaching at the University of Copenhagen, the paper examines students and researchers’ expressions of and ways of tackling doubt in processes of scientific inquiry and research. Discussing these expressions of doubt in the light of what has been termed the ‘positivity of doubt’ in American pragmatism and its recent developments in French pragmatism, the paper considers the implications of these doubtful moments for how we might cultivate new forms of critique in and of scientific knowledge today (Ogien 2014, Dewey 1910, Thévenot 2011). While acknowledging the dilemmas of the different rationalities guiding critique and disciplining in mass education and research, the paper argues for a renewed concern with doubt as a pathway for circumventing ready-made constructs and instead cultivating modes of critique sensitive to contingencies and unforeseen events. Living with ruptures, it suggests, might call on the ability to harvest the benefits of doubt.

M3 - Paper

Y2 - 2 June 2022 through 3 June 2022

ER -