Science, Freedom, Democracy

This book addresses the complex relationship between the values of liberal democracy and the values associated with scientific research. The chapters explore how these values mutually reinforce or conflict with one another, in both historical and contemporary contexts.

The contributors utilize various approaches to address this timely subject, including historical studies, philosophical analysis, and sociological case studies. The chapters cover a range of topics including academic freedom and autonomy, public control of science, the relationship between scientific pluralism and deliberative democracy, lay-expert relations in a democracy, and the threat of populism and autocracy to scientific inquiry. Taken together the essays demonstrate how democratic values and the epistemic and non-epistemic values associated with science are interconnected.

Science, Freedom, Democracy will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in philosophy of science, history of philosophy, sociology of science, political philosophy, and epistemology.

Péter Hartl is a research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest, MTA BTK Lendület Morals and Science Research Group. His research focuses on epistemology and the history of philosophy (Hume, Michael Polanyi). He published papers on Polanyi, Hume, and modal epistemology. He co-edited "The Value of Truth" special issue for Synthese. His monograph on Hume is under contract.

Adam Tamas Tuboly is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest, MTA BTK Lendület Morals and Science Research Group, and a research fellow at the Institute of Transdisciplinary Discoveries, Medical School, University of Pécs. He works on the history of logical empiricism and has edited numerous volumes on it.