Matthew H Slater
Biographic Data
| ID | 1173929 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Matthew H Slater |
| GIVEN NAMES | Matthew H |
| FAMILY NAME | Slater |
| SIGNATURE | SLATER M H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Bucknell University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1982-2656 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 60 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The chemical element category and classificatory norms
Public Conceptions of Scientific Consensus
Less work for theories of natural kinds
What sort of philosophical work are natural kinds suited for? Scientific realists often contend that they provide the ‘aboutness’ of successful of scientific classification and explain their epistemic utility (among other side hustles). Recent history has revealed this to be a tricky job—particularly given the present naturalistic climate of philosophy of science. As a result, we've seen an explosion of different sorts of theories. This phenomeno…
Trust of Science as a Public Collective Good
The COVID-19 pandemic and global climate change crisis remind us that widespread trust in the products of the scientific enterprise is vital to the health and safety of the global community. Insofar as appropriate responses to these (and other) crises require us to trust that enterprise, cultivating a healthier trust relationship between science and the public may be considered as a collective public good. While it might appear that scientists ca…
Reporting on Science as an Ongoing Process (or Not)
Efforts to cultivate scientific literacy in the public are often aimed at enabling people to make more informed decisions — both in their own lives (e.g., personal health, sustainable practices, &c.) and in the public sphere. Implicit in such efforts is the cultivation of some measure of trust of science. To what extent does science reporting in mainstream newspapers contribute to these goals? Is what is reported likely to improve the public's un…
The Development and Validation of the Social Enterprise of Science Index (Sesi)
Significant gaps remain between public opinion and the scientific consensus on many issues. We present the results of three studies ( N = 722 in total) for the development and testing of a novel instrument to measure a largely unmeasured aspect of scientific literacy: the enterprise of science, particularly in the context of its social structures. We posit that this understanding of the scientific enterprise is an important source for the public’…
Extending the Ladder of Stances
I raise questions about Chakravartty's voluntarism about stances: supposing that we recognize a hierarchy of stances, voluntarism might be at once true (in an ultimate sense) but misleading when it comes to the practical tenability of pursuing certain debates in the philosophy of science, such as the debate about scientific realism or how to ‘naturalize’ metaphysics
Open Questions in Scientific Consensus Messaging Research
In recent years, there has been considerable interest in studying and using scientific consensus messaging strategies to influence public opinion. Researchers disagree, sometimes vociferously, about how to examine the potential influence of consensus messaging, debating one another publicly and privately. In this essay, we take a step back and focus on some of the important questions that scholars might consider when researching scientific consen…
Understanding “understanding” in Public Understanding of Science
This study examines the conflation of terms such as “knowledge” and “understanding” in peer-reviewed literature, and tests the hypothesis that little current research clearly distinguishes between importantly distinct epistemic states. Two sets of data are presented from papers published in the journal Public Understanding of Science. In the first set, the digital text analysis tool, Voyant, is used to analyze all papers published in 2014 for the…
Anchoring in ecosystemic kinds
Pluto and the platypus
Many astronomers seem to believe that we have discovered that Pluto is not a planet. I contest this assessment. Recent discoveries of trans-Neptunian Pluto-sized objects do not militate for Pluto's expulsion from the planets unless we have prior reason for not simply counting these newly-discovered objects among the planets. I argue that this classificatory controversy - which I compare to the controversy about the classification of the platypus …
Natural Kindness
Philosophers have long been interested in a series of interrelated questions about natural kinds. What are they? What role do they play in science and metaphysics? How do they contribute to our epistemic projects? What categories count as natural kinds? And so on. Owing, perhaps, to different starting points and emphases, we now have at hand a variety of conceptions of natural kinds—some apparently better suited than others to accommodate a parti…
A Novel Exercise for Teaching the Philosophy of Science
We describe a simple, flexible exercise that can be implemented in the philosophy of science classroom: students are asked to determine the contents of a closed container without opening it. This exercise has revealed itself as a useful platform from which to examine a wide range of issues in the philosophy of science and may, we suggest, even help us think about improving the public understanding of science
Macromolecular Pluralism
Different chemical species are often cited as paradigm examples of structurally delimited natural kinds. While classificatory monism may thus seem plausible for simple molecules, it looks less attractive for complex biological macromolecules. I focus on the case of proteins that are most plausibly individuated by their functions . Is there a single, objective count of proteins? I argue that the vagaries of function individuation infect protein cl…
Monism on the One Hand, Pluralism on the Other
In this paper, I consider ways of responding to critiques of natural kinds monism recently suggested from the pluralist camp. Even if monism is determined to be untenable in certain domains (say, about species), it might well be tenable in others. Chemistry is suggested to be such a monist-friendly domain. Suggestions of trouble for chemical kinds can be defused by attending to the difference between monism as a metaphysical thesis and as a claim…
Natural Kindness
Philosophers have long been interested in a series of interrelated questions about natural kinds. What are they? What role do they play in science and metaphysics? How do they contribute to our epistemic projects? What categories count as natural kinds? And so on. Owing, perhaps, to different starting points and emphases, we now have at hand a variety of conceptions of natural kinds—some apparently better suited than others to accommodate a parti…
Macromolecular Pluralism
Different chemical species are often cited as paradigm examples of structurally delimited natural kinds. While classificatory monism may thus seem plausible for simple molecules, it looks less attractive for complex biological macromolecules. I focus on the case of proteins that are most plausibly individuated by their functions . Is there a single, objective count of proteins? I argue that the vagaries of function individuation infect protein cl…
Monism on the One Hand, Pluralism on the Other
In this paper, I consider ways of responding to critiques of natural kinds monism recently suggested from the pluralist camp. Even if monism is determined to be untenable in certain domains (say, about species), it might well be tenable in others. Chemistry is suggested to be such a monist-friendly domain. Suggestions of trouble for chemical kinds can be defused by attending to the difference between monism as a metaphysical thesis and as a claim…
Pluto and the platypus
Many astronomers seem to believe that we have discovered that Pluto is not a planet. I contest this assessment. Recent discoveries of trans-Neptunian Pluto-sized objects do not militate for Pluto's expulsion from the planets unless we have prior reason for not simply counting these newly-discovered objects among the planets. I argue that this classificatory controversy - which I compare to the controversy about the classification of the platypus …
Trust of Science as a Public Collective Good
The COVID-19 pandemic and global climate change crisis remind us that widespread trust in the products of the scientific enterprise is vital to the health and safety of the global community. Insofar as appropriate responses to these (and other) crises require us to trust that enterprise, cultivating a healthier trust relationship between science and the public may be considered as a collective public good. While it might appear that scientists ca…
Monism on the One Hand, Pluralism on the Other
In this paper, I consider ways of responding to critiques of natural kinds monism recently suggested from the pluralist camp. Even if monism is determined to be untenable in certain domains (say, about species), it might well be tenable in others. Chemistry is suggested to be such a monist-friendly domain. Suggestions of trouble for chemical kinds can be defused by attending to the difference between monism as a metaphysical thesis and as a claim…
Macromolecular Pluralism
Different chemical species are often cited as paradigm examples of structurally delimited natural kinds. While classificatory monism may thus seem plausible for simple molecules, it looks less attractive for complex biological macromolecules. I focus on the case of proteins that are most plausibly individuated by their functions . Is there a single, objective count of proteins? I argue that the vagaries of function individuation infect protein cl…
A Novel Exercise for Teaching the Philosophy of Science
We describe a simple, flexible exercise that can be implemented in the philosophy of science classroom: students are asked to determine the contents of a closed container without opening it. This exercise has revealed itself as a useful platform from which to examine a wide range of issues in the philosophy of science and may, we suggest, even help us think about improving the public understanding of science
Natural Kindness
Philosophers have long been interested in a series of interrelated questions about natural kinds. What are they? What role do they play in science and metaphysics? How do they contribute to our epistemic projects? What categories count as natural kinds? And so on. Owing, perhaps, to different starting points and emphases, we now have at hand a variety of conceptions of natural kinds—some apparently better suited than others to accommodate a parti…
Pluto and the platypus
Many astronomers seem to believe that we have discovered that Pluto is not a planet. I contest this assessment. Recent discoveries of trans-Neptunian Pluto-sized objects do not militate for Pluto's expulsion from the planets unless we have prior reason for not simply counting these newly-discovered objects among the planets. I argue that this classificatory controversy - which I compare to the controversy about the classification of the platypus …
Understanding “understanding” in Public Understanding of Science
This study examines the conflation of terms such as “knowledge” and “understanding” in peer-reviewed literature, and tests the hypothesis that little current research clearly distinguishes between importantly distinct epistemic states. Two sets of data are presented from papers published in the journal Public Understanding of Science. In the first set, the digital text analysis tool, Voyant, is used to analyze all papers published in 2014 for the…
Anchoring in ecosystemic kinds
Open Questions in Scientific Consensus Messaging Research
In recent years, there has been considerable interest in studying and using scientific consensus messaging strategies to influence public opinion. Researchers disagree, sometimes vociferously, about how to examine the potential influence of consensus messaging, debating one another publicly and privately. In this essay, we take a step back and focus on some of the important questions that scholars might consider when researching scientific consen…
Reporting on Science as an Ongoing Process (or Not)
Efforts to cultivate scientific literacy in the public are often aimed at enabling people to make more informed decisions — both in their own lives (e.g., personal health, sustainable practices, &c.) and in the public sphere. Implicit in such efforts is the cultivation of some measure of trust of science. To what extent does science reporting in mainstream newspapers contribute to these goals? Is what is reported likely to improve the public's un…
The Development and Validation of the Social Enterprise of Science Index (Sesi)
Significant gaps remain between public opinion and the scientific consensus on many issues. We present the results of three studies ( N = 722 in total) for the development and testing of a novel instrument to measure a largely unmeasured aspect of scientific literacy: the enterprise of science, particularly in the context of its social structures. We posit that this understanding of the scientific enterprise is an important source for the public’…
Extending the Ladder of Stances
I raise questions about Chakravartty's voluntarism about stances: supposing that we recognize a hierarchy of stances, voluntarism might be at once true (in an ultimate sense) but misleading when it comes to the practical tenability of pursuing certain debates in the philosophy of science, such as the debate about scientific realism or how to ‘naturalize’ metaphysics
Trust of Science as a Public Collective Good
The COVID-19 pandemic and global climate change crisis remind us that widespread trust in the products of the scientific enterprise is vital to the health and safety of the global community. Insofar as appropriate responses to these (and other) crises require us to trust that enterprise, cultivating a healthier trust relationship between science and the public may be considered as a collective public good. While it might appear that scientists ca…
Public Conceptions of Scientific Consensus
Less work for theories of natural kinds
What sort of philosophical work are natural kinds suited for? Scientific realists often contend that they provide the ‘aboutness’ of successful of scientific classification and explain their epistemic utility (among other side hustles). Recent history has revealed this to be a tricky job—particularly given the present naturalistic climate of philosophy of science. As a result, we've seen an explosion of different sorts of theories. This phenomeno…
The chemical element category and classificatory norms
Epistemology (10 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (7 works) · Climate Change Communication and Perception (6 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Metaphysics (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Philosophy of science (5 works) · Psychology (5 works)