Matthew Sample
Biographic Data
| ID | 758235 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Matthew Sample |
| GIVEN NAMES | Matthew |
| FAMILY NAME | Sample |
| SIGNATURE | SAMPLE M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Leibniz University Hannover |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5290-1458 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 8 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Critical Contextual Empiricism and the Politics of Knowledge
What are philosophers doing when they prescribe a particular epistemology for science? According to science and technology studies, the answer to this question implicates both knowledge and politics, even when the latter is hidden. Exploring this dynamic via a specific case, I argue that Longino’s “critical contextual empiricism” ultimately relies on a form of political liberalism. Her choice to nevertheless foreground epistemological concerns ca…
Brain-computer interfaces, disability, and the stigma of refusal
As brain-computer interfaces are promoted as assistive devices, some researchers worry that this promise to “restore” individuals worsens stigma toward disabled people and fosters unrealistic expectations. In three web-based survey experiments with vignettes, we tested how refusing a brain-computer interface in the context of disability affects cognitive (blame), emotional (anger), and behavioral (coercion) stigmatizing attitudes (Experiment 1, N…
Brain-Computer Interfaces, Inclusive Innovation, and the Promise of Restoration
Over the last two decades, researchers have promised “neuroprosthetics” for use in physical rehabilitation and to treat patients with paralysis. Fulfilling this promise is not merely a technical challenge but is accompanied by consequential practical, ethical, and social implications that warrant sociological investigation and careful deliberation. In response, this paper explores how rehabilitation professionals evaluate the development and appl…
Science, responsibility, and the philosophical imagination
If we cannot define science using only analysis or description, then we must rely on imagination to provide us with suitable objects of philosophical inquiry. This process ties our intellectual findings to the particular ways in which we philosophers think about scientific practice and carve out a cognitive space between real world practice and conceptual abstraction. As an example, I consider Heather Douglas’s work on the responsibilities of sci…
Do Publics Share Experts' Concerns about Brain-Computer Interfaces? A Trinational Survey on the Ethics of Neural Technology
Since the 1960s, scientists, engineers, and healthcare professionals have developed brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies, connecting the user's brain activity to communication or motor devices. This new technology has also captured the imagination of publics, industry, and ethicists. Academic ethics has highlighted the ethical challenges of BCIs, although these conclusions often rely on speculative or conceptual methods rather than empiric…
Silent performances
Ankeny and Leonelli (2016) propose "repertoires" as a new way to understand the stability of certain research programs as well as scientific change in general. By bringing a more complete range of social, material, and epistemic elements into one framework, they position their work as a correction to the Kuhnian impulse in philosophy of science and other areas of science studies. I argue that this "post-Kuhnian" move is not complete, and that rep…
Engineering the Brain
Neural engineering technologies such as implanted deep brain stimulators and brain‐computer interfaces represent exciting and potentially transformative tools for improving human health and well‐being. Yet their current use and future prospects raise a variety of ethical and philosophical concerns. Devices that alter brain function invite us to think deeply about a range of ethical concerns—identity, normality, authority, responsibility, privacy,…
Stanford’s Unconceived Alternatives from the Perspective of Epistemic Obligations
Kyle Stanford’s reformulation of the problem of underdetermination has the potential to highlight the epistemic obligations of scientists. Stanford, however, presents the phenomenon of unconceived alternatives as a problem for realists, despite critics’ insistence that we have contextual explanations for scientists’ failure to conceive of their successors’ theories. I propose that responsibilist epistemology and the concept of “role oughts,” as d…
Silent performances
Ankeny and Leonelli (2016) propose "repertoires" as a new way to understand the stability of certain research programs as well as scientific change in general. By bringing a more complete range of social, material, and epistemic elements into one framework, they position their work as a correction to the Kuhnian impulse in philosophy of science and other areas of science studies. I argue that this "post-Kuhnian" move is not complete, and that rep…
Do Publics Share Experts' Concerns about Brain-Computer Interfaces? A Trinational Survey on the Ethics of Neural Technology
Since the 1960s, scientists, engineers, and healthcare professionals have developed brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies, connecting the user's brain activity to communication or motor devices. This new technology has also captured the imagination of publics, industry, and ethicists. Academic ethics has highlighted the ethical challenges of BCIs, although these conclusions often rely on speculative or conceptual methods rather than empiric…
Engineering the Brain
Neural engineering technologies such as implanted deep brain stimulators and brain‐computer interfaces represent exciting and potentially transformative tools for improving human health and well‐being. Yet their current use and future prospects raise a variety of ethical and philosophical concerns. Devices that alter brain function invite us to think deeply about a range of ethical concerns—identity, normality, authority, responsibility, privacy,…
Stanford’s Unconceived Alternatives from the Perspective of Epistemic Obligations
Kyle Stanford’s reformulation of the problem of underdetermination has the potential to highlight the epistemic obligations of scientists. Stanford, however, presents the phenomenon of unconceived alternatives as a problem for realists, despite critics’ insistence that we have contextual explanations for scientists’ failure to conceive of their successors’ theories. I propose that responsibilist epistemology and the concept of “role oughts,” as d…
Silent performances
Ankeny and Leonelli (2016) propose "repertoires" as a new way to understand the stability of certain research programs as well as scientific change in general. By bringing a more complete range of social, material, and epistemic elements into one framework, they position their work as a correction to the Kuhnian impulse in philosophy of science and other areas of science studies. I argue that this "post-Kuhnian" move is not complete, and that rep…
Do Publics Share Experts' Concerns about Brain-Computer Interfaces? A Trinational Survey on the Ethics of Neural Technology
Since the 1960s, scientists, engineers, and healthcare professionals have developed brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies, connecting the user's brain activity to communication or motor devices. This new technology has also captured the imagination of publics, industry, and ethicists. Academic ethics has highlighted the ethical challenges of BCIs, although these conclusions often rely on speculative or conceptual methods rather than empiric…
Brain-Computer Interfaces, Inclusive Innovation, and the Promise of Restoration
Over the last two decades, researchers have promised “neuroprosthetics” for use in physical rehabilitation and to treat patients with paralysis. Fulfilling this promise is not merely a technical challenge but is accompanied by consequential practical, ethical, and social implications that warrant sociological investigation and careful deliberation. In response, this paper explores how rehabilitation professionals evaluate the development and appl…
Science, responsibility, and the philosophical imagination
If we cannot define science using only analysis or description, then we must rely on imagination to provide us with suitable objects of philosophical inquiry. This process ties our intellectual findings to the particular ways in which we philosophers think about scientific practice and carve out a cognitive space between real world practice and conceptual abstraction. As an example, I consider Heather Douglas’s work on the responsibilities of sci…
Brain-computer interfaces, disability, and the stigma of refusal
As brain-computer interfaces are promoted as assistive devices, some researchers worry that this promise to “restore” individuals worsens stigma toward disabled people and fosters unrealistic expectations. In three web-based survey experiments with vignettes, we tested how refusing a brain-computer interface in the context of disability affects cognitive (blame), emotional (anger), and behavioral (coercion) stigmatizing attitudes (Experiment 1, N…
Critical Contextual Empiricism and the Politics of Knowledge
What are philosophers doing when they prescribe a particular epistemology for science? According to science and technology studies, the answer to this question implicates both knowledge and politics, even when the latter is hidden. Exploring this dynamic via a specific case, I argue that Longino’s “critical contextual empiricism” ultimately relies on a form of political liberalism. Her choice to nevertheless foreground epistemological concerns ca…
Sociology (5 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Political science (4 works) · Politics (4 works) · Cognitive Functions and Memory (3 works) · Philosophy (3 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (3 works) · Philosophy of science (3 works) · Psychology (3 works)