Critical reflections on recent philosophical views about public participation in science.

International audiencePhilosophers of science have recently called for the abandonment of the traditional, context-independent view of the ends of science. Rather than aiming at coming up with a single and complete account of nature, science is now widely seen as providing accurate but partial representations that respond to the particular needs and interests, both practical and epistemic, of a society at a given time. An immediate consequence of this context-dependent view of the ends of science is that the definition of scientific research programs can no longer be left to the scientists only. The issue of public participation in the formulation of science and technology policies is thus emerging as a pressing concern for contemporary philosophy of science. The most influential recent attempt at addressing this concern has been made by Philip Kitcher who, in his book Science, Truth and Democracy (2001) proposes the normative concept of "well- ordered science" to capture what a democratic organization of scientific research should look like