It has been a largely unquestioned assumption in the philosophy of science\, even among those who are interested in the essential role of values and sta ndpoints in science\, that knowledge is the epistemic attitude tha t scientists primarily strive to attain. In contrast\, I argue that scienti fic practices aim at managing\, producing\, communicating\, and transmittin g a diverse range of epistemic attitudes\, including not only knowledge\, b ut also ignorance\, curiosity\, suspicion\, provisional acceptance\, uncert ainty\, doubt\, concern\, attention\, and more. Scientific practice often a ims at unsettling our epistemic security rather than settling or e nhancing it\, or at redirecting our attention rather than offering a secure piece of knowledge. My claim is not just that scientists often ha ve and articulate these various epistemic attitudes along the way in their march towards knowledge\, but that having and transmitting such attitudes i s often the goal of scientific practice. Scientists do not just pu rsue knowledge\; they do things like try to undercut one another’s certaint y\; build openings for future research programs\; debunk methodologies\; re cruit more researchers to their programs\; and so on. Scientists are inelim inably embedded in social contexts and power relations and situated within epistemic perspectives\, and these concrete situations shape not just what they can know\, as standpoint theorists have emphasized\, but what epistemic attitudes and goals it makes sense for them to value and pursue. It is artificial\, I will try to show\, to see all this activity as ultima tely organized by a pure quest for knowledge.
Quill Kukla is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Disability Stu dies at Georgetown University. From 2021 to 2023\, they also held a Humbold t Stiftung Research Award at the Institut für Philosophie at Leibniz Univer sität Hannover. They received a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Pi ttsburgh and an MA in Geography from the City University of New York\, and completed a Greenwall Postdoctoral Fellowship at The Johns Hopkins School o f Public Health. Their most recent book is City Living: How Urban Dwell ers and Urban Spaces Make One Another (Oxford University Press 2021) a nd their forthcoming book is entitled Sex Beyond 'Yes!' (W. W. Nor ton & Co. 2024).
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