Epistemic Landscape Models of Cognitive Labor

Michael Weisberg

Department of Philosophy
University of Pennsylvania

Wednesday, February 25, 2009
4:30 p.m.
Papazian 324

All are welcome

The division of cognitive labor is one of the most striking features of modern scientific communities and has been argued to be a key component in their epistemic success. But there are theoretical questions concerning cognitive labor that can be addressed with computational models: What different types of divisions of cognitive labor are possible? How effective are these divisions for achieving scientific goals? Are there tradeoffs among these divisions? What kinds of individual motivations can lead to these divisions? How do restrictions of information and resources affect these choices and the division, which is an outcome of the choices? What kinds of incentives or structural features might the scientific community adopt to achieve better divisions of cognitive labor?