Samuli Reijula
I am a philosopher and cognitive scientist interested in how science works, how it could, and how it should work.
I work as a university lecturer (permanent faculty position, roughly equivalent to US associate professor) in Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Helsinki. I’m also affiliated with the TINT Centre for Philosophy of Social Science, and a docent (habilitation / adjunct professor) in Practical Philosophy, University of Helsinki.
The aim of my current research project is to better understand scientific problem-solving: Science is the humanity’s most successful problem-solving system, and the primary source of epistemic authority in modern societies.
In my research, I view & model science as a distributed cognitive system, “problem-solving writ large.” How does that system function at different levels of analysis ranging from individual scientists to research groups and scientific communities?
And how should it function - what are the social, cognitive, and institutional preconditions of well-functioning scientific research?
Recent posts
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Objectivity is misunderstood in new academic recruitment policies
In a short article recently published in Tietessä Tapahtuu, a science-policy journal, Jaakko Kuorikoski and I argue that two policies recently introduced in Finnish higher education compromise academic autonomy.
These policies outsource researcher evaluation to extra-academic agents, and result in absurd demands on academic review panels. If implemented, they can lead to significant harm to the quality of Finnish research and self-regulation of the academic community.
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Interviewed by The Reasoner
Lorenzo Casini from The Reasoner recently interviewed Dunja Seselja, Matteo Michelini and me on agent-based modeling in the philosophy of science and social epistemology. Dunja has organized this amazing series of workshops called Simulations of Scientific Inquiry, and Lorenzo joined us as one of the keynote speakers at the latest workshop.
Here’s the link to the interview.
“If I had to pick one hypothesis to be tested in a real-world setting, I’d go with my work on bias and laziness” - says Matteo. Better find out what he’s talking about!
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Perspective on diversity in Mustread
My short perspective piece on the value of diversity and DEI policies was just published in Mustread. This one is in Finnish.
A manuscript version here
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Opinion. Inheritance tax debate needs attention on values (HS)
A short opinion piece in Helsingin Sanomat on inheritance tax, with Säde Hormio
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Opinion. Public authorities should leave X (SK)
My opinion piece “Public authorities should leave X” published in Suomen Kuvalehti.
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Unpopular ideas on AI and epistemic humility
In this preprint Renne Pesonen and I argue that often arguments against machine intelligence are actually motivated by intuitions against machine agency.
In our view, the striking thing about LLMs is that they are an existence proof of structurally simple (but large!) systems that can perform many of the tasks we think require intelligence. The fact that they might do those things in a “wrong”, non-human, way is beside the point: Something we thought could only be brought about by the (so far) unexplained powers of the human mind is now done by a shallow system. This should give us pause, some epistemic humility and antidote to human cognitive exceptionalism.
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Fediverse reading list
I’ve become increasingly interested in the fediverse. Thinking in terms of protocols instead of privately owned platforms could give us ways to address some of the epistemic challenges associated with the new AI-structured information landscape. My plan is to write something on this later on, but I’ll start by gradually compiling a reading list on both technical and more conceptual thinking on the fediverse. I’ve been asking people for recommendations on what to read.
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Interview in Paatos (w/ Kristina Rolin and Jaakko Kuorikoski)
The philosophical magazine Paatos published an interview with three philosophers of science, Kristina Rolin, Jaakko Kuorikoski and me. The format is interesting - Jere Hallikainen, the author, added some links and references but otherwise the transcript follows the discussion very closely. Thanks Jere!
Turns out that surprisingly many philosophers started out as engineers. Or aspiring professional musicians!
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Visiting CMU in October-November 2024
In October-November 2024 I will be visiting the Center for Formal Epistemology and the Institute for Complex Social Dynamics at Carnegie Mellon University (hosted by Kevin Zollman). Really looking forward to this!
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On the idea of Bildung university
This week I gave a short presentation on the idea of Bildung university (‘sivistysyliopisto’ in Finnish). The notion of Bildung doesn’t quite translate to English but we have a word for it in Finnish, ‘sivistys’. Here Bildung university refers to the modern concept of research university from early 19th century, first embodied by the University of Berlin (founded in 1810).
It’s a lofty ideal and many of the ideas behind it come from German enlightenment and neohumanism: Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Schleiermacher - and Humboldt. Although it seems like a politically implausible picture of autonomous universities and academic freedom, incompatible with current managerialist trends in higher education, the Bildung university model has been remarkably resilient, and successful. Despite various pressures and mutations along the way, it still lies at the heart of our best research universities, not only in continental Europe but also in the US, where the German model was exported during the 19th century.
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