The slogan "Do Your Own Research" is often adopted by those who are distrustful of recognized authorities and of expert consensus(es). Partly as a result, the extent to which individuals should do their own research has become a live debate within applied epistemology. This talk sets out to do two things. The first is to pinpoint the nature of this debate. It presumably isn't a debate about whether we should sometimes do our own research--we clearly should, at least some of the time. So what, exactly, is the debate about? The second is to argue that we, as applied epistemologists, need to be mindful of the potential value of research conducted by non-experts. We need to be particularly mindful of its potential value in fields that have a history of ignoring and excluding the perspectives of non-experts. I will suggest that patient activist groups are a particularly salient example of this, and discuss some of the ways in which research conducted by patient activist groups is valuable.

Robin McKenna is currently a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Liverpool. Before coming to Liverpool he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Vienna (2014-2018) and the University of Geneva (2013-2014). He completed his PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2013. more information

This talk is past of the Applied Philosophy of Science and Epistomology Talk Series: A series of talks organized by APSE (Department of Philosophy). More information can be found at apse.univie.ac.at/news-events/apse-talks/