Ethnographic philosophy: A new method for an empirically embedded philosophy
Name of applicant
Helene Scott-Fordsmand
Title
Postdoctoral Fellow
Institution
University of Cambridge
Amount
DKK 2,001,003
Year
2024
Type of grant
Reintegration Fellowships
What?
The project will provide a systematic and methodologically well-founded translation of ethnographic methods, so that they may be purposefully used with the aim of answering philosophical questions. This work will consist in (a) exploring what it means to answer a philosophical question, and (b) reworking existing qualitative methodological standards to fit this purpose.
Why?
Philosophers have recently started explicitly using qualitative methods for philosophical enquiry. They learn about these methods from sociology, psychology, and anthropology where they were developed, but because philosophy asks different questions, draws on different theories, and has different aims, the methods need translation to work well for philosophy.
How?
The project uses a theoretical synthetic approach, developing ideas by bringing knowledge from different areas together in constructive reflection and critique. The project will draw mainly on literature and expert collaborations from within sociology, anthropology, psychology, science and technology studies, integrated history and philosophy of science, phenomenology and philosophy of science.