Preface to Federica Russo's monograph Techno-Scientific Practices - An Informational Approach

In future history of philosophy, Federica Russo's monograph Techno-Scientific Practices-An Informational Approach will be recognized as groundbreaking for creating a tradition of joining forces between the Philosophy of Science in Practice (PSP), Philosophy of Technology, and STS. This monograph offers a courageous and convincing argument for building bridges between these disciplines, which have so far often proceeded very separately from each other. Connecting these disciplines is a tour de force because of the differences in concepts, questions, and methods. Bridging them also requires a new approach from Russo, uncommon in any of these academic disciplines. Russo has done an impressive job in this regard. Russo's objective is to examine how technology in science calls for a different epistemology and ontology. Her focus is an epistemology that accounts for the process of knowledge production, including how human and artificial epistemic agents partake in this process. Briefly put, she argues that human and artificial epistemic agents co-produce knowledge. Scientists (i.e., human epistemic agents) use and interact with instruments (i.e., the artificial epistemic agents) throughout the whole process of knowledge production. According to Russo we miss an account of what these uses and interactions of scientists with instruments amount to epistemologically and ontologically. What does it mean to say that instruments are artificial epistemic agents? Russo wants to go a step further than the commonly accepted view, by stressing that the instruments are not there just to enhance or a​m​p​l​ify ..