Scientific Collaboration: The Very Idea

In this essay I look at some of the conditions and values that are required for a ‘virtuous’ collaboration to succeed in practice, in particular when such practice entails communication across types of knowledge that do not necessarily fall under the generic connotation of ‘scientific’. I will use, as my example of collaboration, the controversial relation between so called ‘local knowledge’ and scientific knowledge (which I will call ‘general’ to draw a suitable contrast with ‘local’) and look at ways by which the two can integrate for the better of research.