ABSTRACT
Philosophical dialogue has the power to improve interdisciplinary scientific research. The Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI) conducts workshops that foster philosophical dialogue among interdisciplinary researchers. This chapter focuses on 20 of these workshops, all of which used the Toolbox STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) instrument and were conducted with interdisciplinary research teams of scientists. We analyze data from some of these workshops and demonstrate that philosophical dialogues conducted using the Toolbox method have two salutary effects. First, they lead to a significant increase in belief formation about philosophical topics relevant to interdisciplinary science. Scientists sometimes do not have preconceived commitments on issues in philosophy of science, and Toolbox workshops tend to prompt them to adopt views on these topics. Second, these philosophical dialogues promote group metacognition, i.e., participants became more accurate in assessing the similarity of the philosophical views among their interlocutors. This improvement of group metacognition is important because it enhances mutual understanding among interdisciplinary research teams, which in turn is integral in epistemic integration required to effectively collaborate across disciplines. Responses by Toolbox participants to post-workshop questionnaires corroborate this second finding.
