Distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate roles for values in transdisciplinary research Inkeri Koskinen, Kristina Rolin * Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, 33014, Finland ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Values in science Objectivity Demarcation Transdisciplinary research ABSTRACT In this paper, we argue that the new demarcation problem does not need to be framed as the problem of defining a set of necessary and jointly sufficient criteria for distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable roles that non-epistemic values can play in science. We introduce an alternative way of framing the problem and defend an open-ended list of criteria that can be used in demarcation. Applying such criteria requires context-specific work that clarifies which principles should be used, and possibly leads to the identification of new principles – which then can be added to the open-ended list. We illustrate our approach by examining a context where distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable value influences in science is both needed and tricky: transdisciplinary research. 1. Introduction In their key piece in this special issue, Holman and Wilholt (forth- coming) define “the new demarcation problem”: how do we demarcate between acceptable and unacceptable value influences in science, when we agree that non-epistemic values play an important role in all stages of scientific research? They argue that none of the existing strategies (e.g., Anderson, 2004; Douglas, 2009; Longino, 2002) can offer necessary and sufficient criteria for acceptable value influences in science. Yet there is a need to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate roles for values in science, as non-epistemic values can undermine the epistemic integrity of scientific research. In this paper, we argue that the new demarcation problem does not need to be framed as the problem of defining a set of necessary and jointly sufficient criteria for distinguishing between acceptable and un- acceptable roles that non-epistemic values can play in science. We introduce an alternative way of framing the new demarcation problem. Our strategy involves an open-ended list of criteria which can often be used in demarcation even though none of the criteria is a necessary condition of legitimate non-epistemic value influence in science. Applying this strategy requires context-specific work that clarifies which criteria should be used and how the criteria are to be interpreted, and possibly leads to the identification of new criteria – which can then be added to the open-ended list. In section 2, we revisit the old demarcation problem in order to better understand why many philosophers have given up the attempt to define a set of necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for science. The debate over the old demarcation problem provides us with a clue as to how the new demarcation problem can be framed. In section 3, we discuss principles that should be included in the open-ended list of demarcation criteria. In section 4, we illustrate our approach by exam- ining a context where distinguishing between acceptable and unac- ceptable value influences in science is both needed and tricky: transdisciplinary research. 2. We do not need all-purpose necessary and sufficient criteria for demarcation To provide a background for our strategy, let us turn to the old problem of demarcation – the one where the aim was and is to demarcate between science and pseudoscience. This used to be seen as a central task in philosophy of science. Already for decades it has, however, been treated largely as a problem belonging to the history of the field. It is only relatively recently that it has gained some renewed attention (e.g., Resnik, 2000; Mahner, 2007; Pigliucci & Boudry, 2013; Hansson, 2009, 2013). These recent attempts to address the old problem of demarcation differ significantly from the earlier, more familiar ones (e.g., Lakatos, 1970; Popper, 1934). In this section, we explain how the old problem of * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: inkeri.koskinen@tuni.fi (I. Koskinen), kristina.rolin@tuni.fi (K. Rolin). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Studies in History and Philosophy of Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsa https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2021.12.001 Received 31 March 2021; Received in revised form 27 November 2021 0039-3681/© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 91 (2022) 191–198