In my dream version of the scientific enterprise, everyone who works on X would be required to spend some percentage of their time learning and contributing to the philosophy of X. There is too much focus on the "how" and too little focus on the "why" and the "what are we even".
Junior scholars entering a field naturally tend to ask critical questions as they aren't yet inculcated into the field's dogmas. But the academic treadmill leaves them little time to voice concerns & their lack of status means that even when they do, they aren't taken seriously.
One possible intervention is for journals and conferences to devote some fraction of their pages / slots to self-critical inquiry, and for dissertation committees to make clear that they will value this type of scholarship just as much as "normal" science.
In other words, we don't even need to create new incentives to encourage scholars to grapple with meta-questions. We just need to remove the disincentives that are currently in place.
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