Experimentation and the Meaning of Scientific Concepts

Arabatzis, Theodore

doi:10.1515/9783110253610.149

Cited by 10 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 12 publications

(12 reference statements)

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“…The first is whether different scientists 21 Einstein's changing attitudes towards the ether have been documented by Kostro 2000. 22 This question is beyond the scope of this paper, but I have addressed it elsewhere (see, e.g., Arabatzis 2011Arabatzis , 2012.…”

Section: The Death Of the Ethermentioning

confidence: 99%

Do scientific objects have a life (which may end)?

Arabatzis

2021

Sci Context

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ArgumentThe aim of this article is to make a case for the pertinence of a biographical approach to the history of scientific objects. I first lay out the rationale of that approach by revisiting and extending my earlier work on the topic. I consider the characteristics of scientific objects that motivate the biographical metaphor, and I indicate its virtues and limitations by bringing out the positive and negative analogies between biographies of scientific objects and ordinary biographies. I then point out various ways in which scientific objects may pass away and argue that their demise should be conceptualized as a process. Finally, I sketch the history of the concept of “ether” in nineteenth and early twentieth century physics and suggest that it lends itself particularly well to a biographical treatment. To that effect, I discuss the identity, heuristic character, and recalcitrance of the ether and examine the reasons that may have led to its passing.

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Section: The Death Of the Ethermentioning

confidence: 99%

Do scientific objects have a life (which may end)?

Arabatzis

2021

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“…In this context, scientific concepts have been described as contributing to empirical knowledge in ways that extend beyond their traditionally recognized roles in mental and linguistic representation. 1 This type of approach highlights the multiple uses for scientific concepts in practice: from mediating the interplay between theoretical and experimental practices (Feest 2012, Bloch 2012a to contributing to experimental research in ways that are not determined by the theoretical frameworks within which the concepts may also be embedded (Arabatzis 2012). Concepts are shown to be used in theoretically polyvalent ways (Arabatzis, Nersessian 2015, Schmidgen 2014, as useful even when they fail to pick out natural kinds (Bloch 2012b, Waters 2014, and as patchwork arrangements that, having unfolded over generations of historically contingent uses, can resist individual intentions (Kindi 2012, Nersessian 2012.…”

Section: Highlighting the Convergence Of Three Strands Of Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining the Structured Uses of Concepts as Tools: Converging Insights

Smith

2019

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Examining the historical development of scientific concepts is important for understanding the structured routines within which these concepts are currently used as goal-directed tools in experiments. To illustrate this, I outline how the concepts of mental imagery and hallucinations each draw on an older interdependent set of associations that, although nominally discarded, continues to structure their current independent uses for pursuing discrete experimental goals. In doing so, I highlight how three strands of literature offer mutually instructive insights into how the uses of current scientific concepts contribute to experimental practices. The first strand of literature includes recent scholarship examining how the uses of scientific concepts can enable scientific practices (e.g., Boon 2012, Brigandt 2012, Feest 2010, Steinle 2012, the second strand comes from the technoscientific studies focused on non-human agency (Pickering 1995), and the third draws attention to how the functions of concepts are grounded by the set of historically contingent experimental practices (e.g., Canguilhem 2008, Tiles 1984.

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“…Acknowledgments Sections 14.2 and 14.4 above are adapted from Arabatzis (2012). We are indebted to Ana Simões for her helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.…”

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confidence: 99%

Concepts Out of Theoretical Contexts

Arabatzis

Nersessian

2015

Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science

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In this paper we take as our point of departure Kostas Gavroglu and Yorgos Goudaroulis's insight that, in the process of describing and explaining novel phenomena, scientific concepts are taken "out of" their original theoretical context, acquire additional meaning, and become relatively autonomous. We first present their account of how concepts are re-contextualized and, in the process, extended and/or revised. We then situate it within its philosophical context, and discuss how it broke with a long-standing philosophical tradition about concepts. Finally, we argue that recent developments in science studies can flesh out and vindicate the "concepts out of contexts" idea. In particular, historical and philosophical studies of experimentation and cognitive-historical studies of modeling practices indicate various ways in which concepts are formed and articulated "out of context."

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Experimentation and the Meaning of Scientific Concepts

Cited by 10 publications

References 12 publications

Do scientific objects have a life (which may end)?

Do scientific objects have a life (which may end)?

Examining the Structured Uses of Concepts as Tools: Converging Insights

Concepts Out of Theoretical Contexts

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