The action of light on the retina: Translation and commentary of Holmgren (1866)

Kantola, Leila; Piccolino, Marco; Wade, Nicholas

doi:10.1080/0964704x.2019.1622942

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…This method dates back at least to the mid-nineteenth century. In 1866, the Swedish physiologist Frithiof Holmgren published a paper with his discoveries about retinal currents (Holmgren 1866;Kantola, Piccolino, and Wade 2019), but the author's main interest seemed to lie in the fact that he had come up with a method or "way of doing" for experimentally producing relevant information. To discover that light on the retina caused electrical activity in the visual pathways was at the same time to discover an experimental device that would make it possible to produce the phenomenon of vision and to intervene in it.…”

Section: Experimental Paradigms As Ways Of Producing Phenomenamentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the development and use of tools in neuroscience: the case of the tungsten micro-electrode

Wainer

2022

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The philosophical interest in experimental practice in neuroscience has brought renewed attention to the study of the development and use of techniques and tools for data production. John Bickle has argued that the construction and progression of theories in neuroscience are entirely dependent on the development and ingenious use of research tools. In Bickle's account, theory plays a tertiary role, as it depends on what the tools allow researchers to manipulate, and the tools, in turn, are developed not in order to test theories but as solutions to engineering problems. However, Bickle's account is not entirely precise in explaining what informs researchers' decision-making in their atheoretical laboratory tinkering. Identifying the sources that guide researchers in tool development and use is crucial if one wishes to contribute to the philosophical or meta-scientific understanding of experimental practice in neuroscience. In the following paper, I claim that decision-making in tools' development and use in neuroscience is doubly guided. Pre-existing theory and concepts determine information's relevance, whereas tools' functioning in controlled situations determines information's reliability. Accordingly, experimenters' decision-making is situated both in the context of analysing, modelling or interpreting information and in the context of producing information. I study the case of the tungsten microelectrode developed by David Hubel during the 1950s. First, I show that pre-existing theory and concepts (in particular, the "neuron doctrine" and the concepts of "receptive field" and "cortical column") determine in advance what information would be relevant to obtain from the microelectrode. Second, I show that Hubel's tinkering follows the guidelines derived from the very structure of what we recognise as reliable experimentally produced information. Finally, I suggest that data-production processes allow experimenters to assess what to expect from an experimental system in terms of concept-and theory-generation and confirmation, thereby endorsing Bickle's tenet on the tertiary role of theory in neuroscience.

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Section: Experimental Paradigms As Ways Of Producing Phenomenamentioning

confidence: 99%