Introduction: "a matter so obscure, so difficult, and likewise so new . . ." -- Argument, narrative, and methods discourse -- Many, many experiments -- Trying again -- Newtonian poison: a mechanical account of viper venom -- Experiment as the only guide -- Thousands of experiments -- Practical criticisms -- Controlling experiment -- Unobservables -- Fragmentation and modularity: notes on crotoxin -- Conclusion: about methods.

This open access book provides a historical treatment of scientific control in experimentation in the longue durée. The introduction distinguishes four related strands in the history of experimental control: the development of practices to stabilize experimental conditions; the career of the comparative design; the unfolding of methodological discussions about control practices and designs; and the history of the term “control”. Each chapter brings these distinctions to bear on specific historical episodes. The focus is on experiments with complex, elusive phenomena such (...) as perception and learning, irregular movements, and unobservable elements. Such experiments bring control issues to the fore because they are difficult to design and stabilize and often controversial. Together, the chapters show that the local context shapes what exactly is controlled, how control can be accomplished, and how controls are justified. They also show that control strategies and methodological ideas often remain stable for a long time and change only gradually. This book, as well as the volume on analysis and synthesis in experimentation by the same editors, contains contributions by an array of experts from multiple disciplines, making it suitable for historians and philosophers of science and students alike. (shrink)

This volume thus clears the ground for the productive and fruitful integration of these new developments into philosophy of science.

This essay offers some reflections on the recent history of the disputes about the relation between history and philosophy of science (HPS) and the merits and prospects of HPS as an intellectual endeavor. As everyone knows, the issue was hotly debated in the 1960s and 1970s. That was the hey-day of the slogan "history without philosophy of science is blind, philosophy without history of science is empty" as well as of the many variations on the theme of HPS as a (...) "marriage of convenience," "intimate relation," or "marriage for the sake of reason." There was a flurry of interest in the early 1990s, as evidenced by sections in the 1992 and 1994 issues of PSA, entitled: "Do the History of Science and the Philosophy of .. (shrink)

In a recent editorial published in Nature, the journal's editors comment on a new automated software that has been used to check findings in psychology publications. The editors express concern with the way in which the anonymous fact-checkers have proceeded, but at the same time, they underscore the crucial role of peer criticism for scientific progress and insist: "self-correction is at the heart of science." Brief as it is, the editorial showcases that peer criticism and the application of norms of (...) good research practice are very thorny issues indeed.It is essential for the functioning of science that empirical findings, arguments, as well as methodological approaches are scrutinized... (shrink)

This article presents a new framework for the analysis of experimental control. The framework highlights different functions for experimental controls in the realization of an experiment: experimental controls that serve as tests and experimental controls that serve as probes. The approach to experimental control proposed here can illuminate the constitutive role of controls in knowledge production, and it sheds new light on the notion of exploratory experimentation. It also clarifies what can and what cannot be expected from reviewers of scientific (...) journal articles giving feedback on experimental controls. (shrink)

This article identifies a fundamental distinction in scientific practice: the mismatch between what scientists do and what they state they did when they communicate their findings in their publications. The insight that such a mismatch exists is not new. It was already implied in Hans Reichenbach's distinction between the contexts of discovery and justification, and it is taken for granted across the board in philosophy of science and science studies. But while there is general agreement that the mismatch exists, the (...) epistemological implications of that mismatch are not at all clear. Philosophers, historians, and sociologists of different stripes have expressed widely different views about how one should understand and interpret the relation between what scientists do and what they state they did. This article surveys a number of approaches to the mismatch. Based on this survey, I offer an assessment of the epistemological significance of the mismatch and identify the major meta-epistemological challenges that it poses for the analysis of scientific practice. *Received May 2007; revised April 2008. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of History and Philosophy of Science, 1011 East Third Street, Goodbody Hall 130, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

This paper examines how scientists conceptualize their research methodologies. Do scientists raise concerns about vague criteria and genuine uncertainties in experimental practice? If so, what sorts of issues do they identify as problematic? Do scientists acknowledge the presence of value judgments in scientific research, and do they reflect on the relation between epistemic and non-epistemic criteria for decisionmaking? We present findings from an analysis of qualitative interviews with 63 scientific researchers who talk about their views on good research practice. We (...) argue that analysts of science should care about scientists’ conceptualizations of the criteria and of the practical judgments that scientific inquiry involves. While scientists’ accounts of their own research methodologies alone do not give us a full picture of how science really works, they can point us to areas of concern. They can inspire and direct philosophical reflections about how science works. Throughout the interviews, the participating researchers provided specific examples from their own research contexts as illustrations of their methodological points. These examples reveal that scientists often struggle to evaluate the quality of their data, to figure out whether the available evidence confirms their hypothesis, whether a replication was successful, or to what extent they can rely on peer-reviewed papers. General ideas about good research methods do not directly translate into specific evaluation criteria or strategies that can guide research and help validate empirical data. (shrink)

This article examines a metaphilosophical issue, namely existing disagreements in philosophy of science about the significance of using multiple means of determination in scientific practice. We argue that this disagreement can, in part, be resolved by separating different questions that can be asked about the use of multiple means of determination, including the following: what can be concluded from the convergence of data or the convergence of claims about phenomena? Are the conclusions drawn from the convergence of data and of (...) statements about phenomena of special importance to the debate about realism and antirealism? Do inferences based on multiple means of determination have stronger epistemic force than inferences that are secured in other ways? Is the epistemic goal of deploying multiple means of determination well entrenched within the scientific community? Most of these questions can be discussed both in a formal and in an empirical perspective. If the differences in perspective are taken into account, some disagreements can be easily resolved. In part, however, the disagreements reflect historiographical challenges that are very difficult, if not impossible to meet. (shrink)

This paper examines how scientists conceptualize their research methodologies. Do scientists raise concerns about vague criteria and genuine uncertainties in experimental practice? If so, what sorts of issues do they identify as problematic? Do scientists acknowledge the presence of value judgments in scientific research, and do they reflect on the relation between epistemic and non-epistemic criteria for decisionmaking? We present findings from an analysis of qualitative interviews with 63 scientific researchers who talk about their views on good research practice. We (...) argue that analysts of science should care about scientists’ conceptualizations of the criteria and of the practical judgments that scientific inquiry involves. While scientists’ accounts of their own research methodologies alone do not give us a full picture of how science really works, they can point us to areas of concern. They can inspire and direct philosophical reflections about how science works. Throughout the interviews, the participating researchers provided specific examples from their own research contexts as illustrations of their methodological points. These examples reveal that scientists often struggle to evaluate the quality of their data, to figure out whether the available evidence confirms their hypothesis, whether a replication was successful, or to what extent they can rely on peer-reviewed papers. General ideas about good research methods do not directly translate into specific evaluation criteria or strategies that can guide research and help validate empirical data. (shrink)

. This paper discusses the claim that science is “messy.” Part I argues first, that a good portion of today’s discussions about messy science is just a portrayal of familiar features of science in new terms. In the paper, I refer to this as “messy science talk.” Second, Part I draws out rhetorical functions of messy science talk, namely the denigration of science in the popular media and the celebration of the maverick. Part II identifies one way in which it (...) is enlightening to think about mess in current science, namely in reference to the problems that scientists need to address. It also shows that we do not need an entirely new conceptual inventory to analyze these problems. “Mess” and “wicked problems” were a theme in operations research and theories of social planning in the 1970s. These older analyses can illuminate important characteristics of today’s scientific problems. Wicked problems cut across different disciplines, engage different stakeholders, are fluid, and cannot even be clearly formulated. They are urgent and need to be addressed before sufficient evidence is in. (shrink)

This essay is concerned with the epistemic roles of error in scientific practice. Usually, error is regarded as something negative, as an impediment or obstacle for the advancement of science. However, we also frequently say that we are learning from error. This common expression suggests that the role of error is not—at least not always—negative but that errors can make a fruitful contribution to the scientific enterprise. My paper explores the latter possibility. Can errors play an epistemically productive role in (...) scientific research? The paper begins with a review of several twentieth-century approaches to error and the various agendas behind them. It is shown that only very few scholars have considered whether errors can be productive. The main part of the paper examines a concrete debate in early nineteenth-century microscopy and analyses how the microscopists coped with the problem of error. Drawing on this material, the article offers some terminological clarifications of the common notion ‘learning from error’. The conclusion argues that error can indeed play epistemically productive roles in scientific practice.Keywords: Error; Nineteenth-century microscopic anatomy. (shrink)

This paper discusses two methodological notions, the concepts Gegenprobe (countercheck) and Gegenversuch (counter-trial), which were widely applied, discussed, relied upon, and defended in German-language writings about empirical inquiry. In the decades around 1800, they were common in physiology; medicine; agriculture; chemistry; various technologies, such as printing, metallurgy, and mining; accounting; and legal and political argumentation. The ubiquity of those concepts signals a broad concern with securing empirical findings and empirical knowledge. Gegenproben and Gegenversuche – the terms as well as the (...) practices – are evidence for the close connection among explicitly knowledge-seeking endeavors and crafts and technologies. Physiological experiments, chemical analyses, agricultural or vaccination trials were indebted to applied and practical procedures of making and assaying. What united these different fields was the fact that the problems that had to be solved were very complex yet at the same time of immediate relevance to everyday lives (like diseases or crops) or highly controversial (like vital forces or spontaneous generation). We know that late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century practices of inquiry were firmly embedded in applied, technical contexts; this essay shows that methodological notions were anchored in applied, technical contexts as well. (shrink)

This essay deals with a conspicuous feature of early modern experimental reports: references to multiple repetitions. I examine an episode from the history of research on venomous snakes, the dispute between Francesco Redi and Moyse Charas about the cause of death from viper bites. I identify different kinds of repetitions that are described and specify the various different roles that are attributed to repetitions in experimental reports. I argue that repetition (the successive reproduction of one's own experimental trials) should be (...) distinguished from replication (reproducing other investigators' experiments). At first, replications played hardly any role in the exchange, but references to repetitions were crucial to show that contingencies had been obviated, to support inductive generalizations, and to specify the exact cause of an experimental effect. Notably, it appears that the replication of effects by different experimental means was not part of the repository of methodological notions that Redi and Charas brought to bear on their experiments. Reruns and repetitions with variations (including complementary trials) bore the epistemic weight. -/- . (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the place and significance of comparative trials in German agricultural writings around 1800. In the second half of the eighteenth century, practitioners of agriculture began to discuss the role and design of agricultural trials. The notion of comparative experimentation played a significant role in these discussions, but it could mean quite different things: comparative assessment of treatments in terms of yield, cost-effectiveness, and adequacy for an intended purpose; comparative input variations to explore the multitude of effects (...) of certain causes; and the comparison of something treated with something untreated, to establish the effects of a treatment more securely. Some German agriculturists developed their methodologies explicitly in contrast to the laboratory experiment, as they conceived it. Others invoked systematic variations and practices of quality control that they imported from technological contexts. Yet others drew on philosophical discussions of cause–effect relations. (shrink)

This essay is a contribution to the history of methodological thought. I focus on key methodological criteria for successful experimentation, replication and multiple determinations of empirical evidence. Drawing on reports of experiments with viper venom from the late seventeenth and late eighteenth centuries, as well as on present-day methodological thought I examine whether past experimenters regarded repetition, replication, and multiple determinations as criteria for validity; what exactly they meant by this; what they hoped to gain by repeating, varying, triangulating, and (...) replicating; and how relevant these criteria were for them. I also consider if this analysis has implications for current philosophical work on the methodology of experimental practice. (shrink)

This article compares investigations of the process of vision that were made in early nineteenth-century Britain and the German lands. It is argued that vision studies differed significantly east and west of the North Sea. Most of the German investigators had a medical background and many of them had a firm grasp of contemporary philosophy. In contrast, the British studies on vision emerged from the context of optics. This difference manifested itself in the conceptual tools for the analysis of vision, (...) deception and illusion and shaped the experiments on visual phenomena that were carried out. Nevertheless, both in Britain and in the German lands vision studies were driven by the same impetus, by epistemological concerns with the nature and reliability of knowledge acquisition in experience. The general epistemological conclusions drawn from researches on vision and deception were optimistic. Precisely because mechanisms of deception and illusion could be uncovered, the possibility of acquiring empirical knowledge could be secured. (shrink)

The unity of science movement was itself far from unified. There may have been unity on the rallying call for a unity of science but that is as far as it went. Not only was there disagreement among the main protagonists on what was meant by the unity of science, but also on how to achieve it. In this paper I shall deal with Edgar Zilsel’s (1891-1944) conception. It represents an interesting break with the more programmatic approaches of Carnap, Neurath; (...) Zilsel emphasizes the need for an empirical demonstration of the unity of science, which has interesting meta-philosophical implications. The unity of science is not just central to his research programme; it is what constitutes the latter’s unifying principle, although this is far from evident if one takes a look at the historical essays he published in exile in the USA during the 1940s. (These important essays on the emergence of science, well known among historians of early modern science, have given rise to the so-called Zilsel Thesis, which holds that modern science came into being when, between 1300 and 1600, the social barriers between those who ‘labored with there minds and tongues’, i.e. the university scholars and the humanists, and those who ‘worked with their hands’, i.e the superior artisans, eroded because of the rise of free-enterprise capitalism.) But simultaneously, he also published a couple of smaller and far less known essays, directed against Southwest-German Neo-Kantianism (Rickert, Windelband), Dilthey’s philosophy of life, and interpretative sociology (Max Weber, W. Sombart, G. Simmel, R. Stammler, Alfred Weber, etc.). His main argumentwas that philosophers of cultural science and the humanities had a falseunderstanding of natural science. Because of this false understanding, they erroneously postulated a fundamental methodological difference between the natural sciences and the human sciences. According to Zilsel, this difference does not exist. In his view the historian is basically confronted with the same problems as the natural scientist. If the science of history is not compared with classical mechanics but with, for example, geophysics – that is, “the physics of earthquakes, sea-currents, volcanology, and meteorology” – one will arrive at the conclusion “that historical phenomena are hardly more difficult to predict than the weather, and certainly no more difficult than earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. What would scientists think of a geophysicist who abandoned the search for geophysical laws because of their inexactness? ” (SOMS: 202). (shrink)

Today, Larry Laudan is known predominantly for his work on the pessimistic metainduction and for his discussion of science and values. This essay examines a less familiar part of Laudan’s work, his typology of historical methodologies from the late 1970s. My aim is to elucidate Laudan’s typology and to examine one of the types in more depth, namely, the “pragmatic, symbiotic” model of historical methodology. Laudan expounded the model in the essays that eventually became his 1981 book Science and Hypothesis. (...) Laudan himself characterized this approach to methodology as “history of philosophy of science” and described a number of historiographical guidelines for this history. Several of Laudan’s questions about past scientific methodologies are still worth pursuing, although—and in part because—the concept of scientific methodology changed dramatically as philosophers turned to experimentation in the late twentieth century. Moreover, the study of Laudan’s work in the historical context in which it was devised can shed light on the historical turn in philosophy of science. (shrink)

Scientists and philosophers generally agree that the replication of experiments is a key ingredient of good and successful scientific practice. “One-offs“ are not significant; experiments must be replicable to be considered valid and important. But the term “replication“ has been used in a number of ways, and it is therefore quite difficult to appraise the meaning and significance of replications. I consider how history may help - and has helped - with this task. I propose that: 1) Studies of past (...) scientific episodes in historical context and of recent philosophical contributions to the discussion are heuristic tools for exploring and clarifying the meaning of that concept. 2) The analysis of the development of the methodological imperative of replication sheds light on the significance scientists have attached to it, thereby contributing further to the clarification of the concept. 3) The analysis of the history of philosophical thought about methods and scientific methodology helps understand why philosophers have not paid much attention to the analysis of the concept of replication. (shrink)

: This article analyzes the transformation of epistemological and methodological discourses in German microscopy. It is argued that the expansion of microscopy in the early decades of the nineteenth century was pivotal for the emergence of intricate methodologies that characterized the instruments and methods of microscopy in new ways. Close examination of these means of investigation showed them to be intrinsically imperfect. The flaws of the instrument, the faults of the observer's eyes and the obstructive power of the objects of (...) investigation actions came to be crucial issues in epistemological and methodological debates. It became clear that the particulars of the research arrangement not only limited the range of possible microscopical observations but would always impede and interfere with the results: Perfect working conditions could never be achieved. (shrink)

: This paper is concerned with the claim that epistemic terms and categories are historical entities. The starting point is the observation that recent attempts at historical studies of epistemic terms fail to bridge the gap between history and philosophy proper. I examine whether, and how, it is possible to forge a closer link between historical and philosophical aspects of conceptual analysis. The paper explores possible links by analyzing aspects of the concept of error. A "pragmatic" and a "mentalist" notion (...) of error are identified in current philosophical studies of error: according to the latter, errors can be ascribed only to mental operations, according to the former, errors can also be ascribed to things and processes. The paper then draws on historical accounts of optical instruments to highlight certain presuppositions and implications of these two uses of the term. Contextual features and trans-contextual structures of the notion of error are distinguished. In conclusion, I argue that an intimate link between history and philosophy of science can be forged by an analysis ofthe development of conceptual arrangements which allows for trans- contextual structural aspects while drawing attention to the contextual epistemological and scientific conditions of their re-arrangement. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis paper is concerned with the diversity of microscopic research in nineteenth-century life sciences. It examines how two researchers, Ernst Wilhelm Brücke and Heinrich Müller, investigated the structure and function of the retina. They did so in significantly different ways, thereby developing quite different accounts of this organ and its role in the process of vision. Both investigators were carrying out microscopic investigations, both were particularly concerned with interpreting their findings in terms of physiological function, and both employed the (...) physical sciences in their microscopic research. Their approaches differed, however, with respect to the manner of handling and preparing the tissues, as well as with respect to the conceptual tools they applied to their findings.The cases indicate that the common tendency to associate microscopic research mainly with morphological studies of organic material is not appropriate. To understand nineteenth-century microscopy and its place in the sciences of life, close attention should be paid to the manner in which microscopic investigations were performed. It is only then that the flexibility and versatility of microscopic research comes into view. (shrink)

The published HPS paper gives us only an insufficient idea of the project of integrating history and philosophy of science. To understand how the integration may work and to make it even more rewarding, we need to reflect on the very process of constructing theories of the epistemic features of science. My paper develops this claim and considers its implications.

In recent years there has been a revival of the debate about the relation between history and philosophy of science. This article seeks to contribute to the discussion by approaching the issue from a new angle. To rethink the relation between the two domains of study, I apply an important insight about scientific practice to the practice of integrating the history and philosophy of science: the insight that the scientific paper does not give a faithful account of the actual research (...) pursued in the laboratory or in the field. Arguably, the scholarly article about science is also not a transparent window to the activity of producing such an article. But if it is not, we need to redirect our attention. If we want to understand the nature and merits of integrating the history and philosophy of science, we need to examine both the actual activity of integrating and the scholarly paper produced by it. To consider what one can learn from such an inquiry, I reflect on my own activity of studying scientific justification through the combination of historical and philosophical analysis. Probing a concrete historical episode, micro-anatomical research on the retina in the 19th century, I pursue two related questions, the first-order question, 'What exactly is scientific justification in the given case?' and the meta-question, 'How do I go about analysing justificatory practices?' I then characterise the nature of my analysis and consider what can be learned from the study of the practice of integrating the history and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Vision, Visibility, and Empirical Research. In general, natural scientists use the concept of observation in a liberal way: they talk of observing electrons, DNA, or distant quasars. Several philosophers of science have recently argued for a similar use of the concept of observation: they have claimed that the important aspects of scientific research can only be properly reconstructed in accordance with how this term is actually used in science. With reference to an example from astronomy, I point out that the (...) proposed generalisation of the concept of observation leads to undesirable consequences. I argue that a differentiated conceptual framework is required in order to give an adequate account of the varieties of scientific experience. Thus, the appropriate starting point for distinguishing these various scientific research practices should not be the generalised scientific conception of observation, but instead distinctly different uses of the term observation drawn from ordinary language. (shrink)

ArgumentStudies of Helmholtz’s popular lectures on science have concentrated on reconstructing his vision of the scientific enterprise, of its nature, its benefits, and its “civilizing power.” This paper offers a different perspective by focusing on Helmholtz’s attempts to expose his own scientific work to a wider public. Drawing on recent discussions about how to study science popularization, it analyzes how he made his work on sensory physiology accessible to various audiences. It is argued that the exposition of the theory of (...) vision comprises a complex, multilayered transformation of epistemic messages, which includes the recasting of arguments, recontextualizations, shifting emphasis, and significant changes in style. The popular writings on vision were directed to several different audiences, and, as such, manifest a delicate balance between conflicting agendas. An analysis of the texts indicates that neither the traditional two-step model of science popularization nor the more recent attempt to regard popularization as an “expository continuum” provides appropriate historiographical frameworks to study the popularization of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Of the Merits of History for Philosophy of Science. This essay is inspired by some of the contributions to the two special issues “History of Science and Philosophy of Science” of the journal Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte. I consider possible roles of historical study for philosophy of science. The first part of the essay discusses contributions to the Anglo‐American debate about history and philosophy of science in the 1960s and 1970s. I present two approaches. According to Larry Laudan and others, philosophy (...) of science should be regarded as an empirical theory of science, which has to be tested against historical episodes. I show why this conception of philosophy of science is problematic. According to Dudley Shapere and others, by contrast, philosophical analysis of science requires hermeneutic understanding and should include the study of the development of scientific knowledge. I agree that the method of philosophy of science is best described as hermeneutic. To defend a genuine historical‐hermeneutic philosophy of science, however, one would have to demonstrate the privilege of historical analysis over other forms of science studies, such as sociology of science or studies of science communication. I do not think that such a demonstration can be made. (shrink)

: The contributions to this volume originate from the workshop "Hauptsachen und Nebendinge—Pure Science and its Impurities," organized by Christoph Hoffmann, which took place at the Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science (Berlin) in July 2000. We wish to thank all participants for rich and stimulating talks and discussions.

Review of Soler et al. (eds.) Characterizing the robustness of science: After the practice turn in philosophy of science.

This article unearths little-studied accounts of the status and role of hypotheses in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Germany. German thinkers regarded hypotheses, including those about unobservable causes for visible effects, as legitimate and necessary ingredients of scientific inquiry. They debated the nature of probable hypotheses resulting from inductions, proposed heuristics for making causal hypotheses, and advanced criteria for assessing and testing them. My survey of these rich and multifaceted discussions shows that many themes and topics that we commonly associate (...) with modern philosophy of science were discussed decades earlier by authors of educational and practice-oriented books on logic: consequential testing, underdetermination, auxiliary hypotheses, the problem of unobservable entities, fallibility, and elaborate methodologies of observation and experimentation. It also illuminates the long-term history of present-day criteria for hypothesis evaluation. (shrink)