Concepts Norms and Investigating Scienti
Concepts, Norms, and Investigating
Scientific Phenomena
Integrated HPS Nottingham 2017
Harry Lewendon-Evans
Department of Philosophy
Durham University
Background
• Concepts in philosophy of science
• Semantics (meaning and reference)
• Ontology (abstract senses, mental representations)
• Naturalistic (psychology/cognitive science)
• Pragmatics (the use of concepts)
• Focus on the normative character of concepts
Plan of the talk
1. Background
2. Normativity
3. Concepts and constraints
4. Operational definitions
5. Conclusion
Plan of the talk
1. Background
2. Normativity
3. Concepts and constraints
4. Operational definitions
5. Conclusion
Normativity
• Two senses of norm:
1. Narrow: explicitly formulated rule that serves as a basis for
determining whether something is permissible or obligatory
2. Wide: anything which serves as a criterion/standard/measure to
which something does or does not conform and against which it can
be assessed.
Normativity
• Wide sense:
• Legislated statues
• Rules of games
• ‘Unspoken’ rules
• Satisfaction conditions
• Cultural habits and manners
• Goals and aims
…whatever measures what we say or do
Normativity
• Normative character of concepts
1. Representation: how the world should be
2. Reasoning
3. Responsibility
Plan of the talk
1. Background
2. Normativity
3. Concepts and constraints
4. Operational definitions
5. Conclusion
Concepts and constraints
“Constraints mark the endpoints of
scientific inquiry, the boundaries
beyond which inquirers within a
community find it unreasonable to
pass. Such borders may be at the
lofty plane of conservation laws and
symmetries or buried in the common
knowledge of plastics, metals, and
computer chips. Constraints may last
for decades or only persist for the
duration of an experimental run”
Concepts and constraints
• Long-term constraints
• Metaphysical commitments (e.g. conservation of energy)
• Mid-term constraints
• Research goals (e.g. gene mapping)
• Short-term constraints
• Experimental models, particular instruments
Concepts and constraints
1. Normative
2. Prohibitive
• “…narrow alternatives of what the experimentalist takes to be
reasonable beliefs and actions…Using all the tools available,
the experimentalist seeks to rule out alternative accounts of a
phenomenon” (Galison 1987: 246)
3. Not fixed
Plan of the talk
1. Background
2. Normativity
3. Concepts and constraints
4. Operational definitions
5. Conclusion
Operational definitions
“In order to investigate a given phenomenon, one
has to be able to empirically individuate instances
of it. In order to be able to do so, one has to
possess some concept of the phenomenon. The
possession of a concept is generally taken to
imply knowledge about the class of phenomena
that it applies to. But how do we make sense of
concept use in cases where scientists investigate
phenomena or objects they don’t know much
about, or perhaps aren’t even sure really exist?”
(Feest 2010: 173)
Operational definitions
“…paradigmatic conditions of application for the concepts in
question. These are cast in terms of a description of a typical
experimental set-up thought to produce data that are indicative of
the phenomenon picked out by the concept”
(Feest 2010: 178)
Operational definitions
• Mozart Effect
• Rauscher, Shaw and Ky (1993) operationalised the Mozart
Effect in terms of an experiment in which they tested the
effect of listening to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D-Major
on spatial reasoning, where the concept of spatial reasoning
was itself operationally defined in terms of performance in
tasks in the Stanford-Binet intelligence test.
Conclusions
1. How concepts are used in investigative practice.
2. One use concepts have is a normative one: in this sense, they constrain and
provide a measure for our beliefs or claims.
3. The notion of constraint was drawn from Galison as a way of setting out some of
the various ways in which the elements of science can have normative force for
research.
4. As an example of how concepts function as normative constraints, I have drawn on
Uljana Feest’s recent work on operational definitions, which characterises concepts
as specifying rules for the application of concepts in an experimental procedure.
5. As operationally defined, concepts serve to determine which data and results will
count as relevant or appropriate to the phenomenon under investigation.
Scientific Phenomena
Integrated HPS Nottingham 2017
Harry Lewendon-Evans
Department of Philosophy
Durham University
Background
• Concepts in philosophy of science
• Semantics (meaning and reference)
• Ontology (abstract senses, mental representations)
• Naturalistic (psychology/cognitive science)
• Pragmatics (the use of concepts)
• Focus on the normative character of concepts
Plan of the talk
1. Background
2. Normativity
3. Concepts and constraints
4. Operational definitions
5. Conclusion
Plan of the talk
1. Background
2. Normativity
3. Concepts and constraints
4. Operational definitions
5. Conclusion
Normativity
• Two senses of norm:
1. Narrow: explicitly formulated rule that serves as a basis for
determining whether something is permissible or obligatory
2. Wide: anything which serves as a criterion/standard/measure to
which something does or does not conform and against which it can
be assessed.
Normativity
• Wide sense:
• Legislated statues
• Rules of games
• ‘Unspoken’ rules
• Satisfaction conditions
• Cultural habits and manners
• Goals and aims
…whatever measures what we say or do
Normativity
• Normative character of concepts
1. Representation: how the world should be
2. Reasoning
3. Responsibility
Plan of the talk
1. Background
2. Normativity
3. Concepts and constraints
4. Operational definitions
5. Conclusion
Concepts and constraints
“Constraints mark the endpoints of
scientific inquiry, the boundaries
beyond which inquirers within a
community find it unreasonable to
pass. Such borders may be at the
lofty plane of conservation laws and
symmetries or buried in the common
knowledge of plastics, metals, and
computer chips. Constraints may last
for decades or only persist for the
duration of an experimental run”
Concepts and constraints
• Long-term constraints
• Metaphysical commitments (e.g. conservation of energy)
• Mid-term constraints
• Research goals (e.g. gene mapping)
• Short-term constraints
• Experimental models, particular instruments
Concepts and constraints
1. Normative
2. Prohibitive
• “…narrow alternatives of what the experimentalist takes to be
reasonable beliefs and actions…Using all the tools available,
the experimentalist seeks to rule out alternative accounts of a
phenomenon” (Galison 1987: 246)
3. Not fixed
Plan of the talk
1. Background
2. Normativity
3. Concepts and constraints
4. Operational definitions
5. Conclusion
Operational definitions
“In order to investigate a given phenomenon, one
has to be able to empirically individuate instances
of it. In order to be able to do so, one has to
possess some concept of the phenomenon. The
possession of a concept is generally taken to
imply knowledge about the class of phenomena
that it applies to. But how do we make sense of
concept use in cases where scientists investigate
phenomena or objects they don’t know much
about, or perhaps aren’t even sure really exist?”
(Feest 2010: 173)
Operational definitions
“…paradigmatic conditions of application for the concepts in
question. These are cast in terms of a description of a typical
experimental set-up thought to produce data that are indicative of
the phenomenon picked out by the concept”
(Feest 2010: 178)
Operational definitions
• Mozart Effect
• Rauscher, Shaw and Ky (1993) operationalised the Mozart
Effect in terms of an experiment in which they tested the
effect of listening to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D-Major
on spatial reasoning, where the concept of spatial reasoning
was itself operationally defined in terms of performance in
tasks in the Stanford-Binet intelligence test.
Conclusions
1. How concepts are used in investigative practice.
2. One use concepts have is a normative one: in this sense, they constrain and
provide a measure for our beliefs or claims.
3. The notion of constraint was drawn from Galison as a way of setting out some of
the various ways in which the elements of science can have normative force for
research.
4. As an example of how concepts function as normative constraints, I have drawn on
Uljana Feest’s recent work on operational definitions, which characterises concepts
as specifying rules for the application of concepts in an experimental procedure.
5. As operationally defined, concepts serve to determine which data and results will
count as relevant or appropriate to the phenomenon under investigation.