Forms of Practice, Forms of Knowledge: Method, Notation and the Dynamics of Perspectives in the Life Sciences

• Applicant: Dr. Robert Meunier
• Subject Area: Theoretical Philosophy ; History of Science
• Term: from 2017 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 362545428

Scientific practice has become a central theme in science studies. This project aims at a new model of scientific research processes that combines cognitive, semiotic and social aspects of scientific practice. The model will be used to analyse various research programmes in the life sciences and to describe the commonalities and differences between them. In this way it explicates the notion of a plurality of perspectives on biological phenomena. Furthermore, it enables explanations of dynamic relations - such as diversification, controversy, collaboration or integration - between research programmes.The model will specify the role of epistemic knowledge in scientific practice, that is, knowledge about how to gain empirical knowledge. There are four kinds of epistemic knowledge, which can be addressed in terms of cognitive schemata: 1) knowledge about forms knowledge can take (knowledge schemata); 2) knowledge about how to generate knowledge of a given form (methodological schemata); 3) knowledge about how to organise such work in terms of the material infrastructure, social rules and institutions (organisational schemata); 4) knowledge about notational formats that are available to represent knowledge of a given form (notational schemata). The model also maps the relation of epistemic knowledge to three kinds of activities involved in knowledge generation (epistemic practice): 1) research activities (e.g. observation, experimentation, modelling); 2) activities of establishing and navigating infrastructures and institutions; 3) activities of crafting representations of facts. Such activities result in constellations of people, research materials and a variety of artefacts. In the framework of the model an integrated account of the role of action and representation in generating knowledge will be developed that explains how scientific facts become delineated in material and social constellations.This account differs from other accounts of practice in science that emphasize diversity and focus on specific aspects of research processes. It advances the field by complementing the specialization in philosophy of science in practice entailed by such focus with an integrative view. The goal is not to revive the idea of unity in science, but, to the contrary, to identify a number of shared dimensions (in terms of epistemic knowledge and practice) along which research programmes differ. This enables a comparison of research programmes and the analysis of dynamic relations between them.One strand of the proposed project is dedicated to developing the model in detail. A second research strand consists of detailed case studies from developmental biology and phylogenetics in the long 20th century. While the case studies provide empirical input and a testing ground for developing the model, they also constitute important fields of investigation in their own right that will benefit from the analytic framework provided by the model.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants