Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-767nl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-13T11:39:26.789Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Experiment as a Second-Order Concept

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Yehuda Elkana
Yehuda Elkana
Affiliation:
The Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and IdeasTel Aviv University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

When we actually perform an experiment, we do many different things simultaneously – some belonging to the realm of theory, some to the realms of methodology and technique; however, a great deal of what happens is expressible in terms of socially determined images of knowledge or in terms of concepts of reflectivity – second-order concepts – namely thoughts about thoughts.

The emergence of experiment as a second-order concept in late antiquity exemplifies the historical development of second-order concepts; it is shown to be rooted in the Sophists' cunning reason (Greek metis) and is followed up in the work of Ptolemy, Copernicus and Galileo.

Then, by way of epistemological explication, the three levels of representation of an experiment are shown to be analogous to Baxandall's three levels of representation of a picture.

Finally it is shown that such an interpretation only makes sense in terms of two-tier thinking: realism, inside a conceptual framework which is chosen or arrived at, relativistically.

Type
Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , Spring 1988 , pp. 177 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alpers, Svetlana, 1983. The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Baxandall, Michael 1985. Patterns of Intention: On the Historical Explanation of Pictures. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Blumberg, Albert E. and Herbert, Feigl 1931. “Logical Positivism,” Journal of Philosophy 28: 281–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carnap, Rudolf, 1922 Der Raum Berlin: Reuther and Reichard.Google Scholar
Carnap, Rudolf, 1967 The Logical Structure of the World. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Originally published as Der Logische Aufbau der Welt (1928).Google Scholar
Dijksterhuis, E. J., 1956 Archimedes. Copenhagen: Ejhar Munksgaard.Google Scholar
DSB: Dictionary of Scientific Biography 1970–1980. Editor in Chief: Charles, Coulston Gillispie vols. 1–16 New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.Google Scholar
Dingier, Hugo, 1928. Das Experiment. Munich: E. Reinhardt.Google Scholar
Einstein, Albert, [1918] 1934. “Principles of Research,” Address on the occasion of Max Planck's sixtieth birthday delivered at the Physical Society in Berlin. Reprinted in Essays in Science. New York: Philosophical Library.Google Scholar
Einstein, Albert, [1936] 1950. “Physics and Reality,” The Journal of the Franklin Institute 221. Reprinted in Essays in Physics. New York: Philosophical Library.Google Scholar
Elkana, Yehuda, 1980. “Of Cunning Reason,” in A Festschrift for Robert K. Merton: Science and Social Structure, ed. Gieryn, Thomas, 32–42. New York: The New York Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar
Elkana, Yehuda,1981. “A Programmatic Attempt at an Anthropology of Knowledge”, in Sciences and Cultures, ed. Mendelsohn, E. and Elkana, Y., 1–76. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Elkana, Yehuda, “Is There a Distinction Between External and Internal Sociology of Science?” Unpublished.Google Scholar
Elkana, Yehuda, 1986 “The Emergence of Second-Order Thinking in Classical Greece,” in The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations, ed. Eisenstadt, S. N. Albany N. Y.: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Elkana, Yehuda, forthcoming. “The Scientific Revolution as a Revolution in Reflectivity,” Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Finley, M. I. 1983 Politics in the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleck, Ludwik 1979 Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact ed. Trenn, T. J. and Merton, R. K trans. Bradley, F. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Originally published as Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tat-sache (1935).Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford [1974] 1983 “From the Native's Point of View: On the Nature of Anthropological Understandings,” Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 28. Reprinted in Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, chap. 3. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Hanson, R. N. 1961 Patterns of Discovery Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Heiberg, J. L. 1890 “Neue Studien zu Archimedes,” Abhandlunge zur Geschichte der Mathematik 5: 1–84.Google Scholar
Joravsky, David 1970. The Lysenko Affair. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lejeune, A. 1956 L'optique de Claude Ptolémée. Recueil de travaux d'histoire et de philologie, 4e série, fasc. 8. Louvain: University of Louvain.Google Scholar
Lloyd, G. R. E, 1979 Magic, Science, and Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lloyd, G. R. E, 1981 “Science and Mathematics,” in The Legacy of Greece, ed. Finley, M. I. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Lloyd, G. R. E, 1983. Science, Folklore, and Ideology: Studies in the Life Sciences in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Meier, Christian 1980. Die Enstehung des Politischen bei den Griechen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Newton, R. R. 1977 The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Rossi, Paolo 1970 Philosophy, Technology and the Arts in the Early Modern Era, trans. Attanasio, Salvator ed. Benjamin Nelson. New York: Harper Torchbooks.Google Scholar
Schnelle, Thomas and Cohen, Robert S. eds., 1986 Cognition and Fact: Materials on Ludwik Fleck. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 87. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Schlick, M., [1918] 1978. Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Sperber, Dan, 1974. Rethinking Symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sperber, Dan, 1982. On Anthropological Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Toulmin, S., 1953. Philosophy of Science. London: Hutchinson's University Press.Google Scholar
Vernant, J. P., and Detienne, M. 1978. Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society. Hassocks: Harvester Press.Google Scholar
Wind, Edgar, 1925 Contemporary German Philosophy,” Journal of Philosophy 25: 477–530.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wind, Edgar, 1934 Das Experiment und die Metaphysik. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1922. Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus.Google Scholar