In fact experiment can be separated from theory no more than theory from experiment. The close tie between them, connected to that between question and experimental answer, originates in the specifically human, theoretical-evaluative and technical-operative, use of our body. The Neopositivist and Popperian thesis of the independence of theory from experiment, and the new experimentalist opposite thesis of the independence of technique and/or experiment from theory, both presuppose a dichotomy of theory and experiment which is unacceptable because it makes both terms unintelligible. This implies important consequences for the status of theoretical entities in science: 1) There is no epistemologically significant distinction between observations with and without instruments. There is however an historical distinction between theoretical and observational terms: observability depends on the instruments and technical devices at our disposal at a given stage in the development of scientific knowledge; 2) Theoretical objects are not unknown entities subsisting beneath (or hidden behind) our sense data, but they are only the potentially open totality of their properties, which we can access by specific perspectives embodied in technical apparatuses (or in our bodily organism). This presupposes a relational conception of reality and excludes atomistic epistemologies and ontologies.
The New Experimentalism and the ontological Status of Theoretical Terms
BUZZONI, Marco
2014-01-01
Abstract
In fact experiment can be separated from theory no more than theory from experiment. The close tie between them, connected to that between question and experimental answer, originates in the specifically human, theoretical-evaluative and technical-operative, use of our body. The Neopositivist and Popperian thesis of the independence of theory from experiment, and the new experimentalist opposite thesis of the independence of technique and/or experiment from theory, both presuppose a dichotomy of theory and experiment which is unacceptable because it makes both terms unintelligible. This implies important consequences for the status of theoretical entities in science: 1) There is no epistemologically significant distinction between observations with and without instruments. There is however an historical distinction between theoretical and observational terms: observability depends on the instruments and technical devices at our disposal at a given stage in the development of scientific knowledge; 2) Theoretical objects are not unknown entities subsisting beneath (or hidden behind) our sense data, but they are only the potentially open totality of their properties, which we can access by specific perspectives embodied in technical apparatuses (or in our bodily organism). This presupposes a relational conception of reality and excludes atomistic epistemologies and ontologies.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
