Scientific Concepts in the Engineering Sciences: Epistemic Tools for Creating and Intervening with Phenomena

Abstract

In philosophy of science, phenomena are understood as observable and unobservable objects, events or processes that have two important roles to play in science. They make us curious and thus point at theories, and they serve as evidence for theories (e.g., Hacking 1983; Bogen and Woodward 1988). Similarly, in the engineering sciences, phenomena are understood as both observable and unobservable objects, processes and properties. Yet, while the philosophy of science focuses on their epistemic role – that is, the role phenomena serve in constructing and testing theories – phenomena in the engineering sciences also are important for their own sake. This is because one of the ultimate purposes of these scientific research practices is technologically reproducing, newly creating, preventing, intervening with and detecting phenomena, especially those that could play a productive or obstructive role in the technological functioning of artifacts. The formation of scientific concepts of phenomena in those domains cannot be understood as merely defining or describing pre-given things, because phenomena of interest usually are not observable in an unproblematic manner. Instead, our conceptualization of such phenomena often is entangled with the development of technological devices that produce, intervene with and/or detect phenomena. Taking this fact as a point of departure, the thesis of this paper is that in the engineering sciences, Fout! Bladwijzer niet gedefinieerd. scientific concepts of phenomena function as epistemic tools for creating and intervening with phenomena that are of technological relevance. I will argue for this thesis by providing an account of (a) how phenomena of technological interest are conceptualized; (b) in what manner their conceptualization is entangled with the development of technological devices that produce them; and (c) how such conceptualizations are entangled with already existing concepts, such that the latter enable epistemic uses with regard to the technological production of

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