The New Experimentalism, Topical Hypotheses, and Learning from Error

Abstract

Following a period during which philosophers of science focused on theory to the near exclusion of experiment, a number of philosophers, historians and sociologists of science have, in one way or another, turned their attention to experimentation, instrumentation, and laboratory practices. Considerable work in philosophy of science of the last decade reflects this surge of interest in experiment, as promoted by Ackermann, Cartwright, Franklin, Galison, Giere, Hacking and others. Where has this movement taken us and where do we still have to go? In asking this question, my focus is on that subset of the experimentalist movement whose members, following Ackermann (1989), I dub the “New Experimentalists”. Although their agendas differ, members of this group share the core thesis that aspects of experiment might offer an important, though largely untapped, resource for addressing key problems in philosophy of science.

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