ABSTRACT
My objective in this paper is to take a step toward creating a structured and precise philosophical framework for thinking and talking about scientifi c practices. For that purpose I articulate the concepts of “epistemic activity” 1 and “system of practice” as units of analysis for framing discussions of science. Standard Anglophone philosophical analyses of science have been unduly limited by the common habit of viewing science as a body of propositions, focusing on the truth-value of those propositions and the logical relationships between them. The premier subject of discussion in such philosophy of science has been theories as organized bodies of propositions. This has led to the neglect of experimentation and other non-verbal and non-propositional dimensions of science in philosophical analyses. A number of historians, sociologists, and philosophers, including those who made the “practice turn” that forms the starting point of the discussions of this volume, have pointed out this problem. However, so far no clear and widely adopted alternative philosophical framework has emerged. What I aim to spell out is a philosophical grammar of scientifi c practice-“grammar” roughly as meant by the later Wittgenstein. 2
For those who have been infl uenced by the “practice turn”, I assume it is not a subject for too much dispute that a serious study of science must be concerned with what it is that we actually do in scientifi c work. This requires a change of focus from propositions to actions. I begin with the recognition that all scientifi c work, including pure theorizing, consists of actions-physical, mental, and “paper-and-pencil” operations, to put it in Percy Bridgman’s terms (1959, p. 3). Of course, all verbal descriptions we make of scientifi c work must be expressed in propositions, but we must avoid the mistake of only paying attention to the propositional aspects of the scientifi c actions. 3 That is a sure path to disconnection from practice, and it is precisely the path that Anglophone philosophers on the whole have taken. What I am complaining about is our habit of focusing on descriptive statements that are either products or presuppositions of scientifi c work, and our commitment to solving problems by investigating the logical relationships
between these statements. I take heed of Bridgman’s conviction (1954, p. 76) that “it is better, because it takes us further, to analyze into doings or happenings rather than into objects or entities”—or propositions that simply describe the properties and relations of objects and entities. When we do pay attention to words, it would be better to remember to think of “how to do things with words”, to recall J. L. Austin’s (1962) famous phrase.
