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  1. Michael Faraday’s “Historical Sketch of Electro‐Magnetism” and the Theory‐Dependence of Experimentation.Aaron D. Cobb - 2009 - Philosophy of Science 76 (5):624-636.
    This article explores Michael Faraday’s “Historical Sketch of Electro‐Magnetism” as a fruitful source for understanding the epistemic significance of experimentation. In this work Faraday provides a catalog of the numerous experimental and theoretical developments in the early history of electromagnetism. He also describes methods that enable experimentalists to dissociate experimental results from the theoretical commitments generating their research. An analysis of the methods articulated in this sketch is instructive for confronting epistemological worries about the theory‐dependence of experimentation. †To contact the (...)
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  • Entering new fields: Exploratory uses of experimentation.Friedrich Steinle - 1997 - Philosophy of Science 64 (4):74.
    Starting with some illustrative examples, I develop a systematic account of a specific type of experimentation--an experimentation which is not, as in the "standard view", driven by specific theories. It is typically practiced in periods in which no theory or--even more fundamentally--no conceptual framework is readily available. I call it exploratory experimentation and I explicate its systematic guidelines. From the historical examples I argue furthermore that exploratory experimentation may have an immense, but hitherto widely neglected, epistemic significance.
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  • Experiments in history and philosophy of science.Friedrich Steinle - 2002 - Perspectives on Science 10 (4):408-432.
    : The increasing attention on experiment in the last two decades has led to important insights into its material, cultural and social dimensions. However, the role of experiment as a tool for generating knowledge has been comparatively poorly studied. What questions are asked in experimental research? How are they treated and eventually resolved? And how do questions, epistemic situations, and experimental activity cohere and shape each other? In my paper, I treat these problems on the basis of detailed studies of (...)
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  • Why not one more imponderable? John William Draper's tithonic rays.Klaus Hentschel - 2002 - Foundations of Chemistry 4 (1):5-59.
    This paper reconstructs what may have led the American professorof chemistry andnatural philosophy John William Draper to introduce a new kind ofradiation, whichhe dubbed `Tithonic rays''. After presenting his and earlierempirical findings onthe chemical action of light in Section 3, I analyze his pertinentpapers in Section 4with the aim of identifying the various types of argumentshe raised infavor of this new actinic entity (or more precisely, this newnatural kind of raybesides optical, thermal and perhaps also phosphorogenic rays).From a modernperspective, all (...)
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  • Varieties of Exploratory Experimentation in Nanotoxicology.Kevin Elliott - 2007 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 29 (3):313 - 336.
    There has been relatively little effort to provide a systematic overview of different forms of exploratory experimentation (EE). The present paper examines the growing subdiscipline of nanotoxicology and suggests that it illustrates at least four ways that researchers can engage in EE: searching for regularities; developing new techniques, simulation models, and instrumentation; collecting and analyzing large swaths of data using new experimental strategies (e.g., computer-based simulation and "high-throughput" instrumentation); and structuring an entire disciplinary field around exploratory research agendas. In order (...)
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