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Remembering (Short-Term) Memory: Oscillations of an Epistemic Thing

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Abstract

This paper provides an interpretation of Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s notions of epistemic things and historical epistemology. I argue that Rheinberger’s approach articulates a unique contribution to current debates about integrated HPS, and I propose some modifications and extensions of this contribution. Drawing on examples from memory research, I show that Rheinberger is right to highlight a particular feature of many objects of empirical research (“epistemic things”)—especially in the contexts of exploratory experimentation—namely our lack of knowledge about them. I argue that this analysis needs to be supplemented with an account of what scientists do know, and in particular, how they are able to attribute rudimentary empirical contours to objects of research. These contours are closely connected to paradigmatic research designs, which in turn are tied to basic methodological rules for the exploration of the purported phenomena. I suggest that we engage with such rules in order to develop our own normative (epistemological) categories, and I tie this proposal to the idea of a methodological naturalism in philosophy of science.

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Notes

  1. The term “object” is in scare crows here to indicate that what is meant are objects of research, which can include phenomena, processes, mechanisms, or whatever scientists choose to investigate.

  2. The expressions “epistemic objects” or “epistemic thing” are mostly used by historians of science, but there are some recent attempts to broaden their scope to objects of non-scientific knowledge (e.g., Abel 2010).

  3. I owe this objection to one of the referees of this article.

  4. I am using the terms synonymously here, but will shortly explain different usages that exist in the literature.

  5. More information about standard short-term and working-memory tasks will be provided in Sect. 5.1.

  6. According to Cowan (2010), the term “working memory” first showed up in Miller, Pribram & Galanter’s seminal work about the planning of behavior (Miller et al. 1969).

  7. To my knowledge, this type of situation has not received much attention in the philosophical literature, but see Stotz et al. (2004) with respect to the gene concept.

  8. I would like to thank Thomas Sturm for drawing my attention to the fact that I glossed over this distinction in a previous version of this paper.

  9. According to Joseph Rouse, and contrary to the reading presented here, it is a misunderstanding to construe the blurriness/vagueness of epistemic objects as “merely’ epistemic” (Rouse 2002, p. 338). His argument is part of an interesting and ambitious project to study the relationship between normativity, naturalism, and scientific practices. Space does not permit me to discuss his approach in more detail at this point.

  10. See Kuhn’s clarification of the concept in the postscript to his Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

  11. This is compatible with the above definition since the application of psychological tests typically involves an intervention (for example, an instruction to perform a task), to be distinguished from the fact that tests are often run in experiments in order to determine the effects of another intervention (the independent variable of the test).

  12. See Feest (2005) for an analysis of historical origins of, and common misconceptions about, operationism.

  13. See the editors’ introduction to this volume.

  14. He explicitly rejects the very idea of such a theory (Rheinberger 2006).

  15. Chang (2004) makes a similar case in defense of Bridgman’s operationism.

  16. While there are some parallels between this idea and Chang’s (2004) notion of “complementary science” and Kitcher’s (2011) “pragmatic naturalism”, they cannot be followed up here.

  17. For an informed and original account of this tradition, readers are referred to a recent article by Pierre-Olivier Méthot (2011), which also focuses on the operational character of concepts in an experimental context, but does so by way of a comparative analysis of Rheinberger and Canguilhem.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the participants of the conference “What (Good) Is Historical Epistemology?” for helpful questions and suggestions. In particular, I thank Chrysostomos Mantzavinos for his insightful comments at the conference, as well as Thomas Sturm, Carl Craver and an anonymous referee for this journal, whose valuable criticisms prompted me to make some significant changes to the paper.

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  1. Institut für Philosophie, Literatur-, Wissenschafts- und Technikgeschichte, Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, Sekr. H72, 10623, Berlin, Germany

    Uljana Feest

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Feest, U. Remembering (Short-Term) Memory: Oscillations of an Epistemic Thing. Erkenn 75, 391–411 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-011-9341-8

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