Abstract
Scientific understanding as a subject of inquiry has become widely discussed in philosophy of science and is often addressed through case studies from history of science. Even though these historical reconstructions engage with details of scientific practice, they usually provide only limited information about the gradual formation of understanding in ongoing processes of model and theory construction. Based on a qualitative ethnographic study of an ecological research project, this article shifts attention from understanding in the context of historical case studies to evidence of current case studies. By taking de Regt’s (Understanding scientific understanding. Oxford University Press, New York, 2017) contextual theory of scientific understanding into the field, it confirms core tenets of the contextual theory (e.g. the crucial role of visualization and visualizability) suggesting a normative character with respect to scientific activities. However, the case study also shows the limitations of de Regt’s latest version of this theory as an attempt to explain the development of understanding in current practice. This article provides a model representing the emergence of scientific understanding that exposes main features of scientific understanding such as its gradual formation, its relation to skills and imagination, and its capacity for knowledge selectivity. The ethnographic evidence presented here supports the claim that something unique can be learned by looking into ongoing research practices that can’t be gained by studying historical case studies.
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Notes
I would like to draw special attention to the fact that not all investigations concerning understanding are based on historical case studies, there are increasingly investigations such as those provided by Leonelli (2009) that provide an account of scientific understanding via modelling practices and skills in contemporary biological research.
The contextual theory of understanding makes no difference between theories, hypothesis, and principles. The starting point is that all of them are statements, and these statements can be reliable according to its intelligibility (de Regt 2017). This is in agreement with Giere (2004) when he says that there is no reason for such analysis because the terms ‘theory’, ‘laws’ and ‘principles are used broadly in scientific practice and in metalevel discussions about sciences.
The statements exposed are authorized.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to Charbel Niño El-Hani, Federica Russo, David Ludwig, and Henk De Regt for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. I would like to thank both anonymous reviewers, and the editor, Sabina Leonelli, for the suggestions to improve this article. I am also much obliged to Jeferson Coutinho’s precious collaboration. This work was supported by the Brazilian Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Educational Personnel (CAPES—Finance Code 001) and Programa de Doutorado Sanduíche no Exterior (PDSE—Grant Number 88881.123457/2016-01). I am grateful for the National Institute of Science and Technology, Inter- and Transdisciplinary Studies in Ecology and Evolution (INCT IN-TREE) for the support at an earlier version of this article presented at the “Workshop on Scientific Explanation and Understanding”, 2018, at the University of Ghent. I also thanks CNPQ (Grant Number 465767/2014-1) and CAPES (Grant Number 23038.000776/2017-54) for their support of INCT/IN-TREE.
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Poliseli, L. Emergence of scientific understanding in real-time ecological research practice. HPLS 42, 51 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-020-00338-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-020-00338-7