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Experiments: Why and How?

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Abstract

An experiment, in the standard scientific sense of the term, is a procedure in which some object of study is subjected to interventions (manipulations) that aim at obtaining a predictable outcome or at least predictable aspects of the outcome. The distinction between an experiment and a non-experimental observation is important since they are tailored to different epistemic needs. Experimentation has its origin in pre-scientific technological experiments that were undertaken in order to find the best technological means to achieve chosen ends. Important parts of the methodological arsenal of modern experimental science can be traced back to this pre-scientific, technological tradition. It is claimed that experimentation involves a unique combination of acting and observing, a combination whose unique epistemological properties have not yet been fully clarified.

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Notes

  1. This corresponds to the word “Wissenschaft” in German with its close analogues in some other Germanic languages. See Hansson (2013) for an argument why this wider disciplinary delimitation is more adequate than the traditional one in the English language.

  2. The therapeutic nihilists thought otherwise, see Wiesemann (1991).

  3. Even today, promoters of so-called experimental philosophy use the term “experiment” about questionnaires and other studies that behavioural scientists would classify as observational non-experimental studies. For a criticism, see Hansson (2014).

  4. Obviously, it need not be known beforehand which aspects of the outcome are determined by the setup, or in particular how they are determined by it.

  5. The term “scientific experiment” is not useful for the purpose since it excludes controlled experiments performed in a non-scientific setting, for instance in the traditions among farmers and craftspeople referred to in Sect. 3.

  6. The distinction was introduced in Hansson (2015). Strictly speaking, the distinction is not between different types of experiments but between different types of interpretations of experiments, viz. the interpretation of experiments for action-guiding or epistemic purposes. However, since most experiments are purposeful only for one of the two types of interpretation the convenient locution of two types of experiments will be used here.

  7. See Hansson (2015) for a more extensive treatment.

  8. It may not be preferable tout court, for instance if there are ethical reasons not to perform the experiment.

  9. They are of course not completely theory-independent. My claim is (only) that they are radically less so than epistemic experiments, and in fact not more theory-dependent than any non-empty statement about empirical subject-matter.—It should also be noted that theory-ladenness refers to the interpretation of experiments rather than to their physical execution. Therefore, strictly speaking, the distinction made here concerns action-guiding versus epistemic interpretations of experiments. Cf. footnote 6.

  10. The reliability of an experiment is closely related to its repeatability.

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Correspondence to Sven Ove Hansson.

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Hansson, S.O. Experiments: Why and How?. Sci Eng Ethics 22, 613–632 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-015-9635-3

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