I took Tuomas Tahko's advice and volunteered to edit the Scientific Practice category on PhilPapers. As part of my editorial duties, I will be adding the following short summary to the category along with a short list of key works.
Short Summary:
In Philosophy of Science, 'scientific practice' refers to activities whose aim is the achievement of scientific goals. More specifically, the category of scientific practice covers everything scientists do when they engage in the production of scientific knowledge. These activities include discovering, experimenting, measuring, modeling, observing, predicting, simulating, and so on, as well as using instruments in the pursuit of scientific goals. In recent years, there has been a shift in Philosophy of Science from an emphasis on scientific theories to an emphasis on actual scientific practices (see, e.g., the mission statement of the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice).
Key Works:
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press.
Hacking, I. (1983). Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science. Cambridge University Press.
Longino, H. E. (1990). Science as Social Knowledge: Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry. Princeton University Press.
Solomon, M. (2001). Social Empiricism. MIT Press.
Wylie, A. (2002). Thinking from Things. University of California Press.
Baird, D. (2004). Thing Knowledge: A Philosophy of Scientific Instruments. University of California Press.
Chang, H. (2004). Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress. Oxford University Press.
Douglas, H. (2009). Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal. University of Pittsburgh Press.
So, if you are a philosopher of science reading this and you think that something important is missing from this short summary and/or list of key works, please comment below or email me. But please remember that the summary and the list need to be short. Thanks!
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