This paper surveys a decade of philosophical discussion of laboratory science, and concludes with a bibliography. Among its topics are: (1) The historical emergence of distinct styles of experimental reasoning and practice; the relation of this to constructionalist theses. (2) The extension of Duhem's thesis to instruments and apparatus; not only are theory and observation malleable resources, but also the materiel with which one works. (3) The demarcation of science not by method or content, but by product; the creation of (...) phenomena. (4) The disunity of science; science conceived of as a motley of autonomous activities, not as hierarchy. (5) The need to rethink the idea of experiment as intervention; to replace the model of experimenter as master of nature by that of investigator as collaborator. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophical debate on realism revolves around the interpretation of theories well confirmed by experiment. This paper seeks to rebalance the debate by focussing attention upon experimental practice itself. It argues that the production of observation reports entails the interactive stabilisation of three elements: material experimental practice, instrumental modelling of that practice, and phenomenal modelling of the material world. The entanglement of these three elements is exemplified in a historical case study. Such entanglements block correspondence realism and point, instead, to (...) an anticorrespondence realism which requires a constructivist analysis of scientific practice for its full articulation. (shrink)

I respond to Allan Franklin's critique of my account of the establishment of parity-violating neutral-current effects in atomic and high-energy physics as an instance of a more general 'rationalist' attack on 'constructivist' understandings of science. I argue that constructivism does not entail the denial of 'reason' in science, but I note that there are typically too many 'reasons' to be found for 'reason' to count as an explanation of why science changes as it does. I show, first, that there were (...) many 'reasonable' but different ways of reasoning about the field of evidence at issue in this episode and, second, that Franklin's articulation of how theory-choice should proceed on the basis of evidence implies a vicious conservatism which is fortunately not to be found in the history of science. (shrink)

In the 1960s, the history and philosophy of science made common cause in the search for universal patterns of theory change: philosophers provided models, historians offered examples. But the two enterprises pulled apart during the 1970s. Now there is a new arena of joint concern. Historians and philosophers are searching for the conditions under which standards of theoretical and experimental demonstration are established. I argue against the picture of these standards as independent of (or reducible to) the context of their (...) introduction. Instead, I suggest that we think of scientific developments as simultaneous solutions to multiple constraints; the constraints issue from domains as diverse as the technical, the aesthetic and the political. (shrink)