Complexity Explorer Santa Few Institute

Clarifying the Meanings of Abstract Scientific Concepts

mentor: Kelle Dhein

Concepts are integral to science. Both scientific explanations and theories—two kinds of research output commonly supposed to encapsulate scientific knowledge—rely on scientific concepts. However, concepts are philosophically mysterious entities, and the meanings of scientific concepts are often unclear in the sense that they cannot be defined in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. For a UCR project, I would like to clarify the meaning of a scientific concept relevant to the student’s interests. I primarily work in the history and philosophy of biology, where I have asked questions like, “what do animal behavior researchers mean by information?” or “How many instinct concepts are there in the behavioral sciences?” But I’m open to venturing into other areas of science, too. To clarify the meaning of a concept, we will pursue a broadly pragmatic approach where we examine the ways scientists use the concept in question to realize their epistemic aims. More specifically, we will produce a pragmatic explication of the concept in question by examining 1) the types of problems that lead scientists to invoke the concept, 2) the things scientists do to produce evidence bearing on the concept, and 3) the way justified ascriptions of the concept influence future research decisions.
The student will gain experience performing historical, philosophical, and perhaps even sociological studies of science.