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Observations, Experiments, and Arguments for Epistemic Superiority in Scientific Methodology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 August 2023

Nora Mills Boyd  and
Dana Matthiessen
Nora Mills Boyd*
Affiliation:
Philosophy Department, Siena College, Loudonville, NY, USA
Dana Matthiessen
Affiliation:
Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, Minneapolis, MN, USA
*
Corresponding author: Nora Mills Boyd; Email: nboyd@siena.edu
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Abstract

This article argues against general claims for the epistemic superiority of experiment over observation. It does so by dissociating the benefits traditionally attributed to experiment from physical manipulation. In place of manipulation, we argue that other features of research methods do confer epistemic advantages in comparison to methods in which they are diminished. These features better track the epistemic successes and failures of scientific research, crosscut the observation/experiment distinction, and nevertheless explain why manipulative experiments are successful when they are.

Type
Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 91 , Issue 1 , January 2024 , pp. 111 - 131
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

Both authors contributed equally to the conception and writing of this paper. The author name order does not reflect intellectual priority.

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