Concepts at work: the dynamics of scientific concepts in the case of research on multiple and interacting galaxies (1925-1980)

提出的项目有两个目标：第一，它旨在重建20世纪天体物理学的一个重要发展；第二，这种重建应该有助于我们对现代科学中经验概念的动力学的一般理解。调查的重点是1925年至1980年间的星系，更具体地说，是研究所谓的多星系和相互作用的星系的创新链。这一研究线索几乎没有受到历史分析的影响，而是星系概念发展的基础，并引发了一种全新的宇宙学研究前景，在这种情况下，星系从静止的孤岛宇宙和仅仅是测绘科学的标志物发展成动态实体和准实验科学的“宇宙实验室”。与此同时，该研究链具有非常具体的研究星座：不同国家的少数研究人员在不同的研究条件下工作，他们在极少的经验数据基础上进行了最长时间的交流。这一交换导致了星系概念的不断转变；因此，它将是调查的核心。在主要由天文学本身介绍的历史陈述中，由技术进步引发的意想不到的偶然发现，虽然发生在基本上不变的概念框架内，但一直被视为推动天体物理学向前发展的主要动力。该项目有可能修改这一观点。通过关注概念框架及其在科学传播中的转移和转变，该项目采取了一种新颖的方法。此外，这项调查将展示这种“将概念付诸实践”如何允许整合，即在逐渐融合为一项连贯的研究活动之前，不同的研究观点是如何共存的。最后，这一重点将深入了解概念动态，从而将该项目置于对科学概念的新的历史兴趣的背景下。作为一个跨学科小组项目的一部分，该项目汇集了历史、哲学和科学社会学，旨在卓有成效地利用路德维克·弗莱克的比较科学理论，这项研究将进一步促进对天体物理事实如何产生和发展的共同调查。

The proposed project's objectives are twofold: first, it aims at reconstructing an important development within 20th century astrophysics; second, this reconstruction should contribute to our general understanding of the dynamics of empirical concepts in modern sciences. The investigation focuses on the studies of galaxies between 1925 and 1980 and, more specifically, on the innovative strand which studied so called multiple and interacting galaxies. This research strand has scarcely been subject to historical analysis, but fundamental in the development of the galaxy concept and instigated a whole new outlook for cosmological studies in which galaxies developed from being stationary island universes and mere markers of a mapping science into dynamic entities and 'cosmic laboratories' of a quasi experimental science. At the same time, the research strand features a very specific research constellation: a small number of researchers in different countries working under diverging research conditions who communicated with each other for the longest time on the basis of very little empirical data. This exchange entailed the continuous transformation of the galaxy concept; it will hence lie at the heart of the investigation. In historical presentations, mainly presented by astronomy itself, unexpected chance discoveries triggered by technological progress, while taking place within an essentially unchanging framework of concepts have been perceived as the main impulses for the advancement of astrophysics. The project has the potential to revise this perspective. By focusing on conceptual frameworks and their shifts and transformations within the scientific communication, the project takes a novel approach. Moreover, the investigation will show how this 'putting concepts into work' allowed for the integration i.e. coexistence of diverging research outlooks before they gradually merged into a coherent research activity. Finally, this focus will bear insights into conceptual dynamics and thus place the project within the context of a new historical interest for scientific concepts. As part of an interdisciplinary group project which brings together history, philosophy as well as sociology of science and aims at making fruitful use of the comparative theory of science of Ludwik Fleck, the study will, furthermore, contribute to the shared investigation of how astrophysical facts come into being and develop.