Forms of Practice, Forms of Knowledge: Method, Notation and the Dynamics of Perspectives in the Life Sciences

科学实践已成为科学研究的中心主题。该项目旨在建立一种科学研究过程的新模式，将科学实践的认知、符号和社会方面结合起来。该模型将用于分析生命科学领域的各种研究方案，并说明它们之间的共同点和差异。它以这种方式阐明了对生物现象的多元观点的概念。此外，它还能解释研究方案之间的动态关系，如多样化、争议、合作或整合，该模型将具体说明认识性知识在科学实践中的作用，即如何获得经验知识的知识。认知图式可以分为四种：1）关于知识形式的知识（知识图式）; 2）关于如何生成给定形式的知识的知识（方法图式）; 3）关于如何在物质基础设施、社会规则和机构方面组织这种工作的知识（组织图式）; 4）关于可用于表示给定形式的知识的符号格式的知识（符号图式）。该模型还将认识性知识与知识生成（认识性实践）中涉及的三种活动的关系映射起来：1）研究活动（例如观察，实验，建模）; 2）建立和导航基础设施和机构的活动; 3）制作事实表示的活动。这些活动产生了大量的人、研究材料和各种手工艺品。在该模型的框架内，将对行动和表现在知识生成中的作用进行综合说明，解释科学事实如何在物质和社会群体中得到界定，这种说明不同于其他强调多样性和侧重于研究过程具体方面的科学实践说明。它通过补充实践中的科学哲学专业化来推进这一领域，这种关注与综合观点有关。我们的目标并不是要恢复科学统一的观念，相反，我们要确定一些共同的维度（就认识论知识和实践而言），沿着这些维度，研究方案是不同的。这使得能够比较研究方案并分析它们之间的动态关系。拟议项目的一个环节是致力于详细开发模型。第二个研究方向是由发育生物学和遗传学在漫长的20世纪中的详细案例研究组成的。虽然案例研究提供了经验投入和发展模式的试验场，但它们本身也构成了重要的调查领域，将受益于模式提供的分析框架。

Scientific practice has become a central theme in science studies. This project aims at a new model of scientific research processes that combines cognitive, semiotic and social aspects of scientific practice. The model will be used to analyse various research programmes in the life sciences and to describe the commonalities and differences between them. In this way it explicates the notion of a plurality of perspectives on biological phenomena. Furthermore, it enables explanations of dynamic relations - such as diversification, controversy, collaboration or integration - between research programmes.The model will specify the role of epistemic knowledge in scientific practice, that is, knowledge about how to gain empirical knowledge. There are four kinds of epistemic knowledge, which can be addressed in terms of cognitive schemata: 1) knowledge about forms knowledge can take (knowledge schemata); 2) knowledge about how to generate knowledge of a given form (methodological schemata); 3) knowledge about how to organise such work in terms of the material infrastructure, social rules and institutions (organisational schemata); 4) knowledge about notational formats that are available to represent knowledge of a given form (notational schemata). The model also maps the relation of epistemic knowledge to three kinds of activities involved in knowledge generation (epistemic practice): 1) research activities (e.g. observation, experimentation, modelling); 2) activities of establishing and navigating infrastructures and institutions; 3) activities of crafting representations of facts. Such activities result in constellations of people, research materials and a variety of artefacts. In the framework of the model an integrated account of the role of action and representation in generating knowledge will be developed that explains how scientific facts become delineated in material and social constellations.This account differs from other accounts of practice in science that emphasize diversity and focus on specific aspects of research processes. It advances the field by complementing the specialization in philosophy of science in practice entailed by such focus with an integrative view. The goal is not to revive the idea of unity in science, but, to the contrary, to identify a number of shared dimensions (in terms of epistemic knowledge and practice) along which research programmes differ. This enables a comparison of research programmes and the analysis of dynamic relations between them.One strand of the proposed project is dedicated to developing the model in detail. A second research strand consists of detailed case studies from developmental biology and phylogenetics in the long 20th century. While the case studies provide empirical input and a testing ground for developing the model, they also constitute important fields of investigation in their own right that will benefit from the analytic framework provided by the model.