Popper Seminar by Chiara Ambrosio (UCL)
Title: Scientific Images as Pragmatist Experiments
Abstract: What would an integrated history and philosophy of scientific images look like? I propose that a fruitful way to address this question is by reconceptualising the making and uses of images in the sciences as experimental practices. My approach is grounded in pragmatist conceptions of the roles of experiment and experience in scientific inquiry. Despite being primarily known as philosophers, the pragmatists did not just theorise experiments: they actively carried them out – in the laboratory, as well as through images on paper. Starting from how some of them deployed images in their empirical studies and philosophical arguments, I propose that a capaciously pragmatist view of experiment offers a new lens to revisit the conjectural and mobile roles of images in scientific practice, reconnecting them and all their materiality to broader histories of experience.
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