Experimentalism And Tools Of Science

In this chapter, we provide an overview of several philosophical discussions concerning experimentation in the 20th century. We show that, contrary to what is often claimed, philosophy of experimentation did not begin with the work of Ian Hacking. Rather, experimentation has been discussed throughout the 20th century, not only for epistemic reasons but also for sociological, political, and aesthetical ones. This suggests, we believe, that we need to be more thoughtful about how we write the history of philosophy of experimentation, since what philosophy of experimentation should be about is not a given: it could mean very different things for different philosophers. By paying attention to forgotten authors and approaches, we can highlight alternative ways of doing philosophy of experimentation and show how the history of the field is the contingent result of ongoing discussions about what it should be concerned with.