Perspectives on reality: Investigating the emergence of scientific narratives about experiments and their results.

This project investigates the role of perspectives in scientific knowledge production. The general idea is that, e.g., a scientific model does not depict reality as it is per se; it rather offers one of multiple possible points of view for producing and evaluating knowledge for specific uses. Perspectives always arise out of a specific historical context. For example, whether a new measurement counts as knowledge depends not only on its correctness, but also on whether the experimental procedure lives up to the scientific community's knowledge standards. As such, perspectivists try to steer between absolutist scientific realism (absolute, ahistorical truth) and constructivism (everything-goes relativism). The current literature, however, is unclear on how to identify perspectives and their influence on knowledge production. As such, they are not yet really applicable to actual historical research. To improve on this I will study, for one episode where the historical literature shows a clear influence of different perspectives, how particular scientists distinguished these perspectives, and how these influenced their work. I will focus on how M. Abraham and P. Ehrenfest, between 1900 – 1912, used electron models from different perspectives (electromagnetic, relativity, and quantum) to interpret measurements of the electron's mass, and evaluated others' use of these models. This will then inform my work on a historically adequate account of perspectives and their influence.

Keywords:QUANTUM THEORY

Disciplines:Epistemology, Metaphysics, General philosophy of science, Philosophy of natural sciences