What Do We Talk About When We Talk About (Scientific) Practices?

In recent years, many researchers working in the philosophy of science have become more and more interested in scientific practices. This so-called “practice turn” seeks to replace or amend the attention traditionally given to scientific theories (their structure, content, and ontological status) with a focus on the practical activities carried out by physicists, chemists, biologists, mathematicians etc. in their day-to-day work (cf. Mancosu 2008, Hüttemann 2021, Soler et al. 2022).

These developments have in common their reliance on the notion of ‘scientific practice’. But what exactly is a scientific practice? What is the relation between scientific practice and scientific theory? Are there, in fact, no theories, but only bits of “theory-shaped practices” (cf. French 2020, Baird 2003)? The current workshop aims to address concerns of this kind by raising a broad philosophical question: What do we talk about when we talk about scientific practices?

The workshop is organized by Daian Bica, and Paul Hasselkuß (Düsseldorf). It is generously supported by the Department of Philosophy, the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, the German Society for Analytic Philosophy, and by Prof. Dr. Markus Schrenk (Düsseldorf).